fatandconfused

Right now, I’m working my way through Meg Baird's wonderful Dear Companion, a higly enjoyable collection of tracks from the Espers female vocalists. If you’re familiar with Espers you will know of Megs honeyed vocals, soaring and high, not a million miles from those that grace albums by the likes of Fairport Convention, Pentangle and even Vashti Bunyan though much stronger. A more recent comparison would be Charalambides Christina Carter, Sharon Krauss or Saint Joans Ellen McGee. Lovely folk music with lovelier titles “The Waltze Of The Tennis Players” “Riverhouse In Tinicum” swaying occasionally into full on Celtic folksiness such as on the very traditional Sweet William And Fair Ellen. It’s not the Espers but it’ll more than suffice whilst we await a new album.

Website
MySpace

Meg Baird - Waltze of the Tennis Players MP3

Best Fwends – Alphabetically Arranged (Moshi Moshi)

I’ve been familiar with Best Fwends for some time, in fact their track Ninja Turdle pretty much opened up every compilation made during 2006. Here they treat us to a massive 29 tracks alphabetically arranged as the title would suggest PLUS an additional five remixes.

I imagine Best Fwends to be a pair of snotty nosed punk kids who had the good fortune of stumbling over a DAT Politics album one day and as such decided to break into the Tigerbeat 6 headquarters stealing Kid 606s laptop and still finding time to sift through ten years of Smash Hits taking in depth notes as to what to makes a feel good radio friendly tune whilst remaining undeniably cooler than anything ever printed on those pages.

The Crystal Castles full frontal heavy electro attack of Diet Coke Head, the pre pubescent Numbers sounding Dump in the Dark, the ultimate going out feelgood tune Earth, Fwend, Fire, the Printed Circuit pop Greetings to You, the supermarket nintendo pop of Skate or Live, the “if Erase Errata was a game for the gameboy” riot of Ultimate Teem, stand out but all in all you will not disappointed in anyway by the latest of a string of great releases by Moshi Moshi.

Moshi Moshi
MySpace

Hrsta – Ghosts Will Come and Kiss Our Eyes (Constellation)

Haunting songs that meander through drone, rock, and space. Hrsta are at their best when they drag songs out, removing all life from them, then, such as in Hechicero del Bosque when at six minutes you think the best has past, they somehow manage to resurrect the song from nowhere full of screams blended into guitars drenched in feedback and delay, it’s a beautiful couple of minutes. 

Saturn of Chagrin similarly is a haunting chorale that evokes haunted houses and nights spent alone in cold empty houses with creaking floor boards, uneasy and unsettlingly. There is a spoken word sample just quiet enough for you to not be able to make it out, but loud enough for you to strain your ears in hope of making out a word or two as you grip your bed sheets tighter by the second. Kotori likewise is soaked in terror and apocalyptic drones and could possibly be the finest Hrsta moment yet. 

And yet amidst the fear and remorse Hrsta are quite capable of producing sixties Kaledoscope-like ballads such as Holiday, mediaeval and beautiful in appearances and at points you’d almost call it singalong.

Website
Constellation
MySpace

Hrsta - Folkways Orange (live) MP3
Hrsta - Swallows Tail MP3

Rest in Peace...Fortdax

Those familiar with the paper zine that bore this name will be aware of my fondness for a certain electronic genius going by the alias of Fortdax. Although the final album Divers didn't quite do it for me (with the exception of a few stunning tracks, how could i not mention The Pheasants Eye!) Fortdax has graced our lives with some of the most lovely music you'll set your ears on, music box delights that twinkle against rubbery basslines and at times glorious, angelic choirs.

The At Bracken mini album boasted the lovely understated and near perfect yet simply named (as yet untitled) , such a modest statement in minimalism and the ability to capture a moment in song and yet better was to come with the split release on the sadly missed earworm label with Roircat and EU who to be honest needn't have bothered showing up. The track W.H. Coder was such a masterpiece of beauty, glimmering like ice falling, it had a certain Edward Scissorhands feel to it, the scene where he carves the ice sculpture, a tragic beauty, a lonely misunderstood beauty and best of all a hope inspiring beauty, an ability to catch "that moment" in time in sound, a rare talent.

