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Home , Album III, Alex Turner, Anna Calvi, Anton Newcombe, Avicii Arena, A Place with No Name

“It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at...” IAN BROWN 24 MAY 2014 BLACK

Interviews Monkeys Arctic YELLOW and whatand beyond lies on biggest their weekend yet Miles royal Blood MAGENTA withthestellar Finsbury Park line-up US 24 MAY |£2.50 2014 MUSIC OF & FUTURE PAST, PRESENT THE CYAN $8.50 $8.50 |

ES €3.90 | CN $6.99 Snakeheads the Amazing favourite new On thetown withArctics’

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“I’ve told notto been tell but…” details! 93NME14021105.pgs 16.05.2014 12:29

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HEADLINE BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14018164.pgs 25.04.2014 13:55 ESSENTIAL TrAcKS NEw Musical ExprEss | 24 May 2014

4 SOUNDING OFF 8 THE WEEK THIS WEEK 16 IN THE STUDIO 17 ANATOMY OF AN ALBUM The Streets – WE ASK… ‘A Grand Don’t Come For Free’ NEW 19 SOUNDTrAcK OF MY LIFE Anton Newcombe, The Brian Jonestown Massacre BANDS TO DIScOVEr 24 rEVIEWS 40 NME GUIDE → lisT 65 THIS WEEK IN… 29 6, 37 Anna Calvi 7 Lyves 21 66 THINK TANK The Amazing Mac Miller 6 Snakeheads 52 Manic Street 44 Preachers 7 How’s Pete sPending Art Trip And The 28 ▼FEATUrES Static Sound 21 Miles Kane 50 Benjamin Booker 20 Mona & Maria 21 His time before tHe Blaenavon 32 6 Bo Ningen 33 Mythhs 22 The Brian Jonestown 7 Massacre 19 Nihilismus 21 Libs’ comeback? Chance The Rapper 7 Oliver Wilde 37 Charli XCX 32 27 He’s putting together a solo Chelsea Wolfe 21 Palm Honey 22 8 Cheerleader 7 Peace 32 record in Hamburg Clap Your Hands Phoria 22 Say Yeah 7 Poliça 6 15 Pulled Apart By 3 Courtly Love 22 Horses 16 is tHere finaLLy 31 Ratking 33 Arctic Monkeys 36 Rhodes 6 Barry Nicolson gets the skinny Cymbals Eat 7 Royal Blood 51 a good Darlia 40 Röyksopp & 27 on their upcoming Finsbury Echo & The San Mei 22 Park shows. Is this their Oasis at Bunnymen 25 Saul Williams 13 Knebworth? Plus support acts Tame PostHumous Faux Fur 21 Seoul 6 Frankie & The 24 Impala, Miles Kane and Royal Blood Heartstrings 14 Sinead Harnett 7 Jacko aLbum? Fucked Up 7 Slaves 32 Future Islands 33 The So So Glos 23 The Amazing Gentle Friendly 28 The Streets 17 Snakeheads Yup! It’s called ‘Xscape’, Get Hot 6 Tame Impala 48 Behind the scenes at the final night 28 60 Teleman 25 and it’s a blast Haunted Hearts 29 The Trouble With of the band’s two-month residency Hercules & Love Templeton 28 at ’s Broadcast Affair 25 Towns 6 wHicH new act Honeyblood 32 Trash Talk 27 Janelle Monáe 37 Tune-Yards 56 Tune-Yards 32 UNPOC 15 Three years on from ‘’, Cian 12 21 Has wowed Kelis 33 Viet Cong 6 Traynor finds Merrill Garbus and 32 Wet 27 her band back with a complex and Kurt Vile 7 White Lung 33 ambitious new album and Lay Llamas 27 Wild Beasts 32 6 Wild Smiles 21 28 25 Gruff rhys courtney barnett? Lxury 6 Magic 29 The new film and album from the SFA frontman are inspired by an 18th It’s Benjamin Booker from century explorer, learns Tom Pinnock Florida. Get acquainted 20 ***SHamElESS plUg!!!*** ***SHamElESS plUg!!!*** SHamElESS plUg!!!***

CONTRIBUTORS ***SUBSCRIBE*** Kate Hutchinson Danny Payne today and the coral Writer Photographer ***SavE 39%* The singer wrote an Kate went to Courtney Danny went to obituary of Alan Wills, Love’s gig in . Greenmount Studios *Pay just £20.49 every 3 months and save 39% on the full price when you the founder of Deltasonic Records, “I’m not sure which was wilder: in to shoot Pulled Apart By subscribe by quarterly UK Direct Debit. Price guaranteed for 12 months. who died in a cycling accident last Love’s blood-curdling screams or Horses. “We had a good chat about Subscribe now at week. “More than anything, he was the stalls almost collapsing from all the recording of the third album and www.nmESUBS.Co.Uk/aplUg ***SHamElESS plUg!!!

cover: thomas canet thomas cover: my friend,” James says. the people pogoing. Awesome.” touring plans for this year.”

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021106.pgs 16.05.2014 12:56 Tell us wHaT’s Answering you ON yOur this week: MiND Barry Nicolson lEttEr oF thE wEEk Email letters@.com @nme Wins £50 of vouchers! FacEbook www.seetickets.com facebook.com/nmemagazine Post NME, 110 Southwark St, THE THING THAT London SE1 0SU

SHOULD NOT BE? diferences in their way of performing when compared I can’t believe there’s so much hatred for to that of Arctic Monkeys, headlining Glastonbury. To be and what they said was honest, I was a bit disappointed with the true. Arctic Monkeys play headliners so far – and Kasabian, very professionally and are while worthy in their own right, are a bit of well put together, while at a safe bet. Well done to Michael Eavis for being an Orwells show, one night brave enough to go for an artist that other the will be festivals wouldn’t dream of putting on their bill a noose and the next it will [except for Sonisphere, Download and Reading be down Mario’s pants. The & Leeds, of course – BN]. It’s good to see an diference is clear, but it’s act like Metallica get the chance to show what not a bad thing. They’re two they’ve got at the greatest festival around. I’m completely diferent bands gutted I’m not going now as this could well be with two drastically diferent similar to Jay Z taking the stage a few years styles, and needless to say, ago. And we all know how that turned out… fanciful, never-gonna-happen notions of Bowie, both are very enjoyable to Alex Renton, via email or a reformed Oasis, so the news that the Eavises had experience. simply nicked Sonisphere’s headliners was always going Olivia Gehrke, via email Barry Nicolson: I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been hoping to feel a bit anticlimactic. Still, of the three, Metallica against hope for , but Metallica will be just actually feel like the safest bet to me, and as long as BN: Olivia, you’re right, fine at Glastonbury. The ‘problem’, such as it is, stems they don’t do anything daft – a hologram of , of course, but this is all 4 from the way they were announced: the month-long wait say, or anything from ‘St. Anger’ – I honestly can’t see part of a deeper malaise: for their confirmation gave everyone time to entertain how they can fail. indie bands have forgotten how to beef with each other. We’re cursed with …AND METALLICA BN: That’s the wonderful (for being available to ’s intentions a generation of media- FOR ALL thing about Glastonbury: download for any price) with ‘In Rainbows’ were trained, excessively Many of us had speculated however much the Noel in NME’s Big Fat Quiz Of essentially honourable. respectful young men and about it for a while, and on Gallaghers of this world The Year 2007 by saying, The 99p promotion of women who don’t know the Thursday evening last week might try to ghettoise it as “It devalues music, it’s not ‘Sheezus’ on Google Play, simple, unsullied joy of we finally got closure on the an indie-only afair, it a very good precedent to on the other hand, was crushing their enemies and rumours that Metallica are remains the broadest of be setting for young people downright Machiavellian hearing the lamentations headlining Glastonbury’s churches. It’s way past who are trying to get in – a ploy designed to of their fanbase. It’s a sorry Pyramid Stage. Of course, time that a metal band to industry.” guarantee Lily a Number fucking state of afairs. this was always going to be headlined the festival, but Hypocrite. One album. You might controversial and a divide anyone who doesn’t fancy Liam Hall, via email argue that no tactic is among the festival-goers Metallica will have no too underhand to be was inevitable. I enjoy shortage of other options. BN: Actually, I think it’s employed against Gary Metallica’s music and And again, I reiterate: a bit more pernicious Barlow (and, tax-avoiding although I am not a huge fan, they’re fucking Metallica. than that. Whatever establishment lickspittler I have to support Michael They’ve been doing this your opinion of the that he is, you’d be right) Eavis’ decision. I can’t shit for as long as Kasabian pay-what-you-like model, but the whole afair still comprehend how anyone have been alive, and leaves a bad taste in the lucky enough to have they’ve sold more records mouth. For argument’s look a ticket to this incredible (or as near as dammit) sake, let’s imagine that festival can complain when than the rest of the line-up Lily had been beaten to who’s they can see such a range combined. If you’re not the top spot by Paolo stalking of other acts on the other even mildly curious to see Nutini using the same stages – any Glasto veteran what they’ll bring to gambit – do you think we’d I met Yannis Philippakis will tell you there is more Worthy Farm, then it’s you ever hear the end of it? after Foals’ gig in to it than the headline acts. who’s not in the ‘spirit’ of in February. There is no shame in having the festival. FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! It was the best – he some diversity at the top I honestly don’t think that smelled nice and didn’t of the bill, and for those WHAT A WHEEZE-US ‘The Orwells vs Arctic punch me in the face for like myself who approve, ’s ‘Sheezus’ just Monkeys’ is a big deal. It kissing him, which was Metallica will put on a 99p? This coming from shouldn’t even be regarded an added bonus. sensational show! the singer who criticised as a rivalry. The Orwells Maisie Brown, Birmingham Alistair Knifton, via email Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ essentially recognised the ROSS HALFIN New Musical express | 24 May 2014

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BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14019153.pgs 01.05.2014 12:01 20 TRAcK OF THE WEEK

1. Morrissey 6. Mac Miller World Peace Is None Friends (feat. Schoolboy Q) Of Your Business To obtain Mac Miler’s latest mixtape you have You spend years waiting for a decent protest song, to first build your ideal deli sandwich online (at only for it to arrive in the most peculiar fashion. oldjewish.com). So, one slab of beef and a handful of ‘World Peace…’ just is Moz’s most overtly political gherkins later, you can be listening to the standout song ever, with not a single word wasted nor highlight – ‘Friends’ featuring Schoolboy Q, a lazy, a single intonation left unconsidered. “Each time salivating, old-school jazzy jam. Next up: Kasabian you vote, you support the process” is the sucker ask you to submit ideas for your dream pancake punch, delivered three times in a row but sung in a filling to get their new album. Maybe. way that’s warmer and more inviting than anything Greg Cochrane, Editor, NME.COM he’s done in years. A more than welcome return. Matt , New Music Editor 7. Lxury Playground 2. Rhodes Already a name to drop, Lxury – aka Croydon Morning whippersnapper Andy Smith – has now got a Although he only learned he could sing last year, debut EP to show of as well. ‘Playground’, the Hitchin’s David Rhodes has sold out London’s lead track, is a manic shot of sunshine that Sebright Arms three times, released his debut EP shimmers into view like The Avalanches’ ‘Since and supported London Grammar, I Left You’ before mixing breathless beats, dub and . ‘Morning’, from his second and childlike “la la la la”s to make a cute little curio. EP, is a troubadour power ballad that sees Rhodes Dance to it at your peril. You’re better of grinning try to wake a lover over subdued guitars, his voice along to its flowery sweetness. swelling into a chorus of pounding drums and Matthew Horton, writer soaring harmonies. One for the comedown playlist. Hazel Shefield, writer 8. Viet Cong 6 Oxygen Feed 3. Seoul Straddling punk, psychedelia and campfire folk, White Morning Viet Cong’s is a prickly, unpredictable sound. Montreal quartet Seoul channel the kind of The Calgary quartet spent most of 2013 honing ethereal dream-pop that suggests the ‘White it in Monty Munro’s basement studio. Morning’ in question is less a festive snow scene Taken from a tour-only cassette set for vinyl and more a dreamy ascension to the pearly gates. reissue in June, the melody-driven ‘Oxygen Feed’ All washed-out vocals and delicately picked pairs hypnotic guitars with bleary, bar-room melodies, it dapples and flutters angelically before atmospherics. That’s no surprise given Munro fading out into lightly crackling synth samples, and Mike Wallace both played in sadly gently slipping away in a sea of tranquil calm defunct art-rock band Women. before the storm of godly judgement. Ben Homewood, writer Lisa Wright, writer 9. Lykke Li 4. Towns No One Ever Loved Too Tired The Swedish singer-’s recent third Weston-super-Mare’s Towns have been dropping album, ‘I Never Learn’, sees her embrace big, tunes like wildfire before debut album ‘Get By’ crushing ballads and a seemingly bottomless lands on June 2. This latest ofering is a woozy pool of heartbreak. This track, taken from the showcase of the band’s bubbling cauldron of ’90s soundtrack to The Fault In Our Stars, an equally sounds, casting Towns as The Verve on a reverse cheery-sounding film about two lovers who meet career trajectory. Their roots may be in big-chorus at a cancer support group, is drawn from a similar but they find in a whirl of place, built on plaintive , pitch-bent strings tremolos evoking My Bloody Valentine’s . and Li’s mournful croon. James Balmont, writer Dan Stubbs, News Editor 5. Poliça 10. Get Hot Raw Exit Party Taken from the deluxe reissue of last year’s Individually, Jakwob and FTSE both make smart ‘Shulamith’ album – and soon available as part of . Throw them together in a room, a 10-inch four-track EP – ‘Raw Exit’ is a skittering however, and they’ll come back with something asylum funker that sees Channy Leaneagh cooing altogether more hardcore. ‘Party’ is two minutes of sinisterly, “Who’s ready to die alone?” Despite machine-gun drums and howled vocals, as Jakwob the singer’s moody message, there’s something (James Jacob) beats the shit out of a drumkit and strangely comforting about the squelchy edges FTSE (Sam Manville) lets his anger boil over. This and rifs that rattle all around her. band sounds like a wail of frustration for our times. Leonie Cooper, writer Kevin EG Perry, writer BLEDDYN BUTCHER BLEDDYN New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN esseNtial New tracks ►LiSTEN TO THEM ALL AT NME.cOM/ONREPEAT NOW

11. Anna Calvi 16. Papi Pacify Jackson Anna Calvi has a new covers EP out in July. The Cymbals Eat Guitars’ calling card is a crash of first taste is her rendition of FKA Twigs’ unsettling violent triumph, whether sincerely meant or ‘Papi Pacify’, which will sit among reworks of scathingly spat. It’s the latter on the first song Bowie, Suicide, Connan Mockasin and more. If this from the Staten Islanders’ third album, which one’s anything to go by, it’ll be a must-hear: Calvi’s attacks the futility of getting back to normal version is soulful and intense, replacing minimal after a friend’s death. The sensations here are electronics with lush strings and bluesy and transcendent and overflowing – weightlessness, culminating in a lurching breakdown. “a delirious kiss” – but shifted of their axes into Lucy Jones, Deputy Editor, NME.COM a heartbreaking seasickness. Laura Snapes, Features Editor 12. Fucked Up Sun Glass 17. Kurt Vile Fucked Up choose to begin ‘Sun Glass’ with 10 Albuquerque seconds of gentle acoustic strumming. But fear Kurt Vile was once introduced to Neil Young, not, the Canadian hardcore band haven’t gone all telling him, “I rip you of, just a .” The Ed Sheeran on us; this latest cut from forthcoming Philadelphian recently paid tribute to his album ‘Glass Boys’ packs all the heavyweight hero more overtly, performing this cover of punch we’ve come to expect. That it is also cut ‘Albuquerque’, from the classic 1975 album through with a summery, almost pop refrain from ‘Tonight’s The Night’, on the Australian equivalent bassist Sandy Miranda is merely an added bonus. of Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Featuring vocals David Renshaw, News Reporter from Phoebe Baker of pop band Alpine, a tribute this good must get the nod from Neil. 13. JJ Dunning, writer Europa Geht Durch Mich If anyone’s going to make a marching 18. Chance The Rapper anthem featuring a German film star (Nina Hoss) XXL Freestyle 7 that references , Neu! and various other ’s Chance The Rapper hasn’t done much bits of 20th-century modernist art, it’s Manic in the way of actual rapping since rocketing to Street Preachers. A real shake-up from the largely hip-hop prominence last year with breakout acoustic ‘’, the trio sound fully mixtape ‘Acid Rap’. His latest freestyle, filmed engaged as a robotic beat pounds relentlessly and to mark his inclusion in rap mag XXL’s annual chants about “European Freshman Class list of ones to watch, sees him dreams and European screams”. Age cannot dull continue to rebel: in just 90 seconds, it mutates them, the Manics are as vital as ever. from husky blues to existential slam Andy Welch, writer poetry, snorting at God’s “good sense of hubris”. Al Horner, Assistant Editor, NME.COM 14. Cheerleader Perfect Vision 19. Sinead Harnett Joe Haller and Chris Duran used to be a duo from No Other Way Connecticut who made slick pop treats. Then they London singer Sinead Harnett’s previous output moved to Philadelphia, hired three more people to has been mainly mixes with Disclosure, Rudimental bulk out their sound and started writing songs like and Ryan Hemsworth. ‘No Other Way’ is her ‘Perfect Vision’: a big and joyful ‘sunny weekend’ second single all of her own and boasts the slink synth-rock tune with some ever-so-slightly sub- of AlunaGeorge, oozing over sleepy beats and Springsteen sentiments (“every fire must begin Harnett’s caramel vocals. “Let me be your therapy”, with a spark”). But hey, it’s hard to philosophise she softly instructs at one point, and with a track when you’re three hours into a pool party. this comforting and cool, it’s hard to refuse. Tom Howard, Assistant Editor Rhian Daly, Assistant Reviews Editor 15. Nick Cave 20. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built For Two) As Always This song is part of visual artist Mark Ryden’s new Since their acclaimed self-titled 2005 debut, exhibit in LA: the Californian ‘pop surrealist’ has Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have seen diminishing got a host of ranging from returns – and members. Only singer/songwriter to Tyler, The Creator to reinterpret the 1892 ditty. Alec Ounsworth and drummer Sean Greenhalgh Cave’s rendition is an eerie plink-plonk of merry- remain from the original line-up, but don’t write go-round organs and throaty vocals. The video, them of. Taken from their fourth album, released however, which features the weird alien embryos on June 3, ‘As Always’ is impressive. Epic yet floating around in a black abyss that appear on contemplative and open-hearted, it deserves to recent Bad Seeds merch, is the real highlight. put them back on the map. Jenny Stevens, Deputy News Editor Phil Hebblethwaite, writer

24 May 2014 | New Musical express

93NME14021108.pgs 16.05.2014 15:34 EditEd StUbbS dAN by

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The Jackals make their live debut at The Bowery District, Reading, May 13, 2014

New Musical express | 24 MaY 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN The

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Ahead of the Libertines’ reunion, Carl barât debuts new band the Jackals as Pete doherty reveals solo album plans

e’re not afraid of refected in the tone of his new material, “ anyone and I defy written with collaborators including anyone to tell me I am , Joby Ford of The Bronx W wrong”, Carl Barât and and Andy sings in ‘Victory Burrows. ‘March Of The Idol’ revisits the Gin’, bedecked in biker leather and cabaret kitsch of his solo album, ‘Let It Jesus hair. Living up to his words, Rain’ is a country epic about the horrors Carl’s Jackals – completed by guitarist of hangovers, ‘War Of The Roses’ is Billy Tessio, drummer Jay Bone and , and ‘ Days’ is a furious bassist Adam Claxton – chew chunks tune. Finishing with a barrelling out of their debut show. Taking place at version of The Libertines’ ‘I Get Along’, Reading’s The Bowery District on May The Jackals’ show ends with the four 13, it saw them tearing into - members in a heap of sweaty hugs. like stampede of ‘Storm Is Coming’, “I thought it was fucking belting,” says Dirty Pretty Things’ ‘Deadwood’, The Carl afterwards. “There was so much Libertines’ ‘’ and their energy that was waiting to come out. We own ‘Run With The Boys’ with pile- wanted the set to be a steamroller, hence driving punk confdence. the nerves and the occasional song at The raw energy can be put down 900rpm. I wanted more spit and bile partly to frst-night nerves and partly to and sweat to kick this band of and give Carl’s return to his squat-punk roots. It’s the boys a baptism of fre.” jenn five

24 MaY 2014 | New Musical express

93NME14021109.pgs 16.05.2014 16:19 There were, naturally, some concerns about new material. “There’s that song what The Jackals might be like, given that they ‘Down For The Outing’, which were recruited via open auditions in February. I’ve had for a while now, but it’s Barât thinks he has found the right balance. incredible – Johann’s made it “The thing I was watching out for was too tasty sound like a brand new song.” an ego,” he says. “My biggest intention was for According to the singer, the it to be the boys’ band, not just me making an album, which he wants to release identikit of previous bands. These boys have all this year, will be called ‘Flags got something we can take further… without From The Old Regime’ after punching each other in the fucking face.” another new song written in Is Carl worried that The Libertines’ reunion tribute to . will overshadow the launch of The Jackals? Meanwhile... Others vying for inclusion “I’d rather take a leaf out of Damon’s book. He’s include his early, pre-Rough done a Blur reunion, he does , he does Trade Libertines track ‘She Is things that are genuine to him,” he says. “If he Far’. As for other personnel bankrolls that by doing the other thing, fne. I Pete reveals appearing on the album, could go on tour tomorrow with The Libertines Doherty says he originally and that would be fun and games, we could opted for his write a new album, but it wouldn’t take away new solo album bandmates, but “there just from the fact that I’ve found people that I really seems to be a blockade connect with. I want a future with these guys.” against it, which I don’t Over in Libs world, Carl recently went to Expect Libs tracks and a understand”. Instead, Scheerer assembled an all-new band made up song about Amy Winehouse of “kids from around the studio”, as “My INTENTION WAS Doherty describes them. on Doherty’s solo LP He adds that he’s also been recording FOR IT TO bE ThE bOyS’ the tracks without telling his or publishers EMI, saying: bAND, NOT jUST ME” ince March, Pete Doherty has “I don’t know what the deal is with EMI 10 called Hamburg home – Publishing. I’ve been told not to tell Carl barât secretly recording a new solo anyone about the album, but I’m S album at the city’s Clouds Hill supposed to who writes Barcelona “for a jolly holiday with Peter… Studios on the banks of the songs and makes records.” Regardless of there’s a lot of complexity there but we’ve both Elbe River, NME can reveal. Doherty those struggles, Doherty is adamant that grown up a bit. When we connected on the says he moved to the German city from he wants to release the album soon, as songs it was like not a second has passed.” his adopted home of following well as tour it. “I wanna come out and do Their only rehearsal so far has consisted of advice from fashion designer Bent some one-of [live] specials. Everybody “playing guitar pissed, lying on our backs Angelo Jensen, who in turn put him in thinks I’m up to no good here, but I’m outside a Spanish bar… You can’t make plans contact with the new album’s producer, not. It’s a really clean place and I’m just with The Libertines. I’ve got my frst lead in a Johann Scheerer. “I’ve got 10 tunes done trying to move forward – that’s the flm in . I’ve managed to get time to now,” Doherty says, enthusing about the truth.” ■ MATT WILKINSON go to Hamburg to a studio Pete’s living in and we’re gonna get the boys there and rehearse. It’s a ‘see how it goes’ thing. History would suggest it’ll go very, very well and then it’ll WIN FOUR PAIRS OF READING cease for a bit, but I’m happy with that. I know Peter’s my brother for life.” ■ MARK BEAUMONT AND LEEDS TICKETS!

