Filthy Little Angels

Little 044 Slideshow Freak "We Should Swing EP"

2009-07-12T18:36:00.003+01:00

Today we bring you the second EP from Slideshow Freak
and we hope you'll love it as much as we do

This EP is available for FREE for 1 month from www.filthylittleangels.com after which time it will be available from iTunes.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE AND NOW
Artwork
Something More
This Town
Lost And Found
Get Up And Go
We Should Swing (For What We've Done)
Time And Time Again

www.myspace.com/slideshowfreak

Little 043 The Vivos "Post Cataclysm Rock E.P."

2009-07-06T00:19:00.002+01:00

INTRODUCTION BY THE DEVIL HAS THE BEST TUNA

Daphne and Martin formed the Vivos (Latin for living I believe) in 2006 after being drawn together by their shared love of The Beatles, The Clash and The Buzzcocks. Their new EP 'Post Cataclysm Rock' is out this week on Filthy Little Angels with five tracks that hop genres with all the dexterity of a skilled surgeon at a vasectomy clinic.

This dexterity is personified by the EPs tongue in cheek title track 'Post Cataclysm Rock' which manages to cram in at least three different genres and possibly more I've missed. There's Status Quoesque bar blue boogie guitars, 50s doo wop, nu wave vocals and I could swear I heard a lick of country guitar somewhere in the mix and amazingly it works.

Elsewhere on the EP there's the pure nuggets garage with a twist of the Velvet Underground of 'Why Keep Running (Races You Don't Care To Win)' while the brilliantly named 'Legless Dancer' is an anorak of a song that reminds me of Biff Bang Pow's 'She Paints' and wouldn't sound out of place on a mid 90's Creation Records sampler. 'Bed & Breakfast' sounds like something John Shuttleworth would knock up in five minutes in a Travelodge on the A54 in one of his more serious moments. Finally 'Sometimes' sounds like Nico covering an obscure Beatles b-side and is more adorable than a box of puppies in pajamas.

This EP is available for FREE for 1 month from www.filthylittleangels.com after which time it will be available from iTunes.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE AND NOW

Artwork
Post Cataclysm Rock
Bed And Breakfast
Legless Dancer
Sometimes
Why Keep Running (Races You Don't Care To Win)

watch the video for Post Cataclysm Rock

www.thevivos.com
www.myspace.com/thevivos

Little 042 Tiny Tigers "Time For Tea EP"

2009-06-29T00:51:00.003+01:00

Happier in a tea room than a Camden pub, Tiny Tigers formed in August 2008 over cupcakes, gin and a love of music. The all female London three piece recently worked with producer Paul Tipler (Placebo, Elastica, Idlewild) to bring together this collection of kitchen demos and studio sessions resulting in the bands very first DIY EP - Time for Tea, best described as a mix of Altered Images meets the Pixies with a dash of Blondie added for good measure.

This EP is available for FREE for 1 month from www.filthylittleangels.com and is also available from iTunes and Amazon

The band have also created a limited edition collection of hand made CDs which will be availeble from the FLA store

DOWNLOAD IT HERE AND NOW

Artwork
Sort It Out
Stop Talking
Escape The Hum
Dance With Me
Repetition
On The Inside

watch the video for Stop Talking

TASTY FANZINE REVIEW
"I almost don’t care what this sounds like. It comes packaged in one of those old fashioned waxed paper bags that I used to get my quarter of cola cubes in each Friday. It’s adorned with a pretty little bow. Someone has drawn three cakes on the front and even the CD-r has been labelled by hand. Brilliant attention to detail and if I didn’t know better I would almost guarantee this was about to sound ‘Twee as Fuck’ (forgive the pun).

Stagger back therefore when it turns out Tiny Tigers are more punk rock than rock cakes. There’s even some phased guitars on ‘Escape the Hum’ – by christ. ‘Stop Talking’ really reminds me of ‘Giddy Stratospheres’ by The Long Blondes – another fine song. There’s a bit of Cyndi Lauper/ Toyah Wilcox in the vocals and the songs are quite strong throughout, more complex than your average 80’s punk pop and verging on Pixie-esque brilliance at times such as ‘On the inside’. Bless you Tiny Tigers for your music and your waxy paper."

Upcoming Shows
Jul 03 The Cross Kings, London
Jul 18 Base Studios, Stourbridge
Jul 21 93 Feet East, London
Aug 01 The Red Lion, Northfleet
Aug 18 Catch, London

iTunes

2009-06-05T04:26:00.002+01:00

here are some fla related releases available from iTunes
the vichy government - white elephant
the vichy government - whores in taxis
the vichy government - carrion camping
the vichy government - vanity publishing
rocket uppercut - this beautiful tragedy
the long blondes - singles
awwblot - the hi fi low life
the new royal family - anyone fancy a chocolate digestive?
akira - japanese frequencies
the housewives - cream
black kites - all wrong ep
black kites - paper heart ep
billy ruffian - my secret life
hyperbubble - airbrushed alibis
hyperbubble - airbrushed alibis in dub
hyperbubble - solid pop
hyperbubble - solid pop remix edition

from an unofficial mp3 site
the international karate plus - the international delay

The Star Fighter Pilot - more free music

2009-02-13T12:19:00.003Z

before his time with FLA star fighter pilot released numerous records with other labels, heres some of those recordings

courtesy of Hippocamp
Summer Of '95
Pennine Witch Cult
Media Life
60s Business Dress
You're My Lightbulb
Sunday

courtesy of Valentine Records
Your Get Up

for more downloads visit The Star Fighter Pilot Download Shop

FLA web-banners

2009-02-07T00:52:00.002Z

anyone who uses a forum, myspace, or who runs a website
please paste these banners everywhere and anywhere you see fit

these images have been resized to fit in this window. they have dimensions of 600 x 150 pixels

Little 001-041 FREE DOWNLOADS

2008-12-22T15:02:00.001Z

Angel 021 Various Artists - Just A Minute

2008-10-27T00:01:00.004Z

19 tracks on a 7" Mini-Album
Ltd 7" available now from the FLA shop

Side A:
The Jesus' - Jimmy Tractor
The Video Club - Teen Sex Pirate Radio
The Star Fighter Pilot - Stalk Tonight
Micropenis - All I Need
Listen Lisse - Slow It Down
The New Royal Family vs. Alexander's Festival Hall feat. Eddie Argos - I.W.I.S.H.I.W.A.S.Gay
Hyperbubble - Party On Jupiter
Scunner - Alchemy In Reverse
Akira - The Nuclear Option

Side B:
Billy Ruffian - The Windsor Uplift
Shock And Awe - Nothing
Captain Polaroid - Page After Page
Town Bike - Cock Muff Bumhole
Rocket Uppercut - Good Times
FromMars - Sand
Kissing Kalina - Tunnel Of Love
The Affection - Tell Me Again
Hot Beds - Balcony
Geese - I Love You

MANIC POP THRILLS REVIEW
One hazard of blogging is that you start to get approaches to promote bands. Now in a different life, that may well have been exciting, but in this one it’s a potentially time consuming business. If it feels like a corporate been-copied-to-the-whole-world approach, I tend to ignore it. I mean I recently was approached by someone on behalf of Seether whose hits on their Myspace songs are measured in millions so what can this humble little blog bring to the party?
However if it feels more personal I’ll try and give it a whirl but so far I haven’t found anything I like enough tand have had the time to bring to your attention. Which is crucial – by and large I write about things that I like on here and I’m really only likely to slag something off if I’ve paid for it. (Yes, Black Mountain, I’m looking at you.)
Which is a long winded introduction to a record which was drawn to my attention by someone who did me a favour last month. Which understandably made me a little nervous.
The album is on Filthy Little Angels. And, the concept, if not unprecedented, is excellent – a 7” album comprising songs of no more than a minute long. My big worry was just how good could a collection of such short songs really be? In theory such an album should almost be an exemplar of the blog’s title, but neither MPT nor my music collection are littered with songs under even 90 seconds in length.
But I’m absolutely staggered by the variety packed onto this little 7” even if understandably the tempo remains high throughout. Don’t go looking for any sensitive ballads. And never mind variety, a lot of the material is actually good.
The album is impressive right from the start. ‘Jimmy Tractor’ by The Jesus’ opens the record in menacing mood yet 60 seconds later we’re still no clearer as to who the fuck Jimmy Tractor really is. Thereafter there are plenty of nods to new wave pop and plenty of references to sex. One song does exceed the 60 seconds threshold but as a counter balance Shock and Awe display the best line in brutal efficiency with their contribution clocking in at just 33 seconds. The best thing I can say about this record is that with only 60 seconds to make an impact the vast majority of songs on here manage that with some style.
I’ve been up front with my disclaimer on this one – believe me this is well worth checking out.

