MANIFESTO - SEE YOU MATE (YEAH, SEE YOU MATE) ISSUE 1 A spectre, one unquantifiable, haunts The Big Smoke’s ungentrified South. Wherest the Underground becomes more difficult to come by, such a force is festering and swirling. Beginning with a few fragmented phrases blotchily inked upon parchment, this phantom power has developed into an actualised force. We call this spectre SEE YOU MATE (YEAH, SEE YOU MATE), and within these pages its divine righteousness will voiced, and eternally enshrined in the paper you hold in your very hands. These pages are an actualisation of such a force, and showcase the tilted ideology in A5. We can boil this ideology into a set of core values. First and foremost, we arrive at this juncture in popular music’s trajectory where a self-congratulatory history is mansplained over and over. We aim to rewrite this, little by little. Scribbling over the history books’ yellowing print in red and yellow crayola. However, the biggest problem with guitar music is this obsession with the past, and to focus on things previous would make us part of the problem, not the solution we are so desperate to be. Operating out of our SW20 lair, we aim to shed light on the boldest and bravest guitar music in the world today. Wholly aware that music made on guitars is no longer the prevailing art form for new ideas, these pages are aim to operate as a functional defence against the naysayers that think guitar music is no longer a cultural asset. Covering the most exciting new phenomena in guitar music, we covet guttersnipe rock ’n’ rollers and outsider balladeers, and provide a platform for those brave troubadours that go against the post-Strokes prozac rock. We salute the post-absurdists, the space cowboys, the London rancheros, the magickal practitioners, and all the other artists fighting the good fight. We aim to collect these within the pages of our magazine, and showcase the creme de la creme of the best music from the capitol (and beyond). SEE YOU MATE (YEAH, SEE YOU MATE) wishes to blast mediocrity! Blast 60-word-premiere-post journalism! Blast magazines full of airbrushed photos of smug ‘n’ smiling middle class white lads! Blast safety first! And bless all that can be deemed the antidote. Within our pages we wish to present some of the greats, those whose genius has not yet been sung, and to put it in a perfectly designed package. This is the first step of a lengthy adventure for SEE YOU MATE (YEAH, SEE YOU MATE) and we hope you shall tread the long road with us.
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Table of Contents 6 - The SEE YOU MATE jukebox 10 - “Into the Groove” - a short story of spectres and spooks 16 - Rewriting history... - an ode to The B-52’s 20 - Warmduscher - Welcome to Whale City 24 - Go Chi Minh - Enter the realm of the postabsurd 28 - Peeping Drexels - Down and dirty with the filthiest 32 - Honkies - We meet the capital’s premier synthesiser-driven honky-tonk group 36 - Madonnatron - Inside South London’s most musical coven 40 - Ye Nuns - it’s beat time... it’s hop time... it’s NUN TIME 44 - Goat Girl - our cover feature delves into the murky underbelly of 2018’s finest debut album 51 - The reviews section 66 - The SEE YOU MATE gig list FRONT COVER PHOTO CREDIT: HOLLY WHITAKER
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Now playing on the SEE YOU MATE jukebox...
PICK OF THE PILE
Throughout this magazine, you’ll find recommendations and insights into whole records. Generally, a full length record is the most satisfying way to consume music. However, as I’m sure you’re all aware, it takes time to sit down and listen to an album, and sometimes all you need is a shot of the ethedra you crave, not a pint. Here are SEE YOU MATE (YEAH, SEE YOU MATE)’s pick of the singles that have piqued our interest over the last 3 months.
The Guest - Theme From Failure pt.1
“I bitched about every group in South London… I’m sorry, Sorry!” The bedroom project of Isaac Wood is without doubt the best thing I’ve ever accidentally stumbled across on SoundCloud. A perfect 5 minute organ led allegory of self doubt and pulling yourself back from life’s pitfalls, this brought a lump to my throat, a tear to my eye, and laughter to my increasingly large belly. For those times when you want to ‘throw out [your] two in one and buy separate shampoo and conditioner” to restore the tiniest bit of sanity to your meaningless life.
Jellyskin - Judder
Jellyskin are a Leeds-based duo that seemingly have a radically different sound on each single. See this as testament to their versatility, not a lack of identity, though, as this urbane number proves. A downbeat track with a brutalist digital groove and deadpan vocals, this sounds like walking home late at night, with your path illuminated only by fading neon shop signs. For fans of all things industrial and all things bleak.
Madonnatron - Mermaids
Where to start with Madonnatron’s new single Mermaids? This group made my favourite album of 2017, and this is probably better than everything on it. So where do we start? Where? The Morricone swagger of the sweltering guitar licks? The haunting “ah-ah-ah-ahhh” backing vocals? Let’s not even bother starting, let’s just all listen to this and admire. Of course you can read more on this song later this issue if you think this is a bit of a cop-out of a single review.
Jimothy Lacoste - Subway System
It’s reductive, barbaric even, to cast aside the zeitgeist ready tunes of 18 year old bedroom producer Jimothy Lacoste for simply being ready to squeeze into an internet meme. Subway System is 6
– forgive the cliches – his biggest tune to date, and with any luck he could be Britain’s biggest pop sensation in a couple of months. Gorgeous 80s synth motifs and his deadpan delivery are just so charming, and the declaration of The Northern Line, the best tube line, as “a peng little line that goes all the way to Morden” is the cherry atop the Danish.