f you haven’t managed to at the festival since 2009? Helders. “Leeds was the first bag tickets to see Arctic “We’ve got a lot of history gig I ever went to as a fan, I Monkeys at Finsbury Park, with that festival,” drummer when I was 16, so it’s always fear not, because we’ve got tells NME. “The got a special place for us, that four pairs of tickets to see first time we ever played it was festival. We still find it them tear up the Main Stage a massive moment for us. exciting to do. We’ll be when they headline this year’s We did the New Bands as nervous doing Leeds Reading & Leeds Festivals. stage and it was rammed: and Reading this time Sharing the top slot with there were people as we were the first , watching us from outside time we did it.” Paramore and Blink-182, the tent, which we it’s sure to be as riotous as really didn’t ►To win tickets to ever. Four winners will receive expect.” Reading & Leeds, weekend passes to either The band have plus an R&L goodie Reading or Leeds, plus a bag particularly bag, head to of R&L swag. fine memories NME.COM/win So how do the Monkeys feel of the about taking to the Main Stage Yorkshire The Jackals again for their first appearance site, says backstage at The Bowery hatteM, jenn five, richard johnson, pieter M van District New Musical express | 24 MaY 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021110.pgs 16.05.2014 16:20 BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021163.pgs 16.05.2014 11:44 In the pink Meet Aitor Throup, the artist behind 2014’s most striking album covers and videos

n April 4, Kasabian announced their new album, ‘48:13’, by donning overalls o bearing the words ‘MALTED’ and ‘MILK’ and painting a building in east London a shocking shade of pink. The 12 studio belongs to Aitor Throup, the 34-year-old designer and artist who has February 2010 and the band quickly formed “KasabIan just become Kasabian’s go-to guy for visuals: he a tight friendship with Throup, informed by an was the art director on their 2011 fourth album, appreciation of his work. “They learned early Inherently get ‘Velociraptor!’, designing the cover enough that I’m interested in three and directing the video for primary things – innovation and new what I do ” ‘Switchblade Smiles’ and taking ways of looking at things, telling a similar role on ‘48:13’. He worked stories, and authenticity,” Throup aitor throup just as closely with says. “I’m obsessed by justifying on his recent solo album ‘Everyday things; everything has to have moved to Burnley, Lancashire, in 1992. He’s Robots’, providing the spare, a reason. But where in product a fan of fashion, art, music and football lonely-looking cover image and the design form follows function, in the equally, blind to any distinction between high stunning video for the title track, more general art and design world and low culture. “I’m not into segregation of which took us inside Albarn’s head via form can follow reason. Those are very much any sort,” he says. “There’s a story to be told an animated CGI skull. my words, but Kasabian just inherently get and a beauty to be witnessed in everything. Throup’s association what I do. At the same time, their story always I make it my job to bring that beauty to the with Kasabian on ‘48:13’ intrigued me. We’re the same age and we come surface by working with what’s already there.” extends to designing from similar backgrounds, particularly Serge “Aitor is a very interesting individual,” the cover, directing the [Pizzorno], who has a Latin side to him.” Damon Albarn says. “He has the dichotomy of video for ‘Eez-Eh’ – the Throup was born in Argentina in 1980 and Latin spirit and northern English sensibility.” album’s lead single – and even helping the band conceptualise their Glastonbury set serge Pizzorno on aitor throup design. It’s almost like he’s become the ffth “Aitor and I had the same interests growing up, and I want the futuristic version of that, and it’s the same member of the band, whose debut album he when we met we just connected. I saw sketches of with the artwork – it has to belong to the world of the discovered when he was doing his MA in things he was working on and I asked him whether record, and that’s where Aitor comes in. Having the fashion at the Royal College of Art in London. he did artwork for . He said, ‘No, but I will.’ colour pink was such a move for us – people wouldn’t “I thought, ‘This is it!’ It had the roots, but it I see myself as a producer as much as a songwriter, expect it – and our collaboration with Aitor for wasn’t dwelling on them,” he says in his stark and I talk about an album when I’m making it. Aitor Glastonbury is incredible. We’re working with set and studio. “It became the soundtrack to the picked up on things and helped us get a vision lighting designers and so on, but we’ve also got shirt I designed for the 2010 World for the whole record, input from Aitor, and that Cup. The concept behind it was similar – there including the title. The comes from another world. was analysis of the ’66 kit and the Umbro of music I’m making is the It’s really exciting. We way I’m looking at the world; did a show at Hard Rock old, but it was taken to the future without it I love the late-’60s period, Calling last year, which we being fucking glow-in-the-dark.” but I want to know what those felt was fresh and new, so Kasabian’s unveiled the red bands would be making now. we’re building on that.”

away shirt for Umbro at a gig in Paris in charlie gray edwards, david

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN Video stills from Kasabian’s ‘Eez-Eh’ (left) and Damon Albarn’s ‘Everyday Robots’ saul williams Singer, poet and actor

you’re playing the As with Kasabian, Throup didn’t just and we’re not bothered by your reaction’. lead role in the tupac take on a job of work, he became It was the same with the punks, who used musical Holler If Ya Hear involved in the entire process of colours in a similar way. Also, I usually work Me. how did you get ‘Everyday Robots’, getting to know in monochrome; I can only use colour if the involved? Albarn over the course of the year, colour itself tells a story, otherwise it’s just “i auditioned a month ago during which time themes for the decoration. With Kasabian, colour combines in and got the part. everybody album’s presentation became clear. the more ethereal, psychedelic sensibilities of else in the cast had been “He’s a fuid character, but on that their music. It’s full of swirls and lasers and workshopping the piece with record he’s really laying himself textures, and the way I see it, if you package it the director for four years, bare,” Throup says. “It’s into one colour, it’s bright pink.” but they never had a lead.” almost painful at times, The title came about after like he’s stripped of his Throup, who is currently working are you a tupac fan? armour. So I wanted the on two other music projects “Of course. he was a child of cover image to show (although he won’t say what they the Black Power movement; his vulnerability and are), noticed Pizzorno’s obsession his mother and father were authenticity, as well as his with fnding the perfect length for Black Panthers. Tupac childlike mentality, which informs an album. As regards Kasabian’s was not a materialist. he 13 his music. The skull video, which Glastonbury set design, Pizzorno didn’t give a fuck about also concerns identity, was about me says: “It’s more or less there. It’s not pomp; a Maybach, about cîroc, getting out of my comfort zone too – I’d there are no ballerinas or trapeze artists – it’s about owning a Picasso. never used CGI before. I’m fascinated by kind of anti that. It’s making huge statements, he was about justice.” anatomical studies and forensic analysis, but without doing the traditional things.” Is it and I discovered a strong correlation between going to feature the colour pink? “Everything the show uses tupac’s those things and making something in CGI.” from now on will feature the colour pink!” music but it’s not With ‘48:13’, the colour pink has become Pizzorno says. “I love that; it keeps it all about him. who is the central to the album’s visual identity. “It’s consistent. There’s nothing better than character you play? a subversive colour,” Throup says. “It’s really putting an album out and owning a colour “his name is John and he’s pink, which says ‘we’ve got something to say with it.” ■ PHIL HEBBLETHWAITE just been released from prison. he’s a comic-book artist. The story is essentially prOMOTiON his comic book come to life. The show came about DJ, artist, photographer or ? Be when Tupac’s mother, afeni ►oPPortunIty rocKs discovered with Relentless Here To Be Heard shakur, approached the playwright august wilson elentless Here To Be [email protected]. Artist and What do you want to hear from to write a story based on his Heard is ofering one DJ Lowe, who spearheads bands and DJs? music. however, he died in Rblogger, band, DJ and competition, tells us all about it. “I want to hear something 2005, so his assistant Todd photographer a money-can’t- This is the second year of that sounds serious, like Kreidler ended up writing it.” buy opportunity to get noticed. Here To Be Heard. How is there’s dedication to the craft. The winning blogger becomes it diferent? Something that moves you in would you like to tour the oficial Relentless Energy : “Last year we were a way you can’t really describe.” the musical? Drink writer for a year, the DJ looking for a band and a DJ; this “i was working on my new opens the Relentless Stage at year we’ve opened it out further.” ►To find out how to enter album ‘Martin luther King’ Leeds Festival alongside Zane How can someone get noticed Relentless Here To Be Heard before this started, so at Lowe, the band play alongside in the competition? in any of the four categories, some point i gotta get back Zane and more at a Relentless “You need a voice or an eye or an head to relentlessenergy. to all that! But there’s no way LIVE event in London, and the opinion or a style that’s unique, com/HTBH i could turn down working photographer displays their even if it’s not fully realised yet. on the first hip-hop musical work in a photo gallery on We’re looking for individuals who to hit Broadway. i’ve been NME.COM and at the venue are forging ahead.” dreaming of this since i was 16.” ■ LEONIE COOPER

24 May 2014 | New Musical express

93NME14021111.pgs 16.05.2014 15:33 The University of Missouri has a course on Jay Z and Kanye

FIVE TOuRIng School ESSEnTIaLS dave harper of pop Frankie & The Heartstrings With pop star university courses BOOK Journey To on the rise, we find out which The End Of The Night ones are worth the tuition fees – Louis- Ferdinand Céline “I’ve taken this book with me every time I’ve been on tour because I can’t n the late ’90s, academics discovered that The Sociology Of get through it. I’ve started a canny way to get students’ attention was ►where Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, it eight times. It’s so to put a celebrity’s name in the titles of New York huge, but I won’t be their courses. David Beckham Studies at ►tutor Carolyn Chernof defeated.” I The University Of Stafordshire – a course ►who SIgnS up? “It’s an immersion course, on the sociology of the commercialisation of three times a week, for a bit more than TV SERIES football – became a tabloid bogeyman in 2000. a month. It’s not an intro course.” Goodnight But behind all the bluster about ‘Mickey Mouse ►LIfe SkILLS Learned “Media literacy, writing Sweetheart degrees’ there were some serious attempts to and argumentation, decoding embedded “Did you know get academics to engage with the real world, messages, challenging stereotypes.” there were six series 14 and courses claiming to take a serious look at ►nMe verdIct Valuable for future marketing of that shit?! I remember pop culture have multiplied massively. We got analysts, pollsters and social theorists (but not thinking we should get it for in touch with the brains behind some of the buttock-jigglers). the van – six series of a man world’s leading pop-themed courses to fnd out selling jam and nylons.” what they’re teaching – and whether they’ll Sociology From E Street: help you get a job at the end of it. ’s America FILM ►where Princeton University, New Jersey Def Leppard Politicising Beyoncé ►tutor Mitchell Duneier documentary ►where Rutgers University, New Brunswick- ►who SIgnS up? “Second-year students, across “I prefer bringing Piscataway, New Jersey Princeton’s liberal arts programmes.” documentaries and ►tutor Kevin Allred ►LIfe SkILLS Learned “Each lecture begins with the Classic Albums ►who SIgnS up? “Rutgers has a diverse one or more songs in order to focus on what series is brilliant. The student population and the class refects sociology says about the questions they raise. Def Leppard ‘Hysteria’ one that. A majority of students consider Most weeks, someone who has lived a life like is great: you realise they’re themselves big Beyoncé fans. But some one of Bruce’s characters will be interviewed in barely singing on the record, hate her, and I love those ones too.” class. There’s an optional Community-Based it’s all the producer.” ►LIfe SkILLS Learned “Students see the history Learning Initiative (CBLI) precept.” of struggle black women have endured and ►nMe verdIct Possibly useful for Princeton gaME continue to endure in the US, as well as seeing types looking to convince recruiters they Drawing pictures how academic theory applies to everyday life.” have souls. of penises ►nMe verdIct Learning how to add columns in “We like to draw pictures of Microsoft Excel is probably more useful. , Popular Music & Society our team at Wichita Records ►where Hope University, Liverpool with penis arms, as well as English 2169: Jay Z And ►tutor Mike Brocken ‘hide the cocaine’ and ‘find ►where University Of Missouri, Columbia ►who SIgnS up? It’s a post-grad degree, so only the cocaine’.” ►tutor Andrew Hoberek takes minimum 2:1 BAs or those with music ►who SIgnS up? “Students from all over the biz experience. “The MA looks at discourses HOME COMFORT university. Quite a few hip-hop afcionados.” such as popular music and place, authenticity, Politeness ►LIfe SkILLS Learned “The class helps students fandom, gender, the built environment, “Don’t go whinging about learn how to better appreciate works of art in politics, semiotics – all sorts.” your rider. That’s the thing which they are already in many cases deeply ►LIfe SkILLS Learned “All 39 graduates about being from the North invested. If there’s one job for which the thus far have found employment: East – we’re polite when we class most prepares its students, it’s teaching, researching, need to be and bastards music blogging!” producing, writing.” when it’s essential. If you ►nMe verdIct A career ►nMe verdIct Judging just get a sandwich, say jump-starter second only to an by the stats above, ‘thank you’ and shut the internship at the World Bank. pretty good. fuck up.” WoRDs: GavIN HayNEs (scHooL of pop) LIsa WRIGHT (suITcasE) pHoTos: GETTy, REx GETTy, pHoTos: WRIGHT (suITcasE) (scHooL of pop) LIsa HayNEs GavIN WoRDs: New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021142.pgs 15.05.2014 17:40 Alan Wills (left) with James Skelly, from James’ personal photo album We used to practise at this place where a guy who is now Echo & The Bunnymen’s manager worked. We’d asked him if he had any mates in music who were looking to manage a band, and Alan came down. He started working with us, and he had this little label going. Back at the start, we’d play him songs and he’d give us direction. We had the track ‘Skeleton Key’, but Alan pushed us into doing what you’d call ‘Coral music’ – our own individual thing. He gave us confdence and he believed in us. He worked with a lot of bands [, The Rascals, ], alan Wills but even if you were just the guitar tech from that band, if you had a problem, Alan would help you out. DeltasoNic fouNDer, The stuf Bill [Ryder-Jones, former Coral guitarist, who quit the band due to stress- 15 1961–2014 related illness] had been through, I don’t think he’d spoken to anyone about that but he could speak to Alan about it. The stuf I had going on… you know, you could BY James speak to him about anything. A lot of young people, s ke lly, he could see that in them, and he helped them. That was his main thing. More than the music, there were so The Coral many young people from around here that he believed in and helped give a direction to. The frontman He was a good guy. That’s what Alan was. It’s not about the music, that’s a side issue when you think pays tribute to about what he did for me and all the others. He had the to be moved into his own section at the hospital because so many people came in to see him. Everyone music mogul, who was talking about what he’d done for them, how he’d died last week in made them believe in themselves. It was better than just music, what he did. And more than anything, he a cycling accident was my friend. ▪

#30 UnPoC fifth Column (2003) ► ►release daTe Chosen by October 20, 2003 ►label Domino “It came out on Domino in 2003, and it’s just absolutely brilliant. So much so ►besT TraCks I Don’t Feel that he, Tom Bauchop, has never followed it up, just because I don’t think he Too Steady On My Feet; I Love can live up to how amazing it is. It’s very lo-fi, which doesn’t bother me. I love You, Lady Luck that. If it had been made in Gold Star Studios in Hollywood with [legendary ►Where To find iT On CD in session musicians] the Wrecking Crew, I honestly think it would be one of the all good record shops biggest-selling albums of all time, as good as anything released. ►lisTen online On Spotify It’s a really fantastic album, all the songs on it are brilliant.”

24 may 2014 | New musical express

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021112.pgs 16.05.2014 13:29 Pulled Apart by horses Leeds wildmen go AWOL PABH singer Tom Hudson for a year and return with at Greenmount Studios in ‘desert rock’ sound Leeds, April 14, 2014

16 f you’re the type of band who grew up So how does an older, wiser PABH sound? They did, although since The Voice, Kaiser tearing around the country’s spit-and- “Half of it has a ’90s slacker feel, and the Chiefs aren’t necessarily pulling crowds that sawdust venues leaving ringing ears in other half has this kind of darker, desert-rock warm to songs like ‘I Punched A Lion In The your wake, it’s quite hard to just… pause. sound,” reckons James. Throat’. “I think we scared the fuck out of I “It used to be, chuck a few songs around, “There’s more melody,” adds 8,000 people,” laughs then go of on tour,” says Pulled Apart By Lee. “But we didn’t want it to feel James. “But that’s part Horses vocalist/guitarist Tom Hudson. “But watered down.” ► of the fun.” So can we’ve only played three gigs in a year and Intuitively, then, they’d fnd ways ►TITLE TBC we expect a couple of a half. It’s defnitely the hardest thing we’ve to keep that edge. “We’ll be like, ►RELEASE DATE August stadium-friendly songs done. You go a bit mad.” ‘This song needs something,’” says ►LAbEL Transgressive on the new album? “If Pulled Apart By Horses’ debut was recorded Tom. “So James will go into the ►PRODUCER Matt Peel you write songs with in eight days. The follow-up, ‘Tough Love’, took other room, take his top of, smash ►RECORDED Greenmount that in mind, you’ll two weeks. But the Leeds rockers decided their a few lightbulbs and end up with Studios, Leeds end up writing songs third album would be diferent, and booked an amp on his back.” That song, by ►TRACKS InCLUDE Lizard you hate,” reckons Lee. 2013 of to work up 30 songs. They spent a day the way, was ‘Hot Squash’, and it’s Baby, Hot Squash, ADHD In HD “But look at Nirvana,” in the studio with Portishead’s Geof Barrow, Pulled Apart By Horses’ comeback ►RObERT LEE (bASS) SAyS says bassist Rob Lee. “but it didn’t feel right”, says drummer Lee track because, says Lee, “it’s a good “We’ve had time to fall in love “They could play bigger Vincent. “He said, ‘Go back to Leeds, fnd introduction to the album – it’s all with a song, fall out of love, and venues and it translated a good engineer, you don’t need me.’” Instead over the fucking place”. Lyrically, fall back in love with it. But now – it’s about learning they holed up in Greenmount Studios in the adds Tom, it was inspired by Paul we’ve made up, we’re engaged!” how to project.” Leeds district of Armley – “locally they call Thomas Anderson’s flm The Master, So here’s the new it Armley Of Darkness”, says guitarist James which is “about someone trying to improved Pulled Apart Brown – to work with Matt Peel, who records control somebody else”. By Horses: still grounded, their B-sides and recently produced Eagulls’ Before April’s low-key warm-up but arena-ready. “This debut. “He’s a pal so there’s no bullshit,” says shows, PABH played some high- sort of chemistry James. “If something’s not working, he’s like, profle support slots: two shows between four people ‘So what were you trying to do there, mate?’” with Bify Clyro in , and – I’ve never had it in supporting Kaiser Chiefs at Leeds’ another band,” says First Direct Arena. “Our practice room Lee. “It’s…” “ThIS SORT Of ChEmISTRy is right next door to theirs,” laughs Tom. “It’s better than sex!” bETwEEn fOUR PEOPLE “Every day we’d walk to practice and be says James. like, ‘When we playing there, then?’ But Lee leans in towards – I’vE nEvER hAD IT In Peanut [aka Kaiser Chiefs’ Nick Baines] NME’s recorder. “I would AnOThER bAnD” is mates with our producer, Matt. I was just like to say,” he says, pissed at the Brudenell one night and “that it’s not better than RObERT LEE, bASS said, ‘You want a support act?’” sex.” ■ LOUIS PATTISON DAnny PAyne DAnny New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021113.pgs 15.05.2014 16:42

“IT’S DRAWN FROm my OWN ExPERIENCES”

lyric analysis a happy fluke. It doesn’t “So the shoebox matter if continued success full of money, just distances Skinner from ‘the disappearing from streets’. His talent is as an me/Is not what I call observer, a chronicler, and – funny, a grand don’t oh bollocks, the broadsheets ◄ sTOry BEHinD come for free” – were right – a poet.” James THE slEEVE ‘It Was Supposed Snodgrass, NME, 1 May 2004 The shot of Skinner waiting To Be So Easy’ at a bus stop was taken by Skinner sets up the main WHaT WE say nOW fashion photographer Ewen narrative thrust of the album In lesser hands this Spencer, who also shot the on the opening track. “Every ambitious album could have sleeve images for 2002’s song needs to have drama at been a disastrous kitchen- ‘’. the centre of it, and once you sink drama, but Skinner’s Spencer had also worked have the drama, the song storytelling ability made it extensively with The Prodigy writes itself,” he said. a chart-topping smash. and Skinner admitted at the time that he couldn’t really “With the biggest of FaMOUs Fan aford to hire him for the job grins/I look down “My album ‘XXX’ is a rip-of in The Streets’ early days. the back of the TV of ‘A Grand Don’t Come THIS WEEK... and that’s where it For Free’. That’s like some FiVE FacTs was, in all its glory - straight chill, get high music.” In his 2012 book The my thousand quid” – The Streets: 1 Story Of The Streets, ‘Empty Cans’ Skinner explains he made Spoiler alert: Skinner finds in THEir OWn a greater efort as a the missing cash behind WOrDs songwriter on this album his telly after alienating “The subject matter of the 17 A Grand and began reading books everyone in his life searching songs that ended up working on songcraft, such as Sheila for it. “If you look at the way best – ‘’, Davis’ Songwriter’s Idea the songs fit together, it’s so ‘’ – was Book. One key lesson was schematic… like a technical all drawn fairly directly from Don’t Come how to describe emotion, drawing,” he said. my own life experiences,” which led to ‘’. Skinner wrote in The Story Skinner has discussed “And that incident with Of The Streets. 2 the cinematic feel on the ice cream I forgot, For Free ‘A Grand…’, citing Martin it all ended in our THE aFTErMaTH Scorsese and screenwriting vodka” – ‘Such A Twat’ If ‘Original Pirate Material’ guru robert McKee as This is a reference explained made people warm to Mike Ten years on THE BacKGrOUnD influences. He has long by ‘Fit But You Know It’ Skinner, ‘A Grand Don’t from its release, Faced with the task of planned to make a big- B-side ‘Soaked By The Ale’, Come For Free’ made him topping his idiosyncratic screen version of the album. in which Skinner gets drunk their best mate. There for Mike Skinner’s but critically lauded debut Skinner felt he didn’t and steals a tub of ice cream the good times and the bad, second album album ‘Original Pirate 3 express his full while on holiday in Spain. the album signified the peak Material’, Mike Skinner personality on the album, of Skinner’s career both remains an epic stepped up with what can something he amended on WHaT WE commercially and critically. saiD THEn masterclass in loosely be described as its less sympathetic follow- Three more albums followed a based up, ‘The Hardest Way To “‘A Grand Don’t Come For under the name, but The storytelling around the relationship Make An Easy Living’. “I felt Free’ is proof that ‘Original Streets never topped this between a stoned loser like I’d painted myself as this Pirate Material’ wasn’t cinematic masterpiece. called Mike and a girl named sweet, downtrodden sort of Simone, and the case of thing,” he told . a missing £1,000. Tackling ‘Blinded By The Lights’ ► everyday mundanity as well 4 was inspired by nights ►RECORDED 2003 ►RELEASE DATE May 18, 2004 ►LAbEL 679 as gritty issues such as out in Birmingham club ►LENGTH 50:36 ►PRODUCER Mike Skinner ►STUDIO Skinner’s gambling and infidelity, the The Arcadian, which is now Stockwell flat ►HIGHEST UK CHART POSITION 1 ►UK SALES album confirmed Skinner’s a Chinese restaurant. 1.13 million ►SINGLES Fit But You Know It, Dry Your Eyes, Blinded By reputation as a modern-day The album went to The Lights, Could Well Be In ►TRACKLISTING ►1. It Was Supposed social chronicler, and would 5 Number One on its To Be So Easy ►2. Could Well Be In ►3. Not Addicted ►4. Blinded go on to give him his first release and returned to the By The Lights ►5. Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way ►6. Get Out Of Number One single (‘Dry top after ‘Dry Your Eyes’ My House ►7. Fit But You Know It ►8. Such A Twat ►9. What Is He Your Eyes’) and a second was used to soundtrack Thinking ►10. Dry Your Eyes ►11. Empty Cans

WOrDS: DAvID rENSHAW PHOTO: GETTY WITH THANKS TO THE OFFICIAL CHArT COMPANY THE OFFICIAL CHArT TO GETTY WITH THANKS PHOTO: rENSHAW DAvID WOrDS: nomination. England’s exit from Euro ’04.

