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TELL EVERYONE EVERYTHING: TRUST FUND \/ THE JELAS \/ THE NERVY BETTERS \/ EXPENSIVE \/ MOTES \/ TWO WHITE CRANES \/ MAT RIVIERE \/ MY TAPE ARCHIVE \/ THE MIDDLE ONES \/ ATTACKED BY WOLVES \/ MARGOT, Southbank Club, 1st<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n THE JELAS \/ TRUST FUND \/ TOTEM TERRORS, Roll For The Soul, 14th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Strap in; February is mental. There are dozens of excellent things happening this month, as if Cardiff and Bristol’s creative, ambitious and talented folk just decided that this ghastly rain-lashed winter has gone on far too long and needs to be dealt with. To this end there are at least two progressive and intriguing festivals and a couple of cracking alldayers this month, kicking off in Bedminster with Tell Everyone Everything, where Pull The Strings host a ton of excellent Bristol DIY bands in aid of LinkAge (who work to provide inspiring and friendly social communities for over-55s). Taking in delicate, plaintive pop (Trust Fund, the Nervy Betters), gorgeously sad-eyed Trembling Blue Stars-style electropop (EXPENSIVE), crystalline yet sturdy-hearted indiepop (Two White Cranes, the Middle Ones) and ungraspably, chaotically, brilliantly experimental oddpop (the Jelas, Mat Riviere), it is a nailed-on good time presented with love and the best of intentions. Also this month, one of several Valentine’s night treats guaranteed to win your intended’s eternal respect sees the Jelas launch their new Beetroot Yourself<\/em> EP, and Ellis Trust Fund’s Time Of Asking label, with a FREE SHOW at Roll For The Soul which additionally features Totem Terrors. What a time to be alive.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n EAST INDIA YOUTH, Louisiana, 4th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Music publications starting labels and writing about their own bands. Members of four-square indie bands undertaking solo projects, explaining how they’ve always been into Eno and electronica. These are the kinds of things that can vex a person, depending on how miserable and contrarian they are (hi!), so it’s refreshing to have your suspicions shredded in the way that William Doyle does as East India Youth. ‘Heaven, How Long’ was a fair indication – icily moody synths and bold composition, a vocal that soars without any bloated pretention or histrionics, then the track subtly pulls back before launching into a giddy motorik wash. The best of EIY’s debut Total Strife Forever<\/em> replicates the effect of that song, blending coldwave synths and brittle electronics with the alinear dynamics of Fuck Buttons’ Street Horrsing<\/em>, Factory Floor’s stentorian thump and accessible pop songwriting. Intriguing, impressive stuff.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n BILL CALLAHAN \/ ALASDAIR ROBERTS, St George\u2019s, 6th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n FURROW COLLECTIVE, Chapter, 25th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n What was the point at which Bill Callahan began to transcend the company of his peers and become something other, this entity that hands down a book of carefully-chosen aphorisms every two years, plays a handful of shows and then drifts wordlessly away until next time?\u00a0 The Bryter Layter horns and warm Lou Reed chug of \u2018Ex-Con\u2019, maybe, though he remained lyrically remote, wary of commitment and certainty.\u00a0 Or the way the glorious Leonard Cohen fog of \u2018Vessel In Vain\u2019 hangs like a flightless bird over the Peak District landscape at the opening of Shane Meadows\u2019 Dead Man\u2019s Shoes?\u00a0 By the time his second post-Smog album Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle<\/em> appeared in 2009, Callahan\u2019s voice had settled into its now familiar sonorous baritone, his lyrics a model of economy but never one word wasted, pithy and funny and moving and fatalistic and hopeful, telling you more about him than you ever knew before while still reminding you that you don\u2019t know him at all.\u00a0 He\u2019s in possibly his best run of form ever, casually dropping an album of the year contender in Dream River<\/em>, and this is a rare enough visit to be utterly compulsory.\u00a0 This is especially so given that Alasdair Roberts, perhaps the closest these shores have to a songwriter as inimitable, affecting and consistent as Callahan, is supporting. Roberts returns later this month to Chapter, where he played a glorious, intimate 90-minute set of originals and traditionals in 2012. This, though, is as part of the Furrow Collective, a quartet of individually renowned folk performers including Emily Portman and wonderful Newcastle-based balladeer Lucy Farrell. Early samples of their album At Our Next Meeting<\/em> reveal typically sublime, earthy interpretations of laments and ballads, tales of love and disaster arranged to showcase four beautifully interwoven voices with only modest, subtle accompaniments. Expect a mid-afternoon Green Man spot, but don’t wait for that. