The CLUAS Archive: 1998 - 2011

Entries for March 2009

31
Peter Doherty 'Grace/Wastelands'
A review of the album 'Grace/Wastelands' by Peter Doherty Review Snapshot: Rambling acoustic album from the pen of Peter (not Pete anymore) Doherty. Devoid of the energy and drive of his e...

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30
Exploding on to the Irish music scene in 2007 with the infectious Love Like Nicotine, Dark Room Notes have become famous for their energetic live shows.  Here, Steve O'Rourke sits down w...

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30

French turntable team Birdy Nam Nam have attracted a lot of international attention recently, as much for their sound as for the fact that there are four of them mixing and twiddling together where normally such things are a solitary pursuit.

Birdy Nam Nam - Manual For Successful RiotingIn a way, this is quite odd. No one remarks on the fact that four rock musicians can combine as a group. Jazzmen tend to gather in fives, sixes or more. And what about the Berlin Philharmonic? There’s a hundred of them!

What’s more, in the studio Birdy Nam Nam probably don’t record live together but in individual takes and overdubs, like most rock bands. So, their onstage innovation counts for little down the coalmine of making albums. Like for most rock bands, in fact.

Fortunately for Birdy Nam Nam, the ends are just as impressive as the means. ‘Manual For Successful Rioting’, their second album, has just come out and it’s a cracker. Top-quality turntablism married to dancefloor electronica of considerable depth and imagination, it will make their name internationally. And, in our parish notes, anyone who was at their show in A.L.T. in Dublin last December will give a wry smile at that title. [Don’t go there, croissant boy! - CLUAS Legal Department]

Perhaps a more telling title is that of ‘Trans-Boulogne Express’, the 2007 track included here. That allusion to ‘Trans-Europe Express’ is a clear nod to Kraftwerk, the spiritual forefathers of this album, and marks a slight change in direction from the hip-hop-isms of old. Clinical beeps and blips, control-freak loops, distorted voices: the sonic template is Teutonic audio engineering at its finest. But, like the legendary German foursome, Birdy Nam Nam infuse their electronica with humanity and wit – mostly with the old-school rapping of Newcleus on ‘Shut Up’ but also with the soul and jazz samples that flash like lightning through this record. Crucially, you can dance to it too; producers Yuksek and Justice are old hands at that game.

And, of course, in places they sound positively French. The strangest track here is probably ‘Homosexuality’, a Jarre/Air-style exercise in swooshing retro-futuristic synths under a vocoder-ed voice that repeats the title. (We don’t know if there’s a point being made there; if so, it’s above our heads at least. That said, we could suggest some innuendo about the title ‘Trans-Boulogne Express’, but perhaps we’d best keep that to ourselves.)

Hardcore fans may be disappointed that this record is closer to carefully-crafted studio electronica than turntable cut n’pasting, but the BNN live experience can only enhance the thrill of this music. Until they land at your local venue, check out their MySpace page for tracks. And here they are on video, painting a model of the word ‘RIOT’ over and over. It must be art:

 


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29

Matt ElliottSome of you may know Matt Elliott more by his pseudonym, The Third Eye Foundation, than the one that appears on his passport.  It was under this moniker that the Bristol native became a pioneer of the 'drill 'n' bass' approach to electronica.  It was this bleak and brutal approach to electronica, combined with Elliott's ability to transcend genres that won him many admirers in the world of music, resulting in Elliott producing remixes for the likes of Mogwai and Thurston Moore amongst others.

Now living in France, Elliott specialises in releasing albums variously described as folk and vaudeville.  The most recent release, 2008's Howling Songs, drew comparisons with no less than Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen.  Now, in association with Forever Presents, Key Notes is offering two people the chance to win double passes to see Elliott in action, Upstairs in Whelan's on Thursday, April 9.

To be in with a chance of winning, just send an email with Matt Elliott Competition in the subject bar to keynotes[at]cluas[dot]com.  The competition will close at midnight on Monday April 6.  Winners will be chosen at random and, as always, Key Notes' decision is final.

