Hands Of Magnets

Have you ever found yourself coming to as you’re galloping down the street from an unseen foe, the pads of your feet blistering hot, knuckles bone-raw and letting fly the syrup of life? Seldom Landslide’s debut tends to have that affect on you, like a Jekyll and Hyde potion that leaves you alone, clothes ripped and township pillaged.

First off the bat you’re hip deep in syncopated beats, velvet cellos echo the reverberations on the inside of your skull - and then you feel it, skin turning Hulk-green; Lycanthropy pushing out the incisors. At this point your brain temperature will be hitting 50ºC, about the heat at which normal skin starts to feel the burn and your fingers fly away on instinct.

And then the silence - oh, the silence.

Seldom knows when you’re in mid transformation, he senses your vulnerability in this transitional state - now he’s going to play with you, half Yeti that you are. A bullion bass pounds like a carrion gong, and a swarm of beats breeze in disguised as a plague of locusts, ready to eat your face and crawl into your ears - at this point you are up, running, swerving, full scale tunnel vision has been summoned, closing the avenues down to the final hum - the riverbank lane where you find yourself alone by the reflecting moon, fisherman helping you to your feet as their confused faces mutter something along the lines of “Clothes would be an idea” or “You look like my son.”

And goddamn if you don’t go back for more. Dance is dead, long live the New Dance. Go to your clubs, watch the ladies dance around handbags with packets of Marlboro Lights in their hands. At that point you’ll realise what you’ve left behind, burning away on the stereo at home as it awaits the return of its slave - You. You’ll never dance again, the way you danced with Seldom (to paraphrase Michael George).

Next time I’ll have tracker implanted, see exactly what happens - maybe a dictaphone as well. I get worried that during the black outs I’m adding to some huge Megalomaniac plan to destroy the Sun or something. Just think if we all listened to it at the same time - what marvels would crawl across the face of this Old Gonzo? I guess the enlightened will only ever meet in the dead of night, naked but for our eyes of wrath.

The sight of archaic musical equipment covered in crap is probably something better left to the imagination or the scrap heap - but that’s exactly what the band have been recording on/in during the last few weeks in Flint, Michigan. Formerly entitled “Death by Misadventure”, Credit to the Meter Readers changed their name after learning of a similar named band from Roanoke, Lynchburg in Virginia. Although new album Slow hands, Kaleidoscope is still to be pressed, the fever is already hitting the streets in their home town - Kayle Parker explains: “In our home town the streets are already being hit by fever.”

So whose idea was it? Nook Craven elaborates: “It was our bass player’s (Jon Hilberg’s) idea - that fucking asshole. He came in one day with a wheelbarrow and sacks of shit. There were these like molehills of soil and mud dotted about the studio, with more stuffed in the cavities in the back of the amps. Any instruments with air in them were partly filled with damp crap and dead leaves - drums and acoustics, the whole lot. My Hohner’s ruined, and slugs streaked across our amps so now it looks like we’ve got cheap glitter on them.”

Kayle Parker concurs: “I concur. The guy’s a fucking moron.” So what was the idea? Going for the earthy texture like so many bands? “Not really - it soaks up the treble for sure, but I don’t see much difference between the usual foam and fabrics,” drummer/producer Marv Dodge adds, “I think the guy just likes soil.”

Rising damp apart, we look forward to the mudslide in a few months time.

I took the CD out of the case, put it in the stereo and pressed play. After a few seconds of The Defective’s musical stirrings, I listlessly slid off the couch onto the floor and lay face-first on my living room carpet. I’ve never actually looked closely at a carpet ever, which seems kind of funny doesn’t it? I mean we walk on it all the time and curse each other when there are spills, but no one gives their carpet much attention or love. Poor things just get walked on all day. Anyhow, it was fascinating to see the texture up close, the way the weave works into itself. I stared at it for ages. I started to see some funny stuff, though - like miniature eggs laid by flys and ticks all centred on some kind of dystopian gnat village. I thought I saw a small beetle-like creature with my face running away from the dwellings as he was chased by a plethora of strange little “beasties” but I guess my imagination just got the better of me.

