“Five tracks all over Five minutes, not one
mention of heartbreak, love and moving on!
Turn Up The Volume: This 5-track EP with five of Leg Puppy’s
Top-5 hits is what you need to kick another awful virus year in
the mouth mask face.
40 minutes of brainwashing dancefloor frenzy starting with the sassy
electro-rock stomper ‘Tears‘ delivered with trance-tastic Voi Vang vocals,
followed by a black paranoid sabbath orgy, a technotronic jam called NDA,
a schizophrenic Luid 23 juggernaut and a razzle-dazzle roller coaster doing
your dope profile in to end this Doomsday party.
FIVE is the EP to start and
end all Xmas diners with…
Who: Singer-songwriter from the small town of Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland.
His musical inspiration was drawn from classic voices outside of the tensions in
his homeland. Bill Withers, Marc Cohen, Tom Waits, and the like were all bright colours
from a musical palette far away from the often-grim surroundings of Northern Ireland
at that time. Rogers’ voice and sound pull from the vast well of timeless Americana,
all the while underpinned by the authentic writings of his life and its surroundings.
Rogers: “I don’t like the idea of songs sitting silently on hard drives. These ones were
written to be heard and I kind of like that they don’t fit with anything else other than back
to back together on their own EP… For this EP I wanted to hark back a bit to the excitement
of holding a piece of music in your hands, reading sleeve notes, taking in the artwork and looking at something other than your phone while listening. There’s so much missing from
the whole experience these days. I still love the ritual of pulling a CD case open, or putting
the needle arm onto a record on the turntable, and I really think the contents of this EP
lend themselves perfectly to that.””
(photo by Ken Haddock)
Turn Up The Volume: This is high-quality songwriting. From riveting grooves
to soul-stirring balladry. Compelling stories, masterly arrangments, instantly
sticking melodiousness, and a magnific Americana voice. Arresting work.
Discover and enjoy all six beauties…
.
Besides the five original songs Rogers also included his remarkable cover of the 1977
Bee Gees’ massive disco hit Stayin’ Alive. Remarkable as he slows the song down in a mesmerizing way and because his warm and melancholic vox – instead of the brothers’ helium vocals – changes the resonance totally. A gem of a cover…
Band: PEEPING DREXELS Who: Post-punk misfits from South London who announced their past UK gigs with this message: “Come through to the show of your liking to witness the degradation of our already poor physical and mental health in musical form.” Say no more.
This amazeballs extended play came out back in April, but before last Saturday night, I had never heard of this London gang of outcasts. But seeing them turning up the heat in the historicParadiso Club in Amsterdam as part of the yearly (actually 2 editions per year) London Calling Festival, a showcase for up and coming bands (mostly from the UK), was pretty fucktastic and made them the talk of the night.
Why? If you start with some early Talking Heads‘ mania, followed by crashing Apocalypse drones, then you switch to some casual piano touches and 60s echoing guitars, and you end in a depressive lullaby way and you do all of this in one song with a flabbergasting resonance you’ll understand why the whole venue went apeshit and left their sweat on
the beer-drained floor for the whole wall-of-barbwire-sledgehammer-beats and post-punk orgasms filled gig.
Need a reference? Last Saturday Peeping Drexels made me feel what I felt so many times when seeing their mates Fat White Family slash and trash stages. You know, that feeling of pumped-up confidence to go out in the street and kick some fascists’ asses. Hell bloody hell yeah!
Enough talking. Do your miserable post-lockdown state of
mind a favour and buy yourself some more BAD TIME.
Turn Up The Volume: One track (Foolhardy) was recorded in a studio,
one was (Old Joe) taped live at St. George’s Church in Brighton and three
pieces (Deadweights / Tidal Wave / Foolhardy) were canned while in quarantine
last year and one is a remix from the title track.
Seadog are daydreamers who translate their reflections into floaty pop melodies,
with Old Joe as my standout favorite. Smooth synths and starry-eyed vocals fortify
the overall relaxing atmosphere. Feeling blue? Than this EP is a fitting companion.
CRUX: “We’ve tried to capture different aspects of the chaos and despair that penetrates modern living drawing on a number of themes, from zero-hour contracts and austerity to sexual predators and dodgy nights out. Some of the songs are particularly character-driven, with ‘Radgie Gadgie’ and ‘Incel’ both being based on real people, but also on archetypes we’re all familiar with in our day-to-day lives.”
(Photo by Chris Ord)
Turn Up The Volume: History, unfortunately, repeats itself over and over again.
The past few years greedy power-addicted charlatans (the likes of Trump, Johnson, Erdogan, and Orbán) got elected by a scary majority of autocracy-supporting people. Sexism, racism, and inequality are back from never being away. Add the devastating coronavirus crisis and the never-ending nuclear race and it looks as if the world is
heading towards self-destruction.
Crux tackle most of those inhuman issues and more in this 6-track extended play,
lyrically and sonically. From the pumped-up Royal Blood-like stomper Living In Dystopia
on they ignite all cylinders. Smashing slam Big Market (do I hear echoes of prog-rockers Yes track To Be Over track of their 1974 album Relayer here in the intro) rocks hard.
