Bearded The Home of Independent Music

Jeffrey LewisBill CallahanHanne HukkelbergRatfaceFatCat RecordsThe Long LostVoodoo Trombone QuartetWildbirds and Peacedrums

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David Grubbs / Serafina Steer22.01.09 The Luminaire (London)

As Serafina Steer struggles with her follow-up to 2007’s rather fabulous Cheap Demo Bad Science, it would probably be fair to say that she needs the encouragement that a well-received support slot brings.Last time I had the pleasure (and it is an absolute pleasure) to be in the company of Sefa and her harp, it was through a particularly nerve-racked performance at last year’s Green Man festival, where the rain was drowning the Welsh valleys. She fluffed her lyrics, got notes wrong but still won over the increasingly aquatic audience, whose rapturous support must have given her a sigh of relief as she tenderly splashed her way off the stage.Six months later, and in the distinctly drier surroundings of The Luminaire (although rain, again, is teeming down outside), Sefa is noticeably calmer, but still shy and forgetful as she brings her own unmistakeable charm to proceedings. The audience is impeccably respectful of her tenderness, and appreciative of her particularly biting lyrics that made Cheap Demo Bad Science and, more emphatically, her latest EP Public Spirited such a joy to listen closely to. Perhaps this response to her set – a mixture of old and new – is what is contributing to what seems to be her personal battle with her new material, whether or not it is ‘good enough’ to be released. If the new tracks (that are increasingly becoming old tracks) sound half as good on record as they do live, we’ll be in for a treat.Somebody who probably doesn’t have the same internal critic is David Grubbs. That is unless both his inner demons are just backslapping Grubbs through another miserable guitar solo. It is a shame, because last year’s Drag City released An Optimist Notes the Dust, was a fabulous record. In the live arena though, Grubbs seems to turn his hand to over-indulgent guitar wankery, with a hodgepodge of ideas that go nowhere except to form an infuriatingly messy mixture.Throughout the show, Grubbs is fondling the fret board as if it was an extension of his manhood, the crowd at times whoops in appreciation, but Bearded can’t help feeling like we’re gate crashing an intimate private party. It starts slow, gets a little better, and then falls flat again. The contrast between the two in confidence and self-importance is stark. The most frustrating part is that confidence should be a good thing, but on this showing, it seems to be the opposite of taking the listener on the journey with you.

Words Gareth MainPhotography P Gondard, Sam Easterby-Smith

Crystal Antlers 28.01.09 The Lexington (London)

“Show me the way to the next whiskey bar,” implored Jim Morrison, and he’d have been right at home in The Lexington. This North London pub stocks enough American bourbon to keep him drunk for a month – and, on-stage upstairs, Crystal Antlers proved just as acquired a taste.The band from Long Beach, California have had bloggers drooling with their combination of psychedelic flourishes, proggy dynamics and intense screamy hardcore. But live, some of their potential seemed buried under a wall of noise – though the sold-out crowd seemed happy enough.One of a seemingly endless stream of nouveau stoner bands, their cosmic song titles (‘A Thousand Eyes’, ‘Until the Sun Dies’, ‘Parting Song For the Torn Sky…’) suggest a multifaceted, Technicolor sound. But, handicapped by a singer with little stage presence and one vocal setting (scream), they bring us an intense assault on the senses – accomplished, but a touch two-dimensional.At least the band’s timing was psychedelic, coming on-stage an hour late preceded by a cool if slightly incongruous backing tape of G-funk classics. The boys soon sparked into life – cherubic young drummer Kevin Stuart pounded away impressively, and the guitars sounded massive – but there was a hole where the singer should have been. In-your-face rock bands need a charismatic lead vocalist but singer/bassist Jonny Bell was a strangely peripheral presence – hanging back, and not interacting with the crowd. And the screaming every time he opened his mouth got pretty wearing after a while. Sometimes less is more…Fortunately, this charisma vacuum was filled by the band’s cheerleader/percussionist/Bez figure – the extraordinary Damian Edwards, aka Sexual Chocolate. A proudly pot-bellied wildcard, he rocked a very stylish old-school hip-hop look, gyrating lasciviously while attacking his cymbal and cowbells with abandon. If the music got a bit too samey, he was always doing something to catch the eye. Give the man his own show…However, cool percussionist aside, Crystal Antlers are so much sound and fury, signifying nothing. They would be well served stretching out musically and upping the psychedelic quotient; and either finding themselves another frontman or buying him some singing lessons. You can’t be flavour of the month forever…

Words Ben WoodPhotography Tim Boddy

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18Sluice BoxA selection of some of the artists doing the rounds at the moment that have got Bearded’s writers all excited. Read about them, check them out, and judge us appropriately.