Lice - Stammering Bill
No one fights the good fight like Lice. The Bristol art-punx are armed with a frontman whose slurred vocal delivery echoes Mark E. Smith at his most literatre, but don’t be fooled; this group are far from yer average Fall-lite garage rockers; the guitarist, bassist and drummers are demonic, they hammer through tetchy, sleazy hardcore abandon underneath Alastair Shuttleworth’s depraved vocal delivery. Lice are simply fantastic, and this gem proves thus. This was the first taster of their almighty ‘early years’ double EP comp It All Worked Out Great vol. 1 & 2, which will undoubtedly receive a blitzing write up in issue 2.
Honey Gentry - Heaven, California
Honey Gentry is a London based dream-pop artist that combines the erotic despair of Leonard Cohen with the instantaneous dreamworlds of Mazzy Star. Noodling guitars hum like divine chariots, and as Honey Gentry’s syrupy vocals intertwine beautifully. Very much in time for Summer, this is a tale of tragedy and beauty.
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Snapped Ankles - CIA Man (NSA Man Violation)
“Having unearthed The Fugs’ CIA Man some years before, we were shocked to discover a newer, more sinister agency had taken over from the diatribe’s protagonist, so we updated Tuli Kupferberg’s list of ills…” An update of a classic for recent times, strutting, stuttering disco beats meet deadpan vocal delivery to tap into that bit of us that puts tape over our laptop camera. Sounding one part DEVO, one part Residents, and one part The Unutterable, this a bombastic charge that for once, sees outand-out protest music as an enjoyable and rewarding listen.
Hotel Lux - Daddy
A slow waltzing stomper from the London-via-Pompey five-piece, Hotel Lux’s Daddy is a twisted pop crime of the highest order. Whilst the malevolence and marauding force that this band becomes when stood on the stage cannot be ignored, on this new single the band’s darkness is actualised through a slow stalking riff, breathy backing vocals, and Lewis Duffin’s distinctive bark, that only really becomes rabid during the outro.
Haze - Ladz Ladz Ladz
Haze’s debut single is a charming foray into kooky, angular post-punk that’s campy as it is agressive. A searing parody of lad culture, it’s playful, dynamic and above all, fun. The Oxford band are definitely ones to watch out for.
Jockstrap - Charlotte
Jockstrap’s music exists in a vacuum, a place far from everything we hold dear and everything we deem familiar. Electronic textures that remain unstable for the track’s duration tilt and scratch, while Georgia Ellery’s shrill lullabies protrude through mires of vocal manipulation to be ultimately one of the most affecting pieces of music this year.
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“INTO THE GROOVE” ______________________________ c_______
In each issue, we aim to provide more than just interviews and reviews: we want to bring you hot-off-the-press fiction too. For SEE YOU MATE(YEAH, SEE YOU MATE) issue 001, we bring you a short tale that has rested on our conscience for three decades... Hughes was the man that opened Into The Groove at opening time and closed Into The Groove at closing time. Worthless scoundrel busybody oaf, the man had a crooked nose and his eyes were muddied by the duplicity that had characterised his life. He caught a big red London bus, the number of which I cannot remember, from his sleepy suburban house to the sleepier suburb which his record shop inhabited. That is not to say that Into The Groove was owned by Hughes, but he was, after all, the manager. The owner remained a fairly anonymous philanthropist known only to Hughes and a select number of individual record distributors. Nothing is known about him by me, but I can confirm only that I’ve heard whispers and stories that he is indeed a very powerful man. Not a man to double cross. The version of Hughes presented to the public was thus; the trustworthy, yet tilted individual that ran Into The Groove. Always friendly to the greying, Afghan-coated prog enthusiasts after Camel and Colosseum rarities, always stand-offish to youths like myself that frequently asked the tool for the new records with crude names (among my requests “Big Black Songs About Fucking”, “anything by The Butthole Surfers”, “the first Killdozer LP”). What I know now though, as recounted to me by an inquesting officer is thus; Hughes’ public persona was a sham, a phony. For every prog rock cuck he helped out, a record he would take. Every record which he would take he would put into his brown satchel, and sell for a greater profit at the Covent Garden Sunday record fair. The only honesty the middle aged goblin ever showed was in the resentment with which he garnered towards the youth who’d be better serviced by a record shop that sold new releases. 11
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Crooked businessmen are no new thing, but it is rare that one gets such due comeuppance as Hughes. It was Saturday, some time in May, 1986. Into The Groove closed up with its metallic sheath shutter, 6pm. As per. Clink, clink. Hughes said his ta-tas to the final Pink Floyd orcs, and Into The Groove closed for another Sunday. Behind the scenes though, the slanted business with which Hughes really made his money was only getting started for the busy Sabbath Day that lay ahead. In a backroom surrounded by walls of vinyl discs, his trusty brown satchel was being loaded up with pristine records, paid for by the unsuspecting owner. What a fool that owner must be! Hughes’ grubby hobgoblin hands slickly piled the records into his bag. What was there? I don’t know; but one can imagine Amon Duul II’s Yeti, Goblin, the Colosseum record with the pink lady on, plentiful Henry Cow, discs and discs of Atomic Rooster, a Gargantuana seven inch, ‘The Floyd’ rare pressings, the first Void Grossman LP on red vinyl, and a gatefold Sergeant Pepper’s being grouped together in slimy harmony. One item I do know was placed in amongst this motley crew is a tattered and torn copy of Blue Train by John Coltrane. Worthless, no? The record was scratched like the walls of a holding cell, fissures deeply embellished in the disc. But, Hughes remarked, the blue-toned image of John was winking on the cover, a devilish one-eye squint as opposed to the usual stony faced jazz man stare that usually adorns the front of these discs. Hughes hated jazz, he called it ‘Degenerate Music’ to my face once. What music he liked? I don’t know. He often feigned an interest in prog in the company of loyal customers, that’s true, but this was because, despite his oafishness, he was aware that by pretending to have the same interests as these people he could instill instant trust and immediate rapport. In actuality, he cared very little for all music, it was just a commodity like blockbuster films or Wimpy Burgers. On that fateful Springtime evening; not too hot, not too cold, as Hughes remarked, leaving in an ill-fitting suit with all the buttons on the blazer undone. Carrying his now weighty satchel, he strutted down to the pub on the corner, rewarding a hard day’s work with a nice cool pint of mead. He drank his mead in solitude, for he had no real friends in this area. None of the Into The Groove regulars drank here, for it was a football pub and the types that frequented the record shop on the regular didn’t care much for football. In truth, neither did Hughes, but if there was one thing he loved more than his blood money it was the drink. Often, he’d stay at this pub til around close, or more specifically til 10:47, the latest time he could feasibly