The LP came out the other week but another compilation featuring many of the same bands is due out later this month. The LP’s title ‘Nineteen78’ gives away the fact that this a tribute LP to that year and a large number of classics from that year are given a good seeing to.
There are however one or two deviations from what might be termed the norm including ‘Rasputin’ and ‘Three Times A lady’.

INDIE MP3 REVIEW
19 songs, all around a minute long, on one 7”. How ace is that? There’s a lot of good stuff here, of which follows some of the best. The Jesus’ Jimmy Tractor is I, Ludicrous fed through the Jesus and Mary Chain mincer. The Video Club’s Teen Sex Pirate Radio is a bleeping frenzied fumble in the pub car park, The Star Fighter Pilot’s Stalk Tonight is the sound of Japanese robotics and Micropenis give us All I Need, a lo-fi Bis for your delectation. Combine The New Royal Family with Alexander’s Festival Hall and Eddie Argos and you get a cross between Chic and The Village People in the form of I Wish I Was Gay while Party On Jupiter by Hyperbubble is somewhere between space pop and Plastic Bertrand. Onto Side 2 and you get Billy Ruffian, whose The Windsor Uplift is The Fall do surf pop and Page After Page by Captain Polaroid, its less well formed relation. The 33 seconds of Town Bike’s Cock Muff Bumhole is the undoubted highlight, outdoing Helen Love in a spurt of surf sixties pop and a tirade of potty mouth lyrics. The final notable track is by Rocket Uppercut, who sound like a baby Ash from the good old days. Novel ideas like this don’t always work, but this one does thanks to some wise band selection.

LOSING TODAY <3's FILTHY LITTLE ANGELS

2008-08-17T04:43:00.003+01:00

I wanted to post this from our lovely friends at Losing Today. WE LOVE YOU TOO

Filthy Little Angels
so much loved in these pages that it makes me weep. first came to our attention little over a year ago when the odd sporadic release started drip feeding through. Then the blighters hit us with a whole weeks worth of free downloads which if I recall we broke our necks, nails and review production records in order to cobble them all together in one neat Singled Out Missive. How young and foolish we were back then. Since then the hi-fi hasn’t been the same, in fact at such frequency do releases fly out from the FLA crew that it would frankly require full time services to keep up with them - so good job we resigned from our working and paying rent job recently.

No better way to start these proceedings than at the - er - start - the first of several well turned out free downloads from the ever irrepressible Filthy Little Angels imprints comes courtesy of……

Hyperbubble ’synaesthesia’
Causing us to go all wobbly at the knees several times by way of their occasional past appearances in these pages, Texan duo Jess and Jeff blend sumptuous candy coated synth pop that joins the dots between early 80’s minimalist electro a la Vince Clarke era Depeche Mode and the more chart minded early voyages of John Foxx whilst not forgetting New Musik with the current crop of nu-electro groove meisters Cling, Salon Boris and Ladytron. ’synthesthesia’ is a delightfully dinky and wonderfully candy skinned slice of breathless binary pop replete with lightly toned sweet as you like clockwork motifs and android accents all dressed within an acutely adorable and slyly infectious pop chassis. Elsewhere here you’ll find four similar recalibrations of the same cut which rather than purging you with some lame arsed half hearted excuse to fill the quota of their allotted grooves they instead reveal a discernible craft and intelligence not withstanding a determination not to get pigeon holed and passed over as mere key twiddling cuties. The Orb-ish titled ’brain blasting dub’ is sumptuously framed in mind arranging halos of dislocated groove that at times through their sparse applications and deftly decorated 50’s styled sci-fi montages had us momentarily reaching for our copy of the Human League’s ’Reproduction’ album. Left in the capable hands of the Occupant the template is tweaked, stripped and streamlined to be re-traded as something of a club floor throbbing beast clearly nodding in the general direction of Ladytron. ’ready made house mix’ - does as it says on the tin - a sublimely smoking slice of seductively laid back lights out smooch whose roots can be traced from as wide and far as Detroit and late 80’s Manchester scene - fans of classic early 808 State should be checking this out. Last up - and if we are honest our pick of the set - ’neuromix’ is a mind wandering slab of fat frazzled futuro funk festooned splendidly with kookily crafted wiring electro squiggles best viewed through the intimacy of head phones with the volume cranked to the hilt in order to maximise its wig flipping glory.

The Transmissions ‘Safe’ EP
Oh yes , yes indeed - unless we’ve got this woefully wrong - this is the debut UK EP appearance from LA based four piece the Transmissions, which for those of you much loving of your sounds - shall we say - a bit more mellow, stately and spectral are advised to check out for with. Again another handsome free download which by our reckoning you’d been stupid to pass up on. ’Safe’ (sadly not the House of Love cut - and dare we say perhaps their finest moment - of the same name - yep Woo we have checked this time) really is one of those moments wherein you just have to sit back, jaws agape and prepare to be quietly blown away because hi-fi huggers this is the bollocks. Admittedly it takes a while to kick it, what you’d call a slow burner festooned and charmed by a star lit carousel of hurtfully twinkling gently unfurling cascades of swirling melancholic chimes that should have the more astute of you reaching for your copies of Verve’s ’one way to go’, Butterflies of Love’s ’rob a bank’ and your essential early stash of Stars and the High records for references. All the time the serene solemn like majesty is only occasionally peppered by the brief snow bursts of anxiety wherein the vocals mysteriously tailgate to sounds not unlike Pere Ubu’s David Thomas though for us nothing quite matching the swooning finale wherein everything erupts to radiate into sugar crested halos of stratospheric bliss that should leave you suitably arrested and panting for more. Very much kissed with an 80’s floppy fringes and camouflage jacket wearing stylising ’I’ll run it’ is a hitherto more dislocated and fractured affair filtered by smoking sheens of effects laden kick backing obscured atmospheric white funk struts that on more than one occasion had us reminiscing with much fondness early career elements of The Fixx and Icehouse while ’Faces’ adopts a curious stop start math rock dialect not so dissimilar to Pere Ubu (again) shimmying up to Modest Mouse. ’thoughts remain’ wraps up the set in sterling introspective form shaping up to be something of a sure fire heartbreaker delicately braided by a supporting cast of sympathetic shimmer like pining atmospherics which it has to be said makes that quest to nail their previous 2 EP’s and one full length a worthwhile task.

