The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock

The notion of Irish music may unfortunately conjure either bad thoughts if twee jigs, smug U2 pomp or maybe the more appealing Pogues but The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock are undeniably Irish and with an edge and drive that avoids the sacharin tinged versions.

Released on the Irish/Japanese Transduction label their eponyous release takes the folk base and adds a bit of post rock/psych flavours in a successful attempt to be both a bit more edgy and experimental. Some welcome banjo and penny whistle components are counterbalanced with some more pounding moments and fuzzy guitars to make this a welcome arrival, clearly already praised in the Irish press and a bit on the blogospher- unfortunatley outside of a Dublin show and some in Jpan no sign of any mainland UK shows. Bu the album is available both through Transduction and iTunes

Yndi Halda and Rivulets

I have staggered across a couple of bands who have some affinity with each other despite being on different labels - Rivulets on the O Rosa Records label who of course have the obligatory MySpace as well, and Yndi Halda released on Burnt Toast Records and Big Scary Monsters Records .


First to Yndi Halda, hailing form the rural Kentish countryside around Canterbury this bunch of chaps produce, from their grandfathers barn, a rather beautiful, uplifting sort of instrumental music, with some charming old fashioned instruments among the more usual kit. Sort of akin to a happier, more ethereal Explosions in the Sky, their EP release Enjoy Eternal Bliss (apparently also the meaning of the band name somehow) is in part streamed from their MySpace but also available on iTunes and through the likes of Amazon (expensive).

Rivulets is really American Nathan Amundson plus assorted mates and friends and is reminiscent of the likes of Bon Iver, Elliott Smith and co - you get my drift. Music of a rather fragile beauty. Rivulets also have a blog/website worth a visit where you can see some rather nice photographs and hear snatches of the (third) album, You Are My Home. Although I have missed the two UK dates earlier this month, there appears to be a tie up between Yndi Halda and Rivulets - I don't know why that should seem such a surprise really.

Anyhow two bands that will be the target of further exploration for me - all a little bit hippy-trippy but that can do it for me sometimes!

Sigur Ros at Colston Hall

The two openers for last nights extraordinary set were either new or I didn't recognise them - but how wonderful they were; things of rare beauty, soaring aurgasmic affairs which set the scene for the whole of the evening.

I for one was delighted that Sigur Ros harked back to their more elaborate material, although not ignoring the rather more 'commercial' elements of their most recent outing. Their power for me is in that crescendo-rock stylee that they deliver with such consumate ablility, showing up the plethora of looky-likey bands that attempt the same trick but fail to deliver.

The bowed guitar of Jón Þór Birgisson, heavily distorted, provides an etherial quality helping to fill the hall with those crashing walls of sound that are so mesmerising and elevating, toppped off with his falsetto vocal delivery. Honorable mentions must also go to Jón Þór Birgisson on drums and Georg Holm on bass for their rock solid underpinning and to Kjartan Sveinsson on keyboards for his understated but indispensible work

Inevitably some of the loudest cheers came for the more eassily identifiable 'hits' - Hoppipolla and Goggledigook etc - and whilst good they weren't the highlights for me. The final encore and closing track from the ( ) album was the spine tingling climax - magnificent.

Also mustn't forget to praise the staging - the combination of scratchy film on the cloth backdrop, the use of some on stage cameras to project up abstracted bits of the band, the now legendary 'balloon' lights behind the back cloth and the ocasssional retina burning blast-lights, all helped augment the phantasmagorical feel to the whole shebang (yes, go on , check out that old 1972 Curved Air album, Phantasmagoria!, my second ever gig in Chatham Cental Hall, ah yes)




Openening for SR were another young band of fresh-faced norse chaps from Iceland, For a Minor Reflection who acquitted themselves pretty well. Obviously part of the neugaze/crescendo rock school they wear their influences and aspirations clearly on their sleeves. Although some of their tracks could do with a more carefully structured approach; it became quite predictable where the quiet noodlng would explode it the crash bang wallop, tracks like Okrryd show real promise - good luck to them.

Windsor Airlift

I am endebted to The Silent Ballet blog for introducing me to Windsor Airlift - an American threesome of chaps apparently from Minnesota. The Silent Ballet gives a more fullsome expose of them than I could do so best read it there! As the blog mentions they are indeed reminiscent of Fridge (of whom more later perhaps), but they also have twangs of Wheat it seems to me - and no bad thing either.

Anyhoo the young Windsor Airlift chaps knock out some pleasing sounds and as if their generosity knows no bounds , they have been kind enough to make three of their four track EP's and another track available for download free from Virb. Apparently they are puting together a full size album which I await with interest

TVOTR - What's the Fuss About?