24 may 2014 | New musical express

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021114.pgs 16.05.2014 11:37 £45m TOP 40 ALbUMS MAY 16, 2014 ’s wealth, according THE NUMbERS to , making her the richest musician THE bIG QUESTION under 30 in the uK SAYS 19,500 bANDS LIKE RADIOHEAD Number of references to SHOULD PLAY THEIR marijuana in hip-hop songs, bIGGEST HITS LIvE. NEW according to analysis by drug IS HE RIGHT? campaign project Know Zane Lowe 01 BBc Radio 1 Nabuma THE NUMbERS “It’s a band’s right Rubberband Republic to do whatever they Little dragon describe their fourth album as a “deeper, want to do in whatever way they darker” record. on ‘Nabuma Rubberband’ they use 100 3 want to do it and it’s an audience strings, R&B and to create that sound and Number of uK ‘psychocandy’ member’s right to either be build on the success of breakthrough Lp ‘Ritual union’. Fans who witnessed dave Grohl shows The jesus And Mary elated or fucked of.” NEW 2 Turn Blue NoNesuch perform an impromptu acoustic chain will play in November, NEW 3 To Be Kind Swans MuTe gig at The Bluebird café in ahead of the album’s 30th David Renshaw NEW 4 Xscape Michael Jackson epic/Mjj Nashville, Tennessee last week anniversary in 2015 NME News Reporter Luminous The Horrors XL “I subscribe to the ▼ 5 mantra ‘shut up and ▼ 6 A perfect contradiction RcA NEW 7 FicTioN bIG MOUTH play the hits’. There’s a reason people have paid to see a band ▼ 8 indie cindy Pixies piXies Music and it’s not for a reworked B-side.” ▼ 9 Gruff Rhys TuRNsTiLe ■ 10 & chess “Hello. Testing, 1, 2, 3. Paul Beibor ▼ 11 caustic Love Paolo Nutini ATLANTic NME reader NEW 12 unrepentant Geraldines Tori Amos MeRcuRy cLAssics Planet Earth, are you there? “At your own show, ▼ 13 everyday Robots Damon Albarn pARLophoNe play what you NEW 14 Blondie 4(0)-ever Blondie NoBLe id One can only hope...” like – can you imagine proper ▲ 15 Tribal Imelda May deccA 18 Radiohead fans howling for ▼ 16 someday World Eno & Hyde MORRISSEY (@itsmorrissey) embraces ‘Creep’? At festivals, though, you ▼ 17 Nikki Nack Tune-Yards 4Ad the modern world with his first tweet have to appease the uninitiated.” ▼ 18 Fair Warning The Rails isLANd ▼ 19 demolicious RepRise ▼ 20 Love in The Future coLuMBiA ▼ 21 The cautionary Tales of Mark oliver everett Eels e WoRKs ▲ 22 do To The Beast suB pop GOOD WEEK ←→ bAD WEEK ▼ 23 Natalie Merchant Natalie Merchant NoNesuch ▲ 24 Letter home Neil Young ThiRd MAN NEW 25 Girl coLuMBiA ▲ 26 out Among The stars coLuMBiA Dr Dre ▼ 27 sheezus Lily Allen pARLophoNe NEW WHO THE FUcK IS… dr dre dubbed himself “hip- Gary and his chums 28 The Stone Roses siLveRToNe ▼ 29 if you Wait London Grammar MeTAL & dusT hop’s first billionaire” following howard donald and Mark owen NEW rumours Apple had purchased face huge tax bills after 30 Glorious Foxes siGN oF supernova Ray LaMontagne RcA his headphones-and-speakers a tribunal ruled they invested ▼ 31 AM Arctic Monkeys doMiNo company Beats Audio for £1.9bn. in a tax-avoidance scheme. “We ▼ 32 NEW Magnetica Quantic TRu ThouGhTs dre is set to make hundreds of want your money back for good,” 33 Lost in The dream The War On Drugs secReTLy cANAdiAN millions from the deal. gagged pM david cameron. ▼ 34 ■ 35 since i saw you Last Gary Barlow poLydoR ▼ 36 Magic Mountain Black Stone Cherry RoAdRuNNeR David Lowe? ▼ 37 i Never Learn Lykke Li ATLANTic This is the BBc Radio devon dj AND FINALLY ▼ 38 Born To die poLydoR who was fired after playing a NEW 39 colfax The Delines decoR song on his golden oldies show Bat man Blend me I predict an ▼ 40 save Fall Out Boy deF jAM containing a racist word. The compiles the Official Record Store Chart from Reformed your love eye patch sales through 100 of the UK’s best independent record shops. Owing to print Is Radio Devon not the place deadlines, this week’s chart runs from Sunday to Friday. bat-biter Ozzy St Vincent’s Singer Ricky for some old-school NWA? unfortunately it was a 1932 Osbourne’s hipster rating Wilson hurt THIS WEEK version of ‘The sun has Got his plans to convert rocketed after his eye making TOP hat on’, including the N-word, a barn on his she launched a new Kaiser DEATH OR that caught him out. Mr Lowe, Buckingham- her own cofee Chiefs video, OF THE GLORY REcORDS who has been a broadcaster shire estate range. The Bring and is wearing SHOPS REDDITcH for 32 years, said it was an were foiled Me Your Mugs an eye patch FOUNDED 2014 “innocent mistake”. when a colony cofee tastes until the “minor WHY IT’S GREAT They offer Has anyone rushed to talks, workshops and classes on of bats was like “orange injury” heals. music and the arts, and have put Lowe’s defence? found. Proof marmalade, You could out a compilation of local artists. david cameron has. “i don’t run TOP SELLER LAST WEEK the BBc, but it does seem in this indeed that brown sugar describe it as hoopla Blue – ‘Mother’ ep case that if you really didn’t know karma is real. and lime zest”. a pirate video. THEY SAY “We sell over 30 local what was on the record, it does bands’ records commission-free, seem slightly unfair,” he said. ►Find these stories and more on NME.COM so the band takes the money.” NeWsdesK coMpiLe By dAvid ReNshAW phoTos: ANdy WiLLsheR, AMy BRAMMALL, joey MALoNey New Musical expRess | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021115.pgs 16.05.2014 16:12 Isaac Dusty Hayes Springfield

I wanted to be, but he’s We’re going to put out just so cool.” a 10-inch on our label.”

THE SONG I CAN NO THE SONG I WISH LONGER LISTEN TO I’D WRITTEN ‘Hey Jude’ ‘It’s Alright Ma - The Beatles (I’m Only Bleeding)’ “I don’t really get burnt out – on songs because I’m so “It’s the wordy goodness. protective with my mind There are so many words and music, but one song and the way they’re tied I really can’t listen to is together is amazing. It ‘Hey Jude’. Good on Paul paints a vague picture anyways, I’m happy for his that you can interpret, success. But I just can’t…” with plenty of points of reference to look up THE SONG I DO quotes and authors and Anton AT KARAOKE to think about. You can ‘If You Go Away’ try and work out what he’s – Scott Walker trying to communicate, “If I had to do a karaoke if anything, and hidden Newcombe song, I’d do a brilliant song meanings, if any.” that’s actually by called ‘Ne Me Quitte THE SONG THAT The Brian Pas’, but the English version MAKES ME WANT 19 was done by Scott Walker TO DANCE Jonestown THE FIRST SONG I my mum had actually put and it’s a real tearjerker. ‘Sympathy For REMEMBER HEARING money in my hand and That would be kind of fun The Devil’ – The Massacre ‘Surfer Joe’ been like, ‘Alright, little – it’s so dramatic and over Rolling Stones – The Surfaris man, which record do the top. If somebody could “I need to get the Stones frontman “My babysitter used to you want?’ There was talk me into doing it, I would in there somewhere. It’s play it because I would try this big display in the try my best to just go for it the conga drums, I think, and dance to it. It’s about record shop and I saw – standing up on the table, that do it on this track. a marine going to Vietnam a picture of this guy with trying to do my best Jarvis There’s an amazing video from southern all the gold chains on and Cocker impression.” where they were filmed and it has this crazy drum in the studio trying to do break. I loved music so that song in diferent much by the time I was two “ mods Are ways. There’s a bit with that I was already trying to Anita Pallenberg and this play with the stereo, so my workiNg clAss, whole magic circle doing parents bought me a Mickey the background “ooh ooh”s, Mouse record player.” puNked up ANd iN but it rises up so much you can’t hear the music. It’s THE FIRST SONG I your fAce” really freaky.” FELL IN LOVE WITH ‘The Look Of Love’ THE SONG I WANT – Dusty Springfield thought it was amazing. THE SONG I PLAYED AT MY “That was the first song I was totally sold on the CAN’T GET OUT FUNERAL I ever got attached to. I just power of his image.” OF MY HEAD ‘Aria De Jesu’ thought it was beautiful. ‘Fizzy’ – – JS Bach It’s still my favourite song. THE SONG THAT Sleaford Mods “Man, it is beautiful. It’s Her voice is beautiful and MADE ME WANT “They’re from very short, but it’s so it’s just a simple song that TO BE IN A BAND and they’re a laptop duo, good. It’s really just one I can relate to.” ‘Life On Mars’ but with this driving, of the most amazing – post-punk, skinhead thing, pieces of music – it’s THE FIRST ALBUM “Trying to think of a specific but modern. It’s working thoughtful and reflective I EVER BOUGHT record is dificult, but David class and in your face and and it has these , David ‘Black Moses’ Bowie definitely made me punked up, like one past but it’s more baroque. It’s Bowie – Isaac Hayes want to play music. He’s so The Streets. It’s really something that I listen to

AS TOLD TO LISA WRIGHT PHOTOS: GETTY WRIGHT PHOTOS: LISA TO TOLD AS “This was the first time theatrical, which isn’t what good and kind of hard. once or twice a month.”

24 may 2014 | New musical express

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021116.pgs 15.05.2014 14:12 ► NME.COM/ NEWMUSIC

NEW BaNd OF ThE WEEK

20 Benjamin Booker

Blues-punk misfit conquers his fears With David Letterman – after “peeing 15 times ’cos of ► nerves”. Last week he made his first trip outside America, ► New Orleans, in support of his forthcoming debut LP on Rough Trade. BaSEd and scores a Jack White support slot Louisiana “It was written in post-traumatic stress,” he explains. ► The Gun Club, He relocated to New Orleans after “getting into political FOr FaNS OF early enjamin Booker is trouble. Raised in a religious protesting and a rough relationship with a socialist girl” ► soundcloud.com/ household in Tampa, Florida, the 24-year-old at university. Then he unwittingly moved in next door to SOCIaL benjamin-booker with Sam Cooke’s looks is a natural a crack addict. “There were burglaries, I met this ► The single rule-breaker. “Growing up in church, ▼ prostitute a block away... it was rough.” In these BUy IT NOW ‘Violent Shiver’ is out now, B you rebel for a very long time,” he says O N surroundings, Booker wrote songs he never followed by a self-titled debut down the phone from his new home in New NME.COM/ intended anyone to hear. “Things were so crazy, album on August 18 Orleans. “I’m different to my parents.” NEWMUSIC I don’t remember writing them. I physically ► He was a teenage misfit in America’s strict NOW couldn’t play live, but I realised someone SEE hIM LIvE Soup Kitchen (May 21). He South, but after overcoming a fear of performing, ►Courtney Barnett conquering their fears is better than perfection.” also plays at the End Of The his music now means he’s troubling his parents blogs about Fuelled by an obsession with The Gun Club Road festival in on and somewhat less. With his friend Benjamin’s brilliance and the hardcore scene he grew up in (he learnt August 29–31 Max Norton on drums, he creates a furious and his first guitar chords from watching a teenage ► Benjamin’s pained sound, led by aggressive guitar playing and a voice Carson Cox, who now fronts Merchandise, at live shows), BELIEvE IT Or NOT parents recently saw him play that sounds ravaged by tobacco and bourbon. After his album is a quaking blues-punk blitz. If that goes for the first time, on the Late basement gigs and a demo played using a shoelace as a against his parents’ values and the musical history of Show With David Letterman. guitar capo, he rocked SXSW to its core in March. Jack Southern America, Benjamin isn’t bothered. He’s focused “They still tell me to join the White and Courtney Barnett soon came calling, offering only on his noisy musical therapy. military,” he says support slots on their tours, and even more recently, he “I play loud. I don’t wanna impress anyone, especially thrashed through single ‘Violent Shiver’ on the Late Show blues fans. I’m tired of that old music.” ■ Ben HomeWood

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021117.pgs 15.05.2014 17:20 MORE NEW MUSIC

Lyves London-based (via and Australia) singer-songwriter Faux Fur Francesca Bergami started jotting down scraps of poetry years ago, but only turned her hand to music very recently. Her enchanting debut tune, ‘Visions’, makes us wish she’d got round to it way sooner. Showing flashes of Erykah Badu, and even the ambient lilt of , Lyves’ first, delicate ofering breathes life into the ailing dreampop genre. ►SOCIal facebook.com/ lyvesmusic ►HEaR HER soundcloud.com/ lyves Nihilismus On the face of it, Benny Mails doesn’t strike you as London’s next big hip-hop talent. ►SOCIal @thevacantlots But alongside his group Art Trip And ►HEaR tHEM soundcloud. of celebrated MCs, named The Static Sound com/thevacantlots Nihilismus, he comes to life. These guys and girl peddle ►SEE tHEM lIvE Brighton Mixing mellow production a type of lo-fi punk that Concorde 2 (June 28) with clever freestyles and sounds right at home amid London The Social (30), dirty energy, compare the detritus of London’s London Nihilismus with Hawk House toilet circuit. ‘The Girl Who’ (July 1), Norwich Waterfront 21 and you’ll have a pretty good slinks in with a serpentine (2), Anson Rooms (3), idea about the three-way bass before getting cut to Nottingham Rescue Rooms dynamic that makes this pieces by towering, scuzzy (4), Glasgow ABC (5) London trio work. chords, while singer Melodie ►SOCIal facebook.com/ Holliday delivers her witty ►SOCIal @fauxfurry Wild Smiles nihilismus3 vocals like a 21st century ►HEaR tHEM fauxfurband. Wild Smiles know the key to ►HEaR tHEM soundcloud. Johnny Rotten. bandcamp.com/ Mona & Maria writing an endearing song com/imfidel ►SOCIal @arttripband is how infectious it is. So on ►HEaR tHEM The Vacant Lots debut track ‘Fool For You’, Mona & Maria arttripandthestaticsound. This Burlington, Vermont they cram as much melody Two women are clad in bandcamp.com duo stand out from the as they can into a two-minute white pagan-style dresses, psych hordes by virtue Buzzcocks-esque guitar perched on a clifside before BUZZ BAND of their punk spirit. New thrash. Even the middle- a breathtaking sunrise in the OF THE WEEK single ‘Mad Mary Jones’ eight sounds like it could video for ‘My Sun’. It’s Mona Faux Fur (taken from upcoming, be another chorus. → & Maria’s most recent single, Having just re-released Sonic Boom-mixed debut and the Nordic duo sound their eponymous debut ‘Departure’) has won over every bit as sensational as album on Faux Discx, none other than Suicide’s the enchanting scenery. The Calgary four-piece Faux Alan Vega, who invited album of the same name is Fur can claim to be true them around for breakfast BaND a masterclass in ’60s folk, as torchbearers of that classic after a recent gig in New CRUSH the Nordic Music Prize rightly ’80s post-punk sound. York. “It was one of the recognised in 2013, and with Mission Of Burma, Bush most amazing experiences such serene and orchestral Tetras and Pere Ubu can ever,” says the band’s Brody Dalle as these, they all be heard through the Jared Artaud. “Alan is 100 could even be the successors screeches of scatty guitars per cent artist, completely to Beverley Martyn and and dusty drums, but with in his own world and Vashti Bunyan on the throne frontman Jean-Sebastien relentless in his vision. He of flowery folk. Audet smoothing it all over said he was passing down Chelsea Wolfe ►SOCIal facebook.com/ with soft and mumbled the torch to us.” The Vacant “She opened for my husband’s band, Queens Of The monaogmaria melodies, they’re an aural Lots support The Brian Stone Age. Her voice is beautiful and her songs are ►HEaR tHEM monaogmaria. delight. Did we mention he’s Jonestown Massacre in the weird landscapes with cool textures and good beats. no/media only 18, too? UK from next month. She’s a great performer and a brilliant guitarist.”

►For daily new music recommendations and exclusive tracks and videos go to NME.COM/NEWMUSIC

24 may 2014 | New musical express

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021148.pgs 15.05.2014 17:40 ►Social facebook.com/ wild.smiles.the.band ►Hear tHem soundcloud. com/wildsmiles ►See tHem live London Sebright Arms (June 2) Mythhs San Mei Promising four-piece Mythhs are surely destined to join fellow Reading outfit Sundara Karma on the books of tastemaker boutique label Chess Club Records. There’s a melancholy undertone to Courtly Love their gossamer indie-rock warmth of a wheezing anthem ‘Elements’, with California Sun. lead vocalist Martha Roper’s ►Social facebook.com/ dewy-eyed trills providing courtlylovemusic a lush counterpoint to the ►Hear tHem soundcloud. yawning slide guitar rifs. It com/courtlylove somehow crystal clear hints at Wolf Alice’s softer ►See tHem live London amid the late-night murk. side, but do they share Sebright Arms (May 30) ►Social facebook.com/ the same feral streak? We sanmeimusic bloody well hope so. Phoria ►Hear Her soundcloud.com/ ►Social facebook.com/ With a new EP on the way sanmeimusic mythhs on the freshly birthed ►Hear tHem mythhs. X Novo label, this Brighton Palm Honey bandcamp.com quintet recently ended This Reading-based quartet the brief period of hush have a bunch of DIY demos 22 Courtly Love that followed last year’s available online, the most Don’t read too much into ‘Bloodworks’ EP with new recent of which, ‘Palace’, is that somewhat cheesy track ‘Emanate’. A sparse a swirling haze of chilled- name. Courtly Love are and sultry afair, the new out beats, dual vocals and a bluesy London psych Phoria material is super- less-is-more guitars. There Phoria band, reminiscent of smart and endearingly are nods to Tame Impala The Brian Jonestown pieced together from San Mei and the psych-pop sounds Massacre’s mid-’90s a breathtaking blend of Australian newcomer San that have come out of the output. Their single ‘Mirage’, whisper-like vocals and Mei shares the same slinky- Heavenly Records stable in out on June 2, is packed euphoric electronics. pop DNA as LA chanteuse recent years and, while full of bends and licks ►Social facebook.com/ Banks. She produces all her their recordings are rough (along with some emphatic phoriamusic own material, and although around the edges, there’s tambourine playing) and ►Hear tHem soundcloud. there’s a disorientating bags of potential here. is performed with all the com/phoriamusic glitchiness to her recent ►Social facebook.com/ electro-soul cut, ‘Wars’, her palmhoneyband Lykke Li-meets-Poliça’s ►Hear tHem soundcloud. Channy warble remains com/palmhoney NeWS roUND UP Gum Twin Peaks The DeaTh CuT’s BriTPOP sPinning TOP reTurn Of POP reuniOn gO glOBal Radar’s favourite Chi-town October’s shimmering, London psych punks Cut, Tame Impala’s management punks Twin Peaks have seven-minute ‘Tasteless’ who are managed by Blur company Spinning Top have confirmed a new EP, ‘Flavor’, turned heads for London patron Andy Ross, are launched a label. The first to be released on July 7 on “janglegaze” outfit The currently in the studio release, in June, will be the National Anthem. The title Death Of Pop, so it’s a joy with Creation co-founder ‘lost’ album ‘Mink Mussel track – a beefed-up new to hear them hit the ground (and the label’s legendary Manticore’ by Mink Mussel version of their 2013 single running again in 2014. in-house producer) Joe Creek, featuring members of – was recorded during ‘Circles’ is the first track Foster. The results are set Tame and Pond. More albums sessions for the band’s new from a new EP and it forces for release this summer on are to come from Gum (left),

album ‘Wild Onion’, set for their energy into a vortex Peaks Twin Ra-Ra Rok Records. It’s like Shiny Joe Ryan, Felicity release later this year. of swirling psych-pop. the ’90s never happened… Groom and Nick Allbrook. PHOTOS: MATT SALACUSE WORDS: MATT WILKINSON, ROBBIE WOJCIECHOWSKI, JAMES BALMONT, TIM HAKKI, DAN CARSON, NEIL WOOD CARSON, TIM HAKKI, DAN BALMONT, JAMES WOJCIECHOWSKI, WILKINSON, ROBBIE MATT WORDS: SALACUSE MATT PHOTOS:

►For daily new music recommendations and exclusive tracks and videos go to NME.COM/NEWMUSIC

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN SPecial rePort

It’s since become the place to launch your band if you’re buzzy and playing anywhere near the fve boroughs – hosting a who’s who of newcomers in recent years, from Perfect Pussy to Future Islands to Twin Peaks to . Many of the shows there are taped and uploaded to Liveatsheastadium. com, adding to its all-for- one aesthetic, while Titus Andronicus frontman Patrick Stickles helps to book shows and James Murphy sometimes drops in to DJ. Everyone, it seems, is drawn to the rowdy, spirited aura that Shea emits. Some miGHt SHea “For kids in the US, you can’t go to a punk show to see ’s Shea Stadium may be tiny, but as co-founders your favourite band ’til you’re 21, ’cos of liquor laws,” guitarist Ryan Levine explains. Which is why, should The So So Glos say, the venue has a stadium-sized heart the police come knocking, the all-ages space is actually a “recording space we just so happen to throw parties in”, The ceiling of Shea Stadium is stained from cigarette Alex says with a wink. “There’s a pretty healthy mutual smoke, its foor gummy with sweat and booze from respect between us and the authorities. They respect The So So Glos the night before, and the night before that. that we’re giving kids somewhere productive and 23 When its metal door swings open onto the creative to be, instead of just on the street, causing shit.” dusty, dodgy Brooklyn industrial wasteland The close-knit family atmosphere as the venue flls outside, a stench of bleach and mothballs for tonight’s show – a beneft for one of the venue’s foods your lungs. It’s a dive, a grafti- bouncers, who needs help paying his medical bills – splattered shithole, with Williamsburg might have something to do with the literal family at its and Bushwick’s most depraved heart. The So So Glos comprise brothers Ryan and Alex delinquents lurking in its shadows. Levine, drummer Zach Staggers is their stepbrother It’s also one of the most and guitarist Matt Elkins is a childhood inspiring places to visit in tHe SHea Fam friend. Together, they specialise in the 2014: proof that punk’s not just most raucous, urgent, unfuckwithable alive, it’s fucking kicking. Joe Galarraga, pop-punk this side of ‘Dookie’-era Green “When we say we’re Big Ups Day, with hooks as tall as the skyscrapers DIY, we mean it, man,” “Shea’s not just dotting the horizon from Shea’s rooftop. “this place could laughs Alex Levine, a bar that books Before them this evening are jittery bands – the folks genuinely be a Starbucks in knocking on one of the care about the bands that locals Flagland, Boston destroyers Krill rickety backstage walls come through their doors.” and South American troubadour Juan six years. But he helped construct fve Wauters. It’s when The So So Glos arrive years ago, hours before Patrick Stickles, onstage, however, that the space truly ’til then, fuck it” another show at the Titus Andronicus comes to life. As they power through “For five years, makeshift venue. Alex sings in Brooklyn it’s been a lifeline tracks from new album ‘Blowout’, punks The So So Glos, who are performing for kids who want something limbs fy, drinks spill and throats are a Shea homecoming show later tonight. different. It’s a place your shred as fans scream along to songs The band co-founded the venue in 2009 wildest fucking dreams can like ‘Everything Revival’ and the come true.” with producer Adam Reich, building the anthemic ‘Lost Weekend’. interior and painting it with arty murals Will Doyle, But there’s an air of uncertainty about as well as giving it the tongue-in-cheek Palma Violets Shea. The current tech boom sweeping name that references the now-demolished “Shea Stadium the city means creative types are being was our first-ever New York Mets stadium where The Beatles American show. The whole forced further and further to the fringes, played to 55,000 fans in 1965. “As kids we’d setup there is so DIY – the throwing the venue’s long-term future always go see bands at Wetlands, over on sound desk is in a booth at into doubt. “This place could be a fucking Hudson,” Alex explains, adding that the the side of the room, leaving Starbucks in six years,” Alex spits. “But the bar as close to the crowd venue “opened our eyes” as to what they as possible. They’ve got their ’til then, fuck it – it’s this spot where could do with their own place. priorities sorted!” anything can happen…” ■ al horner

►For daily new music recommendations and exclusive tracks and videos go to NME.COM/NEWMUSIC

