The Gist - Holding Pattern - Tiny Global
Initially The Gist was former Young Marble Giants frontman and founder Stuart Moxham's route out of the indie humdrum and into a rather more sonically challenging environment. A project more than a band per se, The Gist's short-lived contribution to the world was an album (Embrace the Herd) and a handful of singles, including the glorious Love at First Sight. A motorcycle accident put paid to any progression until sometime later, Moxham saw fit to record huge swathes of material and archive them for posterity. If YMG soundtracked episodes of Trumpton, they might have produced the likes of the opening God Knows or the new take on Clean Bridges - charming primitive mildly folksy little ditties with that same chugging rhythm of Colossal Youth, but with more warmth. The gloomier Old Mannerisms and the Afrique arrangement of Bongo Heartache recall the likes of The Monochrome Set or Felt and the remainder of Holding Pattern oozes elements of DIY sensibility and, dare I suggest, classic pop songwriting. Rather like the released material on the album Embrace The Herd, much of Holding Pattern is by turns perplexing and pleasing. 6/10
Band of Holy Joy - Funambulist We Love You
Purveyors of thought-provoking and artful indie records back in the late '80s and early '90s, Leeds' Band Of Holy Joy could have been natural successors to Rough Trade's The Smiths, had the label not collapsed. Leader Jonny Brown certainly didn't lack charisma and the band rarely fell short in the tunes department - one listen of the superb Tactless single and its parent-album Manic Magic and Majestic strengthens that statement. Thirty years on and BOHJ are releasing their third album in as many years, garnering airplay on BBC 6 Music and ruffling a few feathers lyrically. Sardonic, political without being in your face and poetic right down to the titles - A Revivalist Impulse and the title track deserve a mention here - Funambulist We Love You takes aim at the state of the nation, the disenchantment and the endless fakery on tap. "I'd rather be anywhere out of this world", Brown opines on A Connecting Ticket, a sub-funky shuffle that mirrors The Distractions and Cud and who could argue with that these days? But musically, Funambulist is fragile and affirmed in equal measure, its centrepiece arguably the impassioned epic Song Of Casual Indifference. 6/10
Andreas Spechtl - Thinking About Tomorrow And How To Build It - Bureau B
Former Berliner and now occasional Tehran resident Spechtl has created something of a travelogue with Thinking About Tomorrow - a synthesis of middle-Eastern atmospherics and Western rhythms that draws from the landscapes of the North and the deserts of the South. Musically, Spechtl recalls early Crammed Discs, Jon Hassell, Tuxedomoon, David Sylvian (post-Dead Bees era) and Pyrolator particularly on the sweeping Tmrw and contemporary Things, while the musique concrete elements of The Age Of Ghost resemble The Hafler Trio or Strafe Fur Rebellion during their Touch days. Fragmented - glitchy, even - much of Thinking needs to be absorbed in one sitting - it isn't an album to dip into. It's a journey into unexplored territory bookended by the unsettling electronica of 2016 and Hidden Homes. 7/10
Miles Cooper Seaton - Phases In Exile - Ascension Hall
"Out here, the land yawns on.... out here, farmers fill the bars, waiting for a shoot between famines.../ All roads lead to limbo....". So begins Phases In Exile, an album that sounds primordial and prophetic by use of atmospheric filmic ambience and layered voices and would sell in huge volumes were it branded as the latest The The or Bon Iver long-player. Miles Cooper Seaton comes blessed with a sense of tone and the dramatic without resorting to frivilous extras like crashing drums or lager-fuelled choruses and while not blessed with a voice to stop traffic, he can offer us contemplative lyrics and a sequenced journey into his very soul. I Am That and It Just Does are cases in point, observational sad-pop songs that have a hushed organic assurance, neat melody lines and, on It Just Does, some ballistic squalling guitar work. Forget hummable tunes - this is all about the build-up and the comedown. 7/10
The Mining Co - Mountain Fires - The Mining Co
Michael Gallagher follows up his band's 2016 debut set Burning Sun and the Atomic Powers Within with another collection of neatly-arranged Americana and college-radio folk-rock that lends its influences to love (and marriage, judging by the opening Julie's Song), memories and key pop decades the '50s, '60s and '70s. The first handful of songs are both very much part of the past and the now and let's face it if the not-too-dissimilar Richard Hawley, Ags Connolly and Chris Isaak can mine this seam, so can Gallagher. His baritone coats each song with a reassuring burr although on the forgettable Safest Way he resorts to a comedic falsetto for reasons best known to himself. Valentine to Write is decent enough to share a b-side with the late great Tom Petty and Against The Grain ought to be on every radio playlist in the land, proclamations that ought to spur Gallagher on to album number three. 7/10
Cormac O Caoimh - Shiny Silvery Things - Self Released
Hailing from Cork, O Caoimh is, thus far, an unsung songwriter whose popularity hasn't yet extended beyond his native Ireland. Album number four offers up more pleasant acoustic folk-pop that might appeal to aficionadoes of Prefab Sprout, Damien Rice or Keane, suffice to say there's melancholia and joy in equal measure and the merest hint of unrequited romance in the air. Radio-hit Silence and Sound and the sprightly In The Hollow Of An Old Oak are undoubtedly pop contenders, despite some strange and oblique lyrical couplets such as "I entered a room with you, where the sound of footsteps flew..." and 'Time is like a crush, crush on you crush me, a lovers (sic) spurning tongue...". Overall there are some fine ideas but little compares to the album's curtain call, the quietly unassuming and atmospheric Lampshade Lights where things are kept simple. 5/10