Matt Elliott: The Kursk


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Posted in: Blogs, Key Notes
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29

CLUAS 10th birthday partyCLUAS will be hitting the 10 year milestone in May 2009 and as far as I know it is Ireland's longest running music website. Am I wrong? Am I forgetting some obscure gem of an Irish music site out there that was knocking around before May 1999 and is still on the go?

I thought hotpress.com might also have been around 10 or so years but it turns out not to be the case. With a bit of digging (thanks to archive.org, the ambitious online project that is keeping a snapshot of web sites over the age) I was able to establish that hotpress.com was home to an offset printing company based in Santa Cruz, California up to Dec 2000. Hmmmm. The domain name, it seems, was only acquired by Hot Press magazine in early 2001 (but no content was published to the site until some time between June 2001 and January 2002). Maybe Hotpress.ie was around a bit longer? Once again Archive.org comes to the rescue, with confirmation that Hot Press' .ie incarnation only began leaving a trail on the web from Februrary 2001 onwards.

What about U2.com? Surely those innovative, technophiles (or something like that) were doing their thang on the web early on? Well, er, no actually. Their website didn't go live until some time in August 2000, giving CLUAS a 15 month headstart on everyone's favourite Croke Park regulars.

So, CLUAS.com? The longest established Irish music site on the web? Yeah?


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Posted in: Blogs, Promenade
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25

APTBSHaving just signed a deal with Mute Records (Depeche Mode, Goldfrapp), Brooklyn band A Place to Bury Strangers are bringing their wall of sound to Whelan's on March 31. 

Best described as ear-bleedingly loud and beautifully bleak, A Place To Bury Strangers have been called 'the loudest band in New York.'  Quite a compliment and Key Notes is giving you a chance to find out for yourself. 

Thanks to Forever Presents, Key Notes has two double passes to give away.  To win this prize, all you have to do is email keynotes[at]cluas[dot]com with A Place To Bury Strangers in the subject line.  Two winners will then be chosen at random.  As usual with these competitions, Key Notes' decision is final.  All entries must be received by Midnight on Sunday, March 29.

A Place To Bury StrangersTo Fix The Gash In Your Head


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25
In the National Gallery in Dublin, up the right hand stairs from the Shaw Room all the way to the top floor, in the same space as the Monet and Picasso, there used to be a painting by a relatively unknown French artist called Jean-François Raffaelli. The painting was of the Pont Alexandre III, the bridge across the Seine in Paris that connects the glass-roofed Grand Palais exhibition hall to the gold-domed Hôtel des Invalides where Napoléon’s remains are housed.
 
Pont Alexandre III in ParisThe Pont Alexandre III (right), named for the Tsar to commemorate the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1892, features four extravagant gold-leaf statues of winged horses on columns at each corner. Raffaelli’s painting shows them as fauviste blobs of gold above the blurred red and blue dots of passers-by below.
 
The rest of the bridge is impressive too: wrought iron figures, Art Nouveau lamps, imposing stonemasonry and a few more splashes of gold leaf. The Pont Neuf may be the most celebrated and historic bridge in Paris but the Pont Alexandre III is the most ornate and spectacular.
 
Tucked inside the dry arch under the Grand Palais side of the bridge, location for the night-time arms-dealing scene in 1998 action film ‘Ronin’, is one of the hippest music clubs in Paris. It’s called Showcase. In the same way that converted wine cellars make great concert venues (Dublin music fans can think of the downstairs room of the Isaac Butt across from Busáras, if it still exists) the low concave stone ceiling of Showcase creates an intense clubbing experience. The club is generally associated with the trendier Paris electronica and house DJs, but is often rented for corporate functions and promotional concerts. For instance, last September Iggy Pop performed there in a show to mark the centenary of Converse sneakers.
 
Inside the Showcase under the Pont Alexandre IIIUnlike other Paris music clubs and bars facing noise restrictions and complaints, Showcase doesn’t have too many neighbours. There’s the man who sleeps under the next bridge downriver, and houseboat residents upstream who should by now be used to the roar of quayside traffic and tourist cruises. In fact, it’s on a quiet route where your correspondent goes running.
 