24 May 2014 | New Musical express

93NME14021118.pgs 15.05.2014 17:46 ► ■ EditEd by JJ dUNNiNG

albuM oF the Week

24

sharon Van etten are We there

the New Jersey singer Sharon Van Etten’s fourth change”, from ‘I Love You But I’m Lost’, these songs feel album represents a change like a concerted efort to resolve a turbulent time in her tells the story of a failing ► of tack for the New Jersey life. The relationship she’s singing about actually ended singer. Her frst three albums, not long after the album’s completion. love afair with poignancy starting with 2009’s ‘Because I Was As well as playing many of the instruments herself, In Love’, have shown of her gift ‘Are We There’ fnds the 33-year-old taking control as and wry humour for exploring personal struggles producer for the frst time. Doing so has enabled her to in a revelatory way, documenting turn a diverse set of songs into a well-paced, cohesive vulnerable moments with an portrait of a nine-year afair. The opening track, ‘Afraid engrossing intimacy. To date, her stories have been told Of Nothing’, carries a note of now-or-never; as Van Etten in hindsight, pulling the listener in as an imaginary sings “We’ve known each other for a long time/I need you confdante. This time, however, ‘Are We There’ draws from to be afraid of nothing”, it’s plain that there’s afection the present, recounting an on-again-of-again relationship there, but it’s under strain. that’s nearing its end. Eight songs later, on ‘Nothing Will Change’, any Addressing her ex directly throughout, Van Etten poses remaining optimism seems to have eroded, as the initial difcult questions and often recalls specifc memories. refrain of “Maybe something will change” eventually With lines like “Drive myself crazy with mistakes/You becomes “Nothing will change”. By the penultimate know I’m better every day/Tell me there’s something I can song ‘I Know’, which begins “Now I turn into a lover ILLUSTRATION: JIMMY TURRELL ILLUSTRATION: New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN Echo & The Bunnymen on the side/I cannot tell the poet eye apart from mine”, Meteorites 429 there’s more than a hint of resignation. For a band ‘Are We There’ is the sound of two people being pulled formerly as apart by conficting bombastic priorities. But rather as Echo lYRical than wallow in regret & the analYsis and longing, Van Etten’s bunnymen, it’s sad that their treatment of the issue first album in five years “Tear stains on the runs much deeper; begins with a whimper. the Wolf alice last page/Better it captures perfectly title-track opener takes leave ’em/ Time will the little lies we tell a few minutes to reach its tell and I’ll be back/ ourselves in troubled Verve-esque chorus, and eP Tear stains, I believe circumstances and the even when it does, ian it” – ‘I Love You But lack of perspective we mcCulloch’s normally the London quartet’s second EP I’m Lost’ wrestle with in times of peerless voice is drowned by Van Etten depicts a moment uncertainty. You can see it strings, guitars and backing mixes dark folk and grisly leafing through an old charted in the song titles, vocals. it’s not all bad, journal, struggling to make which veer from the need though: ‘Lovers on the run’ One day there’ll be a successful horror sense of the words and for fearlessness in ‘Afraid is vintage bunnymen, with franchise based on the true story of finding it strange that she Of Nothing’ and ‘Taking big mac crooning about ►Wolf Alice. A beast of a band who once believed them. Chances’ to the despair of “rising tides” and “baying lures in unsuspecting indie-pop kids with ‘Your Love Is Killing Me’ suns” over a rif borrowed Mazzy Star coos and clipped, winsome indie “I washed your and ‘I Love You But I’m from ‘the killing moon’. the love songs about old photographs before dishes then I shit Lost’, the latter’s lyrics candour of the lyrics and unleashing lines like “Time to die, time to kill… in your bathroom” hoping for “a love that song titles here is to be all for love, all for you, God’s a judge”, with bare – ‘Every Time The bears no cross”. admired (mcCulloch claws like threshing blades gouging out their Sun Comes Up’ By favouring examines his mental health, spleens with slashes of psycho-grunge this song took shape from and organ over guitar, and one song’s called ‘is guitar. It’s an approach that makes the London a drunken improvisation ‘Are We There’ feels less this a breakdown?’). but, four-piece a moodier, gothier Metric, but after a long day, Van Etten jagged and more fnessed as a whole, ‘meteorites’ at least they’re upfront about it on this new alluding here to the studio’s than 2012’s intricately fails to set the sky on 6 EP. The frst half – ‘’ 25 kitchen-cum-toilet, but the layered ‘Tramp’. The fire. ■ aNdy WELCH and ‘Storms’ (“My demon’s my friend, so fght curious line helps ofset the songs are slower and me”) – comes on like the ritual sacrifce album’s emotional intensity spacious enough to keep Hercules & Love Affair of Throwing Muses with Courtney Love’s with a touch of humour. their clarity intact. Van the Feast of the broken rustiest guitar strings, before ‘Heavenly Etten knows exactly what heart Moshi Moshi Creatures’ and ‘We Are Not The Same’ “You throw me a each scene requires as it’s a indulge their softer psychedelic lame ‘wait shit out’/ the arrangements expand lingering doom-folk side, the dejected You’re a little late/ and contract with a ftting injustice that calm after the massacre. Forget I need you to be ebb and fow. Both ‘Break andy butler’s quiet/loud, these ‘Creature afraid of nothing” Me’ and ‘Tarifa’ foat Hercules & Songs’ are quiet/ravenous. 8 – ‘Afraid Of Nothing’ along with the buoyancy Love afair will forever be ■ mark bEaUmoNt Van Etten grows frustrated of vintage soul, recalling measured against ‘blind’ – with her partner, asking if the misleadingly upbeat their antony Hegarty- ► they can embrace honesty dynamic of ‘Tracks of My fronted 2008 debut single. ►Release date May 26 ►label Dirty Hit ►PRoduceR Catherine and fearlessness to make Tears’ by The Miracles or ‘the Feast of the broken Marks ►length 12:28 ►tRacklisting ►1. Moaning Lisa Smile a go of the relationship. The Temptations’ ‘Just My Heart’, H&La’s third album, ►2. Storms ►3. Heavenly Creatures ►4. We’re Not The Same Imagination’. ‘I Love You fights to correct this. more ►best tRack Moaning Lisa Smile But I’m Lost’ and ‘I Know’, on the other hand, rely on club-oriented than 2011’s just one or two instruments to get their point across. middling ‘blue Songs’, it Although there is the occasional overwrought lyric sounds like the cutting edge Teleman is the lead track and the (such as “Stab my eyes so I can’t see” on ‘Your Love Is of London or Chicago circa breakfast Moshi Moshi standout, a downbeat slice Killing Me’), and nothing groundbreaking in terms 1988: hip-house on ‘Hercules teleman of organ-led psych worthy of song structure or instrumentation, the theme 2014’, acid synths formed from of ’s recent ‘Love emotion in the delivery makes up for it. on ‘5:43 to Freedom’. the ashes of Letters’ album. ‘23 Floors Up’ Van Etten tackles heartache with refreshing Consciously retro, sure, but Pete & the is a worthy second, its sharpness, distilling complex sentiments into 8 more convincingly so than Pirates, bowie-like reverie bolstered something beautifully simple. ■ CiaN trayNor disclosure and similar young perennial nearly-men of the by swooning production bucks. as ever with H&La, mid-’00s. With indie-rock’s from former Suede guitarist ► guest vocalists are crucial, middle tier more squeezed bernard butler. but there’s ►Release date May 26 ►label Jagjaguwar ►PRoduceR Sharon krystle Warren taking no than ever, the London a weedy politeness at work Van Etten ►length 47:11 ►tRacklisting ►1. Afraid Of Nothing shit on ‘my ofence’ and outfit’s chances of success here that suggests teleman ►2. Taking Chances ►3. Your Love Is Killing Me ►4. Our Love John Grant crooning up in 2014 seem sadly remote haven’t been eating ►5. Tarifa ►6. I Love You But I’m Lost ►7. You Know Me Well a storm on the icy, – and ‘breakfast’ never quite their Weetabix ►8. Break Me ►9. Nothing Will Change ►10. I Know ►11. Every Time nocturnal ‘Liberty’. 7 transcends its talented- for breakfast. 6 The Sun Comes Up ►best tRack Every Time The Sun Comes Up ■ NoEL GardNEr journeyman origins. ‘Cristina’ ■ aLEx dENNEy

24 May 2014 | New Musical express

93NME14021120.pgs 15.05.2014 17:07 Special collector’S edition

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BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14015170.pgs 04.04.2014 18:24 Trash Talk Owen Pallett In Conflict Domino Owen Pallett has become No Peace a pivotal figure in the 21st century The California punks arthouse baroque scene. He’s worked with beirut, fail to channel their Arcade Fire and Grizzly bear, and pioneered the intense rage into use of live loops, building entire orchestras out of something coherent a solitary . His fourth solo album mingles gothic strings and sci-fi gloops Anger, as John Lydon and glitches to create once pointed out, a record that sounds ► is an energy. And destined to soundtrack the Californian four-piece Trash 2025 coronation of King Talk are full of it. As a live I (‘Chorale’), band, their rage is clear – his Silver Jubilee rave frontman Lee Spielman has (‘Song For Five & Six’, puked his guts out, cracked ‘Infernal Fantasy’) and ribs and broken teeth the inevitable dramatic onstage. ‘No Peace’ is the fourth time he and his band producer Alchemist. Each lasts just over a minute and assassination plots (‘The – the frst outside the Odd Future hip-hop collective to ofers sanctuary from the torment of the 12 tracks Passions’, ‘The Riverbed’). be signed to the Odd Future label – have captured their sandwiched between them. From the sludgy rifs of It’s a deeply personal fury on record. But where their frst EP, ‘2005 Demo’, ‘Jigsaw’ (where “the pieces don’t ft”) through to the business too, Pallett revelled in nihilism (“I have no hopes/I have no dreams”, Killing Joke-like noise of ‘Just A Taste’, there’s no let-up discussing everything from proclaimed ‘No Hopes’) and 2012’s ‘119’ dabbled from the savage assault; vocals and guitars grind his drug intake to having with well-intentioned but obvious (and occasionally together relentlessly to create a barrage of aggressive sex while listening to The embarrassing) social rhetoric (“Occupy all streets!/Stop noise. At times, that aural punishment is exhilarating; Smiths. Compulsive me if you think it’s complete/I see ‘The Hole’ and ‘Leech’ share an unmatchable fervour, and conflicted. 8 you’re displeased/Class war rages while ‘Monochrome’ blisters and swells with wrath. 27 ■ MARK bEAuMONT on”), ‘No Peace’ comes of more Too often, though, the rage is vague. Lacking the as directionless rage; anger for intellectual intent of hardcore luminaries such as Black Röyksopp & Robyn the sake of being angry. Flag and Minor Threat, or more recent proponents of Do It Again That’s not to say it’s without intense, bellicose noise (Botch, Converge, Dillinger Cherrytree/Interscope merit. It’s bookended by two Escape Plan), for the most part ‘No Peace’ ends up Röyksopp moody instrumental tracks a one-dimensional slush of senseless sound. and Robyn, shaped by famed hip-hop It’s left to the two bonus tracks – the blunt from confessionalism of ‘Still Waiting For The and ► S Sun’ and ‘Stackin’ Skins’, which features respectively, ►ReleAse DATe May 19 ►lAbel Trash Talk Collective/Odd Future ►PRODuCeR and Ratking’s Wiki – to add are heading out on tour this Alchemist ►leNgTh 31:21 ►TRACklIsTINg ►1. Amnesiatic ►2. Jigsaw ►3. The substance to Trash Talk’s fury. summer with a show that Hole ►4. Leech ►5. Cloudkicker ►6. Body Stuffer ►7. Nine Lives ►8. Monochrome Ultimately, ‘No Peace’ is proof that will involve them playing FFS ►9. The Great Escape ►10. Locked In Skin ►11. SOS ►12. Prometheus just because you’re shouting, it both separately and ►13. Just A Taste ►14. Reprieve ►15. Still Waiting For The Sun (bonus track) doesn’t mean you’re saying 5 together. This mini-album ►16. Stackin’ Skins (bonus track) ►besT TRACk Stackin’ Skins something. ■ MISCHA PEARLMAN adds five tracks to previous collaborations, and begins with a stunner in the shape Wet neatly into the blood Lay Llamas how they go about it. The of ‘Monument’, a mystical Wet Orange/Solange spectrum. Ostro Rocket Recordings seven-minute ‘we Are You’ 10-minute epic complete National Anthem Slinky and sensual but with Ignore the is a contrast of sweeping with startlingly self- Hotly tipped a decent dose of throwaway ominously drones and short, sharp confident lyrics: “This will brooklyn- but enjoyable pop froth, on hippified title electronics; ‘Desert Of Lost be my monument/This will based trio the dreamy ‘Don’t wanna of Ostro’s Souls’ starts off evoking be a beacon when I’m wet might be Your Girl’, vocalist Kelly opening Arabian sands but ends up gone”. Elsewhere, there’s sing of love, Zutrau comes over like track, ‘Ancient People Of travelling the cosmos with slashing (‘Say It’), romance and their almost Sade after one heck of The Stars’ – Lay Llamas are its spacious sound and a big moment always messy outcome, but a bubble bath. She more than your standard ’70s synths. ‘Archaic (‘Do It Again’), a classic their impressive four-track continues to make a gift of wah-wah pedal-toting, Revival’ is the centrepiece: Robyn teen-state-of-mind debut EP is anything but gloom on the impassioned one-rhythm-knowing nine minutes of tension- ballad (‘Every Little Thing’) slushy. Spacious R&b ‘No Lie’, airily intoning “My psych-heads. Though the gripped, creeping bass and and the rather piddling, underpinned by an icy, baby/He said he loved me/ Italian duo are undoubtedly echoed mantras, its wordless but appropriately 1980s-influenced groove, But that’s a lie”. If only up for some third-eye queasiness adds a weight titled ‘Inside The Idle their sophisticated, heartbreak was always opening, like most who sign of darkness to this Hour Club’. 7 intoxicating brand of this beautiful. 8 to Rocket Recordings, mesmerising trip. 8 ■ PHIL HEbbLETHwAITE feelings- fits very ■ LEONIE COOPER they’re brilliantly varied in ■ SIMON JAY CATLING THuRSDAy FRIDAy THuRSDAy New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021122.pgs 15.05.2014 17:08 performances. rather than Little Barrie at edwyn Collins’ London The Trouble With half-arsed or rushed, the Shadow Tummy Touch studio. they feel like Templeton fruits of the imprint’s first on this they could have been Rookie Various year sound rich, varied efortlessly made at any time since named after Speedy Wunderground - and rather wonderful. exciting 1951, yet they sound an episode Year 1 Speedy Wunderground the second half of this fourth completely, compellingly of cult uS London compilation feels a little album, the new. the swaggering tV series label Speedy padded with , but London-based three-piece wah-wah of ‘Fuzzbomb’, The Twilight Wunder- the tracks themselves, fronted by part-time Primal ‘Pauline’’s sleazy rifs and Zone, the trouble With ground, the particularly toy and Scream guitarist Barrie the deliciously lazy lope templeton are suitably brainchild natasha khan’s excursion Cadogan take rock back to of ‘Sworn In’ don’t seem to weird. they’ve morphed of producer Dan Carey, into ’70s Iranian pop (‘the its thrilling basics. these have been written so much from a solo project for has a unique manifesto. Bride’) and the space-rock 11 beguiling, absorbingly as unearthed – as if they’d ’s thomas each new release must be excesses of Childhood’s cryptic songs – rooted in been there all along, waiting Calder to a five-piece recorded in a single 24-hour ‘Pinballs’, are well worth blues and early rock’n’roll for someone to find them, that still sound as if session, with overdubs kept spending your own – were played on vintage knock the dirt of they’re rattling around to a minimum to preserve precious time with. 6 instruments and recorded them and make them 8 the brain of one man, 7 the spontaneity of the ■ Barry nICoLSon on pre-digital equipment shine. ■ anguS Batey picking out a distracted, baroque rock that swings between grizzly Bear- ish introspection on ‘Whimpering Child’ and a polite take on Joan Jett Michael rifage on ‘Like a kid’. there are also elements of alt-J’s folky dexterity and radiohead’s refusal Jackson to stick to the point, but the album’s main weakness is a lack of killer melodies – only the jittery Xscape Postcard records of ‘glue’ ticks that box, but ‘rookie’ is a pretty Finally, a posthumous accomplished debut. 28 6 Jacko album that’s not ■ MattheW horton Gentle Friendly a waste of time KAUA’I O’O A’A FatCat the third Michael Jackson was no Prince. His last still-alive – have uncovered the most vital of Jacko’s album from studio album, ‘Invincible’, was six years in the unreleased tracks from throughout his career and given London ► making and a good half of it was, at best, shonky, them a sprightly “contemporising”. The result is a freshly experi- self-indulgent twaddle; it suggested a paucity of decent cast career retrospective very nearly worthy of the mentalists ideas rather than an underground dungeon system legend. Jacko’s plonked right back into his disco heyday gentle Friendly is named stretching the length of the Neverland ranch packed on lead track ‘’ and ‘Loving You’, after a bird that’s probably with unreleased mega-bangers. The frst attempt to while ‘Chicago’ and ‘Slave To The Rhythm’ sound extinct. the last female wring his still-warm corpse for gold was 2010’s ‘Michael’, ultra-modern. There’s even room for a classic Jacko kaua’i o’o a’a was lost a botched rush job that largely patched together fantasy piece: the ‘Horse With No Name’ in space that is to hurricane Iwa in half-fnished tracks written and recorded between 2007 ‘’, in which he’s guided to 1982, leaving the once- and Jacko’s death in 2009. Critics were united in their a mystical free-love utopia shrouded in mist. So one for thriving hawaiian species disdain at its shameless shilling, while a minority of fans anyone who’s ever shagged against the bins round the represented by a male insisted that some of the vocals weren’t even MJ’s. It back of Costcutter on Burns Night, there. last spotted in 1987. Don’t sounded less like the plink of a shovel on the peak of There are still signs of Jacko’s swift decay – the lisping expect a saddening tribute, a buried mountain of treasures and more like the rasp R&B emoting of ‘’, for instance, which has though. the joyous ‘Wild of a posthumous barrel being him sounding 157 years old and singing through grass’ opens a wildly prematurely scraped. troublesome dentures. But the record is largely bereft eclectic record, crafted with Surprisingly, this second of the mawkishness that made ‘Invincible’ feel like only drums and electronics stab at looting the tomb fares a decade trapped in a new-age Psychic Serenity seminar by a duo who formed far better. Under the guidance run by some nutter obsessed with ‘saving the children’. after finding a drumkit of LA Reid, Epic CEO, the Bieber/ That guy gets an “ee-hee!”-heavy slot on ‘Do You Know and some cofee in a skip. /Timberlake/Beyoncé/ Where Your Children Are?’ but even this portrait of rave (‘Love and Jay Z axis of producers – underage Hollywood prostitutes and their anxious Weather’), stoned no age Stargate, Rodney Jerkins, J-Roc, parents sizzles with modern pop glitz. ramble (‘Infinite return’) ‘Xscape’ is a relentlessly upbeat rebirth; only and muted ► S the title track hints at Jacko’s personal distress, a freakery (‘Cloudbusting II’) ►Release date May 13 ►label MJJ/Epic ►PRoduceRs Michael Jackson, breathless catalogue of the career pressures, follow, and noise explosion Timbaland, Stargate, J-Roc, John McClain, Rodney Jerkins ►length 34:25 gold-diggers and fan intrusions that built ‘18 Wave Crash’ crowns ►tRacklisting ►1. Love Never Felt So Good ►2. Chicago ►3. Loving You him a sarcophagus of prescriptions. Jacko an unpredictable, ►4. A Place With No Name ►5. Slave To The Rhythm ►6. Do You Know Where xscaped in a faulty pod, but now at least 7 expansive triumph. 8 Your Children Are? ►7. Blue Gangsta ►8. Xscape we’ve a worthy tribute. ■ Mark BeauMont ■ Ben hoMeWooD

New Musical express | 24 MaY 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021123.pgs 15.05.2014 17:10 film

Super Duper RECENTLY RATED IN NME Kate Tempest Alice Cooper Everybody Down “A modern-day London fable: a tale of love, ‘Doc opera’ telling tragedy and redemption as elegantly plotted as the Jekyll and Hyde The Streets’ ‘A Grand Don’t Come For Free’. story of the 1970s This is storytelling but also real life.” shock rocker (NME, May 17) 8

The So So Glos Blowout “Thrashy, hearty party- In 1975, after the band named Alice Cooper when they accidentally throw a live chicken into an rock of the Bad Religion imploded, their lead singer struck out alone audience who tear it apart in front of 70,000 hippies, variety. ‘Blowout’ is ► with his debut album ‘Welcome To My including . dirty, grass-roots DIY Nightmare’. Almost 40 years later, new ‘doc opera’ As their fame grows in the decadent 1970s, the once scrapping, balancing Super Duper Alice Cooper doesn’t just welcome teetotal Vincent changes his own name to Alice pop-punk gloss with you to his nightmare, it delves right in and Cooper, plunges headlong into anti-establishment spends an hour and a half rolling around in and splits from the band. When he fnally mischief.” (NME, all its flthy, squalid glory. stops drinking, he swiftly replaces booze with May 17) 7 Directors , Reginald Harkema a cocaine addiction so monstrous that even and Scot McFadyen have got their hands on collaborator freaks out – and Cherry Ghost a king hell bastard of a story, and they know that’s from a man who works with . Herd Runners it. Presented with a cunning mix of archive It’s an unusual documentary in that not once “Simon Aldred returns to footage and cleverly manipulated photos, this do we see the contributions from , his country-hued roots is the tale of a man who created a monster so ►DIRECToRS Sam John Lydon or any of the other interviewees as the one-man Elbow. 29 powerful it almost devoured him. Dunn, Reginald framed as , only as narrators. ‘Herd Runners’ is a When we frst meet Alice he’s Vincent Harkema, Scot This keeps the story in the moment, although romantic album, stufed Furnier, the strait-laced son of a preacher man McFadyen it’s occasionally to keep track of exactly with fond reminiscences, who forms a gimmicky Beatles ►STARRING Alice which band member is talking. heartbreak and slivers of called The Earwigs. Within a few years they’re Cooper The flm’s real masterstroke, however, is hope, without ever in LA in the boudoir of The GTOs, a “groupie ►RELEASE DATE to cut in clips from the 1920 flm Dr Jekyll sounding soppy.” group” fronted by and May 26 And Mr Hyde. This fts not only Cooper’s love (NME, May 10) 8 mentored by . The girls turn them of vintage horror, but also the overarching into cross-dressing deviants and give them a new name, narrative of Super Duper Alice Cooper: that Vincent and Bo Ningen taken from a board that tells Vincent he was Alice were locked in a battle for one man’s soul. III burned as a witch called Alice Cooper in a previous life. Ultimately, redemption arrives as Cooper beats “On their self-titled That’s the band’s side of the story, anyway, and if his cocaine addiction, rediscovers his parents’ 2010 debut album, the this flm proves anything it’s that there are few greater faith and learns how to unleash Alice’s monster London-based Japanese self-mythologisers in rock’n’roll. You can barely blink only on the stage. Compared to this outlandish four-piece sounded without missing a brilliant anecdote – for example, nightmare, conventional rock documentaries 8 genuinely unhinged. the origins of the band’s ‘’ reputation, are just not worthy. ■ Kevin eG Perry Bo Ningen have become more approachable without losing the Young Magic dusky vocals of ‘Ageless’ Haunted Hearts have moved away from ferocity that made Breathing Statues and the stuttering samples Initiation Zoo Music their lo-fi roots and, hearing them so exciting Carpark of ‘Cobra’ are all-enveloping. The husband- them together, you imagine in the first place.” The second embellished by singer Melati and-wife married life is the reason (NME, May 10) 7 album from Malay’s sultry, Warpaint- collaboration for this more mature sound. Brooklyn esque coo, the dense layers between The album’s moments Eat Lights electronic recreate the woozy sound Crocodiles’ of sexed-up rock’n’roll Become Lights duo young of a 4am K-hole without Brandon Welchez and Dum (‘initiate Me’) and bruising, Into Forever Magic primarily relies making you lose the use of Dum Girls’ Dee Dee Penny -influenced heart- “Having explored on metallic percussion, your legs. The nightmarish marries the former band’s to-hearts (‘Love incognito’) propulsive , grinding synth motifs and pitch-shifted vocal and pained krautrock fuzz to sound grown up as well as Eat Lights Become brittle samples. Though claustrophobic beats of the latter’s racy pop. Often alluring. By the time closing Lights’ fourth album the washes of reverb and ‘Mythnomer’ are misjudged, pictured wearing the same waltz ‘Bring Me Down’ finds the instrumental repetitive beats make for but on the whole ‘Breathing red lipstick, the couple’s ends, intimacy levels are idealists heading deeper a record that’s initially Statues’ is a world fishnets-and-fag-ash so high you feel like into electronic hard to penetrate, the that’s ripe for sinking 7 aesthetic is mirrored in a contented voyeur. 7 territories.” 7 underwater ripples and into. ■ LiSA WriGHT the smutty sleeve art. Both ■ Ben HOMeWOOD (NME, May 3)