Furious whirlwind stormers Incel and Radgie Gadgie speed up your bloodstream
while the decibels reach an illegal level. Slaving Away has a glowing glam groove with
an instant impact on your body langue and closer Agent Orange is a tremendous tour
de force combining The Black Keys drones, a wham bloody wham-bam chorus, and a surprising, classical choir climax. A spectacular finale of a spectacular EP.
The scary signs of our modern times led Crux to a far-out EP triumph.
Band: MENTO BURU Who: A 7-piece band from Bakersfield, CA that combining an energetic blend of Latin alternative, Jamaican SKA, and reggae sounds. Veterans of ska music’s hyperactive nineties third wave, the group has released music on the Moon Ska and Steady Beat record labels. The band’s name refers to two forms of early Jamaican folk music styles, which make up the rhythmic foundation of what would become ska and reggae music in the 1960s.
Turn Up The Volume: Just leave your death metal albums on the shelf this year with Halloween. Why? With this steaming EP you can organise also a moshpit with your friends. But instead of banging you’re heads against each other with concussions as a result, you can safely go Ska bonkers now. Warning: don’t fall over your feet while shuffling them like crazy and while shaking your booty too fast, or you’ll have the same painful outcome as with your metalloween havoc.
When their fulminating single Butterly Room came out (an acrimonious
reflection on the state of chaotic Brexit England) I called these four raging
post-punk revolters the Four Horsemen of the Great Britain Apocalypse. Their
second EP confirms this description with unbridled intenseness and stunning
songwriting bringing the sinister force of The Birthday Party to mind.
Opener Ghoul Driver sets the tremendously torrid tone of this jaw-dropping
extended play. It’s an ominous trance-like outburst that threatens to explode
any second with a nervous violin initiating the expected blood-and-guts finale.
Say Goodbye both surprises and impresses with its longing Mexican tango
melodiousness. Melancholic trumpets, a weeping violin, and banjo-like guitar
gusto. And again the vocals are utterly impassioned. A touching video clip
visualizes this heavy-hearted gem.
As said above Butterfly Room is a fulminating blast and closer The Man Ate
Capitalism progresses at a funeral pace. Lamenting and dolesome. Seems
like capitalism is the deceased.
Conclusion: one of the most fascinating EPs I heard all year.
Band: HUX FLUX Who: A quartet from Gothenburg, Sweden. They call their reverby sound ‘Trashdance’, influenced by punk, dance music and garage rock. They produced by legendary Detroit producer Jim Diamond (White Stripes, The Sonics, Dirt Bombs etc).
“Our personal influencers are a bit different, but as a band I would say that
Thee Oh Sees inspire us on the experimental part, Night Beats for the overall
sound, and The Coathangers for the versatility and attitude. We take our
music very seriously, but as ourselves we are more of the playful types.”
Turn Up The Volume: Expect four glorious chaotic psychobilly grooves
à la slash and trash legends The Cramps, sounding as if they were recorded
in a filthy basement far away from a thing called studio. Smells like punk spirit.
No arty-farty nonsense for Hux Flux whose frontwoman’s voice balances
somewhere between a Riot grrl version of Betty Boop and a young Marianne
Faithfull smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day. Devilish cool, right? Absolutely.
Band: ERASURE Who: Famous electro-dance duo featuring singer Andy Bell
and synth maestro Vince Clarke (who started his career with Depeche Mode, left and formed Yazoo and then started Erasure).
Active: 1985-present / 18 studio albums so far, with
the 2020 LP The Neon as the most recent one.
?????????????
New EP: NE: EP Released: Yesterday (1 October 2021)
just out of the blue without prior noise.
Turn Up The Volume: As if it was planned (probably so) brand new Erasure stuff sees the light of the day now the nightclubs reopened
recently, the duo’s natural habitat. So they do what they always did/do,
writing sparkling synth stimulants to activate you for some dancefloor
action. This 5-track EP will do the job easily.
Make your moves here…
Artist: LOVE ITOYA Who: A 24-year R&B/Soul Greek Nigerian singer, songwriter,
performer, dancer, artist, born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Debut EP: INTRODUCTION Released: 24 September 2021 Order-info: here
Itoya: “Introduction” was written by my true life experiences and
also has a message of empowerment and advice to the world.”
Turn Up The Volume: Itoya is a natural-born singer and entertainer. Her glorious soul voice – think Béyonce and Neneh Cherry (yes that good) -sounds so spirited, so brisk, so
real and human that your stream of adrenalin explodes and euphoria takes over. Her 6-track debut EP couldn’t have come at a better time. After about 18 freedom-limiting and depressing months – we can dance in the streets again, side by side.
Finally, we can enjoy life again while swaying and swinging our hips to this exotic R&B jamboree injected with reggae sparks (Pepper Dam / Real Love), Motown inspired disco fervor (Ups & Downs) and passionate, mixed emotions (Consideration, with a flashy guitar solo, should be a hit worldwide)). All irresistible tunes, richly orchestrated and greatly arranged. And yes, Love Itoya looks totally gorgeous. What an introduction!
