Edinburgh Live Listings: amida black affair come on gang found haight ashbury jesus h foxx just joans occasional flickers prince edward island
by Matthew
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Toad 2.0
Live in Edinburgh This Week – 6th July 2008
Again it’s something of a quiet week but apparently July often is in the world of gigs, as the Summer music festival season continues its dotcom-esque ballooning and people get ready for the foreign invasion and artistic black hole that is the Edinburgh Festival.
I might be popping through to Glasgow to see Mumford & Sons actually, because there’s not much happening around here at the moment. One gig, however, is going to make me old mate DC Very Happy Indeed:
Thursday 10th July: Jesus H. Foxx & Prince Edward Island at Cabaret Voltaire.
Quite apart from the fact that this is a Duty Free gig – in other words, free – and quite apart from the fact that Jesus H. Foxx are a pretty good band, this will be my first chance to see DC’s mates and Waiting Room favourites, Prince Edward Island. I don’t know too much about them, apart from the basic indie guitar sound on their MySpace page, but I’m in no rush. I’ll catch them at the gig and go from there.
Prince Edward Island – Partlife
Thursday 10th July: Come On Gang & Haight Ashbury play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms.
I saw the Come On Gang for the first time at the Kid Canveral single launch party a few weeks back and they were excellent. I am looking forward to their own single, which is officially launched at this gig but which I can’t post for obvious reasons, but I will have to catch it at a different gig as I think I really have to go and see DC’s mates instead. Haight Ashbury don’t sound bad either – sort of like an indie-folk group fronted by a couple of singers from a girl band.
Come On Gang – Start the Sound
Saturday 12th July: Amida & The Just Joans & the Occasional Flickers at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
Greek indie pop is not exactly an over-exposed niche of the music market, but Edinburgh’s Occasional Flickers are the work of a Greek chappie with a surprising affinity for the local brand of introverted twee folk. I don’t know the other two bands at all, but listening to their MySpace pages they sound really rather promising. Besides, it’s a Gentle Invasion gig, and so it is pretty much guaranteed to be good.
The Just Joans – Hey Boy, You’re Oh So Sensitive (This is fucking brilliant)
Saturday 12th July: Black Affair & Found at the GRV.
Black Affair is a Steve Mason production. Steve Mason is that chap out of the Beta Band. Need I say more to the Scottish Indie world? Well it’s no Beta Band Part II, so don’t wet your knickers just yet, because Black Affair play more of a dark disco electronica: sort of like Depeche Mode with more beat, more of a knack for shimmering, spangly synths and less of the love for demoralising dirges. Am I allowed to say that I heard this the first time, wasn’t too impressed, found out who it was by, went back and had another listen, and then suddenly changed my mind and now I find it intriguing. Is this pure indie snobbery and pathetic celebrity fawning? Well I suppose it probably is, but I am not saying that they’re god’s gift all of a sudden, and many things need a second listen… ah, who am I kidding, best just bite the bullet and confess to being shallow as fuck.
Black Affair – You & Me
Album Reviews New Music: flemish eye records women
by Matthew
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Toad 2.0
Women – Women
In terms of making yourselves absolutely fucking impossible to track down on the internet, calling a band ‘Women’ has got to be pretty damn near the top of the list. I eventually found these guys by following my last.fm profile and discovering Flemish Eye Records, to whom they are signed.
They’re a Candian band, from Calgary I believe, which always fills my little patriotic heart with a little extra joy, and have a self-titled (presumably to make it even harder to track down – try searching Amazon for “Women”) album out in the first week of July. I’ve been listening to my preview copy for a while now and, although it really didn’t grab me by the ‘nads immediately, it’s been growing and growing steadily and has slowly emerged from the background to make itself known as a really rather decent record.
I say emerged, because it is not obviously any more than a standard, slightly fuzzy indie guitar album. It was something of a low-tech recording process by all accounts, and I am a sucker for that, so the rough sound sort of suits me. Synths make occasional intrusions into what is a pretty textural sound, accompanying mechanical rhythms and industrial noise. The vocals are distracted and distant, and I find myself just slightly reminded of a dense, muffled version of early nineties indie.
Nevertheless, from this swamp of sounds there does emerge a fairly insistent album of deceptively good tunes. They sound a little like The Walkmen in some aspects, although without the furious noise which that group so often generate. I’ve heard, however, that they are somewhat fearsome live so I’d be keen to see them if the opportunity arose. I know it’s all a bit tentative, this review, but that’s kind of how I feel. I’m not flabberghasted by the brilliance, but there is plenty of promise in this album and I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye on these chaps in future.
Women – Black Rice
Women – Lawncare