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021124.pgs 15.05.2014 16:39 GIG OF THE WEEK The Great Escape 30 Various venues Brighton May 8-10

New Musical express | 19 april 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN Mish Way of White Lung at Coalition

Klaxons, Kelis, 31 White Lung, Peace and many more invade Brighton

It wouldn’t be a proper British springtime without ► howling gales, stupidly chilly temperatures and annual seaside spectacular The Great Escape. On Thursday night, appearing without her backing band The Courtney Barnetts, Melbourne’s most exciting new talent seems genuinely overawed at the huge crowd that’s packed into the Komedia to see her. Solo, Courtney Barnett is a melancholy affair, and ’90s Seattle lullaby ‘Canned Tomatoes (Whole)’ and the Eddie Cochran jangle of ‘Scotty Says’ sound heavy with heartbreak. Sorrow is softly swept away by ‘Depreston’ and her deadpan delivery of the line “We don’t have to be around all these coffee shops/Now we’ve got that percolator/Never made a latte greater”. Courtney finishes with signature tune ‘Avant Gardener’, which, when stripped of its psych swirls, becomes the

perfect pastoral pop ballad. ford andy

93NME14021125.pgs 15.05.2014 12:56 LIVE

It’s almost impossible to see what’s happening onstage at the low- ceilinged Bermuda Triangle. Honeyblood’s frontwoman Stina Tweeddale is out of sight, while Shona Courtney Barnett McVicar’s blonde curls at the Komedia are occasionally visible bobbing up from the direction of the drums. The goth panache of ‘Chocker’ marks the strutting, sophisticated point where riot grrrl becomes riot woman, and ‘Killer Bangs’ showcases the duo’s bubblegum side, following in the DMs of fellow Scots Bify Clyro with its deft melding of pop and rock. Klaxons arrive onstage at The Warren twinkling like a trio of the best treats in a tub of Quality Street. peace on… things out, so over the tour [which With Simon Taylor-Davis and James starts on may 27 in newcastle] we Righton in silver lamé, fanking a gold- …returning to small venues will have played the whole record.” suited Jamie Reynolds, ‘Golden Skans’ Harry Koisser (vocals, guitar): “it’s still sounds vast and ‘Atlantis To been a while since we’ve done a gig …being short-sighted Interzone’ rowdy as fuck, but it’s the where there’s no barrier and you’re “When there’s a barrier in front of new material that really impresses, suddenly in the middle of everyone. the stage, i can’t even see people’s especially the woozy Aztec trance i’d completely forgotten about how faces. i’ve got into the habit of just of latest single ‘Show Me A Miracle’. close you are to the crowd.” staring at the mic, cross-eyed.” 32 Piano house banger ‘There Is No Other Time’ sees grown men whipping of …the new songs their shirts and being hoisted above “i think every song takes about 10 the raving mess of bodies. shows before it clicks and sounds Kaiser Chiefs also come over as natural. you need all of your muscle newly invigorated veterans. Their memory to be spotless and really like Suede’s Brett early-afternoon set at Concorde 2 on clean. We want to start playing Anderson circa 1993 in Friday might highlight the fact that more new stuf and swapping a few his oversized, grubby their biggest hits are behind them, leather jacket. Dropping but in terms of performance it seems a lanky gang of no-hope ‘Money’ straight after like the best is yet to come. Ricky Wilson is in bus-stop skaters, but opener ‘Follow Baby’, the best shape of his life, shimmying along the post-Foals squiggles they’re super-confdent a window ledge in tight-ftting double denim of ‘Prague’ suggest in the quality of their to swing of the rafters during ‘I Predict A Riot’ they spend just as much time mainlining new material, with ‘Lost On Me’ and the before bounding into the baying crowd on an encyclopedic array of music – from Jef swaggering ‘World Pleasure’, complete with ‘Oh My God’. Even during slower-paced new Buckley to Dinosaur Jr – as they do making bass solo, bringing the set to a blissed-out end. song ‘Coming Home’, which channels Bryan bongs from household objects. Probably. On Saturday, Slaves deliver a brutish dose Ferry and David Bowie’s sleazy ’70s St Tropez Wild Beasts ofer up a typically hypnotic of borstal-boy ska at Coalition, stopping short chansons, he’s straddling the monitors and and sexually charged set at the Dome, with of being utterly terrifying thanks to the Kent leaping about like the primetime television Tom Fleming gleefully mentioning how duo’s fondness for inane banter. Between the entertainer he’s now become. great it is that there are so many ladies in the aggro Oi! of ‘Where’s Your Car Debbie?’ and Local teens Blaenavon might look like crowd. “Boys too,” he adds, as the four-piece ‘She Grew Old’ we get chat about everything then attempt to aurally chirpse a few hundred from sasquatches to chocolate HobNobs before SLaVES DELIVER people with the fulsome firtations of ‘A Simple frontman Isaac Holman dives into the crowd. Beautiful Truth’. Like a Whitby weekender take on a ’90s a bRuTaL DOSE OF Peace air a smattering of second-album heroine, Charli XCX is all red songs at their secret NME Radar show in lippie, dangling straps, posturing bORSTaL-bOy Ska the heaving Haunt. Harry Koisser looks and constant calls to the crowd to be “fucking

LInE-up COurtney KAiSer WilD CHArli WHite bArnett HOneyblOOD KlAxOnS CHiefS rAtKinG blAenAvOn beAStS PeACe SlAveS xCx lunG KeliS

10

2 How good? How

New musical express | 24 may 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN Future Islands

Kaiser Chiefs’ Ratking Ricky Wilson at Electrowerkz, London Concorde 2 Wednesday, May 7 mC patrick ‘Wiki’ morales’ curls have been buzzed down to a crop that he scratches repeatedly after removing his beanie during low-slung opener ‘Snow Beach’. While the pale 20-year- old becomes tonight’s snarling focal point, his whisky-swigging partner THE VIEW FROM THE CROWD Hak drawls hooks and dJ Sporting Life drops Ashley Grady, reverberating bass. When 20, torquay ratking launch into ‘So it “I liked how [Peace] goes’, Wiki’s machine-gun had old and verses incite aggressive new stuff. The new stuff isn’t body-popping in the so different – and the rap thing crowd. ‘Comic’’s noisy isn’t that bad! ‘Float Forever’ drum’n’bass precedes Sound Control, Manchester was the best song though.” an unruly encore of the Thursday, May 8 Natasha Yow, King Krule-featuring ‘So Sick Stories’. as archy 22, Singapore the synthpoppers and their “I’m so glad I got in. marshall cameos, his This is the second mother dances gleefully bendy-dancing frontman arrive in the UK time I’ve seen Peace. They at the back, unconcerned performed my favourite song, by what her son might ‘Lovesick’ – it’s just so dancey, catch from these “You’re not here to listen to me talk, it makes me want to jump! nyC troublemakers. are you?” realises Future Islands’ I’m definitely looking forward 8 ■ Ben HomeWood Samuel T Herring after an opening 33 to the new album, I’m loving ► ‘Money’ and ‘World Pleasure’.” anecdote falls fat. He’s right: aside from the Bo Ningen hardcore few down the front – who convince Jasmine Lee Heaven, London the Baltimore trio to play ‘Beach Foam’, from louder!” New track Hussain, 21, Wednesday, May 7 their 2008 debut album ‘Wave Like Home’ – ‘Breaking Up’ sees her birmingham the term ‘psychedelic’ tonight’s crowd are new fans, eager to see what ficking of the universe “When we found out gets thrown at Bo ningen else the man who became a YouTube sensation like Joan Jett in a massive Peace were playing The Great quite a bit, but in this by doing a silly dance on the Late Show With strop, while hollering Escape it got 100 per cent setting they seem to let David Letterman has in his locker. Other better. I thought I wouldn’t be “Everything was wrong it throw them around. frontmen might crumble under such scrutiny, able to see them here because with you/So breaking they’re too big now. The setlist though returned from but the stockily framed Herring basks in the up was easy to do” over was absolutely amazing.” a US tour today, there’s attention. He exaggerates his newly familiar Japanese kawaii punk rifs. no sign of jetlag as the chest-beating to loud cheers and, Just as pissed of are White Katherine Hogarth, London-based Japanese spotting a cameraphone pointed at Lung. The Canadian 21, birmingham four-piece crowdsurf SETLIST him, he stares down its lens. Each hardcore act practically “I saw their hysterically, convulsing repetition of “it just takes time” Facebook post vom up songs from as they deliver their ►back in the during ‘Balance’ is uttered up close their third album ‘Deep a couple of days ago and we shrieking art-punk. this tall Grass to individual audience members. follow their Twitter, so that’s Fantasy’. Frontwoman is their biggest headline ►Sun in the Future Islands know it takes time; how we found out about the Morning Mish Way is as transfxing show. We came three hours show so far in honour of they’ve worked for a decade for ►balance as she is severe, balancing early to make sure we got in. new album ‘iii’, and its this, and Herring in particular looks ►before the bridge her drink on her head and We missed Superfood to be math-rock inflections intent on not letting the opportunity ►A Dream Of employing a threatening here! Every time they play are exaggerated by the you & Me slip. His larger-than-life theatrics ‘California Daze’ it’s our rule to take on the spirit-fngers venue’s tunnel-like shape. ►tin Man ofer an extra dimension to the sit on each other’s shoulders.” dance move during ‘Drown though they sound ►Doves disco bounce of ‘Before The Bridge’ With The Monster’. more at home doing the ►A Song for Our and ‘A Dream Of You And Me’. Over at the Dome, there’s an acute contrast ’70s psych of ‘Koroshitai Grandfathers Still pogoing exuberantly during in the form of the weekend’s graceful, giggling Kimochi’ (from their 2009 ►light House ‘Spirit’ 12 tracks in, his unceasing closer, Kelis. Chatting almost as much as she’s debut ep) and ‘Henkan’ ► energy feeds the audience’s own singing, the seductively soulful material from (from 2012’s ‘Love ►beach foam dancing through this 90-minute ►Spirit new album ‘Food’ is of course delicious, but it’s the Wall’), the synthy synthpop marathon. The band ►Walking through the old-school bounce of ‘Trick Me’ ‘mukaeni ikenai’, taken that Door remain deadpan, content for and her husky cover of ’s from ‘iii’, shows they’re ►long flight Herring to absorb the heat of ‘Feeling Good’ that really seduce The learning to be ►fall from Grace the moment. It’s a heat that’s Great Escape’s last punters standing. 9 mellow, too. 7 ►vireo’s eye only going to get hotter. 8 jenn five ■ Leonie Cooper ■ edgar SmitH ►little Dreamer ■ Simon Jay CatLing ben bentley

24 may 2014 | New musical express

93NME14021126.pgs 15.05.2014 12:56 BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021164.pgs 16.05.2014 12:42 LIVE

The Hole rocker is back for her first UK gig in four years, and proves that her music isn’t a footnote to the gossip O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, London Sunday, May 11 Courtney Love

Adore or abhor her, it’s great to have Courtney Love back. We may ► laugh at her attempts on Twitter to investigate the whereabouts of fight MH370. Or perhaps groan when she namedrops the famous people she’s slept with on chat shows. And then there are those Nirvana diehards who will never fully allow her to step out from the shadow of her husband, , or whatever piece of news has most recently surfaced about him. Or who refuse to regard her band Hole’s music as equally relevant as 36 Nirvana’s, even though it is just as angry, politicised and essential. But the grande dame of grunge remains an From there on, it’s a Hole-heavy set, in which WITHOUT COURTNEY essential rock’n’roll fgurehead who stands she dodges the slush of her 2004 solo album for, to put it bluntly, not giving a fying fuck. ‘America’s Sweetheart’ in favour of anthems THE WORLD WOULD In 1994 she told the , Washington riot like ‘Asking For It’ and punkier rippers like the grrrl movement to shove it for being elitist aforementioned ‘Rock Star’, backed by hired BE TOO QUIET (and wrote a song about it, ‘Rock Star’). Her hands including Ginger from beefy songs rage on the eternal dichotomy of feeling rockers The Wildhearts and Micko Larkin. Once widow, too: on ‘Miss World’ she changes the ugly on the inside but wanting to of tweedy indie band , fnal line from “Can’t look you in the eye” to be beautiful. As she reaches 50, she SETLIST Micko’s been playing with her since “I’m the one that should have died”. There’s also hasn’t quietly retired or trotted out 2007 but still looks out of place with an unexpected rendition of 1993 B-side ‘20 the same old crap like some of her ►Wedding Day his mod haircut. Years In The Dakota’, where she compares peers. She’s back with a punk-rock ►Miss World Credit where it’s due, though – herself to Yoko Ono. And fnally there’s the punch – think Joan Jett meets Stevie ►Plump thanks to the backing band, Love’s melodrama of the encore, where she appears Nicks – and a canon of angry-girl ►Malibu performance is pretty tight. She in a white Victorian nightie, throws roses anthems that sound as timely today ►Reasons To may not be able to keep up with into the crowd and launches into an Be Beautiful as they did back when Hole were ►Honey the monster rifage of songs like impassioned ‘Northern Star’, the ‘Losing breaking through with their second ►Skinny Little Bitch ‘Reasons To Be Beautiful’ on her My Religion’-aping track from ‘Celebrity Skin’ album, ‘Live Through This’, in 1994. ►Rock Star guitar any more, but she limits that she wrote about Kurt Cobain’s death. Tonight is Courtney’s frst full UK ►20 Years In the stage yammering, cuts out the As timing would have it, ‘You Know gig since 2010 – if you discount her The Dakota covers and – crucially – is in a good My Name’ arrives of the back of another ►For Once In surprise show at a Clapton cofee mood, sticking out her tongue as she controversy. The details of a note found in Your Life shop eight days prior – and she ►Asking For It smiles. In places, she appears brittle, Kurt Cobain’s wallet after his death dubbing appears in a black satin slip, fshnets ►You Know My and it’s like watching a Hollywood Love a “bitch with zits” have been plastered and boots. She wears a beaded Name star’s sparkle fade as she’s reduced all over the internet. It’s yet another reason hairband in her bleached mane, ►Violet to doing club cabaret. But then, just to bash Courtney – who later revealed the like the Miss Havisham character ►Celebrity Skin as Love looks her most vulnerable, writing was hers – and another reminder that ►Northern Star she channels in the video to her she’ll play ‘Violet’, which sounds as her music can often feel like a footnote to the ►Dying comeback double A-side single, ‘You ►Doll Parts ferocious as it must have done when gossip. But it shouldn’t. Know My Name’. Taking a puf on it was released 20 years ago. As she tosses the fnal petal into the air and her e-cigarette, she launches into the single’s It’s not all grunge-era rebel yells, though. turns her ear-clawing rasp to ‘Doll Parts’, you’re other half, ‘Wedding Day’, and rips into a set The softer Sunset Strip pop-rock of songs reminded of just how boring it has that shows that Courtney Love’s back to what like ‘For Once In Your Life’ from ‘Nobody’s been without her and her attendant she does best: yowling like a she-wolf with Daughter’, her 2010 album as Hole-without- feuds, fghts and furious rock’n’roll. glass in its throat and playing a back catalogue the-rest-of-Hole, helps to give her lungs Without Courtney, the world would be 8

that’s like a blowtorch to modern . a break. She’s still playing the rock’n’roll too quiet. ■ KaTe HUTcHinson MOGRIDGEDEREK BREMNER, CAITLIN

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN Janelle Monáe Oliver Wilde Colston Hall, Bristol Friday, May 9 The fancy choral room at bristol’s colston Hall makes an unusual setting for local artist oliver wilde and his fans. although both are more used to filling the city’s grubbier venues, tonight’s surrounds seems appropriate. wilde is something of a bristol hero, a gentle genius whose woozy dream-pop exists in its own soft-focus universe. Though written in isolation in his bedroom, Brixton Academy, London a four-piece backing Friday, May 9 band brings out all his music’s nuances live, the fuzz seeping away The Kansas R&b star entertains, but is weakness. On tracks like ‘Dance to leave thick melodies too controlled to fall of her ‘Tightrope’ Apocalyptic’ and ‘Come Alive’, the shot through with band do cut loose, but it’s bang on strings. oliver is quiet cue, and although there’s enough between songs, sipping BB King used to feign space in to prevent rosé from miniature collapsing at the end of it becoming cynical – unlike at bottles, looking out on ► playing ‘Sweet Sixteen’ live, a Beyoncé show, where every fick the faces of friends. it at which point his bandleader and of her hair seems choreographed can’t be long until he’s piano player would help him back – Monáe and her band lack the this cherished up and he’d miraculously fnish the explosiveness and spontaneity of 37 further afield. song. It was pure showbusiness. the great soul groups of yore. There THE VIEW FROM THE CROWD 8 ■ Hazel Janelle Monáe has clearly studied are many points tonight, especially footage of R&B and soul during her breakout hit, ‘Tightrope’, Sarah, 30, London “The last time Lykke Li by past masters and stolen a few of where you’re pining for not just I saw her, I was 13, Village Underground, their tricks. She plays dead herself Monáe but her whole troupe to go and I swear she still London at the end of this richly enjoyable truly of-script and freak out. has the same energy as back Friday, May 9 performance, then comes back to Her show is over-studied, but then. She was just as fucking excellent tonight.” lit by blood-red pulses life, and she uses ’s still hugely entertaining, and not and swathed in echoing cape act (placed on by assistants, least because Monáe is so intensely Vicki, 21, London drums, lykke li is then discarded) to ofer a false charismatic and likeable. She “I was only conjuring an MoR black ending to the show. oozes charm and class, moves and expecting it to mass, all gothic western Monáe, though, goes further. sings supremely, and manages to be OK, but I was completely blown away. balladry, thundery There’s impeccable stage transform a venue that Her voice, everything, was atmospherics and songs design and costuming SETLIST usually hosts hoary old great. I loved it when she that you might expect to (black and white only), rockers into a palace came out in the wedding unwrap from a symbolic dramatic sequences of her own dreams and dress – I didn’t expect it I. EXPOSITION and she sounded so pure.” bundle of twigs and (she’s pushed onstage in ►Suite IV Electric imagination. She plays animal organs. lovelorn a stand-up wheelchair/ Overture Prince’s ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ Sandy, 35, London paeans like ‘Just like trolley wearing a ►Givin’ ’Em What and a Jackson 5 medley They Love “She was in a a Dream’, ‘Jerome’ and straitjacket), and bit-part of ‘I Want You Back’ and very good mood ►Dance Apocalyptic and I was really ‘love Me like i’m not actors (a roadie, perhaps, II. RISING ACTION ‘ABC’, but needn’t do; impressed by her voice. Made of stone’ sound in the role of a doctor), ►Sincerely, Jane there’s easily enough I think she was really on like prayers for the most making the show feel ►QUEEN solid, original material on top of her game tonight, seductive of death cults. like a mix of a gig, soul ►Electric Lady her two albums to cover and communicating with she winds the ceremony revue and Broadway ►Victory a live set. With Monáe, her band and the audience.” ►Ghetto Woman up to a frantic finale as musical. It’s extremely though, playing to the ►I Want You Back/ Maria, 20, London ‘Youth Knows no Pain’ tightly organised, even ABC crowd is both a state of “I’m not a massive and ‘Get some’ climax down to the sequencing III. CLIMAX mind and part of her fan but my friend ►Cold War brought me along in the sort of wild rave of the music into four music’s story; it’s ‘Givin’ and I was won over – she’s epiphany that’d make movements or acts – ►Tightrope ’Em What They Love’, amazing live. It felt very the sanest among us Exposition, Rising Action, IV. DENOUEMENT as the opening ►PrimeTime special when she started plunge the ceremonial Climax and Denouement track proper on giving out the roses. She looks ►Let’s Go Crazy knife into the goat’s – and, like with her ‘’ beautiful. I’m definitely going ►Come Alive to listen to a few more of her neck. obey. 8 albums, obsessive order ►What An dictates. ■ PHil 7 albums after tonight.” ■MaRK beaUMonT is both her strength and Experience HebbleTHwaiTe

24 May 2014 | New Musical express

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BILLL SUBJECT TO CHANGE | CALLS COST 10P PER MINUTE PLUS STTAANDDARDARDRD NETWORK ETWORK CHARGES ► ■ EditEd by RHiAN dALy Blondie and her iconic band will head to London after performing on the Other Stage at Glastonbury. They’ll play songs from new album ‘Ghosts Of Download’ as well as a selection of their much-loved classic hits. ►DATES London O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire (June 30) ►SUPPORT ACTS TBC ►PRICE TBC ►ON SALE now ►FROM TBC The Horrors After they’ve got festival season wrapped up, Faris Badwan, Rhys Webb, Tom Cowan, Joshua Hayward and Joe Furse 40 will take fourth album ‘Luminous’ to 10 cities around England and Scotland. With the record taking 15 months to complete, expect them to be happy about being out of the studio. ►DATES Norwich Waterfront BOOKING NOW (September 22), Bournemouth O2 Academy (23), Newcastle Riverside (25), Glasgow O2 ABC The hottest new tickets on sale this week (26), Manchester Albert Hall (27), Birmingham The Institute (29), Sheffield The Leadmill Darlia (30), Bristol O2 Academy (October 1), Worthing Pavilion The Manchester-based, places. You never know what’s (3), London Troxy (4) -bred band will play gonna happen. One gig I thought ► ►SUPPORT ACTS TBC new single ‘Dear Diary’ (out was fairly calm until someone ►DATES Birmingham The Library ►PRICE TBC July 7) on tour this September, tried to spike me. Manchester is (September 22), Liverpool East Village ►ON SALE now following a summer packed always ridiculous – at the last gig Arts Club Loft (23), Glasgow King Tut’s ►FROM seetickets.com with with festival commitments. there someone ended up in A&E. Wah Wah Hut (24), Nottingham Rescue booking fee TBC And Brighton is what Blackpool Rooms (25), Bristol Thekla (26), How is ‘Dear Diary’ diferent looks like in brochures.” Manchester Ruby Lounge (27), Brighton First Aid Kit to previous Darlia singles? You seem to be constantly on The Haunt (29), London Oslo (30) They may have been Nathan Day, vocals/guitar: the road. Why is it important ►SUPPORT ACTS TBC recording backing vocals “‘Dear Diary’ is very diferent. for new bands to slog it out in ►PRICE £8; London £10 for Conor Oberst lately, It still has the Darlia formula, tiny venues? ►ON SALE now but Swedish sisters Klara though. It’s really immediate “Because people watch you ►FROM gigsandtours.com with £1 booking and Johanna Söderberg and it’s just pop really – pop grow frst-hand. As shallow fee; Birmingham from kililive.ticketabc. haven’t been neglecting but with a bunch of people with and immediate as the internet com with £1 booking fee; Glasgow from their own music. On guitars. It’s been going down mentality is, human nature ticketmaster.co.uk with £2 booking fee; third album ‘Stay Gold’, really well live, too.” still exists. The number of Nottingham from alt-tickets.co.uk with they experiment by Where are you most looking people who’ve watched us grow 80p booking fee; Bristol from gigantic.com introducing new elements forward to playing on tour? increases in itself and it becomes with £1.25 booking fee to their music, including “Honestly, they’re all wicked one perpetual story in motion.” a 13-piece orchestra. dANNy dORSA,dANNy GETTy New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN UK GIG LISTINGS AND TICKETS AT NME.COM/TICKETS

TOUR ►DATES Glasgow Old Fruit NEWS Market (September 16), Belfast Empire Music Hall (17), Manchester Albert Hall (20), The Julie Ruin Bristol Colston Hall (21), London Kathleen Hanna’s (24) band have cancelled ►SUPPORT ACTS TBC all upcoming dates ►PRICE £20; London £25–£35 (including festivals) ►ON SALE now owing to the singer’s ►FROM ticketmaster.co.uk continued battle with with £3.50–£5.25 booking fee; Lyme disease. “The Julie Manchester from seetickets. Johanna Ruin are confident that com with £2 booking fee; Bristol Söderberg of taking this time of will from gigsandtours.com with £2 First Aid Kit allow Hanna to heal so booking fee they can continue touring in the future,” they wrote Tom Vek in a press release. Next month Tom Vek returns with his third album ‘Lucky’. See him recreate the new record FESTIVAL and his back catalogue NEWS at some intimate dates around the UK in October. ►SUPPORT ACTS TBC ►DATES Falmouth Pavilion ►DATES Motorpoint ABC (November 5), Leeds ►PRICE £24 Jabberwocky (October 3), Oxford The Art Bar Arena (October 5), Metropolitan University (7), ►ON SALE now The new London festival (4), Portsmouth Wedgewood Wolverhampton Civic Hall Birmingham Institute (8), Bristol ►FROM seetickets.com with has expanded its line-up Rooms (6), Brighton The (7), Liverpool Echo 2 (18), Academy (10), Norwich UEA £2.40 booking fee again, adding Montreal Haunt (7), Manchester Gorilla Bridlington Spa (20), London (14), Oxford Academy (15), post-punks Ought and (8), Glasgow King Tut’s Wah Alexandra Palace (21) Manchester Ritz (16) The Jesus And Jordan Lee, aka Mutual Wah Hut (9), Leeds Cockpit ►SUPPORT ACTS TBC ►SUPPORT ACTS TBC Mary Chain Benefit (pictured), 41 (11), Liverpool Kazimier (12), ►PRICE £25; London £27 ►PRICE £17.50; Manchester Next year marks the 30th to the bill. The Nottingham Bodega (14), ►ON SALE now £19.50; London and Glasgow anniversary of The Jesus event, which London KOKO (15) ►FROM ticketmaster.co.uk with TBC And Mary Chain’s seminal takes place at ►SUPPORT ACTS TBC £2.50–£4 booking fee ►ON SALE now ‘Psychocandy’ album. the ExCel Centre ►PRICE £11; London £13.50; ►FROM seetickets.com with They’ll play that record on August 15–16, Glasgow TBC La Roux £1.75–£3.45 booking fee; in full at three shows this will also boast ►ON SALE now It’s been fve years since London and Glasgow TBC winter, alongside “key a surprise act, who will ►FROM seetickets.com La Roux’s self-titled debut songs from that period be revealed on July 21. with £1.10–£1.95 booking album was released. Since that did not feature on Tickets are available now fee; Glasgow TBC then, one half of the act, After selling out a headline the album”. from dashtickets.co.uk Ben Langmaid, quietly show at the O2 Brixton ►DATES London Troxy and cost £38.50. quit, leaving singer Elly Academy, the Kiwi (November 19), Manchester Before he heads of to to Jackson to go it alone. She singer has added a date Academy (20), Glasgow Way Out West support The Black Keys returns with her second at the more intimate O2 Barrowlands (21) , Kurt Vile and on their mammoth US LP ‘Trouble In Paradise’ in Shepherd’s Bush Empire ►SUPPORT ACTS TBC Nils Frahm are among tour, Nottingham singer- July, which she’ll launch the day before, where ►PRICE £27.50; Manchester those joining the Swedish songwriter Jake Bugg with a special gig in she’ll perform tracks TBC festival’s line-up. They’ll will visit four towns and London before taking it on from her debut album ►ON SALE now all perform in cities across England to the road later in the year. ‘’. ►FROM ticketmaster.co.uk over August 7–9 and you play some of his biggest ►DATES London Conway ►DATES London O2 Shepherd’s with £2.75–£3.50 booking fee; could be there for 1940 headline shows to date. Hall (July 1), Glasgow O2 Bush Empire (June 5) Manchester TBC SEK from ticnet.se.

