"Music is back!", they screamed (while most penniless artists cried, a UK based musician absolutely raking it in with an on average 14K earnings a year). That's right, in 2024 sales hit a 20 year high - but kind of not actually really if adjusted for inflation and streaming and all that - so the shops and Spotify are quite happy to clean up.... as well as all ye olde "legacy artists" still (re)punting their 20-30-40-50 years + wares. With all that in mind, let's keep things moving forward thinking with, er, Braw's UndergRound up of all things, erm, kinda pretty much legacy artist, um....
After his successful 'redux' of Cydonia it was high time Rob got around to mapping and exploring the vast soundscapes of Orbvs Terrarvm, making good use of the 2008 2cd version to cook up a similarly satisfying reconstructed alternate take. In fact, the mixes on the second cd are mostly far superior to the album versions - they have a certain space and clarity often denied the claustrophobic, overstuffed initial release - so with a bit of reordering, and the inclusion of Montagne D'Or from the BBC Sessions 1989-2001, he made a wonderful travelling companion to their '94 peak....
So it was therefore left to System 7's 777 and Power of Seven to plug this gaping black hole, Miquette Giraudy's shimmering synths and Steve Hillage's stuttering guitars more than a match for the lower reaches of the Ultraworld.... that Thrash, Paterson, Keogh and Glover are all guesting surely helps. Close your eyes (always helps!) and 'Ship of the Desert' could be an adventurous early Orb outlier....
Oh, and how's that for a connection as Steve Hillage was also to be found setting the controls on The Charlatans' third album, Up To Our Hips, another record that was subject to creator 'curation' in 2024, a certain Tim Burgess hoping, "the expanded edition allows the listener a never before sneak peek behind the curtain at a record being made by a band in crisis." Apparently. As, for a start you can't really tell this from peeking at any of the extras and, as you can imagine, this release still trails miles behind Rob's own super deluxe of 2023. If anything it seems The Charlatans were not so much in crisis in 1993/4 as unable to tell which of their songs were in fact the best. If you ever had the chance to set a record in stone for the future Rob doubts he'd fill up a second cd with weaker versions of the superior non-album tracks - Subterranean still sparkles but the excellent You and Everybody is subject to a step back, a half-baked demo which is a waste of vinyl, the Easy Life (a fairly pedestrian track in itself) b-side being far superior and not some tinny sounding workout. As well as the welcome Hammond surge of the hitherto unreleased Full of Culture, perhaps set aside as the guitar/organ interplay is still a little clumsy, yet to settle down, there's nice alternate run throughs of Feel Flows and Stir It Up, a trailing b-side that even 30 years ago had more life and urgency than much of the album proper. In addition we have airings of a near-grinding Out , it's not nearly as weedy in its official capacity as Rob remembers, just trimmed down to its detriment, and Withdrawn, tho the already out there session of Up To Our Hips is superfluous compared to the demo, what with its better chorus and genuinely affecting stoned whoosh....
Another UTOH out-take (the last?), Dardanella, is to be found on The Charlatans' own sprawling best of, A Head Full of Ideas (Deluxe Edition) which, a little like the lavish Acetone box set of 2023, is worth the entry price alone for this colour picture of late drummer Jon Brookes thrashing away at his kit (as per the b/w cover of debut single Indian Rope).
Keeping with the Manchester connection, if ever there was a surprise waiting in the musical wings in early 2024 then it had to be wholly unexpected partnership of Liam Gallagher and John Squire, the guitarist renewed and unleashed after 20 years (pretty much) inactivity, ditching the downbeat, the weary and the reflective questioning of his solo albums in favour of lyrics with a more wry and familiar (and populist) ring, seeming to have recovered some of his anthemic qualities and found a comfortable middle ground between the chime of the Roses debut, Second Coming's rocky bombast and the more Beatles-ish songwriting that characterized The Seahorses. Of course, if anything required quite an adjustment for Rob, then getting used to Liam's "big" voice as they stormed through a more overdriven sound than the Roses ever had, the powerhouse stadium scraping vocals and lashes of guitar, while not ever feeling too far from that band. It's easy to imagine several of the songs filtered through Mani and Reni's glorious rhythmical dynamic and coupled with John Leckie's spacious production - no doubt it would have made a very respectable third coming (with about 5 years more polish, ahem). Overall it's a little too verse, chorus, verse, chorus, guitar, chorus in structure throughout, but with Squire's subtle, slow-burn songsmithery at work it's a triumphant return after 20 years away. Indeed, poor old Ian Brown must be fizzing (in a typically defiant and somewhat churlish manner) at the "what could have beens" of 2017.
