We’ve been going on about them all year - now the mighty Pulled Apart By Horses take turns to tell us what rings their collective bells.
With less than 48 hours left of 2009, I can finally reveal (to this lonely audience of pretty much myself) my favourite article and interview of 2009. Given the opportunity to interview Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo - twice, once on the phone and once in person - might as well be the climax of my writing intentions. Getting Sonic Youth on the cover of a magazine may as well signal the end of my fiery passion to contribute cover stories to magazines. It didn’t, but it felt at the time as if I’d done everything I’d set out to do. Why? Because this band represent ground zero for music to me.
Late last week word came down that Bob Mould had recruited No Age to perform a set of Hüsker Dü tunes it warmed my heart to know that the second best possible version of the band would indeed be hitting a stage. Sure, it may not be Mould, Grant Heart, and Greg Norton, but it will be the first time Hüsker Dü songs are played in a live setting in a few years and I’m excited for the chance to see (so long as I can find the cash to cough up!). It also led me down nostalgia road, listening to the old tunes and discovering them once again like I did somewhere in my teen years.
Nisennenmondai and I are in a Turkish restaurant in London, and we are trying to speak to each other in English. Katoman, their tour manager, translates some questions into Japanese, answers others on the band’s behalf. Sayaka Himeno (drums, driving force) concentrates on my words as if lipreading. Masako Takada (motorik riffs; quartzy loops) and Yuri Zaikawa (one-note bass thwacks) smile encouragingly, Masako chiming occasional responses. On the recording, her high, soft voice and Sayaka’s lower one bloom sporadically between MP3 harshness, traffic, the clatter of kebab skewers, shouted Turkish, Katoman’s “Let me explain…”, and my own voice, at its most annoyingly language-teacherish, as our words bump haplessly against one another.
Nisennenmondai’s music is the precise inverse of their interview recording, existing in a space where words fall back and a path is cut, roughly, through misunderstanding and into bright-white light. The band’s three-pronged no-wave is a hand-made interpretation of infinity that hovers on a knife-edge between the fierce propulsion of Neu! and a more feral, pragmatic post-punk scuttle. Songs exist at a point of permanent climax, an ever-popping firework. Live, process is laid bare: there’s a feedback loop between them and you, a challenge to never lose focus, as the three women play chase with guitar loop and raging disco hi-hat.
2008 was a shit year for music.
With the economy falling down around us, the music industry continued to crumble under the pressure of the internet…falling down, down, down and barely even pulling in a cent (or so they would like you to believe). Bands inspired by the few cash cows we have left aped and copied their way through records. Folks were led to believe that a band like Fleet Foxes made a better, more lasting impression with their record then say someone like Deerhunter did.
Have you forgotten the way to your lover’s heart? It’s through their stomach you idiot. I should know – I’m massively overweight, but I am also a great lover.
It’s not some pretentious swanky leafy...
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Read the review of the gig here.
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Good time with Bad Guys. Photos from the May 29th gig at the Old Blue Last. Read the review by the Bad Guy himself, Stuart London after the jump.
Artrocker.com exclusive: for fans of White Lies and Crocodiles we’ve got some fresh pictures from their UK show at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire earlier this month, courtesy of Alessandro...
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