The Fountain ’basement’ EP
One of these days Filthy Little Angels will release a record so crap, repugnant and repellant that it will offend all and sundry disturbingly we’ll know doubt love it to bits. Happy to say that occasion hasn’t and doesn’t look like being the case not when they can rummage through the underground scenes back alleys and manage to unearth gems like this which frankly I’m surprised hasn’t found its way on the much celebrated rosters of Art Goes Pop or Marquis Cha Cha. The Fountain hail from Manchester number in three and play skewiff, dislocated, discordant ditties about life’s mundane things in a dash. Blink and its over that is if the blighters don’t go and poke your eyes in first. There’s happily no easy way of pigeon holing the Fountain though if you must you’d be lining them up in a queue headed up by the Victorian English Gentleman’s Club and Johnny Foreigner though ostensibly very much less psychotic than the former and less frenetic than the latter. Five buckled beauties feature on the ’basement’ EP (though sadly only four play on our copy as the parting ‘crash into power lines‘ seems resolute in its not wanting to play out) - amid the irregular discordant haze strangely alluring pop jewels loom waiting patiently to break out - if we didn’t know better we’d say these kids are having way too much fun. The set opens with ’give me back my basement’ - no doubt the same basement that these little cuties where crafted in - a curiously humping lo-fi rattle that unless our ears are woefully off key somehow manages to wire elements of Jefferson Airplane and Curved Air (I sh*t you not) - of course they’re dispatched with a particularly fetching DIY clumsiness as though rewired by a seriously zonked out Modern Lovers resulting from the inhaling of some real bad weed cutely riddled with low key half arsed riff jabs and several nods to 80’s punksters Hagar the Womb. ’1g20’ perhaps the sets most obscured moment is a sumptuously ramshackle ramble through the darker and hitherto less spotlighted moments of post punk’s vintage heritage - think the Scars head to head with the Dolly Mixtures. Best moment comes courtesy of the frankly impetuous, audacious and highly infectious ’fat tax’ - a punctuated fast / slow / fast / slow free for all braided by intertwining boy / girl vocals, abruptly squalling riffs that slyly nicks the coda from the Jags ’back of my hand’ only to give the blighter the kind of lovably demented twist that’d make Jonny Foreigner swoon while simultaneously wiring in some killer side servings of early career Buzzcocks for good measure. Equally tasty is ’in my brain I can hide’ - both schizoid and edgy had he still be alive this would have been ripe for a Martin Hannett production stuffed full as it is of psychosis laden early Banshees accents and ’dead popstars’ era Altered Images austereness. Expect good things.

Awesome Wells ‘DANNII’ EP
Hopelessly loveable - for ages I swore there was something wrong with me - was I really the only bloke (or woman for that matter) on the planet who preferred Dannii to Kylie. Seems this self described ‘queercore for the softcore’ all girl trio have a tender spot for our Danni, hailing from Liverpool, made up of two scousers and a brummie, Awesome Wells (great name eh?) are your beaten up around the edges Helen Love meets Kenicke affair doling out crookedly tasty slices of feline pop punk laced with impish glee, ‘Danni’ slyly nibbles the coda from the Pistols ’great rock ’n’ roll swindle’ - no problem there given that they probably nicked it from the Small Faces in the first place, anyhow this ridiculously catchy slice of grinding teen beat is drilled deliciously with smatterings of 50’s bubblegum wraps and catchy lemon popsicle accents and shapes up to sound not unlike a roughened street wise mutation of the Bangles and the Go-Go’s which is no bad thing by our reckoning. While both the rampantly upbeat and scowling ‘xx-xy-xu’ and the crunching ‘tramp family’ aren’t bad - the latter in particular blessed with a strutting antagonism much recalling latter career L7 - the EP’s best moment by some distance is ‘you’ve got no business in the fashion world’ - a snarling and venomous slab of eye poking Pistols pastiche groove headed up by an undeniably attractive evil hybrid of Suzi Q / Joan Jett - essentially for lovers of Violet Violet.

Later ‘switchboard’ EP
Just keeps getting better with each passing release. Next up on the inspection blocks are Later of whom you won’t be to surprised we have bugger info about other than the fact that they / he (we suspect it’s a one man operation) is / are based in Italy have been around and about in some form or other since the mid 90’s and have connections with two other ensembles from that fine country - namely Fracture and BBA. The ‘switchboard’ EP features four cuts of - even if we do say so ourselves - corking craftsmanship. ’year by year’ with its mellowing and breezily subtle west coast signatures is a fizzing slice of bruised and drifting lilt pop that had us imagining on more than one occasion ’durable dream’ era Moviola shimmying up to mid career Manics - though scratching away at the surface polish after a few repeat listens we’re more inclined to recommend this unassuming babe be the top of a wants list for lovers of early career Velvet Crush and the much missed Another Sunny Day. In comparison to the sly smoulder of the previous cut ‘stereo bored’ is positively wired to the teeth and caught in that age old indie star in the making dilemma of not knowing whether it wants to be Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine or some distant variant of Dinosaur Jnr / Gumball while albeit it is threadbare and lo-fi in comparison the biggest sin committed by ‘longing’ is it not having tattooed on its arse in big letters the name the Chameleons. Best cuts are always left till the end don’t you find and so to with this EP - ’Telephone Call’ had us double checking on more than one occasion trying to satisfy ourselves that this wasn’t some sneaky New Order cut of an early incarnation of ‘age of consent’ that had been recently unearthed from the ’Movement’ sessions. Damn fine stuff.

Micropenis ‘commie students’ EP
By all accounts already causing rumbles amid the cooler and more attuned Cambridge cognoscenti, Louise and Russell who are indeed the BBC play list upsetting Micropenis, cite Suicide and label mates the Vichy Government as influences though we’ve more than a sneaking suspicion that this impish duo tread in similar footsteps to the likes of the Normal, …and the native hipsters (especially on ’Leningrad’) and (mentioned for the second time this missive) 70 Gwen Party with the more disturbed elements of Tall Pony coursing through their melodic veins. Both caustic and cold Micropenis craft a fearlessly edgy sparsely minimalist landscape that scarred with a f*ck you negativity and blankness that literally seeps from the grooves like infectious puss from an open wound sore. Tremendously toxic and battered out of shape dislocated death disco groove, listening to these acutely austere abrupt eruptions is like imagining an evil Flying Lizards transplanted with the lo-fi and dumbed down mentality of the Shaggs with Louise’s vocals being dispatched with unnerving monotonous rhyme atop a crippled melodic dialect that wouldn’t look out of miss on New Order’s ’movement’ - 5 cuts feature here that barely stretch past the 10 minute mark yet leave in their wake a feeling of detached dread with the parting ’Leningrad’ perhaps proving to be the sets best moment with its ad hoc and near successful attempt at pulling out of the bag something approaching a pop song - fans of early career Creatures will be strangely smitten. Elsewhere the charmingly titled ‘needledick’ veers close to realms more associated with Cobra Killer though that’ll be a seriously primal and embryonic version of Cobra Killer grooving with a seriously pissed off early career Knife. ‘Victoria’ again another track that appears to snatch obscurity from the jaws of hitsville is a wiring fusion of psychosis and sinister styled bubblegum pop that at times pinches clumps from the pre dolly dancing ‘circus of death’ era Human League. How can you resist?

The Star Fighter Pilot ‘kingdom hearts’ EP
Several EP’s under his belt and still preaching to the converted, inverted and subverted from his concealed sound bunker in Manchester, Mr Bryant better known to the knowing pop community as Star Fighter Pilot has been delighting all and sundry with his hybrid mix of 80’s minimalist electro and dinky drafted candy pop for a few years now, knocked up on antique synths no doubt haggled over at Sunday morning car boot sales and cut with disturbingly catchy hooks and melodies so insidiously infectious that one suspects a visit to the local GP is an essential pre-requisite to an evening of listening pleasure. On this his latest four track melodic missive Bryant is found pondering the heartstrings foibles, flitting between shades of dark and light and filtering resplendently between the grooves a quartet of sparsely sparkling gems are awaiting love and affection. From the crisply upbeat ’when we break up’ with its acutely affected and hitherto disturbing and disarming shoe string styled Howard Jones motifs to the contrasting opening salvo of ’my little test case’ with its edgily eked closing in claustrophobically chilled and austere throb, Bryant more than provides enough evidence of his ability to retune moods and sentiments at the drop of a hat while simultaneously managing not to sacrifice his integrity and likewise displaying an uncanny ability to nod in the general direction of a select array of differing influences that on paper appear ridiculously implausible sitting side by side. Case in point ’33 suns’ which wraps up the set is a dizzily distractive and dainty willowy waltz of crookedly loveable cuteness that slyly nibbles into territories more associated with electro pop pioneers New Musik while ’cultural song’ - incidentally the best thing here by a country mile and more is a deliciously distilled melding of vintage styled oblique 70’s electronics and pristinely turned synth pop that to these ears sounds like some hitherto re-discovered secret tapes of Vince Clarke having jumped ship from Depeche Mode and gone on a lost weekend foray with Kraftwerk, Our Daughters Wedding and Goblin before resurfacing to pitch product as Yazoo. Essential type thing as if you hadn’t already guessed.

