mp3: They Say It
mp3: Leda
mp3: After the Shock
mp3: Suspended in Gaffa
mp3: Next Time On the Back of a Goose
mp3: Slow Girl
mp3: Moortown Bluebay

website: http://www.angelsinspace.com 

I think I plead ignorance too much for my own good, but through all the Dutch music I’ve been exposed to, I’d never come across Safe Home until a random press email came my way last week. Anyway, being extremely lazy, here is a slice of that mail…

‘In case you’ve forgotten, or never really paid attention long enough in the first place to have ever known, Safe Home is Esther Sprikkelman and Harry Otten, a train-riding duo split between Deventer and Utrecht. Their second album The Wide Wide World And All We Know is officially launched in the States on Feb 13th.’ And well, that’s the key points. Although, in general I don’t advise anyone starting off a mass mailout by accusing the reader of not paying attention.

Anyway, their website (of slightly fragile design) features the seven mp3s listed above. Hopefully if you link straight from here, the files won’t open into a tiny frame. But aside from any technical niggles, the music is very pretty. Dreamy folk sounds with a simple design. The instrumentation sets the mood while keeping everything relatively basic, be it lightly picked guitars or ambience. Then there’s Sprikkelman’s vocals which take me back to a classic 4AD era. I see one reviewer mentioned the Cocteau Twins, but it makes me think more of The Hope Blister.

zip: Sleeping Pills and Asteroids

website: http://www.gasolinebrothers.nl

After getting home late last night, I snuck on 3voor12tv, on which was the recent Club3voor12 set from Dutch band The Gasoline Brothers. I didn’t know who it was at the time, but it was really familiar. Perhaps it was because I had actually downloaded this song a couple of weeks ago, but yeah, I didn’t know that.

It’s really high energy melodic rock. While it was playing on TV I was thinking of bands like Redd Kross, The Posies, Guided by Voices and the like. Judging by that list of peers, maybe that makes it a little dated to the ’90s, but it’s got loud guitars and big vocal hooks - certainly nothing to complain about. They were also really good in session, and seemed to fit so well into that American pop/rock sound that I was surprised in the end when I realised it was a ‘local’ band I had already heard.

While I’m not delighted about downloading a zip file (it also comes with artwork in pdf format), it’s way better than having to visit a MySpace page.

I haven’t been gigging too often in recent months. Partly it’s laziness, partly financial, partly me taking better care of my hearing capabilities. But a couple of weeks ago Dar Williams was in Dordrecht and that was close enough to warrant a Saturday night out.

See Dar is always charming live. Although I haven’t had proper exposure to her last couple of albums, I have seen her play twice in Scotland and it’s always lovely. Armed with an acoustic guitar, her honest folky lyrical style transcends the usual Americana words that I often can’t fully relate to. So even when she writes a literal song about New York, it transposes well to universal situations.

I must confess, it was one of the quietest shows I’ve been to – if you’re willing to overlook the first time I saw Cat Power live and was too afraid to move as my boot kept creaking on the floor if I switched weight from foot to another. Maybe it was a deliberate noise level issue as the venue was an official city building, Statenzaal ‘t Hof. Fortunately it didn’t take away from the enjoyment of the performance. It was just very noticeable sitting in the back row, albeit if the room was very small and pretty.

Admittedly you won’t earn many cool points for listening to Dar, but she is always fun and good at conversation, and her recent release My Better Self has a slightly sharper edge that some of her older material doesn’t. Due back in Holland in April, I’d quite happily catch her again, although perhaps not if it involved traveling to Amsterdam.

An extra shout out is deserved for the people of Crossroads Radio who put on the show. Although aimed at something of an older audience than I’m used to, the organisers are blatantly passionate about Americana and folk, and it was nice to be part of such a homegrown show where tickets were sold trustingly by email and word-of-mouth.

Possibly irrelevant to most of the people who read here, I just wanted to write an entry about webhosting (all part of the diversification of Stayfun). The change in hosting that I made earlier in January was long overdue. In fact it was something I planned in January 2005, only I was misinformed by the old host, who then went and charged for another year of hosting well before the previous deal had expired. With one thing after another, I eventually settled with the status quo.

That hosting company was Nevidia. As I type this, their site isn’t even accessible, and that says a lot. What I do remember of their homepage is that it was a garish flash site that inflicts horrible streaming video and audio on you without an option to escape. They even used some fancy control panel software that was only compatible with Internet Explorer. But it wasn’t always that way. In fact, when I first joined with them they seemed ideal. They offered ASP-friendly Windows hosting at a fair price, and they were small and friendly.