Honor SocietyWhen you take four gentlemen from America, give them instruments, slick haircuts, a cult-esque fanbase and a knack for writing super-catchy pop songs you get something rather quite spectacular in return. By name, it’s Honor Society; by popular definition, it’s awesome. Describing themselves as – and rightly so – “Justin Timberlake’s rock project,” Honor Society put all those pseudo-popsters to shame, and tunes such as ‘See U In The Dark’ are plagued with spiky riffs, unashamedly teenage lyrics, and shedloads of fun. Their EP – A Tale of Risky Business – has received glowing reviews, and rightfully so. Everything from Andrew Lee’s bouncy rhythms to Michael Bruno’s smooth vocals all exude brilliance, and it’s a wonder this clan of soon-to-be stars haven’t been snapped up by one of the biggie labels yet. They’ve already sold out New York’s renowned Irving Plaza, and been given the thumbs up by the ever-so-popular Jonas Brothers – it seems, at least for now, that these gents may do no wrong. Words Olivia Jaremi

Micachu & The Shapes Fronted by 21 year old Mica Levi, Micachu & The Shapes have landed on the 2009 DIY music scene with all the force of an asteroid dropping through the roof of your front room. Her music is a patchwork collage, stitched and nailed and taped together from sonic flotsam and jetsam into a startling DIY construction. Pots and pans ring and rattle alongside pinging plucked strings, distorto basslines and squeaking keyboards, with her trademark hoover revving away merrily in the background. Mica’s voice is rough and ragged, honest and fresh, whether mumbling away through a cheap mic or looped into a rhythmic backdrop, spitting out proto-rap lines or pitch shifted into alien melodies. It’s not often that a new artist arrives with such a fully-formed, recognisable, singular sound. Micachu is a total one off, a defining presence that soaks up influences from left, right and centre and spits them back out in a thrilling new form. Words John Brainlove

Camp AmericaHe might have done remixes for the likes of Athlete and Bloc Party, but Camp America – aka Steven Cowley – is not your average backroom boy/muso. Sure, he has paid his dues. He’s played in bands and done more tours than you can shake a backstage pass at, and let’s not forget the private showcase for Rick Rubin, yes that Rick Rubin! But now Camp America is finally taking centre stage and it’s about time. A full length record is expected before the end of the year. So expect plenty of 8-bit electronica, a la Daft Punk and DJ Shadow. With a veritable smorgasbord of Casio keyboards and laptops at his disposal, Camp America has seen the future, and damn it, it looks a lot like him. Give it time and the great and the good will all be remixing him. Words Jamie Hailstone

Hatcham SocialHatcham Social are somewhat of an anachronism. A London-based trio with a semi-famous drummer, they’ve eschewed indie de rigueur and instead steeped themselves in the sepia tones of the sound of young Scotland. As such they come on strong like a time-capsule bottle-rocket from that era, kitted out in Mike Leigh kitchen sink knitwear. While they may channel the otherworldly croon of Josef K and the spiky jangle of Orange Juice, there’s a maverick intensity pulsing hard here, pushing equally against careerist indie and the crippling orthodoxy of twee. With said former Klaxon on drums, they’ve a brick solid backline too. Propulsive and insistent, the forceful rhythm section is offset sweetly against fractured melodies, laced with cryptic Lewis Carroll witticisms. Retreating somewhat into their own absurd fantasy world, Hatcham Social rather beautifully have their eyes closed to the present. Words Stephen Pietrzykowski

The Pains Of Being Pure At HeartMost new bands are rubbish, aren’t they? Well, New York four-piece The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart aren’t. A gaggle of pure pop twiglets that have cherrypicked the very finest parts of shoegaze and C86 to craft a fuzzy wall of saccharine indie-bliss that’s more fun than digging yourself out of a mountain of cocaine, nose-first. Indeed, what makes this band so heart-twitchingly special is their ability to capture the very essence of adolescence and distil it into a sugar-sweet, three-minute soma in exactly the same way that made The Cure what they were before they settled into sagging self-parody and Robert Smith hit the Ginsters. The eponymous debut LP is out now: so treat your ears, they’ll thank you in the morning. Words Oli Simpson