ShiSho ‘will punch you’ EP
It’s been so long since we had these impish pre teens doing screwball things on our hi-fi that we were nearly forced to cobble together a letter of complaint. Featured in these very pages to much affection and swooning you may recall for their split release with Hyper bubble (who incidentally all things being right should have appeared somewhere amid this missive) which we mentioned at missive 121. Spending days bunking off school they managed to hatch another gem in the shape of this 5 track gathering ‘will punch you’ EP. Firstly the domestics - Shisho are Columbus, Ohio pre teens Vivian and Midge who along with and under the supervision of the mysterious Professor PeuShu (kids I am not making this up) have been causing much jaw dropping swooning courtesy of their infectious brand of Charlie Brown meets Sesame Street punk pop. Among these latest nuggets from their spiked up wendy house comes their immortal cover of New Order’s ’true faith’ which first saw the light of day on a rather superb free to download album ’nineteen eighty seven’ (links for which are somewhere to the foot of this missive) - though on this occasion re-jigged as the ’midge’s sore throat mix’ (more about that in a second). Anyhow five loveable cuts (did we mention that already) from these punk pop sprites that opens with a (previously unknown to us) cover of an old Harvey and Felix tune (the original you can hear - and I reckon you should - by going to http://www.myspace.com/harveyandfelix) - its your typically Shisho affair - all goofy, cute and crookedly lo-fi. ’punk rawk boy’ follows up next here in its ’Midge’s lost vocal remix’ - and unless we’re very much mistaken shaping up to sound something not so dissimilar to a kindergarten version of Half Japanese all blessed with harmonicas - which hey - is mighty fine by us and ushering in a strangely alluring brand of cotton picking acoustic road pop in its wake that sounds as though at any given point soon its about crash to a sudden halt and go backside up over the edge. Sadly ’the thing that only eats hippies’ fails to live up to the title’s expectation - we were expecting nay hoping for a spot of 50’s sci-fi tomfoolery - instead though not we hasten to add disappointingly - a sparse, minimalist electro beat overseen by a screwball rap which takes its cue we suspect from Blondie‘s ‘rapture‘. Which leaves by our reckoning the sets best two moments. ’True Faith’ on which Midge’s ability to keep in touch and pull this all together - albeit in a Daniel Johnston style - despite the evilly skewiff backing track which on more than one occasion threatens to detour from the plot and follow its own agenda - has to be said beats the original to a pulp just on sheer audacity alone. For what it counts in our humble opinion best moment is the barking ’disco brands ton’ which we must admit to initially misreading as ’blandest’ a sentiment we’d have wholeheartedly agreed with. This cutie firmly throws a curveball at those who believe the duo’s aptitude for diversifying is a little limited. Think again. This beauty dallies with warping disco motifs and wires into the mix a strange array of down tempo accents, wig flipping psych overtones (lovers of Busy Signals ’baby’s new beats’ set for Earworm will especially warm to this) and Japanese mutant sample / electro (a la Cornelius) while simultaneously shoehorning a sneakers worth of hybrid Studio 54 accents and what sounds like a seriously lo-key car boot variant of the Go Team just for good measure - obviously this lot are having way too much fun with the karaoke machine. Loveable stuff - daft, scatty - agreed - but loveable all the same.

Plastic Passion ‘out of sight / out of mind’ EP
If we were younger these dudes are the type of combo whose names we’d have tattooed on our fore arm and sat around all day designing t-shirts with acrylic montages in their honour in between nipping out for fag breaks and some impromptu guerrilla graffiti action. To call them cool is a f*cking understatement though lets not get carried away for fear their heads will swell and they’ll fall over arse over tit. Rumours abound there’s a Japanese only full length about to surface in the shape of ’contrived imagery’ shortly for now though this stonking slab of spiked 5 track goodness all nailed onto one kick arse turntable terrorising EP. Hailing from Hertfordshire Plastic Passion are a trio who to date have already nailed a positive plethora of plaudits and acclaim by way of their debut release for the Filthy Little Angels sister label Leaving Home. Brandishing a formidably acute artistry in respect to scalping the senses with their stripped and potently primed angulated art punk, Plastic Passion sound like they’ve been drawn out of deep freeze and thawed with those responsible having failed to tell them that somewhere along the line some 28 years has since passed by. Sounding like a Peel mix tape from 79/80, ’pass over’ the opening salvo of this five piece set is insidiously blessed with a gnawing austere paleness, dark and edgy as though just fallen from a Lynch soundtrack it assumes the same kind of tension laden brittleness of ‘17 seconds’ era Cure being blended with the Scars and elements of the Fire Engines whilst simultaneously freewheeling in similar ’punk’ attitude as Blur’s ’13’. Mock Lydon vocals apply an additional zeal amid the grooves of ’something wrong’ a kind of snotty nosed half way house between early incarnations of both Devoto off springs Magazine and the Buzzcocks though we must admit to being rather smitten with ’look around’ with its front line artillery of needling paranoiac chop chop riffing that at times had us stretching for our trusty Ellery Bop releases of yore and a track which we suspect would go down a bundle with those Lamacq and Stephens types. Distressed white funk accents and serrated wiring riffs are the order of the day for the council estate bleakness of ’out of sight / out of mind’ leaving the hyper tense ’screaming mess’ to rampage in the most tastily discordant three chord pogo fashion. Yes sir, more where that come from please.

Postcode ‘the post zebra core’ EP
Another of those damn fine Filthy Little Angels that we are much loving in our gaff right now. Postcode are a quartet based in Douglas, Isle of Man a place which I’m vaguely familiar with given that my great aunt and uncle one time lived in Port St Mary. Moving swiftly along - this lot apparently already have one full length tucked firmly up their mohair sweaters with a second currently in the touching up and finishing off phase this here EP featuring four cuts which we’re of the understanding are something of lost gems from a time when the band consisted of just Mikie and Marie. ’gears’ the opening salvo sounds not unlike a fist fight between ’wagon’ era Dinosaur JNR and the Breeders, a throbbing babe packed to the rafters with an edgily frayed grind riddled with wiring hooks and blessed with the kind of freak scene finesse that makes you want to don your low slung air guitar and frug out big time. Similar freewheeling hysteria tunes itself into the matrix of the dislocated and ravaged ‘desert scorn’ which tears itself from the grooves like an animated and vengeful ‘vow’ era Garbage. ’Lewis’ on the other hand is a more measured and moodily down cast affair, framed with skin tingling sparsely woven textures this ominously brooding honey has a veritable early 80’s post punk hue about its wares that to these ears recalls elements of the Passions, Pink Military and Ex Post Facto who as I’m sure you’ll agree are quite frankly a trio of some note. All said and done and as is typical of these things the best moment of the set is the parting ’lessons’ - this gorgeously minimalist slice of driftwood is annoyingly ridiculously brief barely touching the ticker tape at just two minutes, that said its a bit of a gem that’s delicately decorated amid swirls of tenderly touching atmospherics all haloed by effects laden pining riffs a la Vini Reilly and sumptuously framed within a numbed jaw drooped glacial carved stately presence. More of that please.

