Deep Cuts #20
School’s back in session so get your pencils and paper and make a note of these brand new tracks courtesy of the Getintothis team.
It’s hard to source new music as you get older, settle into your working life and become parents.
This leads to having The Wheels On The Bus or that 80’s compilation that your partner likes to sing along to on in the car rather than 6 Music and the only bands you ever see live are that 90’s act (the ones that had two or three big singles but are unfathomably still going) that are on after you’ve had your one big night out of the summer at the races.
That doesn’t mean you have to give up altogether.
Let’s go back a couple of years. The date is 10 December, 1992 – it will become obvious below how I know this.
A 19 year old boy is down the front of The Royal Court Liverpool (when it was one of the great Liverpool music venues, before it was turned into a mausoleum for Scouse based “humour”).
He spies an older grey-haired couple, mid-to-late 50’s, faces ravaged by the passing of time and cheap lager, wearing their band t-shirts, looking as eager as he is to welcome onstage Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine.
He turns to his future wife and says “Imagine being that old and still going to such indie gigs, how great would that be? To still be aware of bands at that age and dressing like that, that would be so cool.”
Carter USM were kinda like the Sleaford Mods of their day but with guitars instead of a laptop, and astoundingly popular, they once headlined Glastonbury – no really, they did – then that child of 19, the now equally ravaged 46 year old man-child, now shortly old enough to be one of the couple in the above tale, is here to share some music-related life lessons…
Liverpool music gig guide: Promartyr, Skeleton Coast, Festival and much more
Keeping a book of all the gigs you ever go to was the single-most greatest idea I ever had when I was young.
Your book might be fortunate enough not to start with the words “1st May, 1988, Whitney Houston, Birmingham NEC” (a permanent dagger in my heart, as everyone I’ve ever met since seems to have someone far cooler as their first gig).
It will answer all your life’s big questions, such as “What was I doing on the 24th September, 1992?” and “Where did I get to see Prince live?” The answers of course being watching Radiohead at the Krazyhouse and both The Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas and the Manchester Academy.
You will spend hours just flicking through it aimlessly, remembering the long-gone venues, drinking the long-gone drinks of their day.
This book now serves as a reminder to youthful days never to be repeated and more recent outings where the bands have made you feel young again. It will act as your memoir, a life story in dates and support bands.
When I was at school, there was an awful lot of cassette exchanging, where the cool kids with good hearts would help you with your musical coming of age by steering you towards the must-have long players of the day.
Three of the albums I still love and cherish today (Hup – The Wonder Stuff, Strangeways, Here We Come – The Smiths and It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back – Public Enemy) were first brought to my attention by well-meaning peers saying “try this.”
Today’s equivalent is Spotify playlists, I’m guessing. If you love something then shout it from the rooftops, tell all your friends, share your coolness to help the less fortunate.
To those who believe that all the good songs have already been written and don’t concern themselves with anything released after 1979, help them to see that this is really not the case, good music is still good music.
Instead of going to your local Italian restaurant on your weekly/monthly date night, pick a gig from this esteemed website’s gig guide and go to that instead. Go to HMV or Probe and buy a new CD for the car, even something from the glorious list below.
And always have a new favourite band. Even at 46. Steven Doherty
Marmalade
Marmalade – Down The Rabbit Hole
This isn’t just your average exclusive. This one’s a dark and twisted take on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, complete with ear-splitting riffs, unrelenting drumbeats and telling lyrics.
Of the track vocalist and guitarist Jack Walsh said: “It’s not really us, it’s an abstraction of experiences and ideas to make something illustrated and cartoonist but theres still an undefined truth In the song. Its pastiche but theres still a level of seriousness there.”
Its incessant flickering between the upbeat madness and drifting weariness to the spoken word mirror perfectly how Carroll’s own novel can be read. It’s the perfect unknown of psychedelia, and all 6 minutes and 51 seconds are worth a listen.
- Lauren Wise
Far Caspian (Photo Credit Jeff Barnett)
Far Caspian – The Place
Emerging Leeds outfit Far Caspian have released dreamy pop track The Place, the next single taken from their upcoming debut EP, out this autumn.
- Lewis Ridley
Purple Heart Parade
Purple Heart Parade – Mission Hills
After their recent performance at the Deep Cuts Jacaranda Phase One , Manchester quintet, Purple Heart Parade return with new single, Mission Hills. Until their Deep Cuts set, Purple Heart Parade were an unknown quantity to this writer. It was a pleasant surprise, as live, they are a force. Musically, they are drum-tight, not to mention being loud and sprawling, capturing the vibes The Verve created all those years ago with A Storm in Heaven.
On record, the band ferries us through a slightly different terrain with Mission Hills. More immersed in the origins of dream-pop with a swirling Galaxie 500 pastiche, the track is said to be inspired by last year’s Manchester Arena terrorist attack, where sadly, the band lost a close friend.