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n FUCK BUTTONS \/ CUTS, Trinity, 6th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n It should be compulsory at this juncture to pull up a chair and recount the tale of Fuck Buttons\u2019 rise from first on at a free Lesson No. 1 gig in Newport to soundtracking the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in just six short years.\u00a0 Cap duly doffed in Noel and Adam\u2019s directions, it\u2019s just as remarkable to consider the vertiginous leap FB have made from scrappy Black Dice-aping noise act to the expansive machine-tooled monsters of Slow Focus<\/em>.\u00a0 If the first record had its heady, exaltant peaks, honed to near-perfection in a seemingly endless year of festival ubiquity, then the Weatherall remix of \u2018Sweet Love For Planet Earth\u2019 gave notice of how far they could go towards your actual stadium-sized hands-up crossover act, something they nailed utterly with Tarot Sport<\/em>\u2019s gleaming balance of oppressive noise and dizzying accessibility. Slow Focus<\/em> is the point where they have it both ways, and have more fun with possibility than before.\u00a0 \u2018The Red Wing\u2019 leads on the beats, but the 4\/4 thump is replaced with a flattened, slo-mo hip-hop paced rhythm.\u00a0 Off guard, you\u2019re at the mercy of the jet engine synth drones that rattle your ribcage, lovely malevolent melodic shifts propelling the track along.\u00a0 \u2018Brainfreeze\u2019 rides in on tribal drum pounds, and when it rises up it\u2019s with an industrial-strength Human League drum pattern, slow and methodical, the textural dexterity on the surface doing all the work while the rhythm grinds unflinchingly away.\u00a0 Halfway through it drops out altogether, pitches rising, to crash back in at a gleefully anticipated moment. This is the beauty of Fuck Buttons six years on, the noise group that crosses over to the biggest rooms; Mogwai monoliths, Robocop precision.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n MOWBIRD \/ FURROW \/ RHODRI BROOKS \/ SMALL ENGINE REPAIR \/ RADSTEWART, Four Bars, 7th, Le Pub, 22nd and Caf\u00e9 Kino, 23rd<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n A prolific DIY cottage industry responsible for a string of EPs and singles, t-shirts, posters, an endearingly daft zine and their own micro-indie label, Wrexham\u2019s finest Mowbird have kept up a pretty relentless schedule over the last few years.\u00a0 Now, following their first vinyl release (the \u2018Happy Active Horse Organ\u2019 7\u201d for Popty-Ping), there\u2019s an album, Islander<\/em>, released by Shape and a perfect summation of what makes them so enjoyable. There’s two sides to Mowbird, both explored within Islander<\/em>\u2019s rollercoaster 26 minute running time; short and sweet, reverb-stuffed surf-punk and slacker pop gems like ‘Holy Moly’ and ‘Brompton’ crash by like a Times New Viking with moderately better fidelity, while the rickety Slanted & Enchanted poise of ‘Islander’ and the utterly adorable mid-tempo Weezer rush of ‘Return to the Sea’ are unshakeable brainworms with scuffed-up charm to spare.\u00a0 It\u2019s a perfect trade-off; insidious hooks, repetition, fuzz and shuddering organ stabs galore, the trebly beach-pop joy of Real Estate leavened by the longing and loneliness of prime Grandaddy.\u00a0 The LP launch tour takes in three (count \u2018em) local-ish dates, with Radstewart upping the Pavement-worship ante in Newport and Bristol while sloppy DIY punkers, labelmates and kindred spirits Furrow join them in Cardiff.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n CATE LE BON \/ SEA LION, Gate, 8th and Colston Hall, 19th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Beloved local bands can have a strange effect on you when (if ever, and you always hope they will) things suddenly start going very right very quickly.\u00a0 As a fan you can invest a lot \u2013 I\u2019m sure anyone reading this can reel off any number of bands from Cardiff or wherever you\u2019re from who you\u2019ve seen dozens of times, become friends with, willed them to get that first single or album released.\u00a0 If it goes right, it\u2019s exhilarating; it feels like a victory for everyone, a vindication.\u00a0 So, to get to the point, seeing Cate Le Bon pictured on the cover of the ruddy NME, and effortlessly charming sell-out US crowds, is a brilliant thing.