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leave to get the last bus home. On this particular night, though, he drank faster than usual. A particularly good haul would surely make Sunday extra special. After Hughes’ third pint, he retreated to the bathroom, to defecate. As he sat, khaki keks down, he noticed the sonic squalls of a saxophone - no - a jazz band not so far away. Interesting, he thought. They never play music in this pub, and the building itself isn’t affixed to anything. On being subjected to this for the duration of his toilet break, Hughes got increasingly irate. For one, he struggled to make his bowel movement. For another, this uncultured weapon of a man hated jazz. Unable to properly make use of his bathroom break, he returned to the bar, where all was quiet sans the din of conversation and the clinking of glasses. The jazz vanished and his good temperament was restored. He continued to drink like the bottom feeder he was. Drink like the man-minnow he had been his entire life. He checked the time; quarter to eleven. Rats! If he were to make the last bus, he’d have to wolf down the pint of ale that was left in front of him and run. Hughes was not a man to run down high roads. And besides that, he was finally ready to make that bowel movement he’d struggled over earlier. Dropped trousers at eleven to eleven, Hughes tensed his stomach muscles. Whilst the defecating did go to plan, the imp man couldn’t help but be struck by a wave of uncanny malaise as the thick tones of a saxophone yet again filled the room with some cold, hard bebop. The temperature dropped noticeably, and Hughes felt much more uncomfortable than before, despite the fact he managed to excrete. He wiped, pulled up his trousers, and walked briskly away from the bathroom with his belt still undone. Once more, the jazz that Hughes heard in the bathroom subsided as he pranced back to the bar. However, the dysphoric effects of hearing this liminal noise in the loos had taken its toll on Hughes, who still couldn’t deduce where the noise was emanating from. He paced out of the pub, not thanking the barman for his hours of service. However, I imagine that this is nothing new. He certainly wasn’t the type to thank bus drivers after all. Because he missed the last bus, Hughes would have to walk 15 minutes to the tube, ride the District line two stops, and walk 20 minutes home. Maybe he could get a cab from the tube station to his house, but a man on a shop manager salary certainly couldn’t afford to get taxis willy nilly. As he walked down the 13
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high road, Hughes was alone. The streets were deserted. Barren. Uncanny as it may be, every single house with lit up windows seemed to have the same lurid saxophone music emanating from them. Curious, Hughes thought, but of course it could be his own limited imagination playing tricks on him. He ignored it, and marched on, until he was at the tube stop. He strolled through the foyer feeling the comfort that he would soon leave the Borough in which he worked, and trade it for the home comforts of his homestead. However, in more than one way, his first step onto the escalator was a significant step in his descent. The whirring of the escalator was immediately drowned out by a deep belly laugh that seemed to be from the platform below. Once the laughing stopped, yet another extravagant saxophone line whistled through the narrow tunnels of the station. Must be a busker, thought Hughes, although he’s seemingly got an audience of one. And that audience of one, I must reiterate, is one that hates jazz. Upon reaching the platform, Hughes was confused to find that the sound of brass was not only still present, but louder on the platform despite the fact he was completely alone on it. Not a busker in sight. Surprisingly alone, in fact, for you’d think even at this time there’d still be some people at the tube station. Hughes remained stationary for a number of minutes, before it dawned on him. Would a tube even come? Hughes admitted to himself, he didn’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of when the last tube left. Not only that, but couldn’t think straight with all of the music continually sounding from seemingly nowhere. It was starting to really get under his skin, starting to make him feel like he was not well at all. As he started to walk over to the timetable, he couldn’t wish for anything other than for this continual racket to stop. Just as Hughes got to the timetable, he heard shrieks seemingly coming from deep within the tunnel from which the train would normally appear from. Spectral and shrill, it could have only belonged to a young woman or a child in grave danger. Despite all the foul words I have spoken of the oaf’s character, he certainly wasn’t awful enough to stand by whilst horror ensued down the way. He dropped his satchel to the the floor, and started to ease his wiry body onto the ground beneath the tracks. The screaming continued as he tiptoed into the abyss. Once his whole body
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had entered the tunnel, the yellow lighting of the platform seemed like a distant memory as he was consumed by the relentless black of the passage. “Is there anybody there?” Hughes called out. No answer. He looked back at the platform. Time to go back perhaps. Was this all in his head? That scream couldn’t have come from nowhere. He started to make his way back to the platform, before the shrieking ensued again. At first Hughes ignored it. But it continued, the volume seemingly increasing by the second. Hughes tried not to flinch, but human instinct gave in. He turned his shrivelled pea head around, expecting to see yet more oblique darkness. Instead his line of vision was subsumed immediately by the headlights of the delayed last tube, metres from his face travelling at a speed that indicated it wouldn’t be stopping at the station. As the tube ploughed straight through his weedy body, he saw, if only for a fleeting second, the ghoulish outline of a figure glowing a dulled grey. Yes, Hughes had only fractions of a section to see him stood on a service ladder. But so clearly could he make out that the figure’s face was obscured by a dusty tenor saxophone. It took days for Scotland Yard to find Hughes’ remains, but on Sunday the morning risers were greeted by a satchel of vinyl records, the most notable of course being a tattered and beaten version of John Coltrane’s Blue Train, on which the band leader was finally grinning.