Having played the Liverpool Festival of Psychedelia on the back of their Painting Pictures/Starf*cker Blues 7” release five years ago, Mission Hills is their greatest feat, thus far. Having briefly spoken to Cowap after their Deep Cuts performance, when it comes to live shows, it seems they have a difficult time getting booked to play in Manchester, forcing the band to ply their trade more frequently in London.
Recently signed to AC30 (Ringo Deathstarr, Is Bliss), Mission Hills is the single from their forthcoming EP, Lonestar, which is released on September 7th.
- Simon Kirk
Street Soldier
Street Soldier – One Man Gang
Sometimes you have to give a band a chance, you could listen to this EP and think from the start this is a joke. But, wait… what you begin to hear is one of the most honest and interesting 3 tracks you’ll hear this month.
Rap via hardcore punk brought through the vocal styling that use northern colloquialism. Bring forth a hammer blow of an ep.
Breakdowns splinter through each track, giving space for stunning moments that remind me of bands like Spazz, with humour aka Gimpo.
Rapcore was always a weak point in the scene that I inhabited along time ago. It inherited the worse parts of both scenes. With few exceptions but this is a well balance EP. Blasting off with a raging title track One Man Gang batted forward with a gleeful spite-filled lyrical masterclass that smacks down each syllable through raging guitar. Dropping down into a mosh pit chanting and moving from the offset.
With track two Scumbag you are on a relentless and hammering hardcore beat down, yes the wit still shines through, countered with blast beats this track gets your head nodding along.
The final track Bully Basher is a classic hardcore track interspersed with swinging brick guitar playing that would please all that will listen. This was a revelation to my jaded ears and a true joy from the offset.
- Guy Nolan
Jetta
Jetta – Enemy In Me
GIT Award nominee Jetta has just released a brand new track, which is as refreshing as it is vulnerable. It’s easy to get lost amongst the indie tracks that have come to define a generation – the ones that aspire to become Reading and Leeds’ next favourite acts.
That’s why Jetta’s Enemy In Me is such an exciting listen. It might now pack a punch or be thrusted upon you like a heavy guitar solo is but it’s perfect pop, carrying themes that you’d listen to on a low; desire, doubt and acceptance.
Everything about the song questions herself; it’s an internal monologue that everyone’s experienced at once in their lifetime, which is why it’s universal and applicable to everyone.
- Lauren Wise
God Complex (Image credit; Artist’s Facebook page)
God Complex – Breeding Filth
Oh yes. The new single from local mob God Complex is an absolute banger. It gets more done across its two-and-half minutes that some bands manage on EPs. Albums, even.
The Liverpool four piece are set to make waves with blitzkrieg of a new single Breeding Filth. Already on their third single of the year, we’re loving their output with each passing release. Following ferocious appetizer Insignificant and the more pleasingly lumbering Hate Runs Through Me, Breeding Filth oozes both menace and quality.
Beginning with a roar of garage metal guitar riffing, it soon morphs into something much more violent. Through a verse of urgent drumming and a screamed, death metal chorus, the track soon sheds it skin. Eclecticism is clearly one of God Complex’s finest suits. What begins as a rush changes viscosity deliciously as an enormous groove metal riff hits hard in both the song and the listeners midriff. By the time the track reaches its final act and innumerable changes in dynamic it shows the bands true darkened colours as a sludgey, doomy riff fest.
Breeding Filth will have you headbanging throughout, and that brutal breakdown midway? Gojira would be proud of that riff.
God Complex are shedding fresh blood into the Liverpool metal scene with impressive technicality. You can catch them live all over the UK, with a homecoming show at North Shore Troubadour on the horizon for November. In the meantime, be crushed and thrilled in equal measure by Breeding Filth.
- David Hall
Getintothis Album Club #38 – Interpol, The Blinders, White Denim, Gabe Gurnsey and more
Shards
- Mark Rowley
Xam Volo (photo credit: Christopher Flack)
XamVolo – Sudden
Whoever XamVolo wrote the track, Sudden, about, they were a very, very lucky person. Without getting too sentimental and smushy about a song I’ve been listening to on repeat (think, oh, at least 100 times since Friday), let’s just say, the Liverpudlian’s new neo-soul offering is a testament to the nostalgic love songs of yore – a non-so typical John Legend-esque mixture of heart-warming lyrics, silky smooth vocals, and a simple, repetitive beat, that will stick in your head for days.
If there were a song right now that you should propose to, this would be it; if there were a tune to slow dance to in the living room after consuming a hefty amount of red wine and steak, this would be it; if there were a tune to reignite a relationship; if there were a tune to reignite your passion in jazz ‘n’ soul, to make you want to dig out those old Barry White classics and mosey seductively in front of your mirror, this would be it.