\u00a0 It\u2019s recognition that\u2019s overdue and richly deserved, as the creative purple patch that started with CYRK<\/em>\u2019s long-awaited release has seen her roll straight off the touring schedule into writing and recording Mug Museum<\/em> in Los Angeles.\u00a0 It\u2019s not hard to see the West Coast\u2019s influence on the record, tuning in to a subtly different psychedelia to the West Walian Me Oh My and CYRK\u2019s earthy, untethered garage-folk; Noah Georgeson’s production brings out the Laurel Canyon undercurrents a little more, particularly evident in the nimble bass swoops on ‘Duke’ and ‘Wild’, and even the album’s heaviest moments have a lovely offhand spaciness and relaxed classicism. \u00a0\u00a0Tour support Sea Lion is Linn Osterberg, a Swedish singer-songwriter in the Newsom\/Dalton tradition with a startling childlike register and an album, Mercy Land, that reads like Victoria Bergsman whispering lullabies.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n SLEAFORD MODS \/ HENRY BLACKER \/ MARK DURGAN, Exchange, 8th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n One of the most curious and unique things to have emerged in recent times, here is working-class beat poetry and DIY awkward-bugger hiphop from Th*tch*r\u2019s home town of Grantham.\u00a0 Jason Williamson\u2019s curdled, rancourous East Midlands accent spits splenetic, scattershot bile like Paddy Considine\u2019s Richard in Dead Man\u2019s Shoes (twice in one month, I need new reference points), inevitably recalling MC Pitman\u2019s magnificently truculent rants. His targets are whatever’s in front of him and causing him anger, dismay, whatever – drinkers, doleites, hipsters, industry people – he’s not selective but the underlying targets are those that would demean or drag down the little man, the working man.\u00a0 Non-album single \u2018Mr Jolly Fucker\u2019 is ‘Witch Trials’ era Fall with a rolling bassline and odd stabs of milky keyboard underpinning a bludgeoning, insistent rhythm and Jason railing, coiled, MES with his 80s\/90s gimlet-eyed acuity restored.\u00a0 See the video – Jason, eyes closed, mantra-like, pursed with rage.\u00a0\u00a0 The beats are simplistic, thuggish, tinny like early Cabaret Voltaire knocking out grime on a cheap drum machine.\u00a0\u00a0 Still, the likes of ‘Fizzy’ or ‘I Don\u2019t Want A Disco or 2’ are propulsive, punch-along anthems filled with bitterly funny lyrical gems and lightning changes of attitude.\u00a0 Gindrinker need to play with them.\u00a0 Actually, that\u2019s it \u2013 they\u2019re a Gindrinker where every song is from the viewpoint of the pub-tanned protagonist in ‘Reilly’.\u00a0 Y\u2019get me?\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n FUTURE OF THE LEFT \/ TEETH OF THE SEA \/ JOHN MOUSE, Clwb, 8th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Bloody hell.\u00a0 Support band choice of the month here, as FOTL, fangs still dripping blood off the back of the taut, bilious and frankly brilliant How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident<\/em>, test their live mettle by getting Teeth Of The Sea in to support.\u00a0 FOTL\u2019s decision to go it alone with the album\u2019s release may have stemmed more from general weariness with the machinations of record labels than any one particular bad experience, but the effects of the immediately successful crowd-funding exercise are clearly audible in a record that\u2019s more stylistically diverse than ever (skulking murder-country, bizarro spoken word) but with a swingeing confidence and a higher hit-rate than anything since Curses<\/em>.\u00a0 Yep.\u00a0 As for Teeth Of The Sea, their own excursions out into the margins continue to intrigue.\u00a0 Third album Master<\/em> goes deeper and blacker than TOTS have ventured before; shuddering, limping, sickly beats like life support, queasy white-noise synth tones, muffled dread samples. Still, for all that it’s closed-off and uncomfortable, the dynamics remain loose enough, the possibilities more open and varied, that to simply pen it off with the claustrophobic likes of Haxan Cloak or Raime does them a disservice; see \u2018Black Strategy\u2019, which limps along like Fuck Buttons taking on bruising EBM\/New Beat, the loops and acidic synths coalescing into something grimly danceable.\u00a0 Highly recommended viewing, this one. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n GUILTY PARENTS \/ HENRY BLACKER \/ LUVV \/ HIS NAKED TORSO, Buffalo, 9th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019re reading this and were one of the many legends who attended our January gig with Trust Fund, THANK YOU. Here\u2019s our next offering, a buffet of greasy treats served up in league with Lesson No. 1. Henry Blacker are a West Country-based power trio featuring two holidaying members of former Joy guests Hey Colossus, and they distil the unrelenting real-ale boogie-mantras of HC into hissing slabs of punishingly loud biker metal. There\u2019s bits of Kyuss\u2019 blasted desert rock, gleefully howling Part Chimp noise, Groundhogs\u2019 prehistoric thump and prime Melvins dread-crawl in the soup on Hungry Dogs Will Eat Dirty Puddings<\/em>, their splendidly titled debut. Nottingham\u2019s Guilty Parents, meanwhile, offer hotwired garage punk and careening, gleeful art-rock best showcased on the excellent five-track cassette release Noro<\/em>, all stroboscopic vocal flails and churning 100mph riffs that embed themselves in your brain within a listen or two. Think the sloppiest, heaviest early Trail of Dead stuff, with a good serving of Hookworms psych-noise and the incessant artpunk clamour of the much-missed Ikara Colt. Nice tendency towards experimentation and variation too. Luvv count members of Chain of Flowers among their number, and colour the CoF template of gloomy post-punk and 80s overcoat rock with some Chameleons\/Mighty Lemon Drops-era jangle, Dunedin Sound breeziness and Feelies pop. His Naked Torso, as you should know, do magnificent skronky no-wave punctuated with queasily tense keyboard drones. Every one\u2019s a winner. Are you, dear reader?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n FROM NOW ON FESTIVAL, Chapter, 14th \u2013 15th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Spectacularly great and highly laudable scenes in Cardiff this month as Mark from Shape Records curates this forward-thinking two-day blowout showcasing what he bills as \u2018music and sound without borders\u2019.\u00a0 Right on.\u00a0 It rounds up some of Cardiff and Bristol\u2019s best and brightest sonic adventurers (Euros Childs, Hail! The Planes, The Jelas, Thought Forms, Trust Fund, Tender Prey) alongside an impressive set of well-chosen names from improv and experimental circles.\u00a0 Look out for Bridget Hayden, whose single-guitar set-up belies an astonishingly intense storm of crackling drone and visceral electric blues; harpist Rhodri Davies\u2019 fiery excursions into free jazz, raga and African polyrhythms; Lucky Dragons, who you might have seen opening for Dirty Projectors in Clwb a few years back, enticing the audience into collaboration on their playful electro-acoustic forays into flickering electronica and Books-style concrete; Serafina Steer\u2019s captivating interpretations of traditional English psych-folk; and utter hero Richard Dawson, whose beautifully imperfect, soaring voice and fevered, utterly heartfelt takes on Northern English song have been a fixture in my life since his brilliant Joy Collective show a while back.\u00a0 Celebrate the ambition here, explore it, encourage it, see that it returns. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n EZRA FURMAN \/ THREATMANTICS, Moon Club, 15th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n THREATMANTICS: ‘THE BALLAD OF SHOTGUN BILLY’, Four Bars, 23rd<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Rough-edged and raw of production and reedy of voice, Ezra Furman’s string of albums demonstrate an unashamed embrace of rock ‘n’ roll classicism closer to the lean, strutting jukebox nuggets of Sonny Smith or Langhorne Slim’s folksy stomp than the psych\/garage belters of Ty Segall or Mikal Cronin. With a nasal brashness and puffed-chest charm, his jittery folk-punk and wiry Violent Femmes delivery marked him out as a contender as early as 2007’s Banging Down The Doors<\/em>; later releases upped the fidelity and added E Street horns and the boozy, raffish enthusiasm of the Heartbreakers or the sadly missed Exploding Hearts, turning out closest to a version of Mac DeMarco that was just as charming but less self-conscious, less affected. Threatmantics, themselves long-established as a rollicking live turn meshing together folk instrumentation with windmilling punk compositions, are a fine choice of support. They also bring their eye for a twisted yarn to Fleapit, a monthly night at Four Bars wherein local turns turn in A\/V sets in collaboration with film-makers and visual artists. \u2018The Ballad of Shotgun Billy\u2019 expands the tale told on Kid McCoy<\/em> into your actual rock opera about the titular Billy, Wales\u2019 first NFL quarterback, presented in song and self-shot film. Endearingly, messily strange. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n WORKIN’ MAN NOISE UNIT \/ SLY & THE FAMILY DRONE \/ THE COSMIC NOD, Moon Club, 16th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n BARBEROS \/ WORKIN’ MAN NOISE UNIT \/ BIG NATURALS \/ SLY & THE FAMILY DRONE, St John The Baptist Crypt, 14th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Two enticing local stops on a tour featuring the charred improv pounding of S&TFD alongside Workin’ Man Noise Unit, a bunch of clockpunchers from commuter belt joy-void Reading, veterans of Supernormal fest and admired by Julian Cope. WMNU proffer the endearing, Spacemen 3-riffing mantra \u2018drinking Stella to make music to drink Stella to\u2019, which is entirely fair enough, and their EP of the same name deals in a lurching, guttural take on bluesy noise-rock with chunks of heads-down thug-garage fury and strafing feedback. They are entirely excellent, and put me in mind of Penthouse, Big Business and Racebannon. I know, right? S&TFD’s ecstatic, ragged mess of drums\/tapes\/synths chaos is righteous enough when (relatively) tethered down on their Unnecessary Woe<\/em> LP, the likes of ‘Grey Meat’ peeling out from basic drum patterns and machine crackle into glorious 12-minute mantras, the inclusive mania of their live shows is something else. Cardiff attendees get The Cosmic Nod thrown in; soon to supplant parent band The Witches Drum, who are to split, their freeform spacerock\/psych jams in the vein of Amon D\u00fc\u00fcl, Comets on Fire or Earthless should set the tone nicely. The Bristol show comes from the increasingly busy Cacophonous Sarcophagus dudes, and adds Liverpudlian electro-noise nutbars Barberos, whose shuddering, ADHD Trans Am-go-breakcore attack did for Undertone last year. Big Naturals’ deafening bass rumble rounds out a cracking line-up. See one! See both!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n OF MONTREAL, Fleece, 17th<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Of Montreal\u2019s triumphant European tour of 2007, taking in a memorable show at the Point and an unreal one at Primavera, was on reflection a curious tipping point for the band and for Kevin Barnes\u2019 fragile subconsious; the three rapid-fire albums following high-wire high water mark Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer<\/em> slipped deeper into a moebius-strip of churning, coquettish pseudo-funk, hermetic, overdriven production and wracked lyricism. Pure pop bright spots like Janelle Monae duet \u2018Enemy Gene\u2019 became too-rare exceptions in this paranoid morass, to the point where OM records became something they should never be \u2013 a chore to listen to. I can\u2019t have been the only fan concerned that their Sunday night slot at Green Man in 2012 might have been an awkward, impenetrable scene. Not so. A blur of tight, impactful hits and accessible new stuff, it signposted an album (Lousy With Sylvianbriar<\/em>) on which Barnes dialled down the kitchen-sink dissonance and impenetrable free-association in favour of country rock and strutting glam, let in some light and made his most relaxed effort in ages. That\u2019s extremely relative, of course, but it bodes well.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n BRISTOL NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL, Spike Island, St Georges, Colston Hall & Arnolfini, 21st \u2013 23rd<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n A festival of new and experimental music with a close focus on artists from the Bristol area, this sees a coalition of venues present a packed schedule of innovative multi-disciplinary work over three nights. Legendary Bristolian jazz composer Keith Tippett’s octet perform his new work The Nine Dances of Patrick O’Gonogon<\/em> for the first time outside London (Colston Hall, 22nd), while John Butcher’s Tarab Cuts<\/em> (Arnolfini, 21st) has its first airing anywhere; a longform revisiting of a piece for saxophones, feedback and sound files which samples, and draws inspiration from, a lost form of classical Arabic music. Christian Wallumr\u00f8d Ensemble (St Georges, 23rd) flit between jazz, Cage-ian modern composition and folk forms with a beautifully spare, intricate minimalism enhanced by their all-acoustic (no PA, no electronics) approach and streaked with light by Arve Henriksen’s fluttering brass. Elsewhere, things get darker and heavier; Emptyset play Spike Island’s gallery (21st), while there’s a cracking and very affordable triple-bill featuring Addison Groove’s juke and footwork-inspired bass monsters, the oppressive, creaking drones and seismic textural shifts of Roly Porter and the astonishing Klavikon – techno created entirely from amplified prepared piano<\/a>, you have got to hear this – at the Colston Hall on the same night. With installations (Christian Marclay, Ellen Fullman), workshops and plenty more, this is both a fantastic thing to explore and a pointer to the sort of thing Cardiff could have in a few years if the likes of From Now On get the support they deserve.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n