Still Flyin’Woeful name, worse song titles, well except for the rather tame ‘Good Thing It’s a Ghost Town Around Here’, the bopping verses and soaring choruses of which are synonymous with what makes Still Flyin’ much better than their name suggests. With a rather superb debut lined up for early summer, this 15-person collective of San Francisco weirdoes give more than the odd wink to The Polyphonic Spree, only without the robes, and they are set to be soundtracking summer, which makes it even stranger that their debut single – the juicily chaotic and frightfully cheery ‘Forever Dudes’ – hit these shores during that fortnight of almost continual snow. Proof indeed that summer is never over, it’s just evolving. Words Jeremy Style

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Rotten Peach HeartFor nineteen years Bill Callahan has been the shy outsider working underground. After ditching his Smog moniker in 2007, he is about to release only his second record under his own name. Stephen Pietrzykowski talks to him about coming out of the shadows with his most personal record yet. Label Drag City

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Fifteen years ago even a gambling man thinking of the future wouldn’t have backed this colt, but somewhat inexplicably, 2009 finds Bill Callahan confirming his status as a bona fide elder statesman of the American indie underground. In what has tenuously been dubbed the Year of the Woman (again), it seems unusual that a gap-toothed cowboy with emerging crow’s feet might bloom from his deliberate career-long lurking in the shadows. Sharing a similar artistic arc as that of peers Will Oldham and Steve Malkmus, Callahan’s coupling of mysterious persona with sheer efficiency has encouraged a cult fandom that threatens but never quite manages to boil over into mainstream recognition. But with the March release of the second album under his own name – Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle – he’s moving ever closer to becoming his own institution. He might not ever trouble the charts, but he’s sure making a good fist at artistic immortality.Current zeitgeist aside, his increasing canonisation remains inexplicable. From his early home recordings of squalling lo-fi noise in the late 80s through his numerous releases under the Smog moniker as an evil-eyed misanthrope, Callahan has consistently positioned himself as an outsider. Importantly as an outsider not wanting in, he seemed to revel living in the margins, residing in the ditches of black fantasies and paranoid tragicomedies. Callahan’s allure is built on enigma and ignominy. His shying away from the spotlight is writ large across his back catalogue, inscribed in character portraits equally violent, isolated, witty and, sometimes, starkly tender. Remember, this is the man consistently constructing himself as the town’s ‘stranger,’ once describing his agoraphobic impulses as feeling “like a robot by the water.” Admittedly, it could all be a deviously conceived mask. Yet, for all the staging of persona, there’s the sense of genuine autobiography here and that’s the root of fascination. But his recent rebirth as Bill Callahan is not a reincarnation without precedence. His music has always functioned as a series of character-rich transgressions, from bratty teenager to obdurate misanthrope to bad boy heartthrob and back again. Since the release of A River Ain’t Too Much To Love in 2005, there have been signs of a bigger shift. His proclamation on that album’s centrepiece ‘Say Valley Maker’ to “bury me in fire and I’m gonna phoenix” shows none of this trajectory is accidental. Callahan is very much in control of his own mythology, not least evident in the decision to abandon the Smog nomenclature and acknowledge his own name, despite the better advice of his record label Drag City. And of course, relatively high profile relationships with indie folk goddesses Chan Marshall and Joanna Newsom have ushered him towards the light, even if he has been commendably reluctant to cash in on these associations. And so it’s both surprising and somewhat predictable that Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle doesn’t quite follow the same path as his last two outings. Just when Callahan seemed to be relaxing into a compelling consistency, we’re usurped again. While the collective pronoun in the record’s title is telling of a more personalised muse, there are signs on this record that he’s channelling all of his past here. As the eagle image reaffirms, nature and landscape have always featured prominently in Callahan’s music, reflecting some earthy impulse that romanticises a return to a simpler existence. As throughout his most recent releases, there’s that same gentle insistence of a river here. You can almost feel the gentle arcing of branches, hear the solemnity of a humming breeze, see the fracturing of new light. Such affecting simplicity is the essence of his renaissance as Bill Callahan.

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But for all the wood and twine country tendencies, there’s a subtle discordance bubbling under the arrangements, much like the man himself, reminiscent of his earlier work with Tortoise’s John McEntire on Dongs of Sevotion and the intriguing experiment of the claustrophobic Rain On Lens. Callahan’s hardly hiding his intentions either, spelling it out loud and clear on the album’s opening track “I used to be darker, then I got lighter, then I got dark again.” As in life is in art, we’re a composite of our pasts and Callahan knows exactly who he is and where he’s come from, even if we don’t. Despite tying his own name to the project, it’s clear that Callahan is want to leave us guessing just where his art stops and the man begins. Speaking with him in anticipation of the album’s release and his recent return from touring Australia, there was obviously plenty to discuss.

