Gordon Is A Mime

Gordon Is A Mime is a Dublin based band/artist creating experimental indie-electronica music. Warm but disturbed, some of the songs on the Gordon Is A Mime myspace at the moment are rather brilliant. What drew me initially to Gordon Is A Mime is the self-titled track which guests a female vocalist seductively singing in whispered tones along the lines of 'i hold the world record for sickness'. A touch deranged, but positively seductive. Both 'Fall In Love' and 'Play Pool' are the choice tracks however, sublimely written songs serving forward the torments of a sick mind on a plate 'i would set all of my clothes on fire, just to be naked with you, i would burn all of skin just to be in sin with you', while at the same time working on some brilliant tragic comedy in lines such as 'i fell in love with the girl with the limp but she never fell in a love with me'. All of this, and then overwhelmed with a compelling yearning in the forlornness of the line 'we never fall in love' as it is repeated over and over. This is quality material.

There does not appear to be any released material as of yet, or at least none that I could find online, but they do play a half-hour slot at this year's Hard Working Class Hero's festival at The Hub on Friday 13th October. Other recent activity includes providing the music for Oedipus Loves You which runs this autumn at Pan Pan Theatre in Dublin.

Related Links:

http://www.myspace.com/gordonisamime

http://www.panpantheatre.com/oedipus.htm

The Coldspoon Conspiracy - Best Before 2007

The Coldspoon Conspiracy are sadly coming to an end, and they will not see this year out. They have announced that after what has been a six year voyage, which has seen them just recently return to Ireland after a year-long stint in Australia touring the region, they will play a final mini-tour of Ireland this November and then call it a day.

Emotive and off-kilter, their 2003 album 'Plays Well With Others' still holds up as one of the most relevant alternative indie-rock albums by an Irish band today, a well balanced album which hits noisier infestations and more delicate lo-fi moments at all the right times. A newly recorded 6-song EP is being released in November to coincide with the final tour.

Details of their final tour dates are listed on their myspace which includes an all-ages gig in Blackrock on October 15th followed by a few November gigs in Cork (23rd), Limerick (24th) and Galway (30th), Crawdaddy in Dublin on December 2nd, and then, sadly, that will be it. An assortment of tracks from The Coldspoon Conspiracy can be downloaded from both their website and myspace, including the unforgettable 'Conversation Starter' from the 2003 album.

All is not lost however, as although vocalist/guitarist Pat Cannon has decided to go his own way, he still intends to continue making music, while the other band members are already planning to form a band out of the ashes of The Coldspoon Conspiracy under a new name. Whether either will be as good as the sum of the parts remains to be seen.

Related Links:

http://www.myspace.com/thecoldspoonconspiracy

http://www.thecoldspoonconspiracy.com

The Vendetta Suite

It's always interesting to encounter people doing something a bit different. The Vendetta Suite is a project run by solo artist Gary Irwin from Northern Ireland. He occasionally guests other performers on guitars and vocals, although for the most part this is dark instrumental electroncia music. Listed influences include the likes of Phil Spector, The Velvet Underground, Suicide, Primal Scream and Death In Vegas. Of the tracks streamable on his myspace at the time of writing, ‘Carney Girl’ stands out as having a clear Death In Vegas influence with a dark driving rhythm and overlaid guitar samples, while ’Eyes Like Nico’ is a charming little instrumental homage to 'I'll Be Your Mirror' from The Velvet Underground. Perhaps the most interesting of the material on his myspace though is the self-titled track, The Vendetta Suite, a distorted haunting ambience which has an eerie almost other-worldly feel to it. Creepy. A fourth track, Hula Bop, is built around an obscenely out-of-place upbeat Hawaiian melody, but twisted to sound as if ghosted down a tube. It’s all rather strange, but oddly appealing.

Related Links:

http://www.myspace.com/vendettasuite

Edit: The tracks on offer on The Vendetta Suite myspace seem to be on rotatation quite regularly, so this is a space well worth multiple revisits; actually since the time of writing this article, several new tracks have already appeared!

SUPER-8 Demos Review

After featuring SUPER-8 on Frequency-Ireland last month, they kindly posted on the rest of their demo material for me to listen to. This has proven to be not only the most comprehensive demo I have received at Frequency-Ireland to date (a full 12 track demo album and a further 3 tracks on a demo EP), but also the most consistently impressive.

Clearly heavily influenced by The Jesus and Mary Chain (actually their demo EP included a fine cover of JAMC's Reverence), most of the material gets the noise-laced treatment of fuzzed up distortion and feedback over simple but infectious indie-rock guitar melodies, and have a vocal and lyrical style which aim at a certain mood of dark dripping coolness. It's a well worked formula. However, the comparisons end there, as there are a lot of other ideas and influences at work here; influences ranging from Lou Reed in 'Deep and Husky' to Primal Scream in 'Devil Girls' jump out quite clearly to mention but two more.