After I got up, I cut my nails and smoothed them over with the sandpapery thing you get in nail sets, can’t think of the name off the top of my head. You can get them pretty cheap though, get a whole new nail clipping set with all different stuff for about 2 quid - it just depends where you buy them. Best go to those crap stores - you know, the ones that seem to sell all the bits and pieces that aren’t covered by conventional stores like book shops or shoe repairers. You can pick up some odd stuff in those places pretty cheap, although I get the feeling that when the staff go through those industrial double doors at the back they go down to a crypt or sepulchre and worship the ghosts of dead Escape Artists.

I sat back in my chair and clawed at the arm rest, looking at the redundant TV in the corner, all matt black and dusty. I thought about writing my Will, thought perhaps this was the best time to do it given that I had a spare moment. Just as I was thinking about ringing my Uncle, the CD came to a stop - I took it out of the stereo and put it back in its case, then put it in the shoe box in the cupboard under the stairs with the others.

Token French Look is not for me. The Defectives don’t live up to their name - they are totally correct, well constructed and all-round stand up guys. The only thing defective about them (ironically) is their name. I switched the light off and closed the cupboard’s door. I could listen to them again I suppose, maybe give them a second chance - but frankly I’d rather be skullfucked by a dead horse.

What a week! The front door catches fire after being doused in neat vodka - my wife breaks her jaw by crashing her Peugeot 205 in to cow and (to prove that these things come in three’s) I get the blame for my neighbors child drinking the creosote she stole from my shed. Who am I kidding - my life has never been that unlucky!! That is until the ‘Magnets’ editor decided to interdict my charmed life and force a review out of me for the said album.

Making The Pretzel Stick is (apparently) the third offering from Leicester Indy rockers The Hazelnut Tweed. The Gods won’t be pleased.

The opener My Plastic Way (shovel or spade) does little to ignite the proceedings. Not that it lacks pace, it has plenty - but without identity. If it were possible to blend The Happy Mondays with two hundred litres of peach water, you would be close to the flavour and culture saturation levels that are found from this vapid tune.

Four songs down the list and the Hazelnuts are still lacking in gravity with only the multi-layered Queen style harmonies of Every Man Can A Van grabbing any nuts en route. Even this gets ruined eventually by a painful two and a half minute mandolin solo ‘outro’.

Interestingly Oil Symbols and Karma Catch-ya written by bass player Tim Thumber-Hive provide us with our two good songs for the album. Thumber-Hive, formally of Breadstar International only joined Tweed a month or so before the recording process began. We can only hope that his influence spreads before they enter a studio again.

Finally, whether the choking sounds were really authentic or just staged (as I believe) a seven minute number featuring a supposed George Bush Jr gasping for breath whilst Ann Slatersleys Leicester Angels Choir sing gospel does not help this album go out with the bang it doesn’t deserve. The title track Making The Pretzel Stick is a fine example of how not to close a record and say goodnight to your audience.

In all honesty, this review has been indulgent and therapeutic. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad experience after all. My charmed life continues.

Hip-hop is a strange beast. When it’s bad, it’s very very bad, and when it’s good, it’s incredible. Unfortunately, this latest effort from GLR falls firmly in the former category. The normally reliable collective recorded this album for the most part in the toilets of the 12:15 from Euston to Manchester. Their decision to leave it sounding raw doesn’t come off like it did in their 1198 album Sun Sweat (which many still see as their best work) recorded in and around Conservative Party Headquarters.

Of course, the album still has it’s moments, and see if you can get a mate to burn you a copy of JG Ballard killed My Bitch (featuring a great collaboration with Jimmy Saville) and the dark and broody Toymaster Closedown (which the band claim to have recorded with ghost of Eazy-E, though there seemed to be no evidence of him on our review copy).

But in an age where British hip-hop should be reaching up for the stars, GLR have lost their map to the powder room: too many lyrics like: “Wings were set with eyes/with eyes the wheels of Beryl/and careering fires between/over their heads, muthafucka” may have been cutting the mustard back in the 80’s, but it all seems a little passé now.