And who could forget the 2003 masterpiece Folly, an exceptional albums featuring some of the most lovely collaborations to grace my ears with Acid Mothers Temple singer Cotton Casino, the descriptions of exceptional and breathtaking would be well considered as understatements if not insults...Fortdax was magic and we'll always cherish his music.

Luckily he's been kind enough to dish out a free archive of everything except the two full length albums at the following links...treat yourself, you would be stupid not to...all the best Fortdax and thanks again.

...here's where the story ends.

after an enormous delay, the FortDax archive is finally ready. it comprises three seperate FREE downloadable bundles of mp3 files plus a mini-site (included) that covers almost everything* aside from the two full-length albums. the archive contains, amongst other work, the very first digital appearance of 'at bracken', a previously unheard remix of 'as yet untitled' by piano magic, the original version of 'fortune-telling fish' and a host of unreleased material...

FortDax archival part 1: http://www.sendspace.com/file/sesvtf

- 'unreleased' (11 previously unavailable tracks) (2001-2005)

- 'at bracken' (mini-album) (2002)

- 'like cream inside your spine' (7" single) (2001)

FortDax archival part 2: http://www.sendspace.com/file/8g02p2

- 'bbc radio 1 session' (john peel show) (2004)

- 'remixes'

- 'witch hazel tales' (split cd) (2001)

- 'van84' (cd single) (2005)

FortDax archival part 3: http://www.sendspace.com/file/nnk2ng

- full FortDax live set inc. 4 otherwise unrecorded tracks (2006)

*does NOT contain the albums 'folly' (2003) and 'divers' (2006), the radio 3 'mixing it' session from 2006 and my remix of nathan fake's 'you are here'.

although copyright remains in all of the material, please feel free to distribute any of it as you see fit.

i'm indebted to my webmaster jeff keibel for his help & support throughout the archival project, which is hosted via www.fedge.net/fortdax .

my own notes and feelings about the material can be found within the mini-site, so i shan't go into detail here, but this is essentially my parting gift to you all. we'll catch up soon, although i'll have a different set of identities by then. thank-you very much for your support throughout what was FortDax.

as ever, take very good care.

darren durham, 'FortDax' (2001-2006)

www.fedge.net/fortdax

www.myspace.com/fortdax

The Yellow Moon Band – Entangled

Mike in Mono – Euro Eccentric

Serafina Steer – Peach Heart (all Static Caravan)

I love Static Caravan right down to the little things they do, those special extras they make me miss the world of seven inch singles I used to be so entangled within, the rainbow design on the oversized centre of the vinyl that makes me go search out the thingy you put in the middle, whatever its called, the free sticker, the horses that run through the rainbow on the cover of The Yellow Moon Bands Entangled, in itself not the strongest release thus far by the excellent label but still worth a few minutes of your time to take in the twin riffing and picture in your mind how this would look live, poodle perms and leather trousers perhaps??...Mike in Mono is a different kettle of fish completely, pumping out 1980’s electro like Printed Circuit used to but mixing it with Kraftwerk-ian vocals all echoey and recollecting images of the numerous other German bands from the time with long fringes and no shortage of inanimate objects on stage to bash with whatever happened to be in their hands at the time. B-side Binary is more playful still, yet ultimately follows the same electro kraut path…there are a number of names that will consistently turn up when almost any female singer songwriter with even the tiniest bit of a quirky voice appears, its too simple really but perhaps Serafina Steer deserves to be mentioned alongside the Joanna’s, the Hanne Hukkelberg’s, The Holly Throsby’s. Peach Heart is a lovely tune, staccato, unusual and as unexpected as the dragonfly that rides a bike on the sleeve of this record, medieval sounds using modern technology, music box twinkles that recall the wonderful Textile Ranch, skipping needles on overplayed records. Mano e Mano is equally as mesmerising, full of weird instruments and gentle sentiments.

www.staticcaravan.org
mikeinmono1@hotmail.co.uk

www.myspace.com/theyellowmoonband
www.myspace.com/monoinmike
www.myspace.com/drumstreetsefa

