Archive for October, 2008

CD Review: Vanilla Swingers – Vanilla Swingers

It’s very rare that you come across a debut album that’s as confident and well-rounded as that of Vanilla Swingers, a duo comprising Anne Gilpin and Miles Jackson whose eponymous effort is a concept album, no less. But don’t let that put you off because it’s a damn fine concept album, one where the songs all serve to advance the plot but also stand up in their own right when taken out of the context of the story they seek to tell.

The story is of two lovers who escape their dead end town for the bright lights of London, travel back in time to 1985, split up and meet again 30 years later in 2015. Musically the album swings from acoustic ballads to chilled electro-pop with great ease and, coupled with the excellent and detailed lyrics, the general vibe is that of the low rent metropolitan romanticism that the likes of Jack, Pulp and Band of Holy Joy have pedalled to great effect in the past. Another obvious reference point is Black Box Recorder. Gilpin’s voice is a dead ringer for BBR’s Sarah Nixey – which is surprising since she’s from Belfast –  and you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve put the wrong CD in when you first hear tracks like “Danger In The Past” or “Goodbye Lennon”.

The album kicks off with the low-key “The Town” which does its job in setting the scene before the excellent “Like Straw Dogs”, which starts off at a similar pace to its predecessor but picks up halfway through and ends with a terrific guitar workout. There’s more good guitar work in “I’ll Stay Next To You”‘s simple but extremely effective riff, but the song, probably my favourite on the album, throws a curveball near the end and morphs into a pretty decent “West End Girls” pastiche – a clever precursor for the trip back to 1985 that occurs in “The Hive”, the sprawling 8 minute album centrepiece that follows. “The Hive” shifts and changes and even goes a bit proggy towards the end as the protagonists arrive in 1985 and take advantage of their journey to the past, getting to see The Smiths and spending time at the bookies.

“Danger In The Past” is a fine slice of electro-pop that owes a debt to the Pet Shop Boys and would be an obvious choice for a lead single. On the post break-up song “The Way She Walked Out The Door” the duo stop trading lines and give the song over to Band of Holy Joy’s Johny Brown, who also wrote the lyrics, in what is another brilliant move: the song recalls Brown’s band at the height of their powers in the late Eighties and breaks the album, and the couple, up nicely. They meet up again in “Goodbye Lennon”, another slice of classy electro-balladry set in 2015 where “Robbie’s dead but Pete’s alive”.

There’s enough in the way of great tunes, melodrama and surprises on Vanilla Swingers to keep you going back for more and it would be a great shame if it doesn’t reach the wider audience it deserves. It is available on CD from Rough Trade for just £4.99, albeit in a limited run of 1000, and as a free download here.

Vanilla Swingers – Like Straw Dogs

Vanilla Swingers – Goodbye Lennon

Posted by The Ledge on 4th October 2008 at 12:32 am | comments (5)
File under CD Reviews,Reviews.

Gig Guide Special: In The City, 5th-7th October 2008

Manchester’s annual In The City festival rolls around again this weekend and as usual there is an absolutely huge number of gigs going on in the city centre between Sunday and Tuesday. Most of them are free showcases for unsigned acts and small indie labels but there’s a fair few more recognisable acts playing as well. You won’t be able to wander around the Northern Quarter without being in earshot of a bunch of earnest teens in skinny jeans singing for their supper. And what about those dates? I’m sure that previous ITC’s took in the whole weekend. Three days of late nights and early mornings for those of us with jobs is not going to be easy.

As far as line-ups go you’re spoilt for choice and an afternoon of trawling MySpace to narrow down the options is highly recommended. We’ll probably start at the Night & Day on Sunday afternoon for the Switchflicker showcase headlined by the excellent Magic Arm, although at the same time at Fopp Records there’s a Heavenly showcase including acoustic sets from The Magic Numbers’ Romeo Stodart, Cherry Ghost and Edwyn Collins, all of whom will be making their way to the Deaf Institute for a presumably more electric showcase in the evening.

Also on Sunday night there’s a Fierce Panda showcase at the Night & Day with The Spinto Band headlining and Laymar and The All New Adventures of Us also on the bill, XFM put on The Beep Seals and Gideon Conn at the Ruby Lounge and at South the NME have Eugene McGuinness and Detroit Social Club.

Gideon Conn turns up again at Urban Outfitters early on Monday evening where there is also an exhibition of his artwork and “free drinks”. On Monday night the Hell Yeah promotion at the Academy 3 looks interesting with The Bottomfeeders, Silverclub and The Sister Of Transistors playing. On the same night The ABC Club, who were ace when we saw them supporting ¡Forward, Russia! earlier in the year, play the Chicago Rock Café in support of Johnny Foreigner, the band they replaced on the bill that night.