Oh dear I fear that I might have missed the point again.. after a rave review on a NPR podcast and then seeing esctatic reviews around the place I picked up my copy of Dear Science - apparently TV on the Radio's fourth album. But after a number of attempts to listen and love I am still a little nonplussed. Its OK I guess but there's nothing here that grabbed me and made me want to listen again - just doing it out of sense of duty. Sure I can here a bunch of influences but mostly I hear a rather incoherent jumble of stuff that doesn't seem to settle down (maybe that's the point) and little to make me think that the claims of the 'next great thing' are well founded. 'Halfway Home' is an example of a reasonable track but with 127,000 Myspace listens it must be me with a problem - is this really this years music saviour?

On the other hand after heaven knows how may times picking up the CD and never quite buying it, I finally grabbed a copy of Neutral Milk Hotel's seminal album Aeroplane Over the Sea. Sadly now defunct (despite occasional rumours of reforming and new/old music) here is music who's impact you can all too easily trace - Arcade Fire, Decemberists etc all acknowledge their debt. A few listens and you are hooked - those odd vocals and playing eat under your skin. With songs revolving around the issues of death and the here-after, war and other 'big' questions, often sounding like a music carriage rattling along with the wheels barely holding on, this is inspirational music. I wonder whether TVOTR efforts will still be sounding as fresh and vital as this after 10 years or so?

Photos courtesy TVOTR and NMH web site

People of Water

Another introduction from the Peeblesmeister - People of Water is in fact one Ben Shillabeer who knocks together his collection of music in his personal studio (read - bedroom). Recording on Sink and Stove records from Bristol (again with some linkage to Mr P) People of Water have/has (isn't that confusing?) a first EP out with but six tracks of " of experimental, atmospheric but playful indie-rock, with electronic, lo-fi and world music influences". I first heard some of this on DJ Shannon KEXP podcast number 102 that ran the track Pink Conch - (how do people like KEXP get hold of this sort of stuff I wonder? They also got hold of stuff by Glasweigans We Were Promised Jetpacks who are worth a listened if for nothing else than their name)

Anyhow I must admit to being rather taken by Mr Shillabeers efforts (one free hi quality mp3 of Constant Spring is available from the S&S web site). I am fortunate that the Peeblemeister has given me access to rather more tracks to listen to - perhaps they will appear on the planned full length album. Constant Spring, Pink Conch, Too Much Information, Built Like Clocks and Pet Level all deserve a listen as do other tracks across this varied, lo-fi, laid back selection

Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust ... Sigur Ros

A new offering from the bonkers Icelanders of course is always welcome - anyone who can sing so beautifully in an entirely (?) made up language deserves a hefty wack of respect. The charmingly named Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust apparently means 'With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly'.The Sigur Ros chaps are kindly streaming the new album prior to official release off their web site ( and sundry other places it seems)

Some comments are welcoming the more up-tempo tracks which sound jolly enough, but I still prefer the more haunting episodes - still all in all another beautiful offering jauntily bouncing off the sides of the mainstream dross

Oh and full marks for a suitably dotty cover shot of naked chaps running across a road ... sure it must mean something or maybe it just took their fancy...

High Dependency Unit

I am indebted to young Hector Peebles for this stuff. A kiwi band that is hardly new - back to the late 90's at least and without a prodgious output. High Dependency Unit - HDU claim to be a bit metal, a bit psychedelic, a bit rock and twist of ambient - seems about right to me. Oddly reminiscent of Mono on ocassions they make an exillerating sound

Its a real shame that their stuff isn't available over here - big H has been trawling the web to amass his collection of which EP's Momento Mori and Higher are personal favourites. Some stuff can be bought via Smoke CD's in NZ

They have new album coming out/is out not sure which - Metamathics, a slug of which is in the vid below. Metamathics: (n) (short form of 'metamathematics')
The investigation of the properties of realities intrinsically unknowable by and from our own, but whose general principles can be hazarded at.

Cuong Vu - Trumpet a-go-go

Just listening back to some Pat Metheny (who has always made me go weak at the knees) and reminded just how great his sometime-trumpet player Cuong Vu is. A bit hard to locate any decent files or vids but there are some samples on his web space from his latest solo effort, Vu Tet, of which Solitary Confinment has some extraodinary playing. His MySpace of course has a bunch of stuff and there is some decent stuff on his MySpace Blog which also shows off Cuong bassist, Stomu Takeishi: a fine player.