As for the songs themselves, it has been difficult to nail down consistent favourites, but the lead track 'Undercover Blues' certainly continues to be one of them. Among others would be 'The End Will Never Come Again' and 'Crazy Way To Be', both built around quite infectious power-riffs, and the infectiouly melodic 'Rip Off'. For the most part, their songs tend to work best when they seem at their most effortless, particularly in the simple but effective refrain of “I think I've lost control” in the mellowed out track 'Lost Control' and the emphatic chorus in 'Lunatic' which is built around the simple line “and you know i will never forget”. The fact that these moments stand out amongst the rest of their material is quite a paradox however, as I would consider SUPER-8 to be a lyrically strong band, and in 'Friction', a sublimely tripped out indie-rock song, they reach some of their most memorable:

"As you face condemnation and you kill time at the station
and you're looking for salvation but it just cannot be found.
It’s your first time crucifixion, it lights my fascination,
it sparks a revelation and your presence calms me down."
- Friction by SUPER-8

SUPER-8 have recently registered on ArtBoo where all of these demo recordings can now be purchased online. Four of these tracks can also be downloaded from their myspace.

Related Links:

http://www.myspace.com/wearesuper8

http://www.artboo.com/super8/music

The earlier feature on SUPER-8, which included a brief interview with the band, can still be found in the Frequency-Ireland archives here.

79Cortinaz

79Cortinaz arrived on the Irish music scene back in 2004 with 'Deirdre's Song', their independently released debut single. An impressive indie-rock song in itself, it offset a lot of punch and indie guitar noise with haunting vocals strikingly similar to those of Mercury Rev.

However, the hype which has followed 79Cortinaz since then in the music press in Ireland has been rather disproportionate. One national radio music presenter even went so far as to say they were "the best thing to come out of Ireland in years". In reality, they have never come close to matching let alone surpassing this fine debut. They released 'Electric Hymn' as their second single in early 2005 and although it was again well received, I wonder whether it would have drawn as much attention if not for the hype which had grown around them following their debut. In my view, this second single was a massive disappointment from their debut. Actually, as far as credibility implosions go, this was a massive one in my book. This second single was amateur by comparison and almost nauseatingly colloquial. They did flirt at a return to form with a rather delicate third single 'Nowhere To Go' last December, but given the disparity in their material to date, as far as I'm concerned, the jury is still out on 79Cortinaz.

Their debut album is due to be released later this autumn, so that verdict should be in soon. For those who wish to reach an earlier verdict on 79Cortinaz, they play at this years Hard Working Class Heroes festival, appearing at the Rock Room @ Spirit Live on Sunday 15th October. Some 79Cortinaz tracks can be download from their myspace, including 'Deirdre's Song', their impressive debut single.

Related Links:

http://www.myspace.com/79cortinaz

http://www.79cortinaz.com

http://artists.cpu.ie//bands/89

GLENWASH

Cutting an indie alt-rock influenced by bands such as Pavement and Guided By Voices, Glenwash, from Longford in Ireland, have emerged this year with some superby melodic lo-fi fuzzy guitar songs which follow closely to the 90's American alt-rock scene, releasing an excellent debut 4-track EP titled Bottle Of Cop. This is a type of music which I can never get enough of and it is a real joy to find bands such as Glenwash emerging in Ireland right now with top qaulity material; Glenwash being amongst the best of them. They play at this year’s Hard Working Class Heroes festival in Dublin on Saturday October 14th at The Hub, a mainly indie-rock festival of emerging bands from Ireland, which runs in Dublin across multiple venues from October 13th-15th this year.

Details of the Hard Working Class Heroes festival and the bands playing at it can be found on the HWCH website, where a select track from each of the bands performing can also be downloaded. Four tracks from Glenwash are also available to download from the Glenwash myspace, including Bring It On, the lead track from their Bottle Of Cop EP, and also my personal favourite of their material to date; Dead In The Head. Their Bottle Of Cop EP can be purchased online at Road Records.

Related Links:

http://www.myspace.com/glenwash

http://www.hwch.net

SOPERS dIRT

Sopers Dirt are a sleazy indie-rock band that have been playing gigs around the Dublin area for the past few years. I know very little about them, but amongst their main influences they include Sonic Youth, Queens Of The Stone Age, Pixies and Elliot Smith, and they don't stray far from those influences. This could be described as indie-rock from the gutter. Offsetting crunching melodies with more sparse moments, and a vocalist that liberally shifts gears between brittle hesitations to almost grunge-esque intensity, the songs have quite a lot of fast-slow variety built-in, but not so much as to become disjointed. These are well constructed indie-rock songs. There is scant information to be found about them online, but they do have four tracks for download from their myspace. All in all, this is a band with a lot of quality, and one well worth checking out.

Related Links:

http://www.myspace.com/sopersdirt

God Is An Astronaut - All is Violent, All is Bright

There is probably nothing which I could write about the emotive post-rock sounds of God Is An Astronaut to add to the many reviews which have already been written about them over the past few years, such has been the level of appreciation for them, so perhaps a mention here is quite unnecessary. However, they are a band I appreciate quite a lot, and the past month has seen the release of their new EP "A Moment Of Stillness" and also the official worldwide release of their album from last year "All is Violent, All is Bright", so a mention now seems warranted regardless.