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Particularly at the turn of the century, Joy Division have historically been one of the biggest influences on guitar music. However, in Athens, Georgia, another band more subversive, more bizarre, and above all, a lot more fun were crafting a criminally overlooked legacy for themselves. The start of the noughties ushered in some of the most loathsome and tiresome music ever to garner critical acclaim; The Interpol, The White Lies, The National, The Editors. You know The Ones. This genre known informally as ‘bad music’ but formally as ‘the post-punk revival’ somehow captured the lazy imaginations of music writers and fans alike worldwide. These greyscale men with their greyscale music played a big part in soundtracking the decade, doing so armed with a record collection that only had one record in it: Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division.
post-punk and new wave groups were as influential as Joy Div. The B-52’s, DEVO, Pere Ubu, The Contortions. People of bands! To keep the sanity of all of us in tact, rip these off instead! After all, guitar music is often criticised for drawing from its own past too much; in actuality, musicians of all genres do this, they just rip things off that are a bit more left-field than Love Will Tear Us Apart. Over the past couple of years, I’ve had a fascination with The B-52’s that’s bordered on obsession. The first two records of the quartet are bombastic documents that highlight not just how great the music being made in the late seventies and early eighties, but just how weird, fun and bizarre it was. Whilst their aesthetic might have been routed in the retro-chic of the 50s, their outlook was geared towards the future. After all, the group were one of the first, if not the first, openly queer guitar groups to find success.
However, it’s strange that these so-called revivalist post-punkers seem to only rip off Joy Division (with intentional smatterings of PiL and unintentional sputterings of U2) when the post-punk era threw up so much of the most interesting, forward-thinking and downright wacky music ever to grace this wretched planet. Dear friends, I want to invite every inch of your hollow beings into a world where other 17
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The B-52’s, the self-titled album of the Athens, Georgia new wave combo remains one of the most perennially under-appreciated records of the era. Coming out the same year as Unknown Pleasures, yes, but being the polar opposite; some might debate whether it can be termed ‘post-punk’, but this manifestation of surf, punk, funk and pop music is definitely in that ballpark. Whilst the group are often remembered first and foremost for Rock Lobster, don’t let that put you off. Reappraise that song; play it loud through the biggest speakers you have in proximity.
you listen to bands like Joy Division, the grayscale realm in which was created - rainy late 70s Manchester - sounds utterly tangible… when you listen to the first two B-52’s songs, they seem to create an absurdist psychotropic universe that feels every bit as real and tactile as your own. From the popping twin backing vocals that zip Private Idaho along to the bleeping sonar of Planet Claire, very few bands have the character of this group. Get led on a surfin’ safari thru the jungle, under the sea, and outta this universe altogether. Now, just for the rest of this article, a moment, a minute, imagine a world where The B-52’s’ creative streak was embraced by all the guitar bands that now earn their living ripping off Joy Division.
In spite of its infectious wackiness, the silliness of the song is juxtaposed by an instantly perfect bassline rumble and absolute world beater of a guitar line. The last two minutes of Rock Lobster sound like Gang of Four in a quaalude-induced frenzy; a thrashing, scratchy, highly technical, angular guitar meltdown that leads you by the hand on a glorious nautical adventure; and who doesn’t want that?
In place of The Interpol’s and The Strokes’ dulcet depictions of noughties New York, the noughties could be soundtracked by a wave of otherworldly freaks and weirdos that used their obsession with the past for the powers of good, not evil. Full-on buffonts replacing those quiffs that the The Bands have, velvet replacing leather, and suits of every colour could light up the pages of magazines.
To write The B-52’s off as a one-song novelty group would be beyond the pale, however. The camp, kitsch and colourful aesthetic that is thoroughly theirs is definitely fun and party-ready; but beneath the absurdity is a revolutionary group that created a world entirely their own, which never felt forced or insincere. When
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Post-Devo freaklords Macula Dog, or the raging surrealists Guerilla Toss would be heralded, bands with strange ideas and stranger aesthetics would be on Top of the Pops. Self importance replaced by abandonment, endless self philosophising gone and displaced by something much more fun and wholesome. In an ideal world, wherein The B-52’s are hailed as the subversive, influential and powerful force they should be, perhaps indie rock wouldn’t be thought of as the testosterone-soaked wasteland it is.