Sometimes I would contact their technical support and receive an instant response (a couple of times drunkenly in the middle of their night). I liked that. They seemed to care and would actually listen to me.

Unfortunately at some point during that first year they altered their package details and raised the price. Although that didn’t affect my contract, from that point the company went downhill. The servers were frequently offline. Sometimes my website no longer seemed to exist. Other times I would have visible Windows server errors for up to 12 hours until a server was reset. I would lose emails, and amazingly, at one point last year while abroad and depending on webmail, everything in the inboxes of all my accounts was mysteriously wiped.

Technology problems are one thing, and to be honest, over the last six months of my contract I did have a lot less issues with their servers. But the one key thing that I could never forgive was the lapse of their customer service. I can appreciate that replying to emails all day can be terribly boring, especially if being asked stupid questions over and over. However, I always try to write support emails with care, step-by-step, spelling out what is wrong in the hope that the reader actually understands. Yet instead of the immediate caring responses, I was then subjected to long delays before finally a one line standard response would arrive, completely ignoring everything I said. That always drives me insane, and dealing with Nevidia customer support would always turn into a battle of wills, a fight to get a reasonable response before my spirit was destroyed. And with friends also using their hosting, it wasn’t just me enduring that pain.

So now I’m with Streamline.Net. I’ve had one friend with them for a couple of years, plus they also host the Aereogramme site I designed last year. Neither have had any problems to date, and after two weeks of my new contract, their server has been reliable and customer support fairly decent. For now I am at peace with webhosts.

mp3: Ne’er Do Well
mp3: El Paso
mp3: Ron Jeremy
mp3: Collection

website: http://www.ilikeyoungpeople.com

I must admit, I don’t know much about Young People. I stumbled onto them via my music listings for the newspaper as they’re due to play Paradiso on February 8. It doesn’t help that their particularly lovely website is now void of updates, but I’ve searched around and it now seems they’re signed to Too Pure in UK/Europe.

‘The first Too Pure release for this year is brought to you by new signing Young People. The six track EP Five Sunsets In Four Days is available from January 30 from good record stores and of course, our very own Too Pure Shop. Young People will be playing some live dates in February and we would love to see you there. The impending album All At Once is due for release in March.’

This is what I had to say after first impressions, ‘Combining traditional American songwriting with avant-garde rock, this duo/quartet fronted by Katie Eastburn have a truly fascinating lo-fi sound that wanders all over the path. Catch them now and you’ll understand what it was like to discover the White Stripes or Cat Power while they were still fresh and interesting.’

Is it a strange thing to be quoting myself?

mp3: Standing in the Way of Control

website: http://www.gossipyouth.com

I’ve literally gone on about The Gossip for years, firstly being introduced to them via good friends from the US, then eventually seeing them at the inaugural (only?) Ladyfest Glasgow. A magnificent bluesy raw rock/punk band led by singer Beth Ditto, they always blew everyone away when they hit the stage. The problem was, it never quite sounded the same on record. Sure, they nailed a few great songs on the way (’Sweet Baby‘/’Fire Sign‘), but their full force just wasn’t captured on tape.

In contrast, their new album Standing in the Way of Control has completely dazzled me. It’s not just the production of Guy Picciotto that’s transforming their sound, but it feels like over the past couple of years the band has really grown and introduced much more in the way of dynamics into their songwriting. There are big grooves, coarse guitars and plenty of screaming as always, but also slow soulful tones and a lot more subtlety shaking things up. After hearing the opening track I thought, ‘wow!’ After hearing the second track I wanted to tell everyone I know who has ever heard The Gossip. By the third I wanted to tell the world. And whereas their past releases may have faded away into general noise as time ticked away, anytime this album threatens to slip, a new groove erupts and freshens things up.

Probably the most excited I’ve been about an album so far in 2006, a full 28 days in.

They played Waterfront in Rotterdam in November while I was out the country. Let’s hope they return to NL around May when they appear at All Tomorrow’s Parties in England with Sleater-Kinney.

Although I stated last night that I had buggered up the old Stayfun site, as always in my life, I can’t relax until I iron out the little problems. So all of the text from the previous incarnation is now archived at http://www.stayfun.co.uk/old. It’s stripped of graphics and most of the menus, but the text remains and that’s what I (and the other collaborators) spent most time on. All the graphics were good for was the hotlinking other blogs seem to enjoy so much anyway, so it seems sensible to save on server space and keep my FTP site tidy.

Well, I think it’s time to get this old ship back out to sea. I’m far from finished with the new design, but if I wait forever to tinker with it, I’ll never actually have time to write anything. So welcome to Stayfun v6.0.