On Tuesday The Red Deer Club take over Piccadilly Records where they’re putting on Sophie’s Pigeons, Down The Tiny Steps and Sara Lowes, while Drowned In Sound have the likes of Grammatics and These New Puritans at the Night & Day. On the same night Manc guitar legend Vini Reilly brings his Durutti Column to the Ruby Lounge, Wiley headlines the Channel M night at Moho Live and Twisted Wheel and It’s A Buffalo play the BBC Introducing showcase at the Deaf Institute.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, really. Check out the In The City website for the full line-up and make sure you also look at the list of fringe gigs on the site, which is almost as exhausting as the main event. Acts include Simon Connor, among others, on Sunday afternoon at The Bay Horse, Air Cav at Joshua Brooks on Sunday night, The Star Fighter Pilot at The Attic on Tuesday night and, also on Tuesday, Light Syndicate and The Bangs at the Retro Bar.

Phew.

Posted by The Ledge on 2nd October 2008 at 11:44 pm | comments (2)
File under gig guide,in the city,manchester gigs.

Gig Review: Neil Halstead @ Sacred Trinity Church, Salford, 25th September 2008

We had quite a choice of gigs last Thursday and after planning to head down to the Night & Day for Broken Records we changed our minds, realising that we couldn’t pass up the chance to see Neil Halstead at Sacred Trinity Church. For starters, he tours rarely, whereas Broken Records are currently plugging away and are bound to be back soon when they have an album to promote. Secondly, Sacred Trinity Chuch is a wonderful venue and we could imagine hearing Neil’s beautiful folky, poppy ex-Shoegazer tunes echoing around the hall and we just knew it was going to be a good gig.

Daniel Land and the Modern Painters @ Sacred Trinity Church, SalfordOpeners Daniel Land and the Modern Painters started proceedings with what I can only describe as anthemic shoegazer indie. They reminded me a little of Doves and a little of defunct Manchester outfit Snowfight in the City Centre but with additional fuzzy guitar effects. I can equally imagine enjoying them in a dark, smoky basement with loads of smoke and backlighting as I can sitting in a field in the sunlight with a couple thousand people singing along. The songs were immediately effective and the band put in a good performance. The between-song banter was humble and funny and warm.

Neil Halstead has been on and off my radar for a while. I have one Slowdive album, Souvlaki, which I like but never really grew to love. I adore the first Mojave 3 album, Ask Me Tomorrow. Something about the way they marry the aesthetics of their shoegazer days with folky, twangy country tunes really appeals and the quiet restraint combined with the lyrics about love and loneliness still have me coming back to that album ten years on. I completely missed out on a couple of Mojave 3 albums but picked up Puzzles Like You, the most recent offering, to discover that they had mutated again and were writing pop gems that were more reminiscent of Teenage Fanclub than My Bloody Valentine. Needless to say we were expecting a bit of stylistic variety from Neil Halstead.

Neil Halstead @ Sacred Trinity Church, SalfordThe gig began with Neil sitting in a chair, playing soft folk songs on just his acoustic guitar before inviting the full band on stage. He was reserved, as expected, but did have a couple of funny stories to go with the songs – as folk singers do. He amused the crowd by playing a track he said he probably shouldn’t play in a church as it was about being woken up by people knocking on his door to teach him about Jesus Christ. The songs with the full band were still folky, with more of an Iron & Wine vibe than anything else – so it seems he’s gone the whole route from fuzzy guitars to soft country to American-influenced folk. Having heard music from every stage of his career, it actually makes sense – he’s always written light, airy melodies, he just changes the way he chooses to present them.

Midway through the set he sent the band back off stage so he could play a few Mojave 3 tracks for us. First asking the crowd for requests, he abandoned that idea when the only requests he received were for tracks he said he couldn’t play. He instead performed songs of his own choosing – sadly, songs whose names are unknown to us – before bringing the band back on stage to finish the set with a final few numbers before closing with a song about beards – dedicated to everyone with facial hair.

Overall, it was a lovely performance, pretty much what we expected, to be fair, and enough to recommend his solo album for purchase.

Neil Halstead – Martha’s Mantra (For The Pain)

Mojave 3 – She Broke You So Softly

Posted by JustHipper on 1st October 2008 at 8:40 pm | comments (2)
File under daniel land and the modern painters,Gig Reviews,manchester gigs,mp3,neil halstead,sacred trinity church.