Captain Polaroid ’in miracle world’ EP
Welcome return to these pages for the good Captain Polaroid bringing with him a hulking slab of 5 prime cut lo-fi nuggets, an artist who frankly should be bigger in our humbled view - shame on you the record buying public your all so fickle. ’in miracle world’ provides quite possibly his best work to date, assuming a maturity, a hitherto day-glo clarity, resonance and artistry this quintet of tunes ricochet admirably between the space between your ears like buzz sawing bullets. ’a dream is a dream is a dream is a lie’ opens the proceedings - a shimmy like framing of late 80’s buzz sawing fringe flicking groove peppered with needling riffs liberally borrowed from ’In Vivo’ era Wire and decorated sublimely with the sly coolness of the Corn Dollies immortal ’nothing of you’ which lets face is quite obviously the dogs ruddy bollocks. The gorgeously ramshackle ’When a play became a parody’ ambles in next to deliver a spot of deliciously inebriated Americana lo-fi that creaks and groans with shanty like sereneness as though early career Pavement had concocted a heaven made calling to arms with the Palace Brothers though the momentary bliss like porch swaying states its seeks to lull you with are soon shattered and turned arse over tit by the frankly rampant ’the same rules always apply’. A crunching babe of adrenaline laden razor fizzing effervescent lo-fi power pop that to these ears had us imagining a spying session on an illicit studio meeting between Choo Choo Train and the Vaselines before ’no words left to explain yourself with’ brings you to a humbling dead stop with its affecting bitter sweet hue leaving the bruised acoustically frail and fragile parting ’in the firing line again’ to sap whatever resistance you still cling to and leave you wide open and numbed.

The Sexual Hot Bitches vs. the Lovely Eggs ‘split’
Never failing to let us down (FLA EDIT: I'M SURE THATS THE INCORRECT PHRASE?) the Filthy Little Angels go and nail another must have split offering as part of their ongoing singles club series. Previously unknown to us (how did that happen?) the Sexual Hot Bitches are a youthful screwed up duo featuring the wayward talents of Anna (drums, typewriter and cowbells) and Helen (guitar, lipstick holder and er - magic box which we must admit has us intrigued though slightly worried) who despite or indeed in spite of their limited resources make an absolute bloody marvellous racket. Wayward, discordant, dislocated and often quite daft there’s an element of a car crash between Shonen Knife and L7 going on especially on ‘hot pie’ though for us is the best thing here, a howling feral bastard of mutant garage / dragster goo replete with crookedness aplenty, shouty bits and an adorable sense of the unhinged. Sadly ’kitty’ didn’t attract the same affection being that our own sleeps all day, scared of his own shadow (a Nepalm Death fan no less) and eat you out of house and home fur ball Dylan is such a cutie and frankly the thought of replacing him with a dog is such a preposterous notion that we’d sooner give up listening to music for good and become a Babyshambles fan. Only joking - but are we? That said the duo are back on track for the quaintly cute and radio play list offending ’let’s fuck’ - all grunts, odd orgasmic squeals, primitive dislocated lo-fi with plenty of nods to the Troggs which as you know kids is always a good thing. Wonder if they do t-shirts? Flip le disc for the simply adorable The Lovely Eggs. What can we say. Well we could at least apologise and abundantly so because these cuties did in fact send us not only the CD, but a delightfully handwritten note, a dinky drawing (which we’ve framed and now takes of up a prominent pride of place in the singled out record shed) and an egg butty which was scoffed in seconds flat and most enjoyed. The Lovely Eggs are engagingly erratic to say the least, a duo no less featuring the combined crooked mind sets of Holly and David. Together they are the bollocks so put down that Ting Tings CD and stop reading arse kissing advertising space chasing press. Already forever in our affections courtesy of an appearance on the Transformed Dreams ‘Ammehoelahop’ set wherein in our humbled view they shared the best moments credits with Das Wanderlust for their cut the Velveteen ’in watermelon sugar’. the Lovely Eggs are a strange pop contradiction - equally at home being deviously crooked or plainly crucial, to hear them is to feel as though you’ve stumbled upon a private party, their surreal often child like naivety is flawlessly cute and decidedly engaging though disturbing, one minute its nursery school like schisms (‘cops and robbers’) the next day-glo pop nuggets - if anything trying to reference them you’d be veering towards a Shaggs meets Guided by Voices for the Elephant 6 Collective generation (non more so than on the majorette regimentality of the frankly wonky ‘jon carling‘). Seven tracks feature here displaying the varying degrees of impishness of the Lovely Eggs schizoid pop psyche though for what its worth things don’t get much better than the skittish and stripped to threadbare ‘I’m having a party’ with its strangely absorbing abstract and angular kaleidoscopic hues very much touched by the essence of Robert Pollard and its cutely crafty nods to Little Richard’s ‘tutti frutti’. Can life get any better we ask - perhaps an album then.

www.filthylittleangels.com
check out the download page where aside being able to downloads most of the featured cuties mentioned here you can also hook up to some exemplary compilations from the FLA back catalogue such as the must have ‘down to Grease on holiday’ which gathers together 27 acts with the detail to impart their own interpretations on the Grease soundtrack - featuring such notables as Hyperbubble, Shisho, Neil’s Children, Gay Against You and the Spells it’s the Sunset Gun’s re drill of the OST’s least noticed cut ‘there are worse things I could do’ that proves to be the sets best moment. Elsewhere there’s an equally engaging Rocky Horror Show tribute re-titled as the Filthy Horror Show, the aforementioned ’Nineteen Eighty Seven’ comp featuring the original mix of that Shisho re-branding of ’True Faith’ - the set as you’ve probably been able to work out for yourself is a covers project of hit tunes from that golden year 1987 and includes the Balor Knights cutting their teeth on Aha’s Bond moment ‘living daylights’ while those of you stocking up early (or indeed late) on your Xmas festive frivolities can download an I-pod heaving 4 discs worth of tunes via both the ’have yourself a filthy little Xmas’ and ’hark the filthy angels sing’ sets. On the horizon and due in September there’s a must have 7 inch entitled ’just a minute’ which features a nineteen strong galaxy of stars performing er - one minute nuggets - the set will feature outings by the people of England, micropenis, billy ruffian, star fighter pilot and the jesus’. Can’t wait…

...missive 178
20-11-2008
Singled Out
Filthy Little Angels special.

Seems its that time of the year when the mighty Filthy Little Angels imprint goes into hyper drive with all manner of superb releases all vying for your undying affection…anyway less chat….onward to the tunes links / info etc….for which you can find by training your mouse over this here link…. http://filthylittleangels.blogspot.com/

First of all head over to the Filthy Little Angel MS page at www.myspace.com/filthylittleangels where you’ll be treated to some killer covers (Beacons version of Wire’s ’outdoor minor’ just begs to be heard with it’s a cappella re-reading, hot beds’ mutant electro minimalist treatment of Siouxsie and the Banshees’ ’hong garden garden’ and the Birthday Girl’s rather spiffing, kooky, spongy funky dippiness of their seductively skewed recalibration of the Commodores’ ‘three times a lady’) of records originally released in 1978 and all lovingly re-drilled by a cast of - er dozens - alright then maybe slightly less - how about a cast of several (don’t sound right does it? - but you get my drift). Anyhow getting back on track the cuts you’ll find adorning their player are - we assume - culled from a forthcoming freebie download entitled ‘nineteenseventyeight’ which we’re thinking is a follow up to their gem like ‘nineteeneightyseven’ compilation a copy of which you can grab for yourselves via http://www.filthylittleangels.com/ (just scroll down about two thirds)…..a full review will appear as and when….

