Tag never enough notes

Jess Bryant // Silvern // Album // Red Deer Club // 09.08.12

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This article originally appeared on Never Enough Notes on 10 July 2012.

‘Dark cinematic folk’ is how Jess Bryant’s music is described on her Twitter page. Cinematic certainly is an apt description but it’s hard to pigeon hole the orchestral ‘Silvern’, which could be labelled as much with the broad brush of indie as with classical, folk and jazz in differing places.

Musically Bryant’s classical influences are clear and also a love of the glockenspiel, which appears nearly in every song. Apparently she is also influenced by writers like Paul Auster and Haruki Murakami who both focus on absurdism and surrealism…

Read the rest of the review here at Never Enough Notes.

First Aid Kit // Blue // 09.07.12 // Wichita

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They sound like they’re from the deep South of America but Swedish sisters Johanna and Klara Sӧderberg are in fact part of the wave of Scandi-indie bands that have been making their mark on music over the last few years. Aged just 21 and 19 both sisters have haunting and frighteningly mature voices, as good live as recorded.

Read the rest at Never Enough Notes.

Boat To Row // Grassmarket EP // 19.03.12 // istartedthefire Records

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First appeared on Never Enough Notes on March 16 2012.

Summer is coming. It’s nearly time for sipping cider in pub gardens, going to festivals and wandering through fields. Boat To Row has made the perfect soundtrack to all those things with this re-released EP.

Having at one point done a tape-only release, with Crossroads in 2010, Boat To Row are obviously not afraid to do things the old-fashioned way, with a traditional sound of banjos, ukuleles and melodica combined with slick production.

Read more here at Never Enough Notes

Belleruche // Stormbird // 05.03.12 // Tru Thoughts

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First appeared on Never Enough Notes on February 16 2012

Belleruche have seemingly joined the campaign to bring 1980s style electro back once and for all. But they don’t always play this way, with experimental, hip-hop and soul fusion being their usual shtick. The trio formed in London and have been knocking around since 2005 and have released three albums. Their LP ‘Rollerchain’ is due for release in May and will set the scene for this new, darker and broodier sound.

Latest single ‘Stormbird’, out on 5th March, starts with a rhythmic tempo, marching along in an eerie way with continuous whining keyboard and guitar in the background. Getting faster and faster towards the end, it is repetitive in a good way and sticks in the mind as does Kathrin deBoer’s voice. Sweet, sultry and smoky. Then all of a sudden, after less than three minutes, it’s over. And I want to listen to it again.

9/10

LIVE // Y Niwl // Buffalo Bar // Cardiff // 28.01.12

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First appeared on Never Enough Notes on Monday January 30 2012

In the mountains of Snowdonia you can imagine that fog could be an issue, after all Wales is not exactly known for its dry weather. Out of these mountains, three years ago, emerged from the mist a somewhat unlikely event.

Y Niwl (The Fog in English) are a surf rock band more akin to the west coast of America than the damp mountains of North Wales. Tonight they have travelled down south to one of Cardiff’s coolest venues, Buffalo Bar, to give an excited audience a dose of Shadows-esque guitar and surfy sounds, North Walian style.

Being an instrumental band can sometimes leave audiences feeling a little bit awkward. They can’t sing along and have to remember songs by melody and not what the singer is saying. For some, including myself, that can be a tall order. But Y Niwl show they don’t need lyrics; the depth of their rich sound speaks for itself, even after a storming set from support H. Hawkline. Y Niwl does very little vocalising in general, including in between the tracks, but the audience stay engaged.

Their self titled album was released in late 2010 and was nominated for last year’s Welsh Music Prize. Gruff Rhys won for his album Hotel Shampoo. Rhys is a friend of the band and they have toured America with him: “While a Welsh band going to America to play surf rock might seem a bit like taking coals to Newcastle, everyone over there was genuinely welcoming towards us,” guitarist Alun Evans told the Western Mail. Maybe you can teach your grandma to suck eggs.

Y Niwl play a neat 30 minute set at Buffalo, followed by an encore, and politely everything is done by 9.45pm with room for some Saturday night partying after the gig…or an early night.

 

Sweetie Pie And The Guttermen // An Introduction to: Sweetie Pie And The Guttermen // Out Now

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First appeared on Never Enough Notes on 14 September 2011

Sweetie Pie And The Guttermen look like a band capable of a good old knees up. Armed with tambourines, harmonicas, a good bass and everything else needed for a proper country folk shin dig, they also have the depth of sound you would expect from a six-piece band.

Located in London, Sweetie Pie And The Guttermen have been together about a year getting their name from a short story by Sylvia Plath. This EP is billed as an introduction to the band and it fits the purpose, keeping it short and to the point.

First song, Love And Gin is a swinging track with all the right components there, nice intro, nice singing, nice tune, it’s very nice. Forget What Did and its uplifting harmonies are subtly cheery, in a look to the bright future kind of way, and The Puppeteer has an amiable clip clop beat with a country edge.

The EP is pleasing to the ear and has all the right things in the right places – it’s just a bit flat. It’s relatively early days though and the band has been out on the festival circuit this year putting in the ground work to grow for the future.

7/10

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2011/sep/19/town-gown-community

The Pooh Sticks // 03/09/11 // Globe, Cardiff

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First appeared on Never Enough Notes on September 6 2011.

This is Swansea band The Pooh Sticks’ last ever show in Wales. Probably. Buoyed by a successful comeback after 15 years at last year’s Indie Tracks, the band have decided to give gigging another go for a limited time only.

It’s clear, from this packed room of raucous and excitable indie pop fans to Pulp’s successful reformation and performances at this year’s Reading and Leeds, that there is still a place for old-school indie pop in 2011. And it seems The Pooh Sticks can be thanked for this continuing success as Pulp, The Cranberries and Cast all supported them back in the day. As singer Huw Williams told the “South Wales Echo”, ‘it was quite depressing, supporting The Pooh Sticks meant that you were going to be selling hundreds of thousands of records two years later’.

Huw went on to have a successful career behind the scenes in the music industry, and that was that.

Tonight they are back at Cardiff’s Globe, a venue which has the Cardiff rumour mill in overdrive as at closes, opens, closes and changes hands. It is well and truly open for business now though and security must be biting their tongues as The Pooh Sticks continue to be a band they should issue hard hats for on the door. An inflatable pink ball bounces overhead throughout the set, including hitting most band members in the face at least once. There are also low flying chocolate éclair sweets, and a number of cardboard placards lovingly crafted by the band bob among the crowd stating things like ‘Swansea Posh’ and ‘Indie Pop Extremist’.

Indie Pop Extremists is a good description for The Pooh Sticks as they storm through their set, selecting songs from their history including the ‘early funny ones’ (complete with cardboard placard), and their more mainstream power pop tracks like “The World Is Turning On” from their 1993 album “Million Seller”. Williams has just the right amount of bravado and sarcasm for a frontman and long-term guest vocalist Amelia Fletcher also gives a great performance, impressive as it‘s her second set of the night after supporting with her band Tender Trap.

With every band member having so many other projects on it’s hard to say when they will gig again and whether the threat of this being their last ever Welsh gig will be realised. But when the time and place is right there is always room for the placards and self aware indie songs to return.

8/10