Review: Glass Animals for Amazing Radio

Live Review: Glass Animals

http://amazingradio.com/home/live-review-glass-animals

Amazing Radio favourites Glass Animals swung by Newcastle last week on the Northern leg of their headline tour, but not before popping into Amazing Towers to speak to Amazing Afternoons with Greg Porter. As one of the first bands to be signed to Grammy award-winning producer Paul Epworth’s Wolf Tone label, we’ll go out on a limb and pre-empt that Glass Animals‘ debut album Zaba will reap the benefits of Epworth’s midas touch before festival season is up. He’s previously cast his spell on records by Adele, Florence and The Machine and Paul McCartney to name a few.

The album’s primitive sounds are delicately translated onstage by Glass Animals‘ four members: the warming ripples of clunky synth and chilling lilt of Dave Bayley‘s breathy vocals paint a tropical forest ambience. Dave’s leafy t-shirt even subtly echoed Zaba‘s Henri Rousseau like artwork. The jungle-esque sound bites and ultrasonic whistles during Exxus could have the potential to be gimmicky, but whether it’s the result of Epworth’s production or the evident creativity of the band, the other-worldly sound is perfect for live performances.

Andy Sheppard – Getty Images

The band’s stage presence is without fuss: there are no charming anecdotes or insincere compliments about the city. Dave transforms from his polite and unassuming interview manner a few hours previous to a self-possessed and utterly pitch-perfect frontman, with a voice I’d wrongly assumed was the result of layers of production. Drummer Joe’s use of the loop pedal to create the tribal multi-layered percussion on the Amazing Radio playlisted track Pools was stunning, an upbeat contrast to the hypnotic harmonies of the chilling Psylla, leading into the nonsensical ditties and groovy squeaks of this year’s earlier single Gooey.

Glass Animals have drawn fairly universal comparisons to Wild Beasts, Alt-J and earlyRadiohead, (they played their first gig at The Jericho Tavern in Oxford, the same place asRadiohead did in ’86) presumably owing to their inventive synth-backed arrangements. It’s the enticing early noughties RnB sound of Black Mambo which unveils yet more diverse influence, weaving a seductive undertone throughout.

The only disappointment was that the setlist didn’t include their Kanye West cover of Love Lockdown, which they treated the BBC Introducing stage to at Glastonbury Festival last week. With Zaba under their belts and some incredibly strong singles and EPs, they’ll be creeping up towards the main stages by this time next year. Catch them at Bestival,Latitude, Beacons and Knee Deep as well as on an extensive North American tour. Full details can be found on their website.

Review: Communion New Faces Tour

Communion New Faces Tour: Luke Sital-Singh, Eliza and The Bear, Farewell J.R, Annie Eve

03/03/14 @ Cluny 2, Newcastle
NARC. May 2014

The fresh-faced offerings from the London-based Communion label graced the Cluny 2 as part of their national tour as four fledgling beacons for new music. The evening peaked early with Annie Eve's silky smooth tones and Farewell J.R's weave of ethereal layers and folky vocals before the commercially-friendly Eliza and The Bear hopped, skipped and jumped into Lumineers-esque fist-pumping choruses fated for festival singalongs. The sprightly fivesome will undoubtedly be appearing on the soundtrack of every festival montage VT this summer.

Having been longlisted for BBC's Sound of 2014 accolade, my expectations of Luke Sital-Singh as headliner were high. His faultless vocal ability seemed almost mismatched to the predictable, repetitive lyrics of his self-penned anthems. I couldn't help but compare the overly sentimental choruses of 'Greatest Lovers' and 'Nothing Stays The Same' to something which could easily be scattered in gold confetti and revealed as the American Idol winner's song. The well-spoken young singer-songwriter had perfected the inter-song audience patter, and with his closed-eyed catchy ballads I have no doubt he'll be the next Ben Howard or Benjamin Francis Leftwich, but his candid tunes are bordering on cheesy pop which needs to make like a cheddar and mature.

Comedy Review: Josie Long and Robin Ince

NARC. Issue #89, Oct 2013

Robin and Josie's Shambles
@ The Stand, Newcastle (02.09.13)

Josie Long and Robin Ince were quick to quell any assumptions that the night was a regular old rehearsed stand-up show, instead openly warning us that it would stick to its namesake of being "an utter shambles". Having just finished up their respective Edinburgh stints, the twosome have long been collaborators on podcasts, shows and zines, and the evening that followed was delightfully far from my pet hate of stand-up: knowing the punch line of every joke, having seen them recited on various panel shows and live clips. The twosome were refreshingly conversational, testing out new material and chatting about whatever popped up (mostly the middle class aspects of music festivals, creationism, and Stewart Lee impressions) giving the whole evening an intimate "proper comedy club" vibe.

Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra made a surprise cameo, joining Robin onstage to add dramatic free jazz accompaniment to his hilarious skit of reading passages from the dregs of charity shop book bargain bins, which on this occasion was tales of killer crabs, and a letter of space-age admiration to David Bowie. Grace Petrie offered support with inspired satirical self-penned tunes on all things Thatcher, but her saddening love songs about heartbreak seemed a little out of the evening's tone. Robin and Josie were respectively droll and whimsical, but next time I'd rather see them headlining solo, without a sense of competition for stage room.