Various ‘ Just a minute’. Not sure whether its in honour of the long running Nicholas Parsons hosted radio show of the same name which Paul Merton delights in emerging victorious almost each and every time he guests - alas we think not. Rather more it’s a dinky seven inch single whose grooves has been shoe horned and squeezed to include 20 - yes you read right - twenty bands all of whom should by rights be rattling your radar and each serving up a one minute long ditty - hence the title ’just a minute’ (no sh*t Sherlock). Sadly we haven’t got a copy which kind of makes reviewing the blighter a tad difficult however we can tell you its packed to the rafters with artists who have previously featured with much love and admiration in these very pages such as Hyperbubble, Captain Polaroid, Geese (whose recent ‘the plane‘s gone Dad‘ had us much a swooning), Starfighter Pilot and Kissing Kalina (whose debut ’here she comes’ should be ransacking most discerning record loving turntables). That said we’ve managed to eke out a few video tasters and well because we couldn’t resist blathering on at length about them have included an introductory pre-amble to help you along -

Micropenis ’all I want’ - the charmingly named Micropenis featured via the last Filthy Little Angels extravaganza with their acute caustic and minimalist toned ‘commie students’ EP (see missive 165), these dudes are rebellious, squalling, scalding and anti everything - they bleed Suicide and Cobra Killer with equal disaffection and well frankly we ruddy love them. ’all I want’ is more of your friction laced attrition addled buzz sawing electro punk loving bubblegum pop (think we covered all major bases there) and sounds not unlike a seriously antagonised native hipsters lamping the crap out of the Normal. Need we say more….thought not - the video for your discerning delight goes like this….

The New Royal Family ‘I.w.I.s.h.I.w.a.s.gay’ - last appearing in these pages courtesy of their contribution to that excellent and frankly essential 3 disc charity set ‘doing it for the kids 08’ though in all honesty who could ever forget their ridiculously catchy ‘anyone fancy a chocolate digestive?’ split with Keith TOTP (missive 125 note takers), ‘I wish I was gay’ is surely destined to offend and amuse in worryingly equal measures, think mid 70’s Studio 54 disco freak sound off teased with a seriously smart Sylvester and Village People meets Chic with ‘f**k off’ PC attitude - going down a storm in our gaff and no doubt right at this moment being monitored by ambulance chasing solicitors with their liberal manifestos squarely shoved up their back passages.

Billy Ruffian ‘the Windsor uplift’. Annoyingly perfect, the impish Billy Ruffian give the finger to Royalty, totally barking stuff, tight as a gnat’s arse, wiring pogo-tastic riffs, dementedly dippy keys, a skewiff video and the best sing a long hook since the Fall cobbled together the bottom kicking ’hey luciani’ - once heard totally hooked and just what the repeat button on your cd player was made for.

Shock and Awe ‘nothing’. So short (31 seconds) that you actually get it twice on the video, certainly reckon we need to hear more of Shock and Awe before we get any older if ‘nothing’ is anything to judge them by, sounds like a seriously wasted council estate relocated Ramones kicking out what could easily be a disaffected commentary of the bleakness and despondency of a hum drum existence with the emptiness, negativity and futility of it all literally shuffling off the grooves to choke you. Still could be worse at least its not raining - bollocks its just started - that’s done it.

Hot Beds ‘balcony’. Frankly too short for its own good given it clocks in at a sprightly 46 seconds and comes accompanied by a message stating ‘this band are so fucking awesome!!’. they weren’t lying - as brief as it might be there’s enough box ticking manoeuvres at large here to have our radar well and truly going haywire, a duo - Hannah and Andy who at present are unsigned though we’re suspecting that won’t remain the case for very much longer if, that is, there’s any justice in the world. The whole sound of Hot Beds strangely works on several levels, vocals that sound perfectly honed to front a dream team pop machine edgily running at odds to the effects laden growl and rumble of the grizzled and fractured riff ruptures rallying away in the background that when viewed as a whole cast a superb dark / light, pop / primal, longing / loathing undercurrent to the overall mix. ’balcony’ is a breathlessly swoon laden slice of frantic buzz sawed bubblegum pop replete with honey dipped skeletal struts, pulse racing vocal purrs all longingly underpinned by a subdued urgency that’s beautifully bleakened by a strangely alluring no future wrap. Quite stunning if you ask me though we suggest you head straight over to their my space page at www.myspace.com/hotbeds and rip the killer ‘more is more’ a veritable slab of fuzz shimmered coolly coalescing dream weaving soft psyche that we here are thinking dips delicately into similar territories as once ventured by the likes of Liverpool’s Ex Post Facto and the much missed Bang Bang Machine - bet that’s got your senses jangling.

Esiotrot vs. Tiger MC’s ’split’. Named after a Roald Dahl story and a quaintly daft one at that about a tortoise, some weird bloke and girl he likes (such a fantastically gripping plot we must admit we lie awake at night wondering why Hollywood hasn’t come knocking - in fact they may have who knows - well I don’t for starters), Esiotrot - depending on which version of their biography you read have either been around post Libertines / White Stripes or else pre Blur / Oasis and have now swelled so much in their ranks that at weekends - gig itinerary permitting - they field both a first and reserve football team in the conference league. Of course we pull your leg. Amazingly to date they have somehow escaped the roving ear of our hi-fi this split single with Tiger MC’s being - we think - the first thing we’ve heard by them. Released as part of the ongoing Filthy Little Angels singles club series - this being EP 14 in case your taking notes - and damn fine to we might add, Esiotrot are cut from the same kind of alluringly adoring cloth as Pavement (especially on the opening cut ‘venus’ with its off centred lilting and mellowing wintry toned brass regaled kitchen sink opines invested with subtle traits of Daniel Johnston and Half Japanese) and ‘the fidelity wars’ era Hefner, that sense of a lazy eyed off kilter glaze adopted from the former and that under your skin poking bitter sweetness borrowed from the latter. In fact that Darren Hayman like bracing briskness certainly rears its head on ‘my chemical romance saved my life’ (indeed a very Half Man Half Biscuit styled title it should be said and incidentally the best track here), that same unerring ability to apply the pressure points with delicately drawn sucker punches and from a nimbly sketched vantage point craft a tenaciously tigerish pop gem that before you know it assumes depth, texture and velocity to magnificently mushroom with space consuming jubilance to arrest your senses whilst impishly ducking beneath your defences to lay claim to the bits of your psyche that cause you to whistle with impromptu glee in public. ‘Annie May’ rounds up the pack - a devilishly dainty and disarming slice of lovelorn cuteness peppered by lightly caressed summery inclines, lazy eyed day dream dialects and an utterly irresistible feel good vibe - gets a bit wired towards the close and yep - does sound like Hefner. Much lovable. While you’re at and about it check their my space page at http://www.myspace.com/esiotrotschmesiotrot and sample the delights of ‘Tammy is Lez’ which we’re led to understand will be forthcoming via Sounds Experience - a gloriously colourful carnival of effervescence that had us much reminiscing with much fondness some kooky collage of 70’s kids TV themes much like those found on the Go Team’s debut ‘get it together’ platter. Flip the disc for the equally affectionate shy eyed razor pop of Norwich’s finest the Tiger MC’s who stump up three speaker seizure cuties led from the front by the dashingly attractive ‘valenciennes’. One of those quiet to loud affairs that’s sumptuously finds itself shoehorned in to a classic sub three minute pop chassis, with nods to the Korgis, fuzz erupting rifling riffs much recalling the much missed Another Sunny Day albeit here crossing swords with ‘the wagon’ era J Mascis and blessed with a betraying sweetly bitter melancholia more readily encountered on records with the name Kelman ablaze on them, this bashful and bruised beauty will have you all at once smiling, crying, bopping and moping at equal turns and that’s just on the first verse. More softly soured serenades come piercing the listening space on the wonderfully slyly alluring country lo-fi tingle of ‘british sisters’ which unless our ears do deceive really does sound like someone’s been fooling around with fusing tongs and somehow welded together elements of Pavement and the Butterflies of Love which I’m sure you’ll agree has the potential of being a pretty sound proposition. That said we absolutely doff our caps in admiring respect for the sparsely cut ‘the luxury of brakes’ which brings the set to a close, disturbingly tasty in an aching, creaky, eloquent, day dream, nonchalant and decidedly disarming way, be warned though the fragile, thoughtful and twinkling lullaby-esque backdrop underpinning the bleak lovelorn realisation above will cruelly rip inside your chest and jangle your heartstrings - resistance is all but useless.

