Album: A FatCat Records Sampler (FatCat FAT-SAMP08 2008)

So what the hell happened to FatCat? Time was it was a label you could rely on to come up with interesting stuff that knew no boundaries, crossing classical, electronica, folk and rock. Whether it be the noisy data-rock of Xinlisupreme, the epic landscapes of Set Fire To Flames, or the warped electro-folk of Múm, there was always something pretty unique and hard to pin down about the records they put out.

The sampler given away with the August issue of Plan B was the only reason I bought the magazine, so it was a real disappointment to discover that so much of it is crushingly ordinary. It kicks off with a Vashti Bunyan track from 1965 that proves that she was never cut out to be a swinging sixties pop singer, and despite the best efforts of Jagger and Richards, she sounds really awkward trying to do straight pop. The next half dozen or so tracks range from the forgettable to the excruciating (Tom Brosseau’s contribution) but with a large dollop of twee shared between them. Charlottefield’s “Snakes” at least has some life to it, but they strike me as a poor man’s Aereogramme.

Things do pick up along the final stretch. We Were Promised Jetpacks kneel at the feet of Franz Ferdinand, but they do have a bit of spark about them (and a great name). The Twilight Sad’s contribution growls along nicely, although they forgot to pack a tune. Max Richter’s “Return To Prague” is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it miniature that’s really too short to work outside the context of his forthcoming album of very brief pieces. Our Brother The Native’s “Augural Wrath” is an excellent piece of mellow free-folk. The blurb in the magazine claimed that they’d left the best till last with Hauschka’s track. And so it proves. “Blue Bicycle” is far richer and more expansive than anything I’ve heard by him before, and easily the best thing on a disappointing collection.

As for the magazine, there’s Kevin Martin, Philip Jeck and Leila Arab and a whole host of other stuff. For some reason, I’ve never got on with the publication, even though they write about a lot of interesting stuff that often gets ignored elsewhere and don’t seem to have any agenda other than “if we like it, it’s in”. I don’t know if it’s the dead hand of Everett True clouding my judgement!

Tracks
1. Vashti Bunyan – I Want To Be Alone
2. David Karsten Daniels – Martha Ann
3. Gregory & The Hawk – Ghost
4. Nina Nastasia – Your Red Nose
5. Vetiver – To Baby
6. Tom Brosseau – True to You
7. Silje Nes – Dizzy Street
8. Ten Kens – Y’All Come Back Now
9. Charlottefield – Snakes
10.The Rank Deluxe – Tightrope
11.We Were Promised Jetpacks – Tiny Little Voices
12.Frightened Rabbit – I Feel Better
13.The Twilight Sad – Here, It Never Snowed. Afterwards It Did
14.Max Richter – Return To Prague
15.Our Brother The Native – Augural Wrath
16.Hauschka – Blue Bicycle

Gig: Twilight Sad – Oran Mor, Glasgow 14/6/2007

I bought the NME last week for the first time in years. It was because of the free White Stripes 45, not any sudden nostalgia for my youth. I was a little shocked – not by the litany of indie bands that I’d never heard of, but by the design and writing. It looks like Take A Break, or one of those other 50p soap-obsessed magazines for housewives. And the writing standard was around Sun level. I’ve long been wise to the NME and its ilk’s hyping up of piss-poor groups as the “best new band in Britain” or some such garbage. Usually they have six months in the spotlight before disappearing. Recently the Twilight Sad have had a lot of hype. Billed as the best new band in Scotland, the new Joy Division, the new My Bloody Valentine and other nonsense. Since they were playing locally, I thought I’d go down and have a sneer. I’m like that.

Well, they are certainly nothing to sneer at. The Twilight Sad make one hell of a racket. The Joy Division comparisons are utter bollocks, although they do have some DNA in common with My Bloody Valentine. To me they sound like Mogwai with a rocket up their arse, with a little Aereogramme sprinkled in the mix, playing good, high-tempo noise-rock. The singer has a charismatic presence. He uses an old-style 1950s microphone, and looks a little like Bauhaus’ Pete Murphy. His vocals, though, are sung in broad Scots. This gives the band a unique quality. All of the bands that they’ve been compared to had singers who used that lazy mid-Atlantic drawl (even Ian Curtis – hardly singing in a Macclesfield accent), but he eschews that, and sounds the better for it. I’m kind of half convinced by the band. They were ragged at times, and sometimes the layers of noise glossed over some fairly half-assed material. The high points, though, were genuinely fresh and exciting. I’ve not heard the album, but I’m intent on doing so. The guitarist seemed to be in a world of his own. He looks a bit like Beck, but with an even more dopey demeanour. He was pissing the singer off by continually strumming when he was trying to address the (very healthily sized) crowd. No fight ensued, though.

There were two supports tonight. Endor sounds like the name of a Lord of the Rings obsessed prog-metal band, but are in fact one of those uniquely Celtic indie-country bands like the Saw Doctors and Cosmic Rough Riders. They had fairly strong melodies, were urgent and tight and bored me shitless. Sorry. The opening act were called Kowalski (presumably after the hero of the cult movie Vanishing Point – hopefully the 1971 original starring Barry Newman and not the crap remake with Viggo Mortensen) and were from Bangor, Northern Ireland. They seemed a nice bunch of lads, but I’m afraid their indie-rock didn’t do anything for me.