And, as a final thought, how about the frightening fact we're now as far away from OASIS as they were from The Beatles when they started out. Hmm....
RIDE's Interplay arrived a bit different, with a stripped back sound, Andy Bell and Mark Gardener never sounded so youthful, so much like themselves. Of course, there's the typical RIDE rush of the soaring Portland Rocks, a recapture of that early shoegaze sound arriving with a jolt of instant misty-eyed nostalgia....
DIIV's Boiling a Frog seemed to take last album Deciever's woozy (and best) moments (Acheron?) and stretch them out over a whole record. Unfortunately this frustratingly vague approach sees much of the record drift off – the melodies don't really catch and at times they simply hark back to the edge of Deceiver, so why not just listen to that? The big question is how would it (and the band) land in a live setting (at SWG3, no less "Scotland's Worst Gig x 3" or "Surely the Worst venue in Glasgow" by a long shot, with sludgy sound and a rubbish views of the stage)....
enjoying Underworld, London by way of the Cafe del Mar, to immerse himself in the incredible layered and rippling warm synth washes of Second Toughest In The Infants, surely peerless in the genre of classic techno 'builder' as tracks morph and weave together slinky minimal acid techno of Plastikman
The shuddering stoner sprawl of Bardo Pond's Lapsed and Amanita, the modern love (as in Arthur Lee) shapes of Arial Pink's Haunted Graffiti's Before Today, the boozy sticky floor bar-room b(r)awls of Japandroids Post-Nothing and Celebration Rock, the angular indie jabs of Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights, an album finally hitting home and painfully so....
In spite of the comedown from Stuart Braithwaite's pill-poppingly pointless autobiography, there was a definite rewarding return to Mogwai's discography in 2024, from the Scottish snottiness of their fearless (Satan aside) debut to the icy atmospherics of Happy, or the hammer of Mr Beast, to the simmering threat of Zidane, right up to new album, The Bad Fire. Although they seem to have lost their knack for truly (monu)mental tracks - nothing these days slams home like early tracks Helicon 1 or Summer - there's a pleasing overall consistency to their recent records....
Mogwai - Black Spider 2
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Bandcamp - Offland, The Aliens, The Longcut, (100mountains?)
A mere day after last year's 'myoosik' round up dropped Rob headed off to the (Glasgow) Barrowlands to catch Slowdive (capably supported by the amiable, easy London quartet Whitelands, all nifty 'nugaze' shapes, nimble guitar and impressive, propulsive drumming). Slowdive themselves took things up a considerable (and surprising) notch, Rachel Goswell proving to be their secret weapon - she looked like the happiest person there, all wide smiles and gentle, expressive dancing/moves, totally at odds with the scene's general (ie. male, affected) spaced indifference. While perhaps lacking RIDE's killer bombast, there's something undeniable about the band, a soulful and truly affecting emotional core beneath the skyscraping songs, one that reaches deep and resonates. (For Rob there's also a strange tinge of melancholy, knowing that the late Nick Talbot of Gravenhurst loved the band but sadly didn't (have the will to) live to catch this vindicated and exceptional second incarnation.)
September saw Rob head off highly anticipating a near rerun of 2022's concert by Godspeed! You Black Emperor at the Barrowland Ballroom. Sure, it was more politically pointed than last time around - any tour backing an album called "NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD" has to be - and, yes, it was ridiculously loud and unbelievably good, (oft called) "end times" music documenting the last gasp of humanity - think despairing footage of wildfires and destructive industrial processes - while acting as a breath of life-affirming fresh air, both brutal and beautiful. Who'd imagine stark footage of a small bird bobbing on a branch to a thunderous soundtrack would be so affecting? So is this "new dawn" music perhaps, a band doing everything they can to reach us, to shake us up, to get through to us. Indeed, Rob came away thinking nothing more than the fact that music could and can, that it should, change the world, and, y'know, maybe, just maybe, save it....
Best thing - Toni Erdmann song
David Hockney End bossiness soon. Not 'now' as that'd be too bossy.
The place was hot! So very, very hot! He hurried. And he wondered as he sped, the gauge rising before him: What had it been like on that day, Whenever? That day when a tiny sun had lain upon this spot and fought with, and for a time beaten, the brightness of the other sky, before it sank slowly into is sudden burrow? He tried to imagine it, succeeded, then tried to put it out of his mind and couldn't. How do you put out the fires that burn forever? He wished that he knew.
"A ship in harbour is safe, but that's not why ships are built." amiable indie flick Fremont
"I get high because the world is cruel and people are lonely. I work so that I can buy drugs that make people seem kind, friendly, free and beautiful." Samotari/The Loners
The Verve play us out.... See you in the next one (have a good time)....