Bearded: This is the second album under your own name. Did knowing that you’re putting your own name to the record alter how it was made? You’re probably pretty sick of people mentioning the transition from Smog to Bill Callahan, but do you see any significance in it beyond simple nomenclature?BC: All I was doing was acknowledging that something meant nothing. I usually take a radically different approach to each record I’ve done anyway, so changing the name was like putting a drop of water into a waterfall. I am interested lately in working with arrangers instead of doing it myself.But I also have ideas I can put into practice on my own.Bearded: The new album sounds a lot like a composite Smog/Bill Callahan record, channelling a lot of different elements from your past – I can hear Rain On Lens, Dongs, Red Apple Falls, A River Ain’t Too Much To Love, Woke On A Whaleheart and they’re all pretty different records for me. As a result, it feels like the quintessential Smog record…BC: I reckon if you’re hearing five different albums in this album then maybe what it actually sounds like is something different than all of them. I’ve made a few records, so people seem to use me as a reference point in my own records now.Bearded: How would you see this record in relation to the last? I remember hearing you say a while ago that Knock Knock was your teenage record. Do you still think of records in terms of themes or one overarching idea?BC: I did say that a while ago. Ten years or so. A record starts as the broadest thing possible. Maybe something like ‘Sky’ or ‘Fur’. Then comes a language, a phrasing, a tone, a viewpoint, a mouth. The last album was more like a demo I made of flexible songs that could be arranged in many ways. The new album I feel the songs can only be the way they are. It is rooted. It is an album. There comes a point in the record making process where you get snowblind. Climbing that mountain, you have prepared for it but there is weather. There is a point where you can’t see but you keep on. When you get to the top things look different than they did from the bottom, but that’s because you are on the other side of it.Bearded: You mention this record being conceived as ‘an album.’ On the promo copy Drag City have put incongruent car horns at random points throughout the songs in an attempt to prevent piracy. Is the thought of piracy something that bothers you? Do you worry about people not hearing the album as a whole and therefore not as it was intended?BC: It’s disappointing when people can listen to a shitty sound quality version of your record two months before it is released. If people want to listen to only one of my songs, I’m not too hung up on that. I like to hear of the ways a song or a record fits into someone’s life, it’s kind of cute when someone has only heard one of your songs and likes it but that’s all they’re interested in hearing. But the piracy thing, you know, we’re becoming like China or Russia. It’ll hurt us in the long run. Piracy is a sign of a fucked up system.

Bearded: There’s a poised economy to a lot of your lyrics that would seem to lend itself well to literature. Have you ever thought about pursuing another discipline in the same way in which Nick Cave or Leonard Cohen or David Berman have?BC: Writing a book? I’ve been working on a book for several years now. It has gone through many drafts. I think it will take me time and time to finish. The revisions could go on forever and I don’t think I’d mind if it never came out, because it gets closer with each revision. I could revise and revise until someone pries it from my cold dead fingers. Or maybe it’ll be done in a few months.Bearded: Is that a process that differs much to how you approach writing music?BC: It’s kind of like working on 200 songs at once, so it takes that long.Bearded: A lot of your earlier work was charged with a wry misanthropy, some of it perhaps even antisocial, but that seems to have been replaced on recent albums with a more thoughtful and joyful perspective. Was this a deliberate transgression? Do you worry about becoming sentimental as you grow older?BC: I’ve always been sentimental in the correct manner. You know that song ‘I Love’ by Tom T. Hall? I love all those things too! It is hard for me to think of my or anybody’s work as ‘antisocial.’ There is antisocial behaviour, such as punching a nun, but work is not antisocial. Work is social and for the benefit of the people in its end form. Bearded: You’ve recently recorded a song for the reissue of the Kath Bloom album. How did that come about? Did it feel strange to be reinterpreting a song not exactly widely known, and in doing so bringing it to a wider audience?BC: I’d heard some of her stuff and wondered about her, wondered where she went. I like Loren Mazzacane and knew her through that, the records he made with her. It did not feel strange in the least. A song is a song and you try to give your best to it without even one second devoted to thinking about how well it is known. I was asked to be on the compilation and I said yes. I had a month where I said yes to everything. This was before that Zooey Deschanel movie [The Yes Man]. I said yes to about five different compilations that month.Bearded: You’ve just finished touring Australia. Do you find a split in the way different countries respond to you live? I remember seeing you play at All Tomorrow’s Parties in the UK to a rather animated crowd then seeing you play in Primavera to a hushed reverence…BC: You can’t really categorise audiences in different countries. You can maybe categorise certain environments. Those ATPs in England tend to attract 18-year-old English boys who have been drinking a lot. That is a distinct environment. Primavera attracts people from all over the world, not just Barcelona. So…Bearded: I hear you’re coming over to the UK in August. Will much have changed from the Woke On A Whaleheart shows?BC: I am hoping to mostly play on boats. Either tied up or free. The boats I mean.