Comedy Review: WitTank

NARC. Issue #84, May 2013

WitTank
@ The Stand, Newcastle (26.03.13)

Sketch comedy may be looked upon as the suited-up Grandpa of the comedy spectrum. Mumblings of fork handles and dead parrots are perhaps overshadowed by the colloquial observations of the McIntyre era. Kieran, Mark and Naz - the trio of Durham old-boys forming WitTank - collide everyday vexations (the incomparable pain of standing on a plug) with the utterly surreal, mixing in a good portion of solo stand-up with their theatrical group skits.

Having gained huge success over the past few years since their student comedy days, WitTank have appeared on BBC Three's Live At The Electric as well as becoming the ones to watch during Edinburgh excursions, leading them on to gain various respectable comedy accolades and securing a residency at London's Courtyard Theatre.

Noticing the comedians taking pleasure in their on-stage antics adds to their hilarious interpretations of familiar scenarios, some of which are fuelled by Mark's experiences as a Geography teacher, with Anglo-Turk Naz taking the reins as lead thesp. With a captivating ability to hop from boyish humour to theatrical satire with unwavering energy, the whole experience of seeing WitTank live will leave you with tear-soaked cheeks and wondering why all comedy shows can't be quite so thrilling.

www.wittank.com

www.thestand.co.uk/Newcastle

Review: We Are Augustines

We Are Augustines @ O2 Academy 2, Newcastle (05.10.12)

“Join a band, it’s the best fucking thing in the world,” bellows Billy McCarthy, lead singer of Brookyln-based We Are Augustines and leading contender for the most considerate frontman of the decade. In between his endearing deluge of thanks, he wins over the crowd with small talk about Newcy Brown (“wow so it actually comes from here?!”). As an audience, we seem all too accustomed to shelling out with the expectation of diva-ish, unappreciative bands, and it’s a heartening change to witness a group of guys doing something they evidently love, and with it expressing genuine gratitude to every single sweat-drenched, devoted ticket-payer in the packed full venue.

They’ve experienced their fair share of lows: following Billy’s schizophrenic brother tragically committing suicide came the demise of previous band Pela. After McCarthy reunited with Pela bassist Eric Sanderson, We Are Augustines rose from the ashes, earning themselves a rapidly flourishing following fuelled by their rocky road. With the highly emotive anthems of debut album Rise Ye Sunken Ships under their belt, their live show brims with impassioned sing-alongs led by McCarthy’s grainy roar, ‘Book of James’ prompting crowd-wide accompaniments. The small, elongated venue was an odd match for these ballads, which seem fated to be met with pints in the air and teary eyes in stadium proportions. As the piano-led ‘Philadelphia (The City of Brotherly Love)’ started the encore, the audience were brought together in a state of optimistic bromance before the awaited ‘Chapel Song’, a mesmerising ditty with heaps of emotional baggage chronicled openly by Billy beforehand. With a refreshingly grateful outlook on their music, We Are Augustines are a thoroughly rewarding and inspiring band to catch live. As David Letterman put it when they performed on the Late Show, “life is an ocean and we are all ships, if your ship has sunk, don't despair, don't lose hope, rise ye sunken ships.”

U.S. Girls and Foot Hair

Weds 24th Feb.
Head of Steam, Newcastle
Drone metal is quite the niche. It's not really a genre which is listed on many of our friends' Facebook profiles. In fact, it's probably down there with skiffle and South African psytrance. Hell you may have even stopped reading when you saw that this is about drone metal. Sticking up for these genre-specific underground metal bands is a standpoint I usually find hard to justify to those who aren't involved in it, unlike any scenario where I am the elaboratee- looking on doe-eyed and habitually intrigued about how preposterously varied this metal world actually is.
If I didn't know the Foot Hair vocalist personally, sporting his pig-head shaped black leather gimp mask, I'd probably have been a smidge scared as he peered from behind the eyeholes around the eager crowd in the characteristic cubby-hole of a venue, growling the lyrics to my new favourite of theirs- 'Casual Rape'. I'm not justifying it very well, I told you.
The feral and ritualistic nature of each individual instrument flows together and evolves through gnarly effects, making you aware of becoming slightly entranced as each song progresses. This five-piece will draw you in with their lack of boundaries and in any way traditional song structure.
Headlining the night was U.S. Girls hailing from Philadelphia, being not remotely plural. She rips and tears apart those old sickly sweet American pop songs and reconstructs them into her own DIY gritty renditions- meaning the potentially awkward stage set of just Megan Remy and her machines (and our two newly acquainted and unrestrained friends after catching an unavoidable glimpse down her baggy top). The vast contrast between grainy noise and pop ditties seems to fuse together using her suprisingly sweet voice as the glue. You could call it a political standpoint, a post-modern take on the stagnant American Dream. But I think it's like having an ice cream named after fish food with little chocolate fish. Why not? It seems wrong, but it just works.