Akira ‘Japanese frequencies’ EP. Bugger us if this isn’t well tasty, Akira are a London based trio who we’d rather like to believe you’ll be hearing plenty of in the coming months that is if this - their debut outing - gets the attention it so richly deserves. In many respects ‘Japanese Frequencies’ at times sounds like the work of two separate bands, one side featuring a brace of guitar led pop insurrections that usher in a subtle though distinct lineage that taps into the same melodic discordance and sense of collapsible chaos that once greeted those early radar pick ups of the Pixies, while more interestingly the flip side opts for a less frenetic habitat preferring a more mercurial application of key / computer based looping overtures and droning collages. Wholly unhinged and curbed with an underlay of unravelling psychosis the Pixies-esque ‘hard feelings’ opens the set, dispatched with a dislocated demeanour and a wired mindset this slice of freewheeling frazzled folly splinters and fractures to rupture with a strangely manifesting off kilter and skewed slacker-esque aura that’s craftily dimpled with stuttering fuzz charges and brought to an impacting finale amid a glorious haze of lysergic Elephant 6 Collective meets early Animal Collective styled effervescent fanfares. The throbbing power surging ‘tickertape’ is the next up to the plate again deliciously wrapped with a warping discordance, buried beneath the hazes of feedback showers, chaotic time signatures and growling riff struts the barely detectable echoes of a soaring pop gem is located alas its impishly cradled and smothered by the toxic thumbing of ‘bug’ era Dinosaur Jnr styled hysteria. ‘God’s warning to the people of England’ presents the set with its briefest moment clocking in at a slender 1.06 only to disappear into the ether though not before orbiting tenderly into your affections adrift in spectrally tipped lunatic climes. All said and done though without doubt the show stopping centrepiece comes courtesy of the parting ‘end #’ - a sub eight minute epically carved slice of majestic grandeur, a glacial ice tipped beauty lushly sculptured amid pirouetting chiming serenades and crunchy snow printed beats, a sweetly bleak cosmic intermission that to these ears sounds not unlike a distant communication from a far swept galactic void from where an exiled Vangelis is found forlornly tapping out tear strewn mayday calls into the endlessly empty heavens. A bit of a gem if you ask me.

Heilige Lance ‘of blessed memory’ EP. Hailing from the nihilistic wasteland of Stoke - their words not mine - though I must admit I was of half a mind to hail a bus straight up there with impromptu haste as it sounds like a perfect place to be. There’ll be those among you who won’t be too surprised when we say this lot have remained so far unknown to us, a quick spot of googling reveals they’ve released a handful of CD-r’s and a DVD all of which to much grumbling here we appear to have missed. Still we must admit that this four track freebie download is one of the darkest and most brooding things we’ve heard in such a long time and had us scampering for our prized Dead Can Dance discs for comparison. Named after the spear that pierced the side of Jesus Christ - better known perhaps as ‘the spear of destiny’, quartet Heilige Lance are anarcho Goths who seem equally at home feeding from the same philosophical feeding tray as the likes of Crass and Flux of Pink Indians and yet sound wise fashion a penetratingly claustrophobic landscape wrapped in skin peeling desolation and bleakness that at times reference wise clearly identifies with the early back catalogue of the likes of 4AD and Situation 2 so that elements of (the previously noted) Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil and to a lesser extent the Sex Gang Children bubble beneath the surface. But then scratch a little deeper and there’s some pre goth positive / post punk lurking in the shadows wherein the essences of Artery, And Also the Trees, (in some small respects) the Chameleons, ’seduction’ era Danse Society and yes, of course, Theatre of Hate (soon to be Spear of Destiny as was and no more so given the nod than on the account opening ‘Requiem / Uzak‘ - a towering and tensely drawn doom laced beauty that once resolved of its ornately twinkling introduction soon emerges arced by caressing flotillas of stratosphere piercing post rock styled chiming pirouettes scarred and bleached by acute welts of fuzzing agitation) curdle in the mix. Courting a reverential wide screen aspect and dappled and dinked with a hollowing spectral beauty the dust ravaged ’pola debavoise’ - incidentally the most immediate cut here - comes across like a star crossed arabesquese rendezvous between a reclining and day dreaming godspeed you black emperor and Natasha Atlas both love locked amid a breathtaking cortege of bliss fuelled celestial incantations. At times sounding as though it was cut from the same cloth as Theatre of Hate’s ’do you believe in the Westworld’ the regally adorned monastic gloom that greets ’her steps lay hold….’ soon dissipate to be replaced by some captivating elements of arid lashed primal snake winding tribalism that had us here fondly recalling (Southern) Death Cult while likewise the grimly foreboding and atmospheric ’cursum perficio’ is deftly clipped with a parched and withering deathly grandeur much deserving considerable attention.

Billy Ruffian ‘masterminding my downfall’ EP. Buggering hell - no sooner do we dispatch one corking release to the chaos strewn mountain of ‘heard and reviewed’ releases that we laughingly call a filing system than along comes another instantly admired an insanely infectious slice of essential ear gear passes by our hi-fi with its bracing brand of jangling contagion to knock it clean of its feet. Mancunian trio Billy Ruffian certainly know a thing or five about criminally good beat pop tuneage - hell the blighters have even decorated their allotted groove space in lushly laid acres of the stuff. Three such bent out of shape skewed pop diamonds feature on this freebie download EP - jeez the words ‘look’ ‘a’ ‘gift’ ‘horse’ ‘in’ ‘the’ ‘mouth’ readily spring to mind and anyhow it saves you spending 3 nicker on the latest s**te making this weeks front cover of some excuse for new music nonsense which lets face won’t live up to the billing and will for the mere fact it sits in your beloved record collection be the cause of personal embarrassment and piss taking amongst your petty fashion-istic peers come the weekend. Anyhow enough of - Billy Ruffian as said stump up three certifiable nuggets that by rights will playfully punch you in to the far reaches of next week with their crookedly honed cuteness or else your money back which given you’re getting it for nowt adds up to jack ****! The set opens with the title cut and finds the Ruffians seemingly pissing in the same pool as the much loved Paul Hawkins and the Awkward Silences in terms of instilling that sense of something fraying, unravelling and slowly coming apart at the seams to your listening experience, of course its all done with a wayward eye firmly fixed in the general direction of Daniel Johnston, though that said it’s the unrelenting and wiring throb of its bent out shape and plainly schizoid demeanour that suggests a close affinity with the Wirral’s unrivalled legends Half Man Half Biscuit while you might consider it a pretty good excuse to dig out your old Wreckless Eric vinyl and dust them down for a long overdue and well earned spin. Did we mention it makes you feel slightly sea sick - just checking. Next up the cabin fever inducing hysteria of the unhinged ‘debtor’s lament’ has I must admit been getting a fair hammering here softly coaxed as it is with a skewif lysergic day-glo hue warped throughout with a Spartan psychosis fracturing buzz sawing three chord garage punk power pop dialect that to these ears had us fondly recalling the high priest of punk poetry John Cooper Clarke. ’twenty eighth month’ draws the set to a close though not before dispatching a wonky slice of winsomely kooky rustic folk pop replete with penny whistles and a few nods to Mr Barrett albeit fragmented and refracted through the impish viewfinder of the Freed Unit and Elekibass. Desirable stuff in short.