What is so disappointing here is the lack of response to other hip-hop acts - only last month, Killer Fe released an album which he recorded after being possessed by an Enochian tree demon (The excellent Wendy and The Flower Fairies) and Dub Mikey unleashed his double album Live At Kwiksave - and album that showed his own development as an artist. Following the Fluxus group of the pop art music, each CD case didn’t contain any music per se but random bits of gravel and cracker novelties, and a note from Dub Mikey explaining that “…the album will never sound better than it does inside your head, so just imagine it yourself.”

This is where GLR fall short - sampling Mull Of Kintyre and the Are You Being Served? theme tune (written by the genius of Ronnie Hazlehurst - see the theme to Open All Hours, Allo Allo and The Two Ronnies) is all well and good, but c’mon lads - I’m expecting a Phillips head screwdriver and a joke about seaweed from my albums now, not just rhymes and beats. Better luck next time.

Jake Lakerdale, lead singer of metallurgical band 7ft PaperCut, has been sacked after bandmates and fan sites received footage of the singer’s childhood appearance on the programme “The GodSquad” - aired over 20 years ago. Lakerdale is shown (aged 11) in full Altar gear giving praise to the Lord, although the renowned Satanist is not praising the Lord of Flies as one would expect. Guitarist Scott Lacey: “We are devastated - all this time we’ve followed Jake as far as the lakes of Hell and further. We’ve sacrificed things together - you can’t break those kinds of bonds easily. Our band will have to go back and take a look at ourselves. This is a definite set back on our joint road to eternal damnation.” The GodSquad was a special series helping Christians aged between 4 and 14 learn about the stories and beliefs of the faith in a “funky” young adult way. Lakerdale is believed to have been involved with at least 3 episodes of the show which invited kids of varying ages to talk about their faith to the assembled audience, as well as submitting puppet shows, songs and paintings of various events and characters from the bible.

Lakerdale has since posted a response on his own site, stating that the show and its contents were “Recorded years before my interest in the occult started. I was just a middle-American kid whose parents were proud to see their son worshipping on TV,” and that “just a year or two later I was reading Aleister Crowley and listening to the ‘Sabbath.” Not all parties are convinced, though - bassist Noah Reed explains: “Years ago Jake helped me through my problems with money and drugs. Now I see that all that kindness, the tenderness at which he used to console me with hugs and affection was all the product of a good Christian background, not a Hellspawned Heart. I should have seen it coming, but I was too busy being saved and redeemed by Jake for me to see the obvious “Good Samaritan” behind those actions. I feel used and degraded - I may as well be wearing a pastel cream suit with corn-flour blue tie and bucked teeth.” Local charity worker Christopher Jeremiah is expected to take the lead vocal spot for the foreseeable future.

New recording from the Boston trio. More laced than poisoned, less paint than dry, these dropouts know how to give your speakers a punch in the kidneys just to make sure you’re listening correctly - that is, bent double in agonising pain while the rest of the world spins around you. Remember that feeling you had? It’s about to be erased. Go back to the tool shed - they’ll be waiting for you there, ready to bolt on a new thorax.

Somewhat lacking conventional wisdom, Piss Poor Rucksack Blues Pipe Whistle attempts to make up for this with sheer distortability and a profound sense of idiom, making the album rather insular and mindful of the patient occupying the next bed. Of course, the Horse Drawn Frauds themselves are fabulists of the highest orientation - there can be no tone left undroned, no pop left cropped. Piss Poor Rucksack Blues Pipe Whistle is a camping holiday unto itself, awaiting your arrival at 30,000ft.

Don’t disappoint them.

It may only be January, but here’s an early candidate for album of the year. If you’ve been living up a Chinese pipe for the last few months you would’ve missed the buzz and excitement that surrounded The Hands Of God on their tour last year. Eclectically choosing to play only in motorway service stations or Happy Eaters up & down the country, they’ve managed to gain a hardcore following, one that’s only going to get bigger once this album gets the airplay it deserves.

The band themselves are comprised of Glen Madeiros and the rhythm section of Sigue Sigue Sputnik, and with occasional contributions from ‘Richard’ - a 62 year old Patagonian farm herder, whose musical contribution is listed on the sleeve as ‘vibe controller/visionary’.

