James Yorkston’s new single Tortoise Regrets Hare is to be released on December the 8th following the release of his album ‘When The Haar Rolls In’ and a full UK tour. It is available on 7” and digital download through Domino Records.
Tortoise Regrets Hare is a fleshed out acoustic ballad, a track that bubbles along at a gentle pace with Yorkston’s lilting Scottish voice rolling out quick-fire lyrics before melting into drawn out harmonies of ‘Hold on’ with his female accompanier Nancy Elizabeth.
James Yorkston produces some lovely turns of phrase at times, which rise their head out of the stream of fast delivery: ‘I sleep with your songs running up my arms and curling around and keeping me warm, though the chorus’ lyrics, like the title of this track, are not quite clear enough to avoid them sounding a little stilted.
Tortoise Regrets Hare is aided in its delivery by violin, keyboards and bass which James Yorkston has incorporated very nicely into his acoustic guitar part. It is a song about lack of self-trust, past unrealised loves, and the inalterability of what has happened, because it was always going to happen. It is a song of deceptive fresh hope, resignation and regrets. It is a fantastically emotional, poetic, lyrical folk song.
James Yorkston is currently on tour with Pictish Trail and Rozi Plain, both from the Fence Collective (the assembly of musicians from Fife which also includes King Creosote, who does cover of Tortoise Regrets Hare for the B-side of the single).
James Yorkston plays most of his dates solo, but will join up with his band the Athletes in London along with some legendary English folk names – Norma and Mike Waterson, Marry Gilhooly and Olly Knight for the final night of the tour, which will also include a special acoustic set from Malcom Middleton (formerly of Arab Strap).
November 24th – Swindon Vic
November 25th – Derby Royal
November 26th – Newcastle Sage
November 27th – Aberdeen Camelite Hotel
November 29th – Glasgow Stereo
December 11th – London St Giles Church
‘Time ain’t gonna cure you honey, time don’t give a shit’ sings Alison Mosshart on the new single Tape Song by The Kills, released on the 24th of November. The bitter rock song is back, and The Kills are doing it in their dirty, sexy way.
Taken from The Kills‘ third album (Midnight Boom) released back in March, Tape Song features Mosshart’s American vocals over British guitarist Jamie Hince’s spurting guitars.
Mosshart’s voice is double layered and breathy in the verse (almost like Madonna) whilst it cracks in the more wild chorus (more like Duke Spirit’s Leila Moss). Hince’s guitars, meanwhile, are sparse and the bass simple, before becoming Franz Ferdinand-esque in the chorus.
All of this is set over laptop drums, which finally break out into resonating snares as the other instruments explode.
The contrast in The Kills‘ Tape Song is fascinating, yet even more interesting is the way that despite the burgeoning expression that the chorus promises, the mechanical drums and vocals never fully disappear, and always appear to be repressing full out emotion.
This all creates a resignation, echoed in Mosshart’s insightful lyrics and her poetic way of playing around with her own phrases - ‘Tape ain’t gonna fix it honey, it ain’t gonna stick’.
Tape Song is backed by London Hates You, where the lyrics are less insightful, but where another, softer side of The Kills is shown, with the strong influence of The Velvet Underground becoming apparent.
Visit their MySpace. Tape Song is released on Domino Records on 7″ and digital download.
Clinic, the Liverpudlian band who have for a long time been valiantly plugging away somewhere between the underground and the mainstream returned back in April with their new album ‘Do It!’. Clinic’s latest single from that album, “Tomorrow” is released on the 24th of November.
The single is released to coincide with the start of their new tour ‘Planetarium of the Soul’, Clinic’s collaboration with the animator Clemens Habicht to create stunning live shows.
Clinic are well known for their slightly quirky songs, that are not unlike fellow Domino labelmates Archie Bronson Outfit. They are stomping, off-kilter songs based around repetitions, vintage keyboards and strong pedal drum.
‘Tomorrow’ is precisely this. The beginning sounds like guitars being detuned and this loose-stringed sound and warping tonality continues throughout. Clinic make use of basic chord backings that are more about the throbbing rhythm than the complexity of guitars. In fact, it is really the repetition of the chords, rhythm, lyrics and tune that is the make-up of ‘Tomorrow‘.
Yet Clinic are completely hypnotising. The bitter snarl of the vocals that nasally reiterate the sentiment of doing things ‘before tomorrow comes’ is compellingly cool and, sounding like a stuck Pavement record, it has a typically laissez-faire air about it.
The B-sides are a trademark DFA remix and a brand new song called ‘Hijack’. Visit Clinic’s MySpace.
‘Tomorrow‘ is accompanied by a video by Wiz:
These are the full live dates:
18 Nov: Deaf Institute Manchester
19 Nov: The Arches Glasgow
20 Nov: Factory Club Birmingham
22 Nov: The Brudenell Social Club Leeds
23 Nov: The Scala London, London
The Boat That Rocked is a new film written and directed by Richard Curtis
The Boat That Rocked is a new film written and directed by Richard Curtis of Four Weddings & A Funeral & Black Adder fame.
The film includes a great ensemble cast including Nick Frost, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, the wonderful Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Gemma Arterton.
The Boat That Rocked is an ensemble comedy in which the romance takes place between the young people of the ’60s and pop music.
It’s about a band of rogue DJs that captivated Britain, playing the music that defined a generation and standing up to a government that, incomprehensibly, preferred jazz.
The Boat That Rocked - Synopsis
In 1966, arguably British pop music’s finest era, the BBC played only two hours of rock and roll every week. But pirate radio blasted rock and pop from the high seas 24 hours a day. And 25 million people, more than half the population of Britain, listened to these pirates every single day.
The Boat That Rocked is an ensemble comedy in which the romance takes place between the young people of the ’60s and pop music. It’s about a band of rogue DJs that captivated Britain, playing the music that defined a generation and standing up to a government that, incomprehensibly, preferred jazz.
The Boat That Rocked looks set to be one a big British comedy next year. The film also stars Kenneth Branagh, Tom Sturridge, Jack Davenport, Ralph Brown, Chris O’Dowd and January Jones.
The Boat That Rocked will be released in UK cinemas on 29th April, 2009.
The Black Angels will cap off their incredible year in style with their new single Doves released on December 8th and an accompanying autumn tour.
Doves shows The Black Angels as a band who since their sophomore album ‘Directions to See a Ghost’, released in May, have hypnotised and mesmerised their fans with their invented genre ‘Native American drone ‘n’ roll’.
The Black Angels hail from Austin, Texas, and although their name may well evoke images of heavy-metal scream-rockers, this is not at all the case, with the band instead creating drone-based psychedelic rock experimentations.
Doves is very much in this style, though remains tuneful, the reverb on the drums and the quietness of the vocals in the mix gives them a distant sound that locks in your subconscious and plays, by means of the psychedelic influences, on dark and obsessive, and light and floating parts of the emotions.
The pounding drums and relentless, frayed guitars behind which the mantra-like voice of lead singer Alex Maas sings his drawn out words place this song in a similar style to The Velvet Underground & Nico (after a song of whom The Black Angels named themselves) or The Jesus and Mary Chain, or even, less distinctly A Storm in Heaven era Verve, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and even an American Teenage Fanclub.
In any case, Doves is a fantastic single from a great band for which it is well worth the expenditure of your finest English pennies. Take a listen to them on their MySpace.