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Gearing up for the release to the follow up to 2015’s under the radar classic ‘Khaki Tears’, we talk ‘Whale City’ with garage-scronk madcaps Warmduscher. There are very few powers as raw, uninhibited or ferocious as that possessed by Warmduscher. The quintet are the bastard lovechild of Clams Baker and The Witherer (Paranoid London), Lightnin’ Jack and The Saulcano (Fat White Family) and Mr Salt Fingers Lovecraft (Childhood). Whilst their sound falls firmly within the realms of boozy rock ‘n’ roll regression, the raw power comes from interlocking guitar licks that hit like forks of lighting and enigmatic lyrics that travel faster than the speed of light from the mouth of acid house cowboy Clams Baker. They prepare for the release of new album Whale City, a journey to a magical land far removed from our own. It’s difficult to describe exactly what Whale City itself is; a geographical place? A state of mind? A heady concept? Clams recalls thus: “Watch Fort Apache, The Bronx on acid, then pull your pants down and stand in front of a mirror while listening to Street Hassle or anything by Big Black or James Brown, and you’re there”. So in short, our trip to Whale City is far from an adventure we yet understand, but it is certainly we’ve all booked tickets for on the pre-sale. The long-player was recorded at the Speedy Wunderground studio in deepest darkest Streatham with Dan Carey and Alexis Taylor. “We recorded it with the only men crazy enough to do it,” says Baker, and it is certainly the case that no sane human being would take Warmduscher into the studio to record a whole album. “Now here’s where it gets fun,” Clams says. “When we actually recorded it, we hadn’t seen the Saulcano, or rehearsed with him at all. We knew we had three days to finish it so our balls were in our bellies”. But alas, these are seasoned musical shamen. Whale City was blitzed through in two days, with another day for overdubs. “We didn’t mess up much at all, and pretty much nailed it,” Clams says. “Most people don’t believe us when we tell them it took three days, but it’s true.” Testament to the brawn of Warmduscher, not only did the album take three days, but was also partly improvised, with I Got Friends being written on the spot, Baker cramming already written words atop a spontaneous space jam. 21
“Lightnin’, Saulcano, Salt Fingers, and The Witherer are top musicians and mad men,” Baker continues. “It’s easy for me and inspiring to work with them, I have the easy job really.” It’s difficult to disagree with the frontman. Quite inescapably, Warmduscher are a unit comprised of extremely talented musicians, who seemingly utilise Warmduscher as more fun, cathartic and almost light-hearted affair than their “main” bands. However, Whale City and the group’s live shows do speak for themselves, and speak for themselves loudly at that. Big Wilma dropped a couple of months back, and set out a manifesto for the group’s release. Far from a side-project, Warmduscher are a bloodthirsty band in their own right. And because for so long, they’ve existed as the members’ other projects reached relative fame, Warmduscher as a unit, a force, a superpower, are hungry for human flesh. The track itself is a full throttle garage-rocker that pushes a new heroine to the fore. “I’ve never really liked men too much,” Clams continues. “So Big Wilma is my version of a superhero. She’s the single mom holding it down, the hooker that doesn’t need a pimp. She’s the head honcho with a razor in her mouth and a smile in her eye. She’s all those wonderful things.” Perhaps this female empowerment is elusive on first listen, Clams’ blurting delivery being almost unintelligible, clarity can be added either with repeat listens (recommended) or the video (also recommended). The Big Wilma video stars Lightnin’ as a sleeper agent, hunting down Big Wilma for the CIA, before – as he told me in an interview for So Young Magazine a month or two ago – “slipping into a Colonel Kurtz type of madness shouting down dead telephone lines, and trying to steal strangers’ belongings in search of a secret dossier that doesn’t exist.” Elsewhere on the record is early single Sweet Smell of Florida, a wrangling bastardisation of garage rock with an incessant, r ecurring guitar riff and sleazy grunts of the most depraved nature, and 1,000 Whispers, a personal favourite of Clams. “It’s my own version of a throwback to all those overweight, pastel-suit wearing preachers, dripping with sweat,” he says. “Driving around in a lime green ‘77 Cadillac as they run away from neighbor’s husbands. Pure passion.” A passionate, intuitive, some-might-say-ritualistic affair, Warmduscher’s new album will put Whale City on the map. Whilst the music is much more fun than it is serious, it’s unquestionable that this proposition will give the group the recognition it deserves. Titans in the realm of phantomic rock ’n’ roll, it’s about time we welcome our new reptilian overlords.