The Pocketbooks – Cross The Line

Wow! This is the kind of indiepop gem I used to thrive on, fresh and happy and recorded for a fiver in someone’s garage, done for the fun of it and all the better for it. Its like Kicker had they had better singers, the Aislers Set if they weren’t tinged with melancholy and so obsessed with distorted guitars and broken hearts. Young people taking advantage of the simple things “I’d swap some sleep for a fixed emotion/ a g&t and some sun tan lotion/ a bag of chips in a seaside coast town/ an empty seat on the underground/ a basement club where there’s space for dancing/ a conversation that’s life enhancing/ a suddentwist that I’m not expecting/ a novelette with a cryptic ending” etc…flip it over and it gets better still, Every Good Time We Ever Had is one that escaped from Belle & Sebastian, the kind of song that should have graced The Boy… instead of Ease Your Feet Into The Sea or Sleep The Clock Round, the kind of song Aberfeldy always wanted to write, I love the Pocketbooks and so should you.

www.atomicbeatrecords.co.uk
www.pocketbooks.org.uk

www.myspace.com/pocketbooks

No Age – Weirdo Rippers (Fatcat)

A compilation of the highlights of the first five releases from LA duo No Age that were interestingly simultaneously released in the same day by five different underground indie labels (UTR, Deleted Art, Teardrops, Youth Attack & PPM) available on CD for the first time. They are a funny bunch, choosing to mix and match, cut and paste and generally make up their own rules. Opening track Every Artist Needs A Tragedy finally emerges into song after 3 minutes if interference and noise, like a tuner finally coming into an area of reception, My Life’s Alright With You & Dead Plane follow the same formula with the former coming in and out like switching between programmes. When they do finally explode into song, especially on Boy Void, perhaps the most straightforward, obvious and my favourite they plough a similar furrow to noise pop experts such as Numbers and Erase Errata yet with less squeal and maybe a touch of Pavement at their most raucous or at times Elfpower such as in Everybody’s Down and the lo-fi My Life’s Alright Without You. On semi-sorted there’s hints a Black Dice, on Sun Spots, Bracken like collages.

No Age are also heavily into the LA art scene and seriously worthy of your attention.

www.fat-cat.co.uk
www.myspace.com/nonoage
www.myspace.com/fatcatrecords

Belle and Sebastian – The Life Pursuit (Rough Trade)

I went and did it, I returned to an old love, I dug out the photos, relived the memories, and now I find myself ten steps back, instead of moving on, instead of dealing with the situation I now find myself back where I started, helplessly & hopelessly in love.

Being the awkward type I am, I only ever half listened to The Life Pursuit as the tendency can be with a downloaded album, no artwork, no song titles, somehow it cheapens the experience (yet its enabled me to hear hundreds of albums I otherwise wouldn’t have) and so the album slipped out of my pile of recently listened to albums, judged to be a betrayal, one step too far towards out and out commercialism…and then for some reason I went out and bought it in all its glory the other day, all green versus monochrome and stuffed full of letters from fans that one day I will sit down and read and guess what? I love it. Yeah its not If You’re Feeling Sinister but then why would we need a repeat album, instead its shiny and poppy and perhaps a little too mainstream for the average fan or should I say the “true fan” though as has been pointed out previously, if you were a “true fan” you would love everything they did, would you not? There’s swearing for swearing sake for sure but overall we have thirteen glorious pop songs that I’d much rather listen to than anything else that charts, perhaps White Collar Boy and The Blues are Still Blue are a little bit too TREX but still they are classic feel good songs in their own rights and who could deny that Funny Little Frog is little less than perfect, snappy major 7^th chords, trumpets “Honey loving you is the greatest thing/ I get to be myself and I get to sing” and a snappy chorus to boot, one to sing along to on sweaty dancefloors as you strut your latest indie pop moves. “I am living my life out as a poet/ I am the jester in the ancient court and you are the funny little frog in my throw-it” We Are The Sleepyheads littered with bah-dah-bas can do nothing less than bring a smile to your face and improve any day no matter how bad it is. To Be Myself Completely perhaps Stevie Jacksons finest moment yet. all motown strums and sixties harmonies, since when has any chart band done anything so rewarding as this? For The Price of a Cup of Tea another upbeat almost gospel like singalng.
Yes Belle and Sebastian have changed but people do, sometimes its better and more rewarding to just get on with it instead of wondering what it could have been like.
www.belleandsebastian.co.uk/