Back in Éire, before the days of running along the Seine, your then Dublin-based correspondent would go to the National Gallery and sit in front of Raffaelli’s painting of the Pont Alexandre III. There, we would think about our plans for The Great Leap Forward, i.e. the move to Paris, and wonder if we would ever get there. (As if it were the far side of the Moon or something. In the end it was quite easy.)
 
It seems that we weren’t the only ones dreaming about Paris and that golden bridge. One of 2008’s unfairly-neglected albums was the eponymous debut by English dancefloor-poppers Friendly Fires. The record’s best track is ‘Paris’, where singer Ed McFarlane dreams of moving to the French capital with a friend.
 
And where does he find the glamour and excitement of Parisian nightlife? Why, under the Pont Alexandre III: “I’m gonna take you out to Club Showcase / We’re gonna live it up / I promise.” The lyrics name no other landmark of Paris: just this nightclub. And the song is exactly the sort of dreamy, adrenaline-rushing track to get the Showcase buzzing on a Saturday night.
 
Raffaelli’s painting of the Pont Alexandre III wasn’t on display last time we visited the National Gallery in Dublin. But the bridge is still here in Paris, with its nightclub underneath. And here are Friendly Fires with ‘Paris’:
 

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24
Dark Room Notes 'We Love You Dark Matter'
A review of the album We Love You Dark Matter by Dark Room Notes Review Snapshot: An album that proves there's more to electro-indie than silly stage antics and dodgy dress sense, We...

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23
Hooray for Humans
Hooray for Humans have been on the Irish scene for over two years and have just come back from playing a gig in Canada. Niamh Madden catches up with the four-piece and asks them about albums, Cork ban...

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22

Mogwai

Mogwai (live in The Academy, Dublin)

Review Snapshot: A long overdue Dublin gig by the purveyors of post-rock brings The Academy to never-before reached sonic levels on the opening night of a 3-day residency at the Dublin venue. The Hawk is Howling might disappoint in its recorded format, but it was the focal point around which this gig rocked.

The Cluas Verdict? 8 out of 10

Full Review:
The term "post-rock" has attached to it Celtic Tiger levels of stigma - who coined the phrase, who invented it, who pioneered it, who defines it? From Slint to Explosions In The Sky, there have been many life-altering post-rock moments but for me post-rock was born upon hearing Mogwai's 'Like Herod' at Witnness 2003. Its raucous and tense "bridge-chorus" section completely outshone the quiet-then-loud formula of bands I worshipped like The Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana. As much as Mogwai might dislike being pigeonholed by an umbrella term, their live show does put them head and shoulders above whatever people may consider their contemporaries in the spectrum of instrumental rock.

Although never quite reaching their characteristic earplug-essential levels of loudness in this intimate club gig, the set-closing rock-out of 'Like Herod' and 'Batcat' - along with an intense feed of strobe lighting - was awesome. Leaving the stage before 10pm, there was a palpable sense of anti-climax amongst the crowd. They needn't have worried. Returning with an encore consisting solely of the 20 minute-plus epic 'My Father My King', it was the closest thing to metaphysical I had encountered since being told to use the term on the Yeats' question in the Leaving Cert. Centred around one brief arabic-esque melody, the track is somehow kept alive with intricate riff variations and in particular the crunching guitar of Stuart Braithwaite. This is all sounds very Spinal Tap - especially since the volume was turned up to eleven - but it works. Well worth checking out the Steve Albini-produced EP that brought this track to life.

'Scotland's Shame' aside, this reviewer was not overjoyed with Mogwai's latest offering The Hawk Is Howling. However the layered crescendo of 'I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead' and Barry Burns' eerie keyboard tinkering on 'Thank You Space Experts' did give the album a new breath of life in its live format. Burns himself induced the biggest headf**k of the evening with some indistinguishable-yet-haunting vocoder acappella at the end of 'Hunted By A Freak'. I'm going to park this review now, Mogwai's is not a medium to which words can do justice. In a dream world, these guys would be filling stadiums in their own right but until then lets hope they play the Electric Picnic.

Ronan Lawlor


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Nuggets from our archive

2000 - 'Rock Criticism: Getting it Right', written by Mark Godfrey. A thought provoking reflection on the art of rock criticism.