Typically, Bill Callahan has said more about Bill Callahan in a flippant metaphor than any unravelling we could do here. And it’s hardly surprising that in doing so he’s not revealed very much at all. On new album opener ‘Jim Cain’ Callahan claims he “started telling a story without knowing the end.” Tied to the harbour or cast to sea, it’s still unsure where his boat will finish, but this uncertainty is his very fascination. And that’s not even contemplating the fear of piracy.

Illustration ZerotenPhotography Joanna Newsom, R Gile

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48Record ReviewsBearded’s dedication to independent music means that we cannot idly pass off great independent releases with a sarcastic quip, nor can we fit the number of records we receive into the pages of the magazine. For more reviews of the latest independent releases, visit our website: www.beardedmagazine.co.uk

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ArbouretumSong Of The Pearl (Thrill Jockey)

Part grunge, part stoner at their core, Arbouretum make the effort to chuck in bits of other styles for a bit of variety. The languid mellowed rock grooves of the title track glimmer with echoes of 1970s West Coast hippie-dom, while the stoner vibe of tracks like ‘False Spring’ or the more laidback ‘Another Hiding Place’ nod to various veteran Brit legends – Cream for the former, Free for the latter. Axe-merchants will also appreciate some of the spaced-out soloing, especially the spiralling acid-drenched forays on the epic ‘Infinite Corridors’. Haunted, reverberated vocals meet folksy licks to decent effect too on ‘Down By The Fall Line’.But somehow the album’s variations leave an air of dissatisfaction. Neither cast-iron stoner, grunge or laidback West Coast rock, it falls between its various stools – more dog’s dinner than bubbling musical hotpot. Words Norman Miller

BrakesTouchdown(FatCat)

Since dispensing with banging a big drum for British Sea Power and recruiting some of the most talented musicians in Britain in the White brothers, Eamon Hamilton’s Brakes have produced some of the most welcome and wonderful records, with a healthy slice of comedy and political satire proving a breath of fresh air in an industry that takes itself way, way too seriously.Which is why Touchdown, the band’s first outing for hometown label FatCat is such a disappointment. It isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it has lost all the joy and intrigue of previous efforts Give Blood and The Beatific Visions, whilst missing any sort of track to hang it off as good as ‘All Night Disco Party’.Nothing on this record matches up to what has been before, and there’s nothing different. It is the classic stagnation record and points to Hamilton and the boys having to go and have a little thought about album number four. It is worth investment for fans, if just for the pretty, smile-inducing ‘Worry About it Later’, but this isn’t going to be exciting many, and that’s a massive shame. Words Gareth Main

Casiotone for the Painfully AloneVs. Children (Tomlab)

It may be something of a detriment to Owen Ashworth to have monikered himself with a reference to naff keyboards that are only good for tinny demos of Stevie Wonder’s ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life’. What he has produced over the course of four full lengths has shown an ever advancing catalogue of top drawer – what you might inaccurately describe as – ambient electronica.Ambient it is, and it is almost entirely electronic, but Ashworth’s increasing strides away from pure electronic instrumentation take Casiotone into an area that is much more different, much more accessible for sure, but most importantly different. Vs. Children is apparently written from the perspective of remorseful criminals, based upon the real life arrest of a former co-worker of Ashworth for robbing 26 banks across the States. With such subject matter, it makes for a fascinating listen. Tracks such as ‘Northfield, MN’ and the tongue-twisting highlight ‘Traveling Salesman’s Young Wife Home Alone on Christmas in Montpelier, VT’ drag you in and produce a dreary, but startling, image in your head. All in all though, Vs. Children is nothing short of a wonderful record. It may paint a dark, bleak picture in your mind and be best listened to during an evening walkabout through busy snowy streets, but it really does fill you with a warmth through the cold. A triumph. Words Jeremy Style

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