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GO CHI MINH IN THEIR OWN GODFORSAKEN WORDS: Post-absurdist splurge, in language we can all understand... I went to university in Epsom for three years. The unassuming commuter town lies between Surrey and Greater London, and notably has no notable qualities. Whence I arrived, I could never have imagined such a prospect as Go Chi Minh were dormant and primed in the very same sleepy suburb. Truly on the periphery of London, but never quite there, we owe outliers Go Chi Minh an appraisal, and then a hot lovin’ spoonful of praise. Following two wonderful EPs, puzzlingly titled Do You Mind, If I Queue A Pizza? and A Lusty Taste For Noise, they recently unveiled latest single Freudian Strip, a cackling slice of garage rock snarl, with a twisted storyline to match. An utterly batshit five piece, they have the same gimmicky sense of humour as The Butthole Surfers, Beefheart and Negativland, and they possess a sound that mangles Country Teasers noodling junkabilly with the cosmic dandruff of Litmus or Hawkwind. Two stonking EPs out to date, Go Chi Minh are a wholly unique prospect whom we are all truly blessed to consign to the pages of SEE YOU MATE (YEAH, SEE YOU MATE). It would be churlish to try to explain the Minh to you anymore; instead, here is an insight to the tilted universe of Colonel Mustard (Vocals), Professor Spread (Drums), Madame Runt (Bass), Naughty Senorita (guitar) and Sister Gudjonsson (synth and guitar) in their own words. “LUSTY TASTE FOR NOISE” EP “It’s hard to talk about A Lusty Taste For Noise without mentioning our dearly beloved John Wayne. The EP title comes from a lyric in his song, An American Boy Grows Up (which also gets a nod in the track An English Boy Grows Up). It’s a beautiful tale about a Father watching his boy grow up to be a fine, wholesome man who defines the American dream, which each of us really relate to. I mean maybe we don’t have such a lusty taste for noise but rather a lusty taste for freedom.” – Naughty Senorita
ON THE NAME, AND WHAT HAPPENED IN ‘NAM:
“Go Chi Minh. I know what you’re thinking… great word play. It’s so cryptic, so witty, so Go Chi Minh. As you may know, The Minh have a penchant for all things history, and Vietnamese history is no exception. The Minh also love a bad boy and there’s no badder boy than Ho Chi Minh, the original prankster who pulled a fast one on Uncle Sam. All that was left was some of the Minh’s mighty wit, so the Runt pulled a fast one of his own and dubbed the band Go Chi Minh. The rest is history.” - Madame Runt
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THE FORMATION OF GO CHI MINH:
Naughty Señorita and I have sworn by for years – all of our tracks have been recorded on that so far. For Freudian, we ended up having to tape the overhead drum mics to the ceiling of Professor Spread’s bedroom, because we didn’t have any mic stands. We’re pretty proud with the result though.” - Sister Gudjonsson
“As the schoolboy antics and pranks stopped providing us with the exhilaration they once did, Naughty Senorita, the Runt and I decided to try and place our pubertal-energy into hardcore punk songs to keep us sweating in all the right places. At our first gigs in Epsom, friends including the Colonel and our Sister Gudjonsson filled in the blanks where our (at the time) limited talents fell short. We soon realised the Colonel really was properly Mustard, and he became the focal point of our attack; with his theatrical nuance, quick lips, and even quicker hips. We played two gigs as a four piece, the first gladly put us into contact with dear doggies LegPuppy. The second in Spring 2017 was put on by the heroine Tara Brougham of Honkies. the Rebel was headlining and we played hard and networked propa-‘ard. Something was missing though, our sound just wasn’t scientific enough for a band so forward thinking. So we called in King Wailer of Epsom Sister Gudjonsson to provide, and boy did she do just that, completing the Go Chi Minh sound our legions of fans recognise and love today.” Professor Spread
NON MUSICAL INFLUENCES:
“People often presume that we live and breathe music, probably because of the quality of our work, but that isn’t entirely true. As intellectuals and artists, we draw inspiration from a wealth of different mediums. I think it would be accurate to say that around 50% of our influences are non-musical in nature. For example, personally as a performer, I try to remain equidistant between Jim Morrison and Jerry Seinfeld, and I think I am largely successful in doing that. We spend a lot of time watching TV together, and it bleeds into our music a fair bit. The influence of ‘Dick and Dom’s Bungalow’ is omnipresent in our Do You Mind, If I Queue A Pizza? EP for example. At the end of the day, I think our biggest influences are each other. We constantly inspire each other to make one another smile, and I think that’s the
“FREUDIAN STRIP”:
“Freudian Strip is about a little boy born In Vitro who has been devoid of a mother all his life. He’s consequently developed a rather strange lust for a friend’s mother, and finds great pleasure in stripping for her after school. It was recorded on an 8-track that
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THE LIVE SHOW:
“If a punter is left laughing, slightly bemused but stimulated then job’s a good’n . Even if people hate the music we’d hope they find the town jester Colonel Mustard amusing.” – Sister Gudjonsson
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that’s the secret behind our exceptional creativity and vitality.” – Colonel Mustard
THE BANDS OF LONDON:
“Bo Gritz, Uncle Tesco, Insecure Men, Honkies, LegPuppy, Rodents are all paving the way in London at the moment. Duds (although a Manchester band) should also get a special mention – flying the post-punk flag high.”
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MADONNATRON... SOUTH LONDON’S MOST MUSICAL COVEN, IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Madonnatron are one of London’s most singular forces. Their self-titled debut landed last year, and was one of the year’s best records; a tilted, magick affair, on which the quartet powered through some of the messiest and most haunted ditties of 2017. Whilst songs like Sangue Neuf utilised bludgeoning vocal harmonies, other songs like Tron bridged the gap between depravity and beauty, ensuring that the band have more scope than your average garage rock group. A new year has crept its way several months in. Just days after they release their first post-album material, a killer new single called Mermaids, and on the eve of their “Dawn of the Tron” tour – an event which should have been attended by all of you – we got the lowdown on every aspect of the group’s existence.
THE NAME:
“Charlotte came up with the name before she was even in the band. Beth had gone home lamenting about some terrible suggestions being put forward when the band first formed and deliverance arose at the first utterance of ‘Madonnatron’. When put on the spot to think of a band name, Charlotte obviously thought of when she won a dancing competition to La Isla Bonita at some point in the past. She combined what was good about music when we were kids with where we are in the future from then. What’s futuristic sounding? Tron! Hence Madonnatron was born.
