Palm Rose – Daydreams EP
There is already quite a murmur going around the local scene about Palm Rose, and if you have been lucky enough to catch them live already you will understand why. If you have missed this pleasure so far, then catch up with their debut EP, as it is a superb piece of woozy dream pop, loaded with pulsating rhythms, soaring melodies and some quality song writing. In fact, all the musical ingredients of classic Oxford musical output are in place including judicious use of synths and keys, driving bass, clean guitars and breathy vocals plus strong dynamic awareness with considered use of silence. Except, these guys are from Swindon. How has that happened?
Happen it has though, and Palm Rose remind me of some of my favourite Oxford artists of the last 5 years. I expect to see them wear a furrow in the A420 before long.
Will Lawton & Weasel Howlett – Fossils of the Mind
Wiltshire duo Will and Weasel have conjured up something unique with this debut album. Starting with a spoken word piece borrowed from the ever-eloquent Robin Ince that has been set to a rolling piano piece and drum and bass groove is a strange but wonderful false start. It is with track 2, Hope, that you start to get a better idea of what the guys are all about – piano driven folky Americana with an interesting anthemic pop edge and stabs of urban beats. Perhaps this is what Tom O’Dell fronting Wilco would sound like if produced by Roni Size?
Regardless of how chaotic this sounds, it works. I mean it really works. This is refreshing, fascinating and exciting and a project I am going to be keeping a very close eye on to see how it develops. I suggest you do the same.
Master of None – Master of None
This debut solo release from Little Red’s Ian Mitchell is not what you expect musically. However, it does confirm where the darkness in the song writing of his main band originates from, for this is a very dark and nasty little record indeed – the self-claimed influence of Nick Cave and Tom Waits is indeed writ large all over it.
As well as being loaded with shadowy lyrics and themes, there is a serious schizophrenia going on, as the music careers wildly between musical and vocal styles, from soft ballads to raging rants, electro pop to irish jigs. If you listen closely, you can even hear the kitchen sink. However, there is a twisted coherency to it all, an ongoing thread of fucked up-ness for want of a better phrase, that gives it an almost coherent narrative, albeit one dredged up from the bottom of a particularly murky lake of liquid LSD. It is a narrative that deals explicitly with alcoholism, substance abuse, sex, debt, death and mental illness by framing it with some deliciously lo-fi, eclectic, erratic noise in a serious assault on your soul.
As Ian himself has stated, this was written and recorded “to challenge the listener from the ground up. No brief. No limits. No restrictions. No apologies.” It is not for the faint of heart, that is for sure.
The Unwise Monkey 