24 May 2014 | New Musical express

93NME14021130.pgs 16.05.2014 14:50 brutal sonics. Expect more of the same at their live shows. ►dATES Manchester Academy (May 22), Newcastle Hoults Yard (23), Glasgow The Arches (24), Aberdeen The Lemon Tree (25), London Electric Brixton (27) ►TICKETS £18; Manchester £18.50; Newcastle £17.50; London £22.50 from NME. COM/tickets with £1.75–£2.25 booking fee Swim deep The Birmingham quartet are tucked away working on material for the follow- up to last year’s debut album ‘Where The Heaven Are We’. They’ll re-emerge for a one-of hometown show this week. ►dATES Birmingham The GOING OUT Oobleck (May 24) ►TICKETS £15 from NME.COM/ Everything worth leaving the house for this week tickets with £1.50 booking fee 42 on psych oddness in six Love Saves The day cities across the UK. Returning for a third ►dATES Liverpool East Village year, Love Saves The Day “Touring is Method acting,” said Trent Reznor in a recent interview Arts Club (May 21), Edinburgh presents two days of the with . “Playing ‘Hurt’ and other old songs, you become Liquid Rooms (22), Leeds best in electronic and bass the person in that song again.” See the frontman and his band explore The Cockpit (23), Newcastle music. SBTRKT, Annie those old roles as they bring their arena tour to a close. Hoults Yard (24), Birmingham Mac, Todd Terje and Eats ►dATES Cardiff Motorpoint Arena (May 21), London (23), Nottingham Capital Glee Club (26), Brighton Everything perform, while FM (24), Manchester Phones 4U Arena (25) Concorde 2 (27) Jamie xx takes a break ►TICKETS £30–£35; London £32.50–£37.50; Cardiff £35 from NME.COM/tickets with ►TICKETS £16 from NME.COM/ from recording with £3.90–£6.63 booking fee tickets with £1.60–£2 booking The xx to put in a solo set. fee; Leeds and Brighton Elsewhere, PMR signing dot To dot Festival The Pizza Underground, ►TICKETS £20 from NME.COM/ sold out Cyril Hahn, Neneh Cherry Peace, Drenge, White Melbourne musician festivals with £2.40 booking fee and electropop group Lung, Honeyblood and Courtney Barnett and Swans Hercules & Love Afair Superfood all make their Blackpool grunge group White denim On their 13th studio also appear. way to Manchester, Bristol Darlia are also on the bill. The Austin quartet album ‘To Be Kind’, US ►dATES London The Boston and Nottingham over ►dATES Manchester, refned their sound on experimentalists Swans Arms (May 22), Leeds Brudenell the May Bank Holiday various venues (May 23), sixth album ‘Corsicana do precisely the opposite Social Club (24), Brighton weekend to play Dot Bristol, various venues Lemonade’ last year. They of the record’s title, Coalition (26) To Dot’s trio of one-day (24), Nottingham, various return this week to show serving up a two-hour ►TICKETS £12 from NME.COM/ events. Macaulay Culkin’s venues (25) of that more polished take assault of terrifying and tickets with £1.20 booking fee

FIVE TO SEE FOR FREE Thrills don’t come cheaper than this

1. Archie 2. Together 3. Ethan Johns 4. This Is 5. Odonis Bronson Pangea RPM Music, The Kit Odonis Outfit The Old Blue Newcastle Rise, Bristol The Hope, Rough Trade Last, London The producer- Folky locals Brighton East, London LA group follow turned-musician play in their Dean Tzenos Bath trio air their up SXSW with a plays new album hometown brings his noise ‘Wild Crush’ LP. trip to the UK. ‘The Reckoning’. record store. band to the coast. See Archie Bronson outfit ►May 22, 7pm ►May 22, 8pm ►May 23, time TBC ►May 25, 4pm ►May 25, 8pm for free in London

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN ’

The Flaming Lips Wayne Coyne will be climbing into his plastic bubble once more as the Oklahoma group return to play highlights from last year’s album ‘The Terror’, along with cuts from their Lorde will play extensive back catalogue. Radio 1’s Big ►dATES Edinburgh Weekend Hall (May 26), Manchester O2 Apollo (27) ►TICKETS Edinburgh £25– £29.50; Manchester £32.50 from NME.COM/tickets with £2.50–£3.25 booking fee Jungle One of 2014’s most S TAY I N G I N exciting new bands take their frst few singles, The best music on TV, radio and online this week like ‘The Heat’ and ‘Busy Earnin’’, on the road for the country singer’s fnal work, this week. Catch them in ‘American Recordings’, which would tiny venues now before Radio 1’s Big Weekend eventually be split into six volumes. they go stratospheric. BBC Radio 1’s annual free festival heads to Glasgow this year for ►WATCH Sky Arts, 4.55am, May 23 ►dATES Oxford O2 Academy two days of performances from some of the biggest artists around. (May 21), Bournemouth The Old Kasabian will give a preview of their Glastonbury headline set Wet Fire Station (22), London Oval as they top the bill on the In New Music We Trust stage on the Huw Stephens Space (23) Sunday. Lorde, , local heroes Chvrches and The New York synthpop trio join 43 ►TICKETS £9 from NME.COM/ the returning also appear. the likes of Broods and Haim on tickets with £1 booking fee; ►LISTEN/WATCH BBC Radio 1 and .co.uk/radio1, from 7am, May 24–25 the National Anthem label as they London sold out release their self-titled debut EP Kate Tempest the making of the former Beatle’s next week (May 28). They played Speedy Ortiz Gilles Peterson classic 1971 album ‘Imagine’. That some of the highlights from it in Sadie Dupuis and her The London performance poet footage has now been turned into session at Maida Vale, recorded band made their UK has won awards for her writing, this documentary, which ofers an earlier this month when the group debut earlier this year including the Ted Hughes Award insight into the record and Lennon’s came over to wow UK audiences but are on their way back for her piece Brand New Ancients. life at his Ascot estate. for the frst time. for the British summer. Now focusing on rapping, Kate ►WATCH Sky Arts, 2pm, May 21 ►LISTEN BBC Radio 1, midnight, May 21 Expect the slacker magic Tempest joins Gilles Peterson to of debut album ‘Major play tracks from her debut album, Johnny Cash CATCH UP Arcana’ to come alive at ‘Everybody Down’, which follows American VI: Ain’t Made In Chelsea on 4oD these two dates. three characters through their jobs, No Grave After playing secret ►dATES Bristol Exchange (May relationships and social lives. Producer Rick shows in Mayfair, 21), London Electrowerkz (22) ►LISTEN BBC 6 Music, 3pm, May 24 Rubin and Cash’s Peace up the posh ►TICKETS Bristol £9 from son John Carter stakes even more NME.COM/tickets with 90p John Lennon Cash contribute to with a performance booking fee; London £11 from Gimme Some Truth this documentary, at Proudlock’s dashtickets.co.uk with £1.10 John Lennon and Yoko Ono flmed delving into Peace birthday party. booking fee

THINGS WE LIKE This week’s objects of desire

BOOK DVD DVD BOXSET Clothes Inside Our Vinyl Suede – Clothes Llewyn Weighs A Ton: The Albums Clothes Music Davis This Is Stones Collection Music Music Carey Mulligan Throw Records Get all of Boys Boys Boys and Justin Timberlake star in this kanye West, and Suede’s albums in one package, The autobiography of Slits film about a young folk singer in celebrate the cult along with a book of interviews guitarist Viv Albertine. 1960s New York. LA record label. about every single song. ►BUY £14.99, faber.co.uk ►BUY £10, .co.uk ►BUY £15, play.com ►BUY £29.85, amazon.co.uk GETTY, dAN kENdALL dAN GETTY, 24 May 2014 | New Musical express

93NME14021131.pgs 16.05.2014 13:38 “Ambition is

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BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN s gradual...

It’s a long way from Shefield, but this weekend’s huge gigs in London’s Finsbury Park feel like a homecoming for the globetrotting Arctic Monkeys. Just don’t call it “a pinnacle”, the band tell Barry Nicolson an’t always 45

PhotoS BY thoMAS CANEt p with it” 24 May 2014 | New Musical express

93NME14021133.pgs 15.05.2014 17:16 FINSBURY PARK Boys ’n’ the hood: PREVIEW (l-r) , Nick O’Malley, and Matt Helders

ver the phone from his Brisbane hotel room, Alex Turner is pithily recounting the process by which Arctic Monkeys came to settle upon Haringey’s leafest 40-odd Ohectares as the venue for this summer’s main event, the third outdoor mega-gig of their careers, and quite possibly the most signifcant to date. Why not, indeed? Finsbury Park is, after all, where the reunited Stone Roses made their long-awaited return to the capital, 18 years after their last full London gig. It’s where Morrissey draped himself in the Union Jack in front of an audience of Madness fans in 1992, stirring up a hornet’s nest of controversy that took years to abate. It was the scene of Oasis’ epic, rain-sodden act of reassertion in 2002. And, just down the road, at what is now the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, frst set fre to his guitar onstage, an act so enshrined in rock’n’roll folklore that someone saw ft to shell out £280,000 for its charred remains at auction a few years back. There’s no shortage of history in Finsbury Park, and no small amount of expectation that comes with playing there, particularly for a band like Arctic Monkeys. Yet the way Alex tells it, they were simply 46 in need of a feld and this was the frst to present itself. He might describe himself as “excited to the point of vibration”, but if he’s overawed, intimidated or even just mildly fustered by the prospect of playing to 100,000 explains. “Especially when it comes to gigs. of big gigs, we’ve not done many like this one. people across two nights, he’s masking it I remember the comedown from our frst time This won’t be just another gig.” extraordinarily well. I can’t help but wonder headlining Glastonbury, and it taught me not For Matt Helders, meanwhile, “I remember whether – having headlined Glastonbury to approach a gig like that. There’s something watching …There And Then [ flm twice, played the Olympic Stadium to quite fnite about a ‘pinnacle’, I think.” of Oasis’ 1996 Maine Road show] on VHS a television audience of billions and racked The band’s frst Glastonbury appearance every day when I got home from school and up fve Number One albums on the spin, all was a chastening experience. “It was a very thinking, ‘That’d be amazing.’ But when we before he’s even out of his twenties – he’s gloomy Sunday, put it that way. It was a bit, started the band, these sort of gigs weren’t in become desensitised to, or even a little blasé ‘Well, what now?’ So when we’re approaching my mind. It just didn’t seem realistic enough about, his own success. Is this just another big shows like Finsbury Park or Madison to even think about. Every ambition you have date on the calendar? Square Garden or whatever, even though is kind of gradual: the frst ambition is to get to “I don’t feel I’m close to being blasé about it’s obviously an occasion, I don’t think you the end of a song without fucking it up, then it,” he shoots back. “That’s just the tone of my have to constantly remind yourself of that to it’s to do a full gig… it gradually builds like voice and the way my face falls. Playing large make it one.” that. But you can’t always keep up with it.” shows has, to some degree, become second He’s probably got a point: nature. We’ve been around the block a few everything Arctic Monkeys do times now. But I saw the Stones at Glastonbury these days seems to be imbued and they’ve been doing it since they were with that sense of occasion, Arctic Monkeys on… younger than I am now, and it still seemed like whether it’s something as big The setlist Warming up it meant a lot to them. I was watching from as headlining festivals or as Matt Helders: “We ain’t got Nick O’Malley: “We normally the wings before they went on and they still frivolous as accepting Brit to the point of writing it down hang out in a small, grey- looked like a gang, like the way we feel before Awards, and a gig like Finsbury yet. We kind of felt that way coloured room backstage, put we step out onstage. Honestly, the reason Park pretty much hypes itself. Yet about Glastonbury, that we some tunes on and have a few we’re most excited about it is that we don’t however relaxed Turner might should play songs like ‘Mardy drinks. We’ll put some efort get to play in the UK as much as we used to, seem about the whole thing, his Bum’ and ‘Fake Tales Of San into what we’re going to wear, just because of the way it is now. Any chance bandmates aren’t quite so inured. Francisco’, but it didn’t really so we don’t look like scrubbers, to come home – or as close to home as London “It’s defnitely going to be a get the response I though it then warm ourselves up by would. ‘Fake Tales…’, people telling jokes and trying not – is exciting for us, like.” big page in the scrapbook,” says seemed a bit ‘take it or leave to think about it until the last “Erm... no,” is Alex’s answer when asked Nick O’Malley, who admits that it’. I know people still have 10 minutes before we go on. whether these gigs represent any sort of he’s trying not to think too much a massive afiliation with that At that point we’ll be pacing pinnacle for the band. That’s that, then. “I try about the gig beforehand, lest it first album in England, but up and down, back and forth, not to approach anything thinking it’s going mess with his head. Nevertheless, I think they’ve also moved making weird hand gestures to be some sort of pinnacle any more,” he he says, “[while] we’ve done a lot on a bit from it as well.” and clapping for no reason.”

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN “We couldn’t do what we’re already seen on the arena tour – we can’t carry on churning that one doing now out and expect people to come and watch it again”. Nick describes it without ‘AM’” as “scaled up”, and Helders sheds further light on exactly what that Alex Turner might entail: “There’s gonna be a quite a bit of inclusion of the oscilloscope thing that’s on the front So, why the seven-year of the album,” he says, not giving too much wait? Partly, it was out of away. “That’s gonna be cropping up in more caution: even the move places than just onstage…” into arenas at the tail-end of the ‘Favourite Worst In terms of special guests, meanwhile, Nightmare’ tour was, Miles Kane appears a no-brainer: it’d be more according to Helders, surprising if he didn’t join them onstage “something we couldn’t at some point this weekend. If things go really put of any more. according to plan, however, he won’t be the We never really felt like we only one. “We have spoken about it, but wanted to play anywhere not in a serious way,” teases Nick. “We were like that, so we had to try talking about bringing Prince in to do the and learn to do it in a cool high backing vocals – they’d probably be low way.” Mostly, however, it backing vocals for him, anyway. But we’ve was to do with the fact that never met him and I doubt he’d be up for no other record they’ve it. For that size of show, though, you really released in the interim should do something...” has connected in quite the After Finsbury Park, there’s a full card of same way that ‘AM’ has. festivals to contend with, including T In The “Probably in terms Park and Reading & Leeds. But after their of selling tickets, we North American tour ends in September, could’ve done something there’s nothing on the band’s slate, and Nick 47 like this [before ‘AM’],” reveals that the previously mooted plan to reasons Alex, “but we record a quickfre ‘sequel’ to ‘AM’ has been Rumours that Arctic Monkeys weren’t as on fre then as we are now. We abandoned. “We did have the chat, but I don’t were planning something big for this summer couldn’t do what we’re doing now without that think it’s going to be happening,” he says. started circulating shortly after the release of record. Had we done it before, I think it would “There are no plans for another record. I ‘AM’ last September. Having aced Glastonbury have, in some way, still have been based on think people might want to forget about the at the second time of asking, they now felt the frst album and its success. To some extent, Monkeys for a while. But who knows? We’ll ready to stage a “celebration” of their own, everything is built on that, but now, it’s the have a bit of time of and someone’ll say, on a scale they hadn’t attempted since 2007. new record that most people want to hear.” ‘Fancy doing another one?’. But we’ve been Finsbury Park had been mentioned back then, And as for what you’ll see? For a band whose doing this constantly for quite a while, and too – “It’s one of those names that always idea of ‘production’ used to be Fred Perry it’s important to have a break. Otherwise you crops up when we talk about doing these big polo shirts and the occasional, withering burn out and get a bit psychotic.” shows, along with Hyde Park,” says Helders – acknowledgment of the crowd’s presence, the Before returning to to plan but they eventually went with Manchester’s Monkeys have come a long, long way over the their next move, however, there’s time for Old Traford cricket ground. The big tent at last few years. When I talk to them, the fner one last round of summer festivities, starting Shefeld’s Don Valley Bowl followed in 2011, details of the Finsbury Park shows are still being this weekend. Is that all this is, though? These and while those gigs were certainly a success, ironed out, but Jamie Cook promises that “it’ll days, can any mere rock’n’roll show, however they were nowhere near the same magnitude. defnitely be diferent from what people have massive, measure up to the event gigs of bygone eras, like Oasis at Knebworth or the Roses at Spike Island? Finsbury Park’s Tourbus reading list What’s next? “I don’t see why not,” says Alex. “I certainly legacy Matt: “At the moment I’m Alex Turner: “I don’t know don’t mind it being measured up against them. Maybe there won’t be as many people Jamie Cook: “I knew there reading American Psycho by what happens after the tour had been some big gigs there, Bret Easton Ellis – I’d heard it ends. I’m still pretty wrapped as there were at Knebworth or whatever, but but I didn’t know the full was more graphic and detailed up in ‘AM’. We’re still slapping it’s a similar deal, isn’t it? That happened right extent of it. We didn’t think than the film. I’m definitely into each other on the back for in the middle of the shit, when Oasis were on of that really, when we were the style it’s written in.” that one. We’ve got no plans their best record. I’m not saying this is ‘our choosing the sites. How do you to return to the studio in the Knebworth’, but it’s a band playing in a park make a gig legendary, though? next 10 years. I’m kidding, by to a load of people, playing songs of their best Staying in LA the way. I don’t know if my I suppose you’ve just got to album yet. That’s the deal.” ▪ go out there and do what you Matt: “We don’t know [if we’ll humour is coming across…” do, and it’s in the hands of the stay] yet. When we’re on tour ►Turn over for interviews with Arctic Monkeys’ crowd after that.” we don’t really think about it that much. Obviously, being out chosen Finsbury Park line-up: Tame Impala, there makes playing shows like Miles Kane and Royal Blood. Plus more on their this a bit more special.” favourite new band, The Amazing Snakeheads

24 May 2013 | New Musical express

93NME14021143.pgs 16.05.2014 10:40 “As soon as I’m o the boozy cycle

Luckily for Kevin Parker, tame Impala are back on the road in the UK with old drinking buddies Arctic Monkeys

t’s gonna be this fucking wild, super- creative fortress of solitude, man,” Kevin “ Parker says down the phone to NME. 48 I’ve called to hear what the 28-year-old has in store for Tame Impala’s highly anticipated return to British soil this Imonth at Arctic Monkeys’ Finsbury Park blowout, but he’s happier detailing the new home he’s just bought in Perth hippy commune South Fremantle. “It’s just gonna be me on my own. There’s gonna be a room that’s just for smoking and listening to music. Then another that’s like an upside-down room – tables bolted onto the ceiling and paintings hung the on the walls, shit like that. Just ’cos I think it’ll be cool.” The rest of the house, he beams, he’s renovating into a multi-storey . “I’ve got it all fgured out.” No man is an island, but Parker comes close. As talisman to astral Aussie psych- rockers Tame Impala, Parker’s a solitary auteur, writing and recording every layer of music by himself. For their last record – the luscious, languid ‘Lonerism’, named NME’s tame Impala (Kevin best album of 2012 – he exiled himself to Paris Parker, second right) for a year for inspiration, where he knew no- in Santiago, Chile, one and barely spoke the language (“I could just about talk to taxi drivers, but I couldn’t october 19, 2013 have an intellectual conversation”). Now he is moving into a home of his own, perched on the furthest edge of what’s nicknamed ‘the being on my own. That’s why we’ve toured lonely city’ (sun-kissed Perth is some 2,100 just non-stop since the album came out. “we’re going to kilometres away from its closest neighbouring Being surrounded by people. Getting one metropolis). Two years on, it doesn’t seem like hour of sleep a night, that sort of thing. I get fuck with the ‘Lonerism’ exorcised him of the feelings of real Syndrome about it – as soon isolation and seclusion threaded through that as I’m of tour I miss the that boozy cycle of record, I suggest. decadence.” He laughs. “But to be productive old songs” “That sounds more fucked up than it is,” sometimes, when it comes to making he concedes. “It’s not like I specifcally enjoy music, I need space. It’s for other people’s kevin parker

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN fInsbury pArk m off tour I missprevIew e of decadence”

As far as a ‘Lonerism’ follow-up goes, Tame Impala have been teasing out odds and sods: last month’s ‘Live Versions’ EP featured a new snippet, the improvised ‘Sestri Levante’. Then there was a “collaboration” with Compton rap adventurer Kendrick Lamar for sci-f blockbuster Divergent that turned out to be less collaborative than it was billed: “Some record label guy got in touch to ask permission to sample a song [‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards’] and that was it – I didn’t even hear the track ’til it went online with everyone else, which was weird! I don’t even know if Kendrick’s a fan but that’d be great if he was. He seems a cool guy.” Kevin also recently 49 AM shared a vivid, sprawling APPROVED cover of Michael Jackson’s ‘A ’. “Oh, that was like a nick O’Malley two-day thing! MJ has “They’re top blokes. long been this huge we did some of the inspiration for me. I was same festivals as watching this YouTube video of him in , them last year, and some live concert, and we hung out with couldn’t believe I hadn’t them. we chose heard that track before,” them to support us he explains. “There’s because we loved a really interesting chord shift in the song and that last record of I wanted to understand theirs and the one how he did it, so I grabbed before it.” a keyboard, then got messing around.” While it might not get an airing at Finsbury Park or their smaller Oxford warm-up show, the plan is to “fuck with the old songs and make them diferent”, he says. “Otherwise playing them feels like some kind of 10-year reunion concert. You know, digging out the old hits again.” beneft too – making a record drives me so familiar with the name, when we ended up There’s no plan to play new material either, fucking batty. No-one needs to be dragged going for a drink together – us, Matt and Alex but there is some in the pipeline. “I just into that craziness.” – I just thought they were some cool random don’t know how long that pipeline is,” Parker That craziness is the realm in which he dudes! Someone else had to fll me in and tell admits. “But the songs I’m working on, there’s originally met Arctic Monkeys – not that me that these guys were Arctic Monkeys and things I thought I’d never do on them. Fucked- he realised it at the time. “The frst time, they’re a big deal. I felt pretty stupid. They’re up, insane noise. I’m not setting any time we were both playing at this old medieval cool people. I’m defnitely looking forward to aside to stop touring and write it or anything. theatre together – I think it was in Lyon. It was getting a drink with them while we’re over. If I gave myself any kind of schedule for it

before they were popular in Oz. So while I was I’m really excited.” I think it’d feel like a chore.” ▪ saville matt al horner photo: words:

24 May 2014 | New Musical express

93NME14021134.pgs 14.05.2014 17:13 “It’s a massive mom their career and it’s g to be a part o

this isn’t the first time Miles Kane has played Finsbury Park – but it could be the most memorable…

NME: have there been any joint rehearsals ahead of the Finsbury Park date? 50 Miles Kane: “What, when we all sing ‘Perfect Day’ together? Not yet, mate, but for me and probably for Arctic Monkeys it’ll be the frst festival of the season – in a weird way it’s their own festival. I’m over in LA at the minute, and I get back in a couple of weeks and I’ve got a few days’ rehearsal for it.” do you know if there’ll be anything special for the Monkeys’ show? “I’ve heard there’s gonna be harnesses and big ramps.” Will there be any collaborations? “We don’t really know, but I’m sure something’s gonna happen. I don’t know of any covers. They’re really excited because it’s two massive shows and there’s good bands on. There’s us and Royal Blood and Tame Impala, so it’s gonna be a boss event.” have you been discussing backstage grooming services? “I’m getting a few outfts Matt Helders made as we speak. I may “It’s always fun to go on a tartan vibe at have Miles on tour the minute. It’s in the with us because process.” Will this be the gig where we’re friends and rock’n’roll comes out of he’s always a good the sludge and breaks laugh. but he also through the glass ceiling? puts on an amazing “I think it’s just gonna be show, and he’ll be a fucking great gig. For a band like them to be right at home in in a position to headline front of a big crowd them gigs is a massive like Finsbury Park.” moment in your career

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN FInsbury Park ment in PrevIew ’s good t of it”

and it’s good to be a part of it. It’ll be one to remember for everyone involved. They are the biggest band around; they’re killing it.” What did you learn from playing Finsbury Park with the Stone Roses last year? “We had a good one last year, it was great. I guess you kind of know what to expect but I just wanna go on there, and with the bands “Finsbury Park will on before it’s a bit of competition as well to warm it up. I kinda like that, but I defnitely want people to buzz of it and enjoy it, and I think they will. It’ll be a similar kind of crowd be a huge jump” to when we did it last year with the Roses.” do you know the other bands on the bill? “I’ve met Royal Blood, we’ve got the same Royal blood are first on the bill but they won’t let big-occasion manager, they’re really nice lads. I’m a fan of nerves – or first-night exuberance – get to them Tame Impala, I like that last record and they’re 51 very talented lads. I like that ofshoot they have from that band too, Pond.” NME: Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt It’s the biggest stage you’ve played What are your plans for the festival season? helders wore your t-shirt in front of to date. Any nerves? “We’ve got loads – we’ve got a lot in Europe millions of tV viewers at Glastonbury “We’re feeling good about it, actually. and couple in England and then V at the end last year. Now they’re putting you on You can’t really prepare for something at their massive Finsbury Park shows. like this. We played O2 Academy Brixton how do you repay that on the NME Awards Tour “I’ve heard there’s kind of support? and obviously that’s pretty Mike Kerr: “It’s difcult. huge, but even compared I feel like all we ever talk to that Finsbury Park will harnesses and big about is how much we be a huge jump. So we’re owe them! It’s obviously not really worrying about ramps involved…” been great to have their nick O’Malley it. The last few months support. I think we’ve “I think what have made us really grow Miles kane made our gratitude known royal blood do is in confdence as a band.” to them a million times Any surprises planned? now. Maybe we should get interesting: it’s not “We’ve got the set sorted. of it all. Once we start this one, every weekend them a kind of fruit basket your usual two- It’s all a secret but we’ll be we’ll be away doing our thing. We just fnished or a picnic hamper.” piece thing, in the playing some songs that a UK tour about three weeks ago, hitting all the What’s your relationship sense that they’re haven’t been unveiled yet. with the Monkeys like? cities we’ve never played before, and we’ve just not that ‘bluesy’. It should be pretty surreal. been writing since that, and all year, gathering Are you mates or is it just All our friends and family some tunes and seeing what’s going on.” a mutual respect of each They’re a great are coming up, which will have you got an album’s worth yet? other’s music? live band. People be nice. Don’t worry, I’m “I’ve got a good batch of tunes; I want the next “Best mates. We regularly should get down not gonna dedicate songs album to be really special, as you do with every mow each other’s lawns early to see them to my aunt or anything.” Arctic Monkeys aside, record. So I’m gonna continue writing until and everything. Seriously – it’ll definitely be I know I’m ready to go. It’s still early days.” though, they’re great guys. which band from the do you have any plans to work with anyone Hopefully we’ll get to have worth it.” line-up do you think will new on it? a drink or two with them. blow people away most? “Not at the minute, I’m still waiting for the call We won’t go too crazy on the frst night, “I’m a huuuge fan of Tame Impala. Their from Jack White! That’d be my dream. We’ll though, as we still have another big show frst album is in my all-time Top 10. Miles see where we’re at with the tunes by the end the next day. We were so happy when Kane’s fantastic too, so I don’t know. The of the summer, not put any pressure on it. Get they ofered for us to play, so we leapt at nice thing about being on early is you can words: al horner PhoTo: rIChard Johnson rIChard Johnson al horner PhoTo: words: these out of the way, then go in the studio.” ▪ mark beaumonT words: the chance.” kick back and enjoy the other acts.” ▪

24 May 2014 | New Musical express

93NME14021135.pgs 15.05.2014 17:16 Aye of t

Rock’n’roll saved the Amazing Snakeheads’ lives, and now – fuelled by ire and excellent shirts – they’re coming to sort out yours too, discovers barry Nicolson

PhotoS bY dANiEL ChEEthAm

52 hirtless, soaked in sweat and grinning like a goat in a briar patch, Dale Barclay resembles some mad-eyed proselytiser Sof biblical antiquity – Dale the Baptist, if you will – and this, the fnal night of The Amazing Snakeheads’ residency at Glasgow’s Broadcast (one night each month for the past four), is his testifying time. He might be preaching to the long-since converted, but as the crowd surges forward like sinners grasping for absolution, the sermon (From left) dale still rings true: “Fuck London!” he barclay, William howls. “Fuck everywhere else! This Coombe and is where it’s happening, right now! Jordon hutchison Come and pray with us!” A few hours earlier, I meet Barclay and his bandmates at Chinaski’s, the city- working-class districts of Glasgow, south of centre bar where drummer Jordon Hutchison the Clyde, where Barclay and bassist William “i’m more myself used to work, which remains a favourite Coombe grew up. According to William, “all Snakeheads haunt. There he tells me, with we were interested in as kids was playing onstage than i am intense, steely-eyed conviction, about how football” (they’re both big Rangers fans). “rock’n’roll saved my life. I don’t say that As they got older, reality kicked in, and in a fippant manner. I wouldn’t be alive after leaving school, William took a job off it – it’s no act” – I couldn’t be alive – without rock’n’roll.” as a postman, while Dale started working This is the sort of talk I’ve heard a thousand with his dad as a stonemason. Jordon, born dale Barclay times from a thousand other bands who 11,000 miles away in , also has probably would’ve been just as happy being Glaswegian roots: his parents grew up here, graphic designers or digital consultants. and would often tell him stories about the city Dale says, “Where we come from, you’ve got Coming from him, however, I’m inclined they left behind. When he fnally came over to earn a living,” he’s not necessarily talking to believe it. 10 years ago to attend a wedding, he liked geographically, but socially. The Amazing Snakeheads have their roots it so much he decided to stay, earning his “Hard work is a dirty word nowadays,” in Mosspark and Bellahouston, predominantly keep by working long hours as a chef. When he says. “People don’t want to be seen to be

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN the AmAzing SnAkeheAdS f the tiger

cunts”, but it wasn’t something they expected anyone else to ‘get’, so much as a way to vent their own nine-to-fve frustrations. For him, it was “an outlet, a way to channel all that shit and somehow get rid of it. You can leave everything onstage and you don’t need to bother with it when you walk of.” Despite that, he reckons, “I’m more myself onstage than I am of it. It’s not an act, we’re not playing characters – that’s us.” Thing is, with their gallus, cocksure swagger, sovereign rings and love of famboyantly patterned shirts that basically say ‘go ahead, make a remark about my shirt’, you’d be forgiven for thinking the opposite was true, and nick O’malley that they were playing up 53 “i heard ‘here it to the stereotype of – as Comes Again’ one reviewer put it – “the by the Amazing socipathic Scottish hard Snakeheads on man”. As far as the clothes go, says Dale, “that comes the radio recently from my grandad. He and i really liked was one of those guys it – i love the way who looked sharp, all the it just repeats fucking time.” Their live the title over and shows, however, while exhilarating and weirdly over again. they cathartic, are undeniably seem like a really confrontational afairs. exciting band.” As William puts it, “Music can make you cry, it can make you dance, it can make you want to go out and fght people, but for us, when we go onstage, it’s like, chest out, shoulders back – you’re going into battle.” working too hard at what they do, like it’s Glasgow’s long-running funk, soul and psych Dale, however, isn’t so sure. He abhors what not ‘cool’ or something. That’s bullshit. night. Their Saturday night pilgrimages he calls “all that Begbie shit”, and sighs that Whether you’re in a band or doing a job, there were, says Dale, “a huge part of our “there’s been a lot written about our band that there’s no separation between being creative musical education. We frst went when we I fnd quite ofensive. People can take what we and going out to work.” Yet while they’re were about 16, and it was like an epiphany do and how I am however they want, but it’s proud of that protestant work ethic, they that went of in my head, like, ‘Here we getting a wee bit boring now.” don’t romanticise the reality of it. Like his fucking go!’ When you’re that age, having bandmates, Dale, now 28, only recently quit somewhere like that where you could just go the Snakeheads have also earned his day job, and readily admits, “When I was and do your thing… it was fucking cooking, themselves a local reputation as hard-partiers, young, I was fucking miserable. Writing songs man. It was wondrous.” something they make a few coded references and getting into music was all that saved me Come Monday morning, however, it was to throughout our interview. When Dale from a life of drudgery.” back to the grindstone – literally, in Dale’s says the band “live healthily”, for example, They played as hard as they worked, of case. He’d started writing songs as a teenager, Jordon clears his throat conspiratorially, while course. By the time they met Jordon – whose but the Snakeheads, formed in 2010, were his William makes mention of the “bad habits” girlfriend was living in the fat below theirs frst real band. From the very frst practice, they get up to when they go out together. – Dale and William were regulars at Divine!, he says, “I knew I had something with these What interests me, though, is how they go

24 May 2014 | New Musical express

93NME14021144.pgs 16.05.2014 12:46 the AMAZING SNAKeheADS Clyde busting The Amazing Snakeheads’ three favourite Glasgow bands Laura St Jude the Rosy Crucifixion Big Ned Dale: “She’s Dale: “This is Dale: “They’re a singer- the band Emily now sadly songwriter from and Stu from defunct, but Glasgow who Green Door fuck me, what from being the personable, cheerfully profane sang on our are in. How a band. We tried people I’m sitting with now, to the scorched- B-side ‘The Bullfighter’ and would I describe it? Just to get them to play with us earth force of nature they become in front of plays it live with us. But she’s great fucking rock’n’roll music. a few times before they split an audience. It’s hard to believe that change got fantastic songs of her own, Like Laura, I think of it as being up but we could never quite comes about after a couple of pre-show beers and she goes about making like Snakeheads music. It’s manage it.” in the dressing room. Are they wired when music in the right manner… diferent from what we do, Jordon: “Their music is they go onstage every night? And what a voice she’s got, but it’s coming from the hilarious and terrifying at the man. Incredible.” same sort of place.” same time. They played with “We do our own thing,” says Dale evasively, The Fall last year and absolutely “and that’s for us to know and others to wiped the floor with them.” ponder. But listen, we can go into practice on a cold Tuesday night after knocking our pans in on a 12-hour shift, and we’ll rehearse like commercial clients at weekends. Since incredibly varied and disparate bunch; we play live. Playing this music, with these opening seven years ago, it’s become a symbol all they really have in common is the cunts, is what makes me feel alive. It’s just of Glasgow’s recent musical renaissance, and studio itself. about the music, that’s all it is.” while the Snakeheads are currently the best- “We’re very fortunate to be doing our band He rubbishes any attempt to contextualise known alumni, almost every exciting new at the same time Green Door is going on,” that music as being part of a new wave of band in the city has some sort of connection says Dale. “Without Green Door, without [co- angry, evangelical rock’n’roll, although he will to the place: Casual Sex frontman owners and Snakeheads producers] Emily and allow a comparison with Fat White Family, is one of the co-directors, voodoo-house Stu, there is no ‘Amphetamine Ballads’. It’s the “because those boys are true to the bone”. If voyagers Golden Teacher frst met there, place to be, man. Every city has its time, and they ft into any scene, he says, it’s the one and up-and-comers like The Creeping Ivies, it’s Glasgow’s right now. I just hope people that’s sprung up around Glasgow’s Green Jacob Yates & The Pearly Gates Lock Pickers, get into it now and not after the fact, when Door Studios, where their debut album, The Vudu Zoo and Laura St Jude (see box they’ll look back and go, ‘Fuck me, there was ‘Amphetamine Ballads’, was recorded. above) are all regulars. Musically, they’re an something really good happening there.’” For what it’s worth, the feeling appears to be In any small city it’s inevitable that mutual. “I could say that we’re very fortunate 54 like-minded artistic types will gather around “every city has its to be around while the Snakeheads are doing the same local institutions. In Glasgow those their thing, too!” laughs Green Door director totems have historically been places like the Emily MacLaren. “There’s always been a lot Art School or Optimo, the Sunday-night club time. Glasgow’s going on here,” she says, “but in the last fve on Jamaica Street; these days it’s Green Door. years it’s been non-stop, and really eclectic. Operated by a small group of local musicians, is right now” You have people playing rock’n’roll, doing Green Door is an all-analogue community electronic music, cross-pollinating, going out studio that runs free production workshops Dale Barclay to diferent gigs, partying at diferent clubs, for young people during the week and records sharing ideas with each other... right now, Glasgow is an amazing place to be.” Surveying the scene later that night – when MacLaren and her fellow ‘Amphetamine Ballads’ producer Stuart Evans join the band onstage – you’d be hard-pushed to disagree with her. Despite the “stand-ofsh” attitude Jordon says many in their hometown had towards them until recently, the Snakeheads end their Broadcast residency as heirs apparent to a city whose hour has coming around once again. “You’ll come to our show tonight and you’ll feel it,” Barclay had assured me earlier. Snakeheads “You’ll see people losing on the streets their shit. You can have smoke blown up your arse of Glasgow, ’til the cows come home, May 2014 but you can’t fake that. It’s pure awe and wonder.” ▪

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

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New MusicAl express | 24 MAY 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN tune-yaRdssKRILLeX e w o o d s

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Lauded from all corners for Tune-Yards’ breakthrough second album, when it came to writing a follow-up, Merrill Garbus had to defeat a case of serious self-doubt. Cian Traynor meets a rejuvenated force

PhoToS bY brinSon + bankS

24 MAY 2014 | New MusicAl express

93NME14021136.pgs 14.05.2014 17:39 n a colourful studio space in downtown Oakland, California, an expanded version of Tune-Yards is rehearsing an album fraught with uncertainty. Three years have passed since band lynchpin Merrill Garbus last made ia record, and she’s been pushing herself hard, trying to turn a crisis of confdence into a dizzying set of songs. ‘Nikki Nack’, the eagerly awaited result, manages to be both musically complex and loaded with commercial ambition: all sing-along infectiousness and wild percussion. More signifcantly, it plots another point on a brilliantly peculiar career arc. Dressed in a resplendent array of pastel colours, Garbus stands over a keyboard and drumkit in the centre of the room, adjusting intricate song arrangements for a new fve- piece version of the band. The atmosphere 58 is focused but fun; the songs distilled to a deceptive simplicity. Jo and Abigail, two backing singers, link into feather-light harmonies while dancing on the spot, knocking their woodblocks together while breakthrough for their catchy-but- grooving as if in slow-motion rewind. But complicated dynamic. But somewhere “i strive to maKe peopLe when bassist Nate Brenner gives a pep talk along the way, Garbus shifted from about the band’s arena tour with Arcade Fire, being seen as a “kooky outsider- thinK aBout things they Tune-Yards’ humble beginnings suddenly artist” to a brash, uncompromising feel like a lifetime ago. songwriter with difcult things to say. “I get built up as something other don’t hear in ” in 2009, Tune-Yards’ debut album, than I am,” she says, explaining how ‘Bird-Brains’, required little more than any summation of the Tune-Yards merriLL garBus a ukulele and some basic beats to introduce story tends to overlook inconvenient Garbus as a unique presence, her trademark truths. The events so often harnessed arresting vocal range paired with a melange as reference points – her spell as a puppeteer creative state, you lose all perspective. There’s of exotic rhythms that brought hip-hop, jazz, in Vermont, an eye-opening trip to Africa, the a moment where you go to the worst-case showtunes and assorted strands of African summer job as a nanny in Martha’s Vineyard – scenario of, ‘We won’t be able to make a living music into a cohesive identity. The addition were all mired by depression and uncertainty. doing this any more. What if this album ruins of Brenner as a songwriting partner helped But when ‘Bird-Brains’ and ‘Whokill’ our reputation? What if people say the band refne that variety into 2011’s more polished materialised as assured DIY documents, is crappy? If give us a 3.0 then I’ll go ‘Whokill’, earning Tune-Yards a critical people assumed that any self-doubt had been back to school and become a voice teacher.’ conquered, that any questions It’s not like that all the time but in the low had been answered. moments, those are the thoughts we have to Tune-Yards at ‘Nikki Nack’ proves otherwise. flter out just to make the album.” Latitude in 2012 As Garbus reveals on album Garbus grew sick of herself while touring opener ‘Find A New Way’, there ‘Whokill’. For 15 months, life on the road were times where she considered involved leaning on bad habits, growing never singing again. Ultimately desensitised to the accolades that came she decided to embrace her her way and feeling like she wasn’t living shortcomings for the sake of up to anyone’s expectations. “I’ve learned musical reinvention, but the that if I can’t be grateful that an audience is process only exacerbated her appreciative, it’s time to stop,” she says now. self-consciousness. “It felt like “That eroded my confdence, I think. I felt something that no-one was two-dimensional, so it was really important going to understand,” she says. to take time of and get back to who I was.”

“When you’re in that fragile When life settled down again, however, one richard johnson

New MusicAl express | 24 MAY 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN tune-yards Merrill Garbus in Oakland, California, April 13, 2014

Whatever issues the songs on these sort of preconceptions with grace and ‘Nikki Nack’ touch upon, be it female body humility. It doesn’t faze her in the slightest, image or ‘white guilt’, Garbus prefers to for example, that the input of producers keep them abstract. Beyond the insecurity Malay (Alicia Keys, Frank Ocean) and John that shaped the record, she says it’s no Hill (Santigold, MIA) on ‘Nikki Nack’ may less personal or political than Tune-Yards’ quash any notion of her as someone who previous work. Listeners and critics just makes “art for art’s sake”. like trying to impose a wider narrative. Creating danceable pop was always the Walking along Oakland’s Lake Merritt, where intention, she says, and part of her wishes Garbus often brainstorms that music as weird as Tune- songwriting ideas, she points Yards’ could fnd a wider out the water fountain tune Bard audience. “Like, why is Katy that inspired the album’s Perry’s shallow song about rip-roaring frst single, Merrill Garbus ofers ‘feminism’ allowed to be ‘Water Fountain’. In the her best bits of successful and ‘Real Thing’ brief time since its release, songwriting advice isn’t?” She laughs. “I kinda it has been interpreted as want to get in the game fear remained: having lived on the road both a commentary on a little bit more.” for over a year, would there be anything the degradation of her Write on the move Besides, she adds, how do left to write about? The feeling nagged community and of worldwide “I find there’s a natural pace people expect her to make away at Garbus until she grew determined water shortages. But the area when you’re walking, which a living? ‘Water Fountain’ helps me practise lyrics and to break out of her creative comfort zone. is picturesque; the water rhythms in a stream-of has already attracted ofers Ditching the ukulele and looping pedal, fountain perfectly functional. consciousness way.” from advertisers (‘Fiya’ she enrolled in Haitian drum classes and “The songs aren’t about from ‘Bird-Brains’ was 59 dance lessons, learned to smooth the anything,” she says. “There’s surprise yourself previously featured in a ‘yodel’ out of her voice and read about how no way you can translate all “It’s important just to put the Blackberry commercial) to write a hit song. those lyrics into one specifc time in but there are also habits and Garbus believes Tune- you’ll fall into, so always tweak ‘Nikki Nack’ felt like “a scary leap to meaning. They’re all over the things to find something you Yards will inevitably have take”, Garbus says. It’s pop... but not as we place.” All of this, it should don’t expect from yourself.” to make compromises know it. The only foundation beneath its be said, is expressed with that could lose them fans. dense and unpredictable song structures self-deprecating candour. Keep it balanced She’s not complaining, are Brenner’s of-kilter basslines, which Garbus is funny, intelligent “Something has to be the she adds, but to expect anchor. If it’s the drumbeat, pitter-patter between the beats. Driving and unpretentious, posing otherwise is unrealistic: then the bass is free to be more everything along is a push-and-pull almost as many questions as melodic. But if the melody is “What if at a certain point momentum between the buoyancy of the she’s asked while peppering more ornate, everything else I have the power to change melodies and the fecks of frustration they her own answers with has to stay simple.” a corporation’s behaviour contain. Nowhere is this clearer than on the a musical giggle. On the around something, like warped R&B of ‘Real Thing’, where Garbus walk to Tune-Yards’ studio, Find the conflict outsourcing labour to “Friction is important. By cheerfully sings, “Aren’t you tired of this Oakland’s grafti-covered noticing what’s lacking, you horrible sweatshops in game, and all the emptiness of your fame?/ streets don’t seem that can introduce opposing forces, India? I think with more You can’t hold tight to what you have, ’cos diferent from parts of nearby even just lyrically, to give the success you can make there is nothing there to grab”. downtown San Francisco. song a push and pull.” these bigger decisions Asking Garbus about that level of But the city has a reputation Let go and be a model for others. honesty inevitably brings up Tune-Yards’ for violent crime and there’s I don’t see any inherent “A perfectionist will never reputation. Some people may not like to a perception that Garbus end anything because nothing contradiction in that.” hear her worrying about album reviews moved here in order to live can naturally be perfect. But at Having turned a lack of or writer’s block, preferring to stick with somewhere grittier. a certain point, it’s a matter of inspiration into her fnest the image of the 35-year-old as a source It’s not quite true. giving yourself a deadline and work, it might be tempting of social commentary and a voice for the Ever since growing up letting go.” to conclude that Garbus has marginalised. “I feel uncomfortable with in Connecticut, where learned not to second-guess that perception,” she says. “I do feel like I she felt estranged from the upper-class herself. The truth is there are countless things strive to open people’s minds to think about culture around her, Garbus has preferred she’s still unsure about – and no narrative can things and conditions that they may not to live in places that refect the real world. frame it any diferently. “I’m a complex human hear in other pop music. But do I want to be The downside, she says, is consciously being,” she says fnally. “I think people are a representative for marginalised people? contributing to the city’s “frst generation uncomfortable with that grey area: the idea Hell no. I mean, who am I? I’m just another of gentrifers”: artists who move into cheap of me or anybody else just being a real person person who’s part of the problem, in most places, create a nice environment and then instead of a hero or an anti-hero. Any time cases... I don’t want to write songs that tell end up pushing out those who can’t aford someone tries to boil it down or simplify it, people what they should think or do.” to live there any more. Garbus addresses it’s going to be a shallow version of me.” ▪