“MERMAIDS”: This is a song about secret things. It is shrouded in confession and an acknowledgement of incidents that passed and were buried but not forgotten. The kind of secret things that surface in the middle of the night when you are sleep-deprived and barely conscious, remembering the distant version of yourself that existed before you learned to edit for the benefit of others.
THE SUPERNATURAL FORCES AT WORK IN THEIR MUSIC:
“This is something that keeps resonating with people so we’re guessing that, in part, this is what we’re communicating. It is above all other things, a communication. One that feeds off defiance, and this kind of tangible hysteria that grew from the frustration of having all of this noise inside us all that was previously muted. It had no channel for escape. Once we realised that we had that innate communication between us, it became animal. The music is entirely written on instinct and we kind of manifested it like some sort of sapphic bowel movement.” 29
“SANGUE NEUF”:
“Sangue Neuf was the first recording we made with Trashmouth after a succession of days in Paul Of Sound’s darkened warehouse studio in deepest Croydon… “...Liam (Trashmouth Records) had heard a rehearsal recording, in which elements of the song existed as a jam, and insisted on recording it for release as part of Trashmouth Records Record Store Day EP in 2016. We had zero time to think about it. It was almost entirely improvised really… The sentiment was born out of horror at the Paris massacre that took place during November 2015.” THE LIVE SHOW: “Playing live is like engaging in conversation with everybody in the room at once. If there is a new crowd, this level of unpredictability in how an audience will react can be challenging. But that’s part of the point. It’s also good when there are people who come to shows regularly, because even then there is no set pattern for how people might respond to the gig. It means that every show is different whatever the situation. The performance is a reaction to the audience and vice versa. If you make people feel something, whether joy, rage or like they want to shit themselves, it’s good! We want to put on a show that, if we were watching ourselves, we’d get turned on - not necessarily sexually! - by.”
“HEADLESS CHILDREN”:
“BE MY BITCH”:
“Headless Children was the first piece of music we wrote together as a four-piece, during the first rehearsal with Charlotte. In the early manifestations of The Tron when we had a different line up. Slightly nervous hysteria in the room generated the swampy mania we now refer to as ‘Headless’. The top line for the (now) chorus was written days before the final mix of the track, as Stef realised in a state of alcohol-fuelled euphoria that the focus of the song was subconsciously always augmented around the grotesque tale of La Llorona – a ghoulish infanticide story from Mexican Folklore…” “Be My Bitch is, well, very rude really. I think we were all a bit depraved and megalo-manic when this came to fruition. The first version of this song also came out of the same jam as Headless Children, what a productive afternoon don’t you think?!”
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BRIXTON WINDMILL:
FILMS:
GLENN CLOSE AND “GLENN CLOSER”:
“The Windmill promotes an unguarded and accepting approach to new music with new, often weird, sounds. People who go to watch music there are open to pretty much everything. Tim Perry books all the bands and, while being discerning, doesn’t discriminate, which is massively important for creativity to thrive. We’d never have gotten started if we hadn’t been given the platform to fuck up very publicly, which we did may times before getting as shit hot as we so obviously are right now! You cannot fault the landlords, Seamus and Kathleen, for their attitude to all this is what allows room for the music to be what it is. “ “We are often in agreement when people have described some of our songs as being fit for a film soundtrack - but no-one knows which films. They do seem to have a cinematic scope about them. This doesn’t come down to any specific influence in a direct reference kind of way, but we’re all into Herzog, 40s melodrama and noir, horrible stuff like Gummo, and weird documentaries... we’re always aware of Spinal Tap.” “We wouldn’t say Glenn Close is a particularly influential figure per se….not that she isn’t great though! In terms of that song, the title is more of just a pun on the stalker character that she played in Fatal Attraction, and the application of it to a different fictional situation. It pokes fun at the notion of the perceived female obsessive within the context of the music scene. It opens an avenue in which to embrace and talk about the idea of the ‘female stalker’. We could of course have written it from the perspective of a male stalker because there are plenty of those, without a doubt, but in all truth we were up against it with time and this idea had been floating around for a while without coming to fruition. We put it together right before we had to record the vocals to get the album finished in time.”
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Whilst London’s finest bands over the past few years have carried an explicit country music influence, one band is out in the field taking it to it’s very extreme conclusion. So we meet Honkies to ask… are they actually cowboys, or are they taking the piss? The ghostly swagger of Johnny Cash and the outlaw grooves of Waylon Jennings have long been a huge influence on the music scene in London, whether the bands do this knowingly, or only channel it accidentally. In fact, the Fat White Family take this to extremes, explicitly wearing the influence of Charles Manson’s haunting country and western album on their sleeve. So it makes sense now, that a band like Honkies can not only exist, but thrive in the backwaters venues of New Cross and Brixton. Self proclaiming their sound as “speed country”, and being described the intro to their recent Margo’s Living Room Session as “London’s premiere honky-tonk band”, the influence of country, rockabilly and bluegrass is almost caricatured by Honkies. After all, you don’t have to look past their name to see the honk to their tonk. The five-piece are not characterised solely by this country and honky-tonk influence, but they do wear it loud and proud. Instead, their sound is the juxtaposition of this with the invasive, stabbing synth sounds that keyboard warrior Brown Mist bludgeons outta his “trusted Arturia Microbrute” and the band’s frenzied guitar licks. Despite the fact they sound constantly shambling, they’re a razortight musical outfit that are making some of the most exciting, enjoyable and obnoxious music in London now. Over the past few months they’ve played gigs almost weekly, as they prepare to finally put out some studio material. Whilst this was all in motion, I caught up with frontman and guitarist Jim Sutcliffe. “Honkies originally started as an unnamed bedroom project,” says Sutcliffe. “I recorded cult classics such as Moving to Berlin and Gentrify Me in a depressing Outer London 6 bed flat-share I was living in sometime during 2016, before I got Brown Mist in to help me fill out ideas. Then I met Dirty Debz in a pub, and asked her to join on bass.” 33
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Whilst they did indeed begin as a bedroom project fleshed out live by three inner-Smoke outlaws (with their trusty sampler, Dr Sample), the current incarnation now sees the addition of ‘MadDog’ on second guitar, and ‘Abe’ Lincoln of the band Sorry on drums. A cast with gun-totin’ names to match Ned Kelly’s band of outlaws, this slack jawed style is backed up with the substance of some real kicking tunes and a live show that makes the pulse race so much that it could even bring Billy the Kid back to life.