I’ll still be writing about the same old stuff - music, concerts and all that junk. But i’ll also have a go at writing about some other things that interest me (probably) like films, television, museums or whatever comes up. If I get really bold, I might even throw up some cool music in mp3 form, as well as linking to other stuff online. I have the space and I have the bandwidth, and it’s always nice to turn people onto something new or old that they really like.

I had planned on having the old site accessible still. Only I’ve buggered up the CSS in the process and it seems very unhappy now. Oops. It’s a lot of writing I don’t want to go to waste, so I’ll slowly bring that back from the dead when I have some spare time.

Anyway, the money is spent, Wordpress is installed and seemingly happy, so let’s see what I can do with this fresh start.

As in so much of what I write here these days, I’ve been incredibly slow to write about the new Audiotransparent album. If I thought the band actually cared, they’d probably be afraid I don’t like it. Having enjoyed their debut so much and gone on and on about it, after half the band left last year, they may be scared I’ve gone off them. That isn’t the case though. If anything I’m just lazy.

Nevland is another beautiful album which maintains the original atmosphere and tone of their debut. Continually slow, considerate, dark and immensely pretty, Audiotransparent deserve much more success. The textures are unavoidable, with a range of instruments creating layers of attractive noise. It shouldn’t be a surprise because all the ingredients were there before, yet I did find myself amazed that they didn’t lose much in the way of magic while shedding band members.

I can’t even pick out favourites from this release because it is of high quality right across the board, but I must admit, whenever the strings appear I become completely lost in the music. Andreas Willemse’s violin parts have always been exceptional, but with some additional help from a string section on this record, the arrangements have become epic. Not in a cheesy Hollywood style, but in an emotional, gripping sense. I still want to stand up and make the world listen to Audiotransparent. I’m not sure anyone actually listens to me but there are definitely moments of musical greatness on Nevland.

‘The Friday Of Our Lives’ is available to download from http://www.audiotransparent.com

On a personal note, I like to think I keep on top of the Scottish indie scene relatively well considering my physical distance from the country. I know about upcoming bands and who’s playing where. Unfortunately, when this CD dropped through my letterbox, I learned there was a whole Scottish electronic scene I was completely oblivious too. For the rest of the world that’s a positive, but I hate being caught unaware.

It turns out The Village Orchestra is Ruaridh Law, an electro experimentalist, and one third of Glasgow-based electronic outfit The Marcia Blaine School For Girls. I now realise the latter have been receiving plenty of plaudits over this past year and are an act to look out for. And judging from this solo project, The Village Orchestra have also got some goodness to offer.

In contrast to the Nanko release reviewed above, The Village Orchestra sit much more comfortably in the ambient category. The songs feel fluid and relaxed, capable of being manipulated slowly into any form Law desires. And that’s exactly what you hear. Tracks build upon themselves step-by-step, taking you on casual journeys then easing themselves back down to 0dB again. Sometimes the sounds are purged from the organic world, sometimes born from distorted scratches, glitches and crunches, but the balance makes for a pretty result.

At 58 minutes, it’s a fairly long piece of work that’s very roomy. But while the songs enjoy long repetitive stretches, the album actually improves as you go through it. Once again, it will be a welcome addition to my Zen Jukebox. Definitely one to check out.

Website:
http://ruaridh.marciablaine.com/

For samples, listen to: Love Theme From Two Man Rumble.

I’ve been sitting on this release for a few months now. I hate taking so long, but my favourite time for electro music is typically when I’m travelling. Unfortunately I haven’t loaded up my Zen Jukebox for ages now, so I’ve only managed limited goes at this release on my CD player. I like it, however, and it will definitely make it amongst the MP3s chosen to dazzle my mind during future train journeys.

Nanko is a Rotterdam-based musician, but there’s nothing particularly local about his sound. As such, this release is through Laterax, a label in Rotterdam with an international mentality. Apparently his musical background is guitar improvisation, but here his imagination is let loose on a broad range of electronic moods, samples and rhythms.

Described in his own press release as Brian Eno meeting Aphex Twin, there are elements of truth to it. From one point of view, the album is blessed with a lot of ambience, space and atmosphere that can really trigger diverse thoughts and feelings in your mind. Yet the tracks pulse with energy. There’s a real sense of purpose and forward motion driving throughout, and with 17 tracks spread across only 42 minutes, there are so many active ideas that there’s no time to lose interest.

Bored of the Boards of Canada? Try out Nanko for a real sense of composition, organics and computerised chaos.

Website: http://www.laterax.com/nanko.htm

For samples, listen to: Bicycle Pets and Brouter Wuno.