Although there are similarities with the layered build-ups and apocalyptic themes of post-rock bands such as GSYBE, God Is An Astronaut always seem that bit more emotive and saddened; saddened in an almost apocalyptic-wary/weary sense as opposed to the often more direct apocalyptic nature of GSYBE. Sounding that bit more forlorn, the music is quite haunting at times, with the very occasional waft of Sigur Rós style vocals almost intangible as if ghosted in on a breeze.

It is difficult to listen to a track such as Fragile, the lead track on "All is Violent, All is Bright", without feeling moved by it, and even more so after watching its accompanying video, which shows some disturbing footage of mans inhumanity to animals during the early days of the space race; contrasting the often brutality of mans pursuit of science with the purity and innocence of nature taken prisoner to it. The video to Fragile is one of the videos currently streamable from the Frequency-Ireland myspace.

Fragile sets the tone to the album; an album which is always more emotive than imposing, and at times almost shrinks back into ambience before returning to the signature post-rock reaches. I will decline from dissecting individual tracks to explore what thoughts they evoke for me for fear of being self-indulgent, but with track titles such as 'Forever Lost' and 'A Deafening Distance', perhaps no more words are really necessary. I will warn however that a lot of the album is quite mellow and melancholic, with peaks in intensity used quite sparingly (the new single Tempus Horizon is a more intense affair). They do however have a reputation as one of Ireland's most blistering live acts. They play a few dates this Oct/Nov in the UK and Ireland, details of which are on their myspace. Some material is available to download from the God Is An Astronaut website, including the tracks 'Fragile' and 'The End of The Beginning'.

Related Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_an_Astronaut

http://www.godisanastronaut.com

http://www.myspace.com/godisanastronaut

Dodgy Stereo: Weakling & King / Translucent Knees

Weakling & King and Translucent Knees are two rather interesting little indie-electronica bands from Ireland whom I first noticed just earlier this year. Somewhat related, both are/were on Dodgy Stereo, a small Belfast-based label which used to organise indie electronica-oriented events in the Belfast area, although now seems to have become inactive.

Actually, I first became aware of Dodgy Stereo due to Weakling & King remixing some material from Dry County's 'Nothing Stay's In Place' EP, an emerging band in Ireland I like quite a lot, and have previously reviewed here. I wasn't really that impressed with what Weakling & King did with Dry County's material, preferring Dry County's original work, but I have been pleasantly surprised by what material of Weakling & King's I have since found online. Two standout tracks of note are 'Your Nervous Moves' and 'You Are The Wire', both taken from 'Slowly Making His Way Back To The City'. This is quite dreamy indie-electronica. They have been compared before to the likes of The Postal Service, although there are distinct differences. These two tracks are available to download from the Weakling & King myspace, along with two instrumentals taken from 'The New Right Side' EP, oddly accredited to Weakling & Queen, of which 'Head All Fuzzy', a rather slow-motion ambience with some Sigur Ros leanings is a fine piece of work which peaks into a rather appealing infestation just as it closes.

Translucent Knees are quite different. There's a deceptively casual vocal style here which can be oddly appealing, and somewhat disjointed quirky propulsion to the songs that is quite similar at times to some of the earlier work from The Beta Band. Three tracks are available for download from their myspace, with 'We're On Our Way' seeming brilliantly effortless, while a rather recessive 'Geography ID' wandering, questioning, self-suppressing and wantonly-shrinking in mood is a sublimely unassuming indie number. The third track, 'Surface Film Brittle' is perhaps the finest, as it flickers between some intense propulsion to a quite lulling disjointed style to run with the vocals. All three tracks are taken from the 2006 Spectac-A-Matic EP.

Related Links:

http://www.myspace.com/weaklingandking

http://www.myspace.com/tknees

http://www.myspace.com/dodgystereo

The Ultra Montanes

The Ultra Montanes went underground in Dublin for quite a long time before re-emerging earlier this year with the 'Dirty Blood Saved Our Town' EP, an EP which was highly acclaimed by many. It featured the excellent radio hit 'Sterilised', which is a great slice of guitar-punk pop from the gutter. Beyond that track, I found the rest of that EP a bit too immersed in a grunge-punk crossover for my tastes, although it does have some other good moments, with the energy in 'Speedwalker' for one being very hard to resist. Full-length free MP3 downloads of all the tracks from that EP are now available from their official website.


Already back in the studio following the release of that EP, they also have two of their more recent recordings free to download from their website; 'This Party' and 'Illuminated'. With these two they have shed a lot of the excessive grunge-punk tendencies purveyed on the EP. There are Bowie influences shining through to the surface at times now too, and in 'This Party', an unmistakable Placebo leaning. These newer demos are deliciously addictive indie-guitar-pop songs, and for me a massive improvement from most of the material on the 'Dirty Blood Saved Our Town' EP. In these, more than ever before, I feel they achieve to show nods of appreciation to the sounds of 70s rock while still retaining that overall sound which has been described before as 'sickeningly modern'.

Related Links:

http://theultramontanes.com

http://www.myspace.com/theultramontanes

http://artists.cpu.ie//bands/1175