Eyelid-peeling kosmische heaviness from Japan-via-E8's Bo Ningen

First published in Loud And Quiet

Bo Ningen 
Line The Wall
Stolen Recordings
Out 8th October 2012

Any Dalstonite who knows their Acid Mother's Temple from their elbow should recognise this quartet of Japanese psych rock spacemen – their bum-length black hair and 26-inch waists can often be seen prowling the piss-stained pavements of E8 when they're not savagely molesting speakers in underground clubs across the same postcode.

London has been a fertile incubator for Bo Ningen's Sabbath-gone-kosmische sound, what with The Horrors spearheading a revival of esoteric psychedelia and loping krautrock in recent years, so that Line The Wall's frenzied jumble of heavyweight riffing ('Daikaisei Part 1' and, er, 'Daikasiei Part 2'), stabbing math rock ('Nichijyou') and even drifting electronica ('Ten to Sen') sounds surprisingly cohesive. While their debut suffered from a plug-in-and-play live sound that lacked the energy of their eyelid-peeling performances (see video above), this album has the dynamic elbow room to make it more than just a souvenir of the live experience.

Baltimore analgesia: Lower Dens live in Hoxton

First published in Loud And Quiet

Lower Dens
Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen
16th August

Before walking on stage, Jana Hunter takes off her round Lennon glasses. Maybe she can barely see up there, lights flashing in her eyes as she myopically stabs at the keys in front of her, picking out guitar lines with just her fingers' muscle memory.

It's ironic that Hunter might voluntarily handicap her performance with sightlessness as she leads her band through songs from their second album Nootropics, a title referring to those 21st century designer drugs that sharpen your brain and increase productivity. If there's a narcotic haze of any kind floating around Lower Dens, it's the analgesic sort. 

Formed by Hunter after a string of anti-folkish releases in the later 00s, the Baltimore band's subtly addictive strain of nocturnal dreaminess, underpinned by Hunter's fascinatingly ambiguous voice, has been gaining ground on the back of 'Brains', the lead single and linchpin of tonight's set. Climbing to a stirring, unsettling peak, it grasps the crowd tight, shaking us with every beat and graceful chord change as Hunter's cool and distant voice ascends to the climax, causing clenched fists and eyelids tightly shut.

'Propagation' and 'Lamb' are excellent too, but nothing can take away from those five glorious minutes, which remind you that even boring old drums and guitars can still sometimes prompt a little shiver, blindsiding you with a grain of emotion you'd swear you've never felt before. Truly special.

Serious fun as south London meets South Africa on LV's 'Sebenza'

First published in Loud And Quiet

LV 
Sebenza
Hyperdub



Hyperdub continues its run of boundary-pushing releases with the second album from LV, which combines the London-based production team's beats with the words of Okmalumkoolkat (one half of the Johannesburg electro-rap-whatever duo Dirty Paraffin), Cape Town MCs Ruffest and the already established Spoek Mathambo, whose debut 'Father Creeper' inspired bewildered fascination in this reviewer in March.

Unlike Mathambo's pick-and-mix of western pop, LV & co. have located a sweet spot somewhere between the dance sounds of south London and South Africa. Dubby UK bass underpins languid raps on 'Zulu Computer', while 'Animal Prints' sounds like glossy bubbles of UK funky being popped by stabs of South African kwaito, over which Mr Koolkat seems to be freestyling a safari (“Zebra, giraffe / animal prints”). Ruffest contributes to a crisp and clinical trio of tracks and Mathambo appears just once, on the sultry comedown 'Work'. Serious fun.

Aren't we after all better actors than Marlon Brando? R. Stevie Moore's late flowering

First published in Loud And Quiet

R. Stevie Moore
Lo Fi High Fives: A Kind Of Best Of
Ogenesis Recordings

 

This frizz-bearded, pot-bellied 60-year-old is having his long overdue moment in the spotlight – you might've seen him staring out from June's cover of The Wire or tearing up the Quietus stage at Field Day. The unlikely creator of over 400 albums of DIY songcraft, R. Stevie Moore is Gandalf the White to Ariel Pink's faithful Bilbo, the original purveyor of retrolicious AM radio power-pop, blending the harmonic lushness of the Beach Boys with the acerbic weirdness of Talking Heads and the barminess of The Flaming Lips.

If it wasn't for his outwardly oddball demeanour, with the flip-up shades and splendid lyrics (“Aren't we after all better actors than Marlon Brando? Showbiz is obsolete”), he would've been up there with those songwriting greats, or at least hollering from the sidelines with Van Dyke Parks. Massively recommended, along with his website, another lo-fi trove of obscurities.

More news from the 90s: Gatekeeper's 'Exo' goes back to the global decade

First published in Loud And Quiet

Gatekeeper 
Exo 
Hippos In Tanks

Gatekeeper's terrifying Giza EP from two years back instigated a revival of John Carpenter-esque horror soundtracks (see Xander Harris' Urban Gothic and Geoff Barrow's recent Drokk project), but now the Chicago production duo have binned the lightning strikes and campy synths for a bewildering onslaught of 90s sounds, from acid-fried techno to Spiral Tribe rave fantasies to the queasy digital dystopia of James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual. And weirder: a 'first-person gaming environment' has been designed as an add-on, which you can explore like those old CD-ROM adventure games.