The album kicks off with the rawkus cover of Brown Sauce’s hit I wanna be a Winner and after feeling your mental imbalance get slightly tripped by the conceptual Inverse Pyraminds (As seen Sub Specie Alternis) the listener is encouraged at various points to make their own contributions to the tracks - Madeiros implores you to ‘Clap your hands’ and ’spill your intestines’, then the band halt proceedings to allow the listener to try and accomplish these tasks. In an interview that appeared in Fiesta, the top draw jazz mag, Richard explained through the ancient language of Gargamel (the Patagonian whistling language) “We just want to fuck people’s heads up man - we’ve all had a lick of the envelope and now we’re off to buy some stamps.” And it’s a feat that they accomplish on the awesome Ogden Summerby Church Raffle 1976 - a recording of a church Harvest fair raffle in Neasden that runs for over 25 minutes and is only interspersed with the sounds of dwarf prostitutes being whipped. A Keane fan would probably want to turn off at this point, but for the more adventurous musical traveller, there are a few more delights to be found. Open Mollie Sugden and feast on her rusty innards is a Jazz fusion track that would make Miles Davis spin in his grave if he hadn’t been cremated and had his ashes mixed in with food given to ravenous wolves. For Christ’s Sakes, I told you the traffic would be bad is the last squealing orgasm on the album - Madeiros recorded his vocal in the colon of a Blue Whale, and the ambient panic in his voice is a joy to behold and a counterpoint to the contribution of the rest of the group, who employed illegal Chinese immigrants to play their instruments on this track.

The album comes to a close with another cover, Hello by Lionel Ritchie. The band all had to spend 3 weeks in Alaska after laying this down “To escape Davey Darkness and his bad JuJu” - and that alone should convince you of the power of this recording, and as an album as a whole.

This is going to be the year of The Hands Of God - come jump on the bandwagon before you end up starring in a pantomime production of Puss In Boots at the Swindon Town Hall. You know it.

The lost Dutch physician finally makes his debut after years of rallying behind the banner of the Martineau Syndicate. Shrouded in mystery, even Soulaway weren’t privy to the location of Crash’s first solo swoop of the axe - indeed, all instruments and production duties (even down to the dogsbody tape techs) were undertaken by Locus himself, leaving little for the mixing boys back at the record ranch. Such paranoia leaves me feeling a little delicate as the first track (of 3) opens into a wide dispersal of metric light. Traded for Webs & Hangars introduces a 3 point chant based around Merrick’s Lost Solace era of duly lengthening boughs - Locus is quick to turn the tables on the method though, deleting much of the lower end sound in readiness for the maddening foot stomp to come. Suddenly you relax, ease back into your chair as if it were a soothing coma - this is Debris music at its best - the constant G flat, the monotonous beat, the flakey wire cord crackling like a dysfunctional neon tube strobing to the pedestrians.

After track one disappears into silence of the room, Tsar Tsar loops into your audio view, full of latent promise of industrial cities on the collapse and the washing winds of leaves as they escape their autumn enslavers. By now Crash’s years behind Martineau’s mixing desk have not been in vain as much of the euthoria is replaced so delicately by a brooding swelter of bass, bringing on the kind of lull you feel when your dreamself dips mid flight in a moment of panic, reality setting fire to those imaginary wings. “How does he make it so sinister?” you ask yourself, flattening the palm of your hand against your temple as you think about ringing someone for company.

By the time the closing track, Stale Aquantances strides on, you already expect the rush that the pre-programmed synth beats hint at in their crescendo - who cares if the Syndicate is broken now, when Locus has the promise of generations to come backed by lost generations past - gun clicks in the barrel, venom in the ears and feet leaving the dance floor is the only way to describe what the Martineau could never achieve - a constant brick wall of attention, a cyclone of doubt in the face of overwhelming distinction.

In 35 minutes of Sterile Mile, Crash is now the audio equivalent of rush hour outlawed, where you wake up at the steering wheel 3 seconds before the cliff edge. Ludicrous perfection resonates for hours after.