Initially The Gist was former Young Marble Giants frontman and founder Stuart Moxham's route out of the indie humdrum and into a rather more sonically challenging environment. A project more than a band per se, The Gist's short-lived contribution to the world was an album (Embrace the Herd) and a handful of singles, including the glorious Love at First Sight. A motorcycle accident put paid to any progression until sometime later, Moxham saw fit to record huge swathes of material and archive them for posterity. If YMG soundtracked episodes of Trumpton, they might have produced the likes of the opening God Knows or the new take on Clean Bridges - charming primitive mildly folksy little ditties with that same chugging rhythm of Colossal Youth, but with more warmth. The gloomier Old Mannerisms and the Afrique arrangement of Bongo Heartache recall the likes of The Monochrome Set or Felt and the remainder of Holding Pattern oozes elements of DIY sensibility and, dare I suggest, classic pop songwriting. Rather like the released material on the album Embrace The Herd, much of Holding Pattern is by turns perplexing and pleasing. 6/10
Band of Holy Joy - Funambulist We Love You
Purveyors of thought-provoking and artful indie records back in the late '80s and early '90s, Leeds' Band Of Holy Joy could have been natural successors to Rough Trade's The Smiths, had the label not collapsed. Leader Jonny Brown certainly didn't lack charisma and the band rarely fell short in the tunes department - one listen of the superb Tactless single and its parent-album Manic Magic and Majestic strengthens that statement. Thirty years on and BOHJ are releasing their third album in as many years, garnering airplay on BBC 6 Music and ruffling a few feathers lyrically. Sardonic, political without being in your face and poetic right down to the titles - A Revivalist Impulse and the title track deserve a mention here - Funambulist We Love You takes aim at the state of the nation, the disenchantment and the endless fakery on tap. "I'd rather be anywhere out of this world", Brown opines on A Connecting Ticket, a sub-funky shuffle that mirrors The Distractions and Cud and who could argue with that these days? But musically, Funambulist is fragile and affirmed in equal measure, its centrepiece arguably the impassioned epic Song Of Casual Indifference. 6/10
Andreas Spechtl - Thinking About Tomorrow And How To Build It - Bureau B
Former Berliner and now occasional Tehran resident Spechtl has created something of a travelogue with Thinking About Tomorrow - a synthesis of middle-Eastern atmospherics and Western rhythms that draws from the landscapes of the North and the deserts of the South. Musically, Spechtl recalls early Crammed Discs, Jon Hassell, Tuxedomoon, David Sylvian (post-Dead Bees era) and Pyrolator particularly on the sweeping Tmrw and contemporary Things, while the musique concrete elements of The Age Of Ghost resemble The Hafler Trio or Strafe Fur Rebellion during their Touch days. Fragmented - glitchy, even - much of Thinking needs to be absorbed in one sitting - it isn't an album to dip into. It's a journey into unexplored territory bookended by the unsettling electronica of 2016 and Hidden Homes. 7/10
Miles Cooper Seaton - Phases In Exile - Ascension Hall
"Out here, the land yawns on.... out here, farmers fill the bars, waiting for a shoot between famines.../ All roads lead to limbo....". So begins Phases In Exile, an album that sounds primordial and prophetic by use of atmospheric filmic ambience and layered voices and would sell in huge volumes were it branded as the latest The The or Bon Iver long-player. Miles Cooper Seaton comes blessed with a sense of tone and the dramatic without resorting to frivilous extras like crashing drums or lager-fuelled choruses and while not blessed with a voice to stop traffic, he can offer us contemplative lyrics and a sequenced journey into his very soul. I Am That and It Just Does are cases in point, observational sad-pop songs that have a hushed organic assurance, neat melody lines and, on It Just Does, some ballistic squalling guitar work. Forget hummable tunes - this is all about the build-up and the comedown. 7/10
The Mining Co - Mountain Fires - The Mining Co
Michael Gallagher follows up his band's 2016 debut set Burning Sun and the Atomic Powers Within with another collection of neatly-arranged Americana and college-radio folk-rock that lends its influences to love (and marriage, judging by the opening Julie's Song), memories and key pop decades the '50s, '60s and '70s. The first handful of songs are both very much part of the past and the now and let's face it if the not-too-dissimilar Richard Hawley, Ags Connolly and Chris Isaak can mine this seam, so can Gallagher. His baritone coats each song with a reassuring burr although on the forgettable Safest Way he resorts to a comedic falsetto for reasons best known to himself. Valentine to Write is decent enough to share a b-side with the late great Tom Petty and Against The Grain ought to be on every radio playlist in the land, proclamations that ought to spur Gallagher on to album number three. 7/10
Cormac O Caoimh - Shiny Silvery Things - Self Released
Hailing from Cork, O Caoimh is, thus far, an unsung songwriter whose popularity hasn't yet extended beyond his native Ireland. Album number four offers up more pleasant acoustic folk-pop that might appeal to aficionadoes of Prefab Sprout, Damien Rice or Keane, suffice to say there's melancholia and joy in equal measure and the merest hint of unrequited romance in the air. Radio-hit Silence and Sound and the sprightly In The Hollow Of An Old Oak are undoubtedly pop contenders, despite some strange and oblique lyrical couplets such as "I entered a room with you, where the sound of footsteps flew..." and 'Time is like a crush, crush on you crush me, a lovers (sic) spurning tongue...". Overall there are some fine ideas but little compares to the album's curtain call, the quietly unassuming and atmospheric Lampshade Lights where things are kept simple. 5/10