Hilary and the Democrats ‘if I were the president’. Indeed Mrs Clinton not in this life or the next dear. Not sure where this release fits into the greater scheme of things as it appears to be a forthcoming freebie download EP though we as yet have only been able to sample the delights of its lead cut and the cause it has been, I can tell you, of much bopping in our gaff. Imagine if you will a Housemartins that its okay to like (ha ha only joking - the words ‘Housemartins’ and ‘like’ in the same sentence - must have had a bang on the head - we love ‘em really) - anyhow this is as catchy as a winters cold, upbeat, happy go lucky, effervescent, loads of skinny and slinky beat pop strum shimmies, a barking video to boot - damn - so cute you could make it a career hating them.

Slideshow Freak ‘best dressed 4 bedrest’ EP. Jeez, these Filthy Little Angel dudes certainly know their onions from their sprouts when it comes to turning up gems from the lesser surveyed regions of pop’s backwaters, getting to be a tad ridiculous now because here’s another pristinely turned out freebie download capturing more of that niftily nurtured odd pop that fries your noodle. Slideshow Freak aren’t a band, well not a band as such, rather more one person - Jamie Wright to be precise, who used to live in the UK but doesn’t now, who as and when required invites friends along to help out in turn making it a kind of band, he used to be the Roy Jesus Experience in another life though gave it up to concentrate on this his solo (occasional band) project, he is currently recording a third album. Five tracks feature on this download EP all crafted on a laptop with the additional input of a guitar and some synths and blimey it all sounds pretty damn smart with the playfully titled ’not a happy house’ obviously a twisted nod to Siouxsie’s ’Happy House’ coming across like some bastard mutant off spring resulting from a one night bunk up between the Clash’s ’straight to hell’ and Donovan’s ’hurdy gurdy man’ and re-routed with a seriously kooky and trippy computer funk mindset - honest it does - I can see you’re looking at me in disbelief. ’C.P. Romance’ - where not readily sure if a CP Romance is indeed legal let alone what the hell it is, still this babe comes across like a smoked slice of spectral charged electro soul, sweetly bitter and dressed in tidal swathes of deliciously cinematic lunatic swirls and unless we’ve skipped a beat or three sounding not unlike a chilled and frostily oblique Pet Shop Boys courting with the darkened elegance of ’lost again’ era Yello who in turn are trading blows with Seal. Not bad eh? ’Electro Rock Therapy’ follows a similar pop inclined trajectory dappled with a curious r ‘n’ b / hip hop vibe that breathlessly changes in pace after a minute or so and heads for space while the more sparsely coded and guitar orientated ’gentle lies’ had us at various points recalling a youthfully fractured Robert Palmer while the sleepy headed ’Yeah’ is sufficiently primed with enough Spiritualized references and spiked moments of demurring softly caressed soul as to leave a fair few space cadets among you cooing in unfailing admiration.

Fantaplastic ’lifetime’s dedication’ EP. According to their my space page Fantaplastic are no more, having recently called it a day having now split into two distinct camps - one of which have emerged as Mordros (see later), still we’re much smitten by the sounds drifting from their 5 track ’lifetime’s dedication’ set even though it is alas their parting piece. Self described as sounding somewhere between ’folk, death metal and indie’ (per their my page) Fantaplastic make - or indeed made - an appealing racket non more is the case than on the parting stuttered squall of the nuts down no nonsense freaked frug that is the dismembered ‘injokeout‘ which certainly gave our hi-fi a much needed workout with its rampantly galloping caustic and demented art rock meets butchered blues set up that we here were much imagining a seriously vicious Fall being put to the sword by an issue venting Jesus Lizard. Those preferring their sounds a little - shall we settle for - post rock-y - ought to seek out ‘fielding treats’ - very much up there in the realms of Arab Strap meets Rothko while ’Ants’ is a riotous cauldron of manic mayhem that starts out at a point somewhere next door to San Lorenzo, includes some nifty shades of softly dipped prog psych and then literally explodes into a rapid fire inferno of head caning attrition for which tin hats were made for. Elsewhere for the best part of ‘lifetime’s dedication’ the genteel and nimble faraway cast of Red House Painters and the Go Betweens silkily drifts around the listening space instilling their stilled serene introspection before the onset of fractured riffages seizures indelibly smother the spectacle within an intricately laced agit math groove. Best of the set though and by some distance it has to be said is the opening ’library’ - a furiously scalding slice of bastardised boogie cut with the kind of take no prisoners calibre that usually around these parts is branded upon records flying out of the Gringo stable, made all the more unsettling by Christina’s narration found sitting with ominously unreal calm attaching a degree of dark psych folk menace to the proceedings. A bit of a gem then.

Okay not strictly a Filthy Little Angels release but as we’ve just mentioned them it seemed appropriate to include a brief shout here - and anyway if we didn’t we’d no doubt forget to at a later date……

www.myspace.com/mordrostheband - as promised this is one half of the splintered troupe that used to be Fantaplastic and features John and Tove from said band teamed up with Smallgang’s Toshi. Self described as ‘folk rockers’ apparently these cuts have been hanging around for a fair while but were felt not to fit into the overall Fantaplastic set up, which I’m tending to agree with having just heard their final EP. Only two tracks posted so far and all good stuff especially ’last of all sleep’ which is currently winning the battle to gain our affections, as the title half hints a sleepy headed nugget that lazily side winds into territories currently being ploughed by the amazing Southern Tenant Folk Union though wrapped sumptuously in a strangely manifesting funereal glow that sounds like its been caning the moonshine, factor in a strangely off balanced dust swept waltzing presence and clip it with something darkly mercurial of the type of thing that you’d suspect Buffalo Springfield would sound like had the Palace Brothers been fiddling about at the controls and you have a primed and no doubt future nugget lying in wait. Being the stupid buggers that we are we actually clicked on ‘super sounds’ twice in quick succession the result of which gave it a curious echoing and dishevelled punch drunk demeanour, mind you that said once we’d rectified the problem it still sounded dishevelled and punch drunk though marked by the absence of the echoing effect, that said its all homely stuff subtly cast with a drifting psyche allure and clipped with a veritable 60’s sheen a bit like a beaten up and worse for wear New Riders of the Purple Sage.

And so to the last featured release of this Filthy Little Angels missive special - don’t worry space cadets we hear that there’s a new Postcode EP kicking around and if so it’ll deffo get featured next time out……anyway enough faffing and onward we go……

Right Turn Left ‘foolproof plan’ EP. Hailing from Tooting, South London this impish quartet go by the names Cassanova, Delicious, Fellatio and Valentine which we here are strongly suspecting are not the ones inscribed on their birth certificates, kids of today eh? They already have a limited issue self released CD to their name which we really must try and nail before they all go while banging on in the background are the skinny sounds of this their quite fetching four track free to download EP for Filthy Little Angels entitled ‘foolproof plan’. Best described as good wholesomely spotty energetic and effervescent frantic fun pop guaranteed to print a smile on your face not before getting your feet to tap a wildly ten to the dozen, we here are getting all manner of reference points flying through left, right and centre ranging from elements of a youthful Undertones (especially on the frenetically flighty ‘sloe gin’ wherein you‘ll find the intricate twisted funk underpinning drifts of the Blockheads rallying hard amid the grooves), Farmers Boys, Official Secrets Act and the Parkinsons - the latter no more so than on the ridiculously wide eyed and criminally catchy ‘we’re’. Anyhow its all strum happy beat pop provided by a collective who sound like they’ve bitten by the melody bug and frankly ’faust’ though barely tipping the sub two minute scales of pop is so tenaciously tangy and tasty it had us recalling why we fell in love with music in the first place. Nuff said.

Singled Out returns in 2 days - business being back to normal unless of course Filthy Little Angels hit us with another shed load of speaker spanking sounds. Indeed our thanks go out to Woon and Co - keep them coming we say.

Mark
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Mixtapes

2007-12-10T21:14:00.002Z