24 MAY 2014 | New MusicAl express

93NME14021145.pgs 15.05.2014 17:51 around the w

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For his new multimedia extravaganza ‘American Interior’, Gruf Rhys trekked around the States in the footsteps of a distant relative. With a felt doll. Tom Pinnock meets the intrepid explorers

PHOTOS: ANDY FORD

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN GRUFF RHYS around the world

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24 May 2014 | New Musical express

93NME14021146.pgs 14.05.2014 17:12 Fuzzy felt logic: John Evans and Gruf Rhys

ruf Rhys is settled on a leather sofa in the Cardif Bay editing suite where his new flm, American Interior, was put together. Just in front of the singer, songwriter and GSuper Furry Animal is a voodoo shrine, made of wood and corrugated metal, decorated with winged bufalo and flled with Native American feathers and beads. Inside the shrine is a stufed felt fgure, about two feet tall, dressed in the fashions of the 18th century: a tricorn hat, rufed shirt and a grey jacket with many buttons. He is an avatar for the real-life John Evans, an 18th-century Welsh explorer whose story inspired Rhys to trek across America on an “investigative concert tour”, retracing Evans’ steps through the Midwest. Soon, a birthday cake will be brought out for the little guy, and we’ll all sing as he makes no attempt to blow out the candles (he is 244, after all). “Penblwydd hapus i ti, penblwydd hapus i ti…” “Touring industrially, you fnd yourself in crazy situations,” says Gruf, “where you have to be in another town to fulfl some deal for an agent, so you have to travel in a van for eight hours. Your body’s rattling. ‘Where the fuck am I going? Why? This is insane…’ So instead 62 I went on tour in order to fnd something out.” The real John Evans, a distant relative of Gruf’s, was a farmhand, born in April 1770 in the Snowdonian village of Waunfawr. Under the infuence of the messianic writer Iolo Morganwg, and gripped by the (almost certainly untrue) story of Madog, a Welsh prince who supposedly crossed the Atlantic in 1170, Evans travelled to North America alone in 1792 to search for the Madogwys, a mythical tribe of Welsh-speaking Native Americans. Reaching St Louis, he swore allegiance to the Spanish and headed an expedition up the Missouri, feeing from Native American tribes and making the frst accurate map of the river album on the trip. When he reached Omaha, as he went. By 1796 he had found the Mandan Nebraska, he put down nine “raw” versions people in North Dakota, but with no evidence “It could’ve just of the songs with former Flaming Lips of the Welsh tribes, he returned to Louisiana, drummer . When he got back and died in New Orleans in 1799. It’s not for been a record but to the UK, he went to Bristol to work with nothing that his voodoo shrine is emblazoned producer Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Euros Childs). with the phrase ‘Y Magodwys Au Angau’ (‘The it got out of hand” Having recently fnished making ’s Madogwys Or Death’). (his project with ) second album, Gruf Rhys’ tour following Evans’ journey ‘’, he had loads of synths swiftly swelled to become an album, a flm, Gruff Rhys at his disposal. a book and an app, all helpfully called “They hopefully stop it from becoming an ‘American Interior’. “I was keen to make sure a storytelling folk ballad anchored by ferocious Americana record,” he says. “I didn’t want to there was an album to go with the flm, unlike drumming, and ‘Allweddellau Allweddol’ is make a dull MOR record. But I still wanted it with [2010’s] Separado!,” explains Gruf. “Then a groovy sampled produced by Andy to be epic in scale. It’s usually a bad idea when I realised there was no contemporary book Votel, designed to evoke the tribal ceremonies bands go to America to make a record that about John Evans. I had no ambition to write of the Mandan; ‘Iolo’ revels in its Morricone- sounds American. And hopefully I’ve gone so a book – I see myself as a songwriter – but the esque strings, while ‘Lost Tribes’ luxuriates over the top that it makes a joke of it. I’ve been story warrants all this stuf. It could have just in washes of cheesy electric piano. clinging onto that thin ice…” been a record, but it got a bit out of hand…” When Gruf began his tour at a Yale ‘American Interior’ is probably Rhys’ University library armed with a “ropey” Tracing John Evans’ journey in greatest solo record so far, an esoteric collision PowerPoint presentation, he had only two new tourbuses and motorboats, Gruf’s route took of the earthy and the electronic, the past songs, ‘100 Unread Messages’ and ‘American him to some bizarre places – Kaskaskia, once and the future. ‘100 Unread Messages’ is Interior’, but he gradually wrote most of the the capital of , now with a population

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN GRUFF RHYS

of 14; and New Madrid, destroyed by an between how easy it was for me and how a monarchy, which is a completely outdated earthquake after Evans’ visit. “It would have impossible it was for him.” system for a country that’s supposed to been a major city today,” says Gruf, producing Considering he’s a relative, Gruf is be democratic. We’re still bombarded by a postcard that celebrates ‘the greatest non- tight-lipped on flm about how the epic monarchist propaganda, and we’re run by event in history’, when news crews focked to journey afected him personally, for fear an elitist government who’ll put proft ahead the town in 1990 for an expected repeat of the of sentimentality. “John Evans’ charisma, of people. It’s been really interesting to fnd quake that never materialised. ambition and drive are really inspirational,” out more about that era and see that almost “I love touring in America, the culture’s so he says, sipping his cofee after a slice of nothing has changed, shamefully. All the good friendly,” he explains. “We’d be at the river and John’s cake. “But he’s a pretty distant relative things that have changed for the better, this you’d see a couple on a motorboat. ‘Any chance and his story’s much more interesting than present government is trying to dismantle we could borrow the boat?’ ‘Yeah!’ So we’re my connection to him. I also didn’t want to them, so it is an extremely depressing driving up the River in a fucking boat. canonise him too much as time. But we can take There were some characters with machetes on a hero – he was working inspiration from the past.” the river, but they seemed pretty friendly.” for a colonial power, and Reaching North Dakota, Gruf spent a week though his intentions were ‘American with the Mandan people and met the last really admirable, the by- Interior’ makes sense speaker of their language – “We sang with him, product of him mapping as the third part of it was a fun night out” – before heading to New a large part of the middle a biographical trilogy, Orleans in an attempt to locate Evans’ grave. of the American continent along with Neon Neon’s It was there that people began mistaking the brought a lot of problems ‘’, a concept felt avatar for a voodoo doll, inspiring the to First Nation tribes. album about John flm’s fnal scene, a joyous voodoo send-of “My brother’s theory DeLorean, and ‘Praxis on the hillside in Waunfawr. is that it’s possible, if it Makes Perfect’, which Gruf goes into greater detail about the wasn’t for the Madog myth, and John Evans concerned Italian publisher and socialist journey in his excellent, frequently hilarious putting up one Spanish fag in particular, that millionaire Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. book. Let’s be honest, the only other pop Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota “All of a sudden I’ve done loads of records musician who could pull of such an ambitious would have been part of Canada, and George about people,” says Gruf, “but it’s not project is Julian Cope (“I defnitely see him as W Bush wouldn’t have had enough electoral something I’ve particularly planned. I’ve an inspirational fgure,” admits Gruf); even college votes and Al Gore would have been learnt loads doing all those records, so it’s the operatic voyages of Damon Albarn have president… Of course, it’s ludicrous to pin that been really good. But it’ll be great to not 63 so far been in collaboration with large theatre on John Evans, but if you start believing in write about other people.” groups, and you can’t imagine he’d have the myths and take your eye of the here and now Will he be doing this with the Super Furry sense of humour to traipse around the US with too much, it can really fuck you up.” Animals any time soon, then? a puppet, even if he did spend years hanging Whatever the truth about that leg-up for “There’s nothing concrete, but we’re looking out with a bunch of cartoons. Dubya, Gruf explains that studying the 18th to get everybody’s records out. Guto’s band Just like its author, the American Interior century has left him feeling even unhappier Gulp have got an album coming out, Cian’s book at times abandons seriousness and blasts with the politics of today than he was before. mixed that and he’s producing stuf, and of into what seem like surreal fantasies. Gruf “The Conservative government would I think he’s got a third solo album on the way. writes about having a goat, which he admits probably like things to return to the way they Daf’s got an album ready for his new band, – to his chagrin – isn’t true. “I was into goats were in the era of John Evans,” he says. “It’s The Earth, and a second album ready for when I was a kid, no pun intended,” he says. shameful that the House Of Lords still has The Peth. Bunf has just completed a degree “I had goat books like The Wild Goats Of Great any power, and that we’re still represented by in flm composition. He’s now qualifed to Britain And . But if you write conduct an orchestra, so I can’t a book, you can be anyone you want.” wait to see what he does with that By contrast, a chapter about an Behind the seams… in the band. I think we’ve tried out aggressive American dentist reveals The team who put the feeling into a felt man all the things we’ve ever wanted to a wider truth. “I chose the dentist try on our solo records.” ’cos he had the best logo,” laughs Pete Fowler Louise Evans We head out into the unseasonally Gruf, scrolling through his phone to warm sun for some photos of aka Felt Mistress, on fnd a picture. “I really did have an on designing John Evans Gruf and John by the water. The ideological debate with him, because “It’s always amazing creating John Evans redeveloped Cardif Bay is buzzing I love the NHS and I won’t hear a bad to be asked to do “I’m a huge Gruf with tourists, but nobody seems something by Gruf fan, so when I was word about it, and he was trying to to bat an eyelid at this Super Furry and SFA. To come asked to make have a go at me for my teeth, my up with the image of someone John I was like, ‘Oh Animal posing with his felt friend. ‘NHS teeth’ – I wanted to hit him! when there is no representation my god!’ I’m trained in fashion “When I was packing up the “In the book, I was trying to at all is very challenging. Gruf so I try to make all my figures equipment on tour,” says Gruf as paint myself as pretty spoilt. I was and I looked at what people of clothes – they’re made as they he looks at his cloth companion, felt having allergies to suncream, which simple means wore in those would be if they were for a full- locks blowing in the breeze, “people is pretty pathetic – my eyes were times, and we looked at people size person. John’s produced were getting their photos taken with watering at the point of the journey that came from that area, to get in the way you might construct him and I could just pack up the gear where John Evans went blind ’cos an idea of who he was. Most an expensive teddy bear. When and let John have the glory. He’s like people back in the day then had I made him, his suit was new he had malaria and was walking one of those teddy bears you win at mullets, so a mullet it was – or and his shirt was crisp and without any clothes along the ice-hockey hair, I should say! It’s I thought he needed to look a a fair. I just hope I’m not doing the Mississippi in the baking hot sun the story that’s the really crazy little more worn – he’s got more real John Evans a disservice, ruining for two weeks fat, foraging for food. thing with this project though, experience behind those eyes his persona. ’Cos he was a really I just wanted to make the distinction rather than the imagery.” now after all that travelling!” serious guy… He’s a flm star now.” ▪

24 May 2014 | New Musical express

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EdITOR Mike Williams EdITOR’S PA Karen Walter (ext 6864) ART dIRECTOR Mark Neil (ext 6885) EdITOR, NME.COM Greg Cochrane (ext 6892) BURNS, BABY, BURNS dEPUTy EdITOR Eve Barlow (ext 6854) A year after saying he wanted dEPUTy EdITOR, NME.COM Lucy Jones (ext 6867) ASSISTANT EdITOR Tom Howard (ext 6866) to kill Echo & The Bunnymen FEATURES EdITOR Laura Snapes (ext 6871) NEwS EdITOR Dan Stubbs (ext 6858) singer Ian McCulloch, Dead NEw MUSIC EdITOR Matt Wilkinson (ext 6856) dEPUTy NEwS EdITOR Jenny Stevens (ext 6863) Or Alive frontman Pete Burns ASSISTANT REvIEwS EdITOR Rhian Daly (ext 6860) has resurrected his band. Now NEwS REPORTER David Renshaw (ext 6877) he faces accusations that dEPUTy ART dIRECTOR Tony Ennis dESIGNER Dani Liquieri he’s just an Adam Ant clone. dIGITAL dESIGNER Jon Moore

“People think that because of PICTURE EdITOR Zoe Capstick (ext 6889) my appearance, just getting ONLINE PICTURE EdITOR Emily Barker (ext 6852) PROdUCTION EdITOR Tom Mugridge up onstage is good enough for SENIOR SUB-EdITORS Kathy Ball, Alan Woodhouse SUB-EdITORS Nathaniel Cramp, Mike Johnson, me. I hate the idea of shows, Louis Pattison all the superficiality and tack. PROdUCER, NME.COM Jo Weakley I’m not an image for the stage. vIdEO PROdUCER Andrew Rawson

This is me. I live like this.” wITH HELP FROM JJ Dunning, Adam Gordon, Neelam Khan, Mandy Rowson WHO THE FUNK? ADvErTISINg 6th Floor, Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, Barney Hoskyns meets London SE1 0SU CREATIvE MEdIA dIRECTOR Matt Downs (ext 3681) Funkapolitan, the “Britfunk CREATIvE MEdIA dIRECTOR’S PA Tribha Shukla (ext 6733) fly-guys” who “have finally HEAd OF CREATIvE MEdIA – MEN & MUSIC Rob Hunt (ext 6721) cracked their groove”. “We’re dEPUTy HEAd OF CREATIvE MEdIA Neil McSteen (ext 6707) into the super-sleazy sexy dIGITAL BUSINESS dIRECTOR Chris Dicker (ext 6709) ACTING dISPLAy Ad MANAGER Stephane Folquet soul sound,” says singer and (ext 6724) rapper Nick Jones. “We’ve CREATIvE MEdIA MANAGERS Adam Bulleid (ext 6704) got a lot of songs that started Matthew Chalkley (ext 6722) LIvE & LABELS SENIOR SALES ExECUTIvE of their lives on a funk Emma Martin (ext 6705) dISPLAy & ONLINE SALES – RECORd LABELS footing but can be played at Stephanie McLean (ext 6723) CREATIvE MEdIA PROjECT MANAGER a Eurodisco tempo.” Of the Elisabeth Hempshall (ext 6726) band’s potential, Hoskyns dIRECTOR OF INSIGHT Amanda Wigginton (ext 3636) concludes: “They could steal REGIONAL BUSINESS dEvELOPMENT MANAGER 65 Oliver Scull (0161 872 2152) the whole show.” Ad PROdUCTION Laurie King (ext 6729) CLASSIFIEd SALES MANAGER Laura Andrus (ext 2547) CLASSIFIEd SALES ExECUTIvE REVIEWED THIS WEEK Tom Spratt (ext 2611) Blondie – CLASSIFIEd Ad COPy Rosanne Hannaway (ext 2506) SyNdICATION MANAGER Lisa Hagenmeier (ext 5478) Should I stay ‘The Hunter’ SUBSCRIPTIONS MARKETING ExECUTIvE Kaye Benfield (ext 6296) “Put another INNOvATOr £ INSErT SAlES dime in the Emma Young (ext 3704) jukebox, baby! PUBlISHINg GROUP PROdUCTION MANAGER Tom Jennings Blondie still love graunchy old PROdUCTION CONTROLLER Lisa Clay or should I go? rock’n’roll! ‘War Child’ retreads dIGITAL MARKETING & EvENTS ExECUTIvE Benedict Ransley (ext 6783) the territory of ‘Atomic’, knee- MARKETING ASSISTANT Charlotte Treadaway (ext 6779) Troubled times for NME’s Charles Shaar Murray meets The deep in sexual symbolism. This INTERNATIONAL EdITIONS Bianca Foster-Hamilton (ext 5490) Clash a week after the band played their album will doubtless sell and PUBLISHER Ellie Miles (ext 6775) The Clash: after ■ PUBLISHING dIRECTOR Jo Smalley last-ever gig with drummer Topper Headon. sell.” ADrIAN THrIllS PA TO PUBLISHING dIRECTOR Zoe Roll (ext 6913) Joe Strummer’s “It was his decision,” says frontman Joe © IPC Inspire reproduction of any material without Strummer. “It’s not too easy to be in The AlSO IN THIS ISSUE permission is strictly forbidden disappearance, Clash.” “We all feel the same,” adds guitarist ► are drummer Topper Mick Jones. “And he don’t really.” “We’re permission to play at gonna continue as a trio,” says Strummer, Queens Park rangers’ Headon quits and bassist Paul Simonon explains how: “soccer ground” because “We’re gonna get some guest in, there “was such an outcry

and they’re gonna play with us whenever from local residents”. SUBSCRIBE TO NME. Call +44 (0) 844 848 0848 Subscription rates: one-year rates (51 weekly issues) UK £129.90; Europe €154.40; United we want to make a record or play some ►Dexys Midnight runners States (direct entry) $233.15; rest of North America $307.15; rest of the world £192.70 (prices include contribution to postage). Payment by credit card or cheque (payable to IPC Media Ltd). shows.” Also on the agenda is Strummer’s and The Boomtown rats Credit card hotline (UK orders only): 0844 848 0848. Write to: NME Subscriptions, IPC Media Ltd, PO Box 272, Haywards Heath, disappearance earlier in the year. Neither have announced two West Sussex, RH16 3FS. All enquiries and overseas orders: +44 (0)330 3330 233 (open 7 days a week, 8am-9pm UK time), the general public nor The Clash’s co-headline shows in email [email protected]. Periodicals postage paid at Rahway, NJ. Postmaster: Send address changes to: NME, 365 Blair Road, Avenel, NJ 07001, USA. management had any idea where he was, Newcastle’s Exhibition Park BACK ISSUES OF NME cost £4.50 in the UK (£5.50 in the EEC, £6.50 in the rest of the world) including postage and are available and an entire tour had to be cancelled. “It as part of radio 1’s Weekend from John Denton Services, The Back Issues Department, PO Box 772, Peterborough PE2 6WJ. Tel 01733 385170, was something I wanted to prove to myself: In The North East special. email [email protected] or visit mags-uk.com/ipc LEGAL STUFF NME is published weekly by IPC Inspire, 9th Floor, Blue ► Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU. NME must not that I was alive,” he says. “It’s like being Madness have announced be sold at more than the recommended selling price shown on the front cover. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper. All rights a robot, being in a group. Rather than go the release of their new video reserved and reproduction without permission strictly forbidden. All contributions to NME must be original and not duplicated to other barmy and go mad, I think it’s better to do cassette. ‘Complete Madness’ publications. The editor reserves the right to shorten or modify any letter or material submitted. IPC Media or its associated companies reserves the right to reuse any submission, in any format or medium. what I did, even for a month. I just went to is 42 minutes long, features Printed by Wyndeham Peterborough. Origination by Rhapsody. Distributed by IPC Marketforce. Paris. I knew a lot of people were going to 13 promo clips, and is selling © 2014 IPC Media Ltd, England. US agent: Mercury International, 365 Blair Road, Avenel, NJ 07001 be disappointed, but I had to go.” for the “low price” of £19.50. ANTON CORBIJN ANTON 24 may 2014 | New musical express

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93NME14021138.pgs 15.05.2014 13:15 QUIZ ■ Compiled by ALAN WOODHOUSE (answers on page 67)

■ Compiled by NME CROSSWORD TREVOR HUNGERFORD 1 Which 2001 album Win £50 Worth of seetickets vouchers features guest 6 Which baggy- 11 in their appearances from era band’s singer 1998 guest 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Paul Mccartney was called Warren appearance on and ? Dermody? The Simpsons, 9 8 10 which member of says the 119 12 10 11 2 What was the 7 Which acclaimed word ‘wankers’? name of the British guitarist 13 14 record label Alan briefly joined ash McGee set up for touring duties 12 What is the after creation in 2010? 4AD label’s only 1512 13 16 14 15 closed in 2000? uk number one single? 16 17 17 1418 8 Which pop 3 What is the star was given 1419 20 17 19 name of Limp the birth name 13 true or false: Bizkit’s only Destiny, but Us guitar hero 21 21 22 chart-topping changed it slash was born in UK single? oficially in 2008? stoke-on-trent. 2023 24 25 21 26 4 Which 2001 9 Which British 27 3 28 29 14 in which NME cover stars’ band’s last album German city frontman was featured guest did 2427 28 30 29 30 31 32 called casey appearances from play their last chaos? norah jones and gig with John 3423 27 35 2436 carey Mulligan? Bonham in 1980?

32 38 33 34 39 5 Which acclaimed 10 Which hugely 15 Whose 27 34 40 UK band successful band 1978 debut eP were had uk top 40 was called originally hits with the 4135 36 ‘Bingo-Master’s known songs ‘under Break-out!’? 66 as the Attack’ and ‘head automatics? over heels’? CLUES ACROSS on john Lennon 7 Liverpudlians from recordings (4-5) glasgow (3) 1 With their 20th single 29+7A Questionable 8 ThE NME COvER ThaT comes a break at last for depth in the music of had their own method (3) arctic Monkeys (4-3-2-2) Ludacris (3-3) 11 it is factually correct to say 7 (see 29 across) 31 (see 16 down) this is ’s first album (4) I gONE aND DONE 9 Permission given to record 32 “So I kiss goodbye to 14 a bit of skiffle, actually, this orwells number onto every little ounce of ____”, coming from the red hot ■ by CHRiS SimpSONS ARTiST a cd (3-2-4) from jake Bugg’s ‘two chili Peppers (4) 10 Play _____ For Me, movie Fingers’ (4) 15 (see 30 down) starring clint eastwood as 33 (see 3 down) 16+31A honestly, elvis a radio dj getting continual 34 (see 27 across) turned up with a stevie requests for erroll garner 35 one of the supremes is Wonder classic (4-3-6) jazz classic (5) included in this crossword (4) 17 12+24D (see 33 down) never sending 36 a bit of dodgy 20 american with a bit of a correct version by eagulls psychology coming from a tummy ache (3) (5-7) Fleetwood Mac (5) 22 somehow i’ll inch towards 13 “I savour ____ as much as I crave love”, from Biffy a number by Modjo (7) 24 (see 12 across) clyro’s ‘god & satan’ (4) CLUES DOWN 25 14 new york indie-pop band taken by , 1 who had number one hit album came green day and (7) 26 with ‘’ (3) issued with a warning but it they received 18 arthur, albert or alvin (3) went unheard (6-5) nominations for Best Live 19 a formidable of 2 the consequences of a Band and Best album at music coming from alt-j single by reM or album by the nMe awards 2014 with (2-7-4) (9) austin, texas (7) 21 the facts include name of 3+33A canned heat are 28 state that Feeder found band on Ztt label (3) touring once more with this themselves in (5) 23 “I’ve never done good song (2-3-4-5) 30+15D clearly things, I’ve never done bad 4 this is in fact jeff ’s were to release this album things”, 1980 (5-2-5) first solo album (5) afterwards (4-4) 27+34A sang, mimed – all 5+6D Look for watch, get 33+17D a free cd, perhaps, together in a strange way cape. Wear cape. Fly (4-3-4) given out by Lucy rose (3-4) APRIL 19 AnsweRs ACROss 1 coming home, 6+22d star guitar, normal nMe terms and conditions apply, 10 dream on, 11+22a disraeli gears, 12 Mobiles, available at nMe.coM/terms. cut out the 13 Madonna, 15 gold, 18 neptune, 20 ike, 21+4d crossword and send it, along with your name, richard hell, 24 colosseum, 27 tender, 30 a-ha, address and email, marking the envelope 32 Lord, 33 someday DOwn 1 candyman, 2+28a with the issue date, before tuesday, June 3, , 3 no rain, 5 Mad, 7 temple, 2014, to: crossword, nMe, Blue fin Building, 8 ranks, 9 Webb, 12 Magic, 14+26a american idiot, 110 southwark street, London se1 0su. 16 Liars, 17 denim, 19 Upsetter, 20 idlewild, 23 Winners will be notified via email. animal, 25 Leeds, 29 sky, 31 aM richard johnson, rex, getty

New Musical express | 24 May 2014

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QUIZ ANSWERS 1. ’ ‘Rings Around The World’ 2. Poptones 3. ‘Rollin’’ 4. Amen 5. 6. Northside 7. Russell Lissack (Bloc Party) 8. Miley Cyrus 9. Belle & Sebastian (2010’s ‘Write About Love’) 10. Abba 11. Adam Clayton 12. MARRS, ‘Pump Up The Volume’ 13. False – he famously spent his early years there but was actually born in London 14. 15. The Fall

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