XamVolo is fresh, and with lyrics that will melt your insides – “I saw you coming, like a hurricane; briefly. I fall so sudden, and the memory stays; deeply. See I’ve been praying for the perfect storm, and you’re the weather I’ve been waiting on,” you’ll hopefully fall in love with him as much, if not more, than I already have.
- Amy Farnworth
Minimal_Drone*GRL (Image Credit; Label’s Soundcloud page)
Minimal_Drone*GRL – Bifurcated Worlds
Space and electronic music are intrinsically linked. That hopeful and horrifying dream of our future in space finds no greater home than in Ambient Electronica.
Many have captured that celestial essence in their music, and most recently it’s Canadian artist Minimal_Drone*GRL. Her track, Bifurcated Worlds, initially evokes a Utopian vision. Starting as if it were a sedate Vangelis soundtrack, it’s layers unfold like a bombardment of communications from afar.
These machine tones flow over the backdrop of nebulous chords, reflecting that optimistic dichotomy of space; despite the endless reaches of nothing, we pray it’s filled with life.
But the chorus of melodies blend into one single coherent thread, which slowly fades into the increasingly distressed synth before an abrupt end.
The sign of success for any piece of music with interstellar influences, that immediate need to write a science fiction novella. My working title is We’ve Fucked the Planet so Let’s Go to Space, what’s yours?
Glasgow based label Bricolage chose the song as closing track on Retcon, a compilation album encompassing their assorted roster of electronic artists, due out at the end of the month. Minimal_Drone*GRL has a handful more tracks on her soundcloud too, hopefully with more to come.
- Kieran Donnachie
Adrianne Lenker
Adrianne Lenker – Cradle
Deriving from her forthcoming second solo album Abysskiss – the name of which so fittingly encompasses all the tenderness found in her sonically existential crises, this single is a refreshing diversion for Lenker.
Away from her band Big Thief – particularly the rawer playing and tones of lead guitarist Buck Meek, she is allowed the freedom to stamp her own more gentle stylistic identity onto this track, building off and pushing a light style referenced on the band’s first two records.
In contrast, in Cradle, the soft finger-picking pattern under Lenker’s loaded whispers act as a soft pillow under a heavy head, weighted with problems of the personal and profound.
With its lyrically wintered imagery and a lullaby feel, this track seems to perfectly suit this mood of this month. Announcing summer’s impending conclusion along with a general tiredness from a busy holiday season, Lenker’s astounding single reminds and prepares us for a cozier, more intimate place in time both poetically and seasonally.
- Matty Lear
The Trend
The Trend – Can Tanner
Scottish rockers The Trend are back with a new double single as they prepare to release Can Tanner and Thrillseeker at the end of August.
The fast-paced tracks are great additions to a long list of the pure rock ‘n’ roll tunes released by the Glasgow four-piece.
Can Tanner is full of life from start to finish, beginning with a smashing drum beat alongside an energetic guitar riff.
The band have appeared as a support act at The Barrowlands in the past and with Can Tanners big chorus, they are more than suited to playing venues of that size in future.
With a hint of Britpop brilliance to the song, The Trend certainly have a tendency to release anthems.
The song’s name comes from an in joke within the band, concerning lead singer Ryan Malone’s (who wrote the song) can-drinking abilities.
Meanwhile the other track, Thrillseeker, written by guitarist Del Greig, builds up pace throughout the song and with another big chorus, has the ability to lift the roof off a small venue.
Recorded at Chem19 Studios in Blantyre, both songs have a Scottish grit about them and are a perfect listen for the cold winter months.
- Amos Wynn
Ricky Spontane (Image credit; artist’s FB page)
Ricky Spontane – The Seeds of Doom
Back from a four year hiatus, probably caused by band members living as far and wide as London, Liverpool and France, Ricky Spontane have just self-released this sci-fi influenced EP.
That’s not to say their sound has suddenly become clean and futuristic, it’s still the same ramshackle, almost psychedelic, indie pop that they should be far more famous for.
The absolute stand out is A False Manifesto with swirling guitars and vocals that Morrissey would give his (straight) right arm for, which is ironic given the politicised subject material.
The lyrics turn to the surreal in Day Of The Fruit Triffids with tales of walking, talking vegetables, and like all 4 songs, an satisfyingly infectious chorus.
An absolute joy.
- Steven Doherty
Papercuts
Papercuts – Laughing Man
Papercuts have released a single Laughing Man from forthcoming album Parallel Universe Blues, out in October on Slumberland Records.
If this dreamy three minutes – surely the perfect length for any classic pop song – is anything to go by, we’re in for a delicious treat. Singer Jason Quever’s boyish delivery here is reminiscent of the sweetest of 1980s indie pop.
Describing Laughing Man as a “love song, but maybe more about fragmented memory and fleeting attachments”, the song has an autumnal 1960s feel to boot, percussive strings and, unexpectedly, the warmth of a The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore glow plus an acoustic guitar positively aching with melancholy.
- Cath Bore
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