If that sounds too sickly to be palatable, bear in mind that Ferraro is perhaps one of Gatekeeper's closest contemporaries – both produce a kind of conceptual meta-music, at once dated and futuristic, with something very real and very terrible to say about the digitally-enhanced, high-definition, hyperreal world we live in. Perhaps not an album to come back to regularly, but an essential listen for anyone interested in the not-so-danceable corners of dance music.

Totally devoted: the London soul of Jessie Ware

First published in Loud And Quiet

In the video for 'Running', the velveteen R&B single released by Jessie Ware earlier this year, the slinkily attired singer throws diva shapes from under a monument of lustrous black hair, framed by a red stage curtain and gold leather upholstery. It's preposterously opulent, and coupled with an invitation to interview her at a chichi Clapham restaurant, your correspondent was half-expecting the full Diva Experience – two hours late, no eye contact, untouched salads, PR bod present to oversee proceedings, the whole drill.

But at precisely the allotted time, Jessie Ware bursts into the premises with the biggest grin, firmest handshake and shiniest hair you could hope to encounter in a nascent pop star. She's just come from a video interview around Brixton Market, which took a turn for the strange when a tramp wandered into the frame and “put his cap on my head,” she says wide-eyed.

“So I said to him, I'm really sorry, but I'm not having you put some nit cap on my head. I hate to be a diva but I need to wash my hair now.” In the next 40 minutes that's the only sign of anything approaching diva behaviour from this Clapham-born girl, whose self-deprecating humour, silly faces and quickfire chatter are instantly endearing and sadly impossible to replicate on the page.

Lil B: At the altar of the BasedGod

First published in Loud And Quiet, June 2012

This is a long-form interview-cum-essay about the rapper Lil B, for fans and newcomers alike. In an ideal scenario you might mark this to read later on your smartphone, or if you're feeling less cutting edge you could perhaps print it off and staple it together. Enjoy.

“Ellen DeGeneres! Swag! Ellen DeGeneres! Woo!” Flanked by a brick wall of security muscle, a snake-hipped Californian, little more than 5'7'', is whipping the crowd into a froth of flailing arms and pumping fists, blue light glinting off his gold teeth and shades as he announces himself humbly as the 'BasedGod'. It can only be hip hop's most divisive figure for a generation: Brandon McCartney, or as you probably know him, Lil B.

LIVE: Cate Le Bon's whimsical rock and roll is deceptively odd

First published in Loud And Quiet

Cate Le Bon
23 April 2012
Village Underground, London

Marking the release of her excellent second album, Cyrk, the mop-topped Cate Le Bon is softly spoken in her chatter but surprisingly strong-lunged on the mic, adding a spiky vigour to her usually more fragile bedroom-pop songs. The Welsh songwriter spent last year touring America solo in support of St Vincent, but this time Le Bon's backing band of friends and collaborators suits her, as she gets stuck into guitar while a ramshackle ruckus kicks up and the beat stays steady but loose, like the best kind of '60s garage band.

White horses flicker into Siamese twin skeletons in the background, providing a jarring visual addendum to some deceptively odd lyrics: “If it pours in the daytime, we'll have to stay indoors, I'll milk the time you're sat with me.” Any folky comparisons encouraged by her lo-fi recording style can be binned, though – the Velvets-y shuffle of 'Falcon Eyed' and the gloriously ugly final bars of closer 'Ploughing Out Part 2' are pure rock and roll in the whimsical vein of her label boss Gruff Rhys, while her solo encore is a deliberately dirgey and weird thing, her voice clashing joyously with harsh organ keys. Bon, you might say.

Despite the name, Teen Daze delivers an exceptionally well-behaved debut

First published in Loud And Quiet

Teen Daze
All Of Us, Together
Lefse Records

Teen Daze comes from British Columbia's picturesque Fraser Valley, not far from Vancouver. He got his degree from a Bible college and likes to keep his music – three EPs and now this full-length for Lefse, home to Neon Indian and How To Dress Well – separate from his daily life, not even giving out his full name.

Despite the Teen Daze moniker, he cites literature and basketball as bigger influences than clubbing or drugs (he abstains), so it's no surprise to hear that All Of Us, Together is a warmly inclusive and exceptionally polite record.

Inspired by an encyclopaedia of 'Utopian Visions', he taps into the non-committal ambience of chillwave and adds a dancefloor pulse that's more Manitoba than Manumission. The gorgeous 'Erbstuck' touches on club-ready euphoria, but elsewhere, like on the unfortunately titled 'The New Balearic', he elegantly scrapes the rungs on his way down.

In a limbo between life and infinity on The Invisible's 'Rispah'

First published in Loud And Quiet

The Invisible
Rispah
Ninja Tune

The art-pop genre-blenders' second album is an 11-song threnody, an ode of mourning following the death of frontman Dave Okumu’s mother. Named after her, Rispah is bookended by a loose choir of African voices like those Okumu says he heard at the wake, articulating the sorrow and joy entangled in this record, which acknowledges with a heavy heart that even death can bring a renewed passion for life.

As you’d expect from the The Invisible craftsmen, it's lusciously produced – drums flutter and fade as Okumu’s breathily angelic voice drifts into a limbo between life and infinity. The mournful electronics owe much to Radiohead (and the guitar on ‘Surrender’ is straight out of In Rainbows), but the decayed funkiness built up from distorted drums and shivering guitars is uncannily voguish, echoing the exhumed ‘80s R&B we've heard lately on records by Kindness and others.