sphere from cowboys to country singers and the East London ranchero has a lot more to say. “My Dad was a big country music fan, so I had it drummed into me a lot growing up,” he remarks. “Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, Charley Pride, Johnny Cash and Tammy Wynette… I like the simplicity of the songs, and the honesty of the lyrics.” “There are a lot of bands and artists in South London at the moment that are influenced by country music in one way or another,” he continues. But I think we are ones who probably taking it a little bit too far.” Whilst this assessment might be correct if Honkies were a stone-faced Cash pastiche, but they’re a much more singular affair. “I like to see Honkies as using the country sound as a basis for the chassis of the songs,” says Sutcliffe. “But then to also incorporating elements from techno, punk and funk.”
The best example of their work outside of their scintillating live show at present is a YouTube session of Kicking and Screaming. Brutally simple, its charm comes with its simmering synth line, regimented percussion stutters, and cartoonish vocal delivery. “I wanted to see how far I could take a simple melody for the main part of a song,” says Sutcliffe: “And just how ridiculous the outcome would be. Kind of like a joke that got out of hand.” Admittedly simple, yes, but aren’t most of life’s greatest and most instant pleasures? And besides, the band agree that it’s somehow gone on to be their best track.
South London is awash with talented bands that you need to hear, be you from the Big Smoke or indeed anywhere else on the globe. However, if this oversaturation of good groups get you down, Honkies are simply the antidote. The saying goes: “No life is wasted that has been spent on the saddle”. It is also true that no time is wasted spent listening to Honkies.
Whilst Sutcliffe says there’s no explicit influence of old cowboy flicks on the band and their aesthetic, saying “there is a few Western shirts knocking about, but nothing too drastic”. However, shimmy along a few degrees in the cultural
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Like it’s air quality, the music of London has always been just a bit nastier than the rest of the country – from The Slits and Throbbing Gristle in the 70s, to the likes of The Fat White Family and Meatraffle. Here, we speak to one of the dirtiest and most evil sounding bands in the Big Smoke. For all the fucked up children of this world, we give you... PEEPING DREXELS There are an abundance of wild-eyed, boozy garage rock bands in the capital at the minute, and it can be difficult to sift through and find the best. In the wake of The Fat White Family, bands like Country Teasers, The Gun Club and The Cramps have been part of London’s DNA, in place of the Oasis-lite pretenders that took all of London’s limelight in the early noughties. We meet Peeping Drexels, a motley crew that probably feature the tallest and smallest musicians, who are undoubtedly among the cream of the crop when we’re talking about The Big Smoke’s guitar groups.
enigmatic ‘Sneak Mob’, and playing plentiful gigs with the likes of synth-country rancheros Honkies and surf rock impresarios NoFriendz. I meet Peeping Drexels fittingly across the road from The Windmill downing Cherry B before a headline slot to discuss their music and morality. “The music me and Joe write is from the point of view of horrible people,” says frontman Coates. “I don’t want to sympathise with them, but I’m interested in how they think, and how they see the world.” The Drexels’ songs are not for the faint hearted, as they frequently deal with darker subjects. The band admit that they might have overstepped the mark with latest release The Goof, and its post-Weinstein subject matter, but Coates adds “I don’t want to sympathise with them, but I’m interested in how they think, and how they see the world.”
Formed about three years ago by frontman Dylan Coates and guitarist Joe Love, they started off as the guitarist jokes: “We got into Country Teasers”, and the rest begins to fall into place uncharacteristically neatly. With the blessing of Ben Wallers, whom the band have played with a couple of times, the band continue to forge their tilted journey into citywide infamy. Putting on gigs as part of the 37
“Other than our first single, Greasy Bed, I don’t like writing personal songs,” Coates adds. “I like writing songs like how Nick Cave writes songs. A story, with characters, and the characters you meet in life.” It would be unwise to take the band’s music at face value, but at the same time, the band’s performance is so different, so performative in comparison to the unassuming quintet of fairly normal art student lads that stand before me. The band rightly and regularly defend their right to make satires of horrible people, and almost rightly so. “Obviously we’re not standup comedians,” Coates says: “We’re not fucking Ricky Gervais. But you just can’t compare us to rapists for misjudging a satirical comment”. If you take a moment to think, and decode the lyrics, Peeping Drexels are far from evil. Peeping Drexels’ songs are deviant, feral rock tunes, but they do often stray far from being generic shock tactic whoppers. May will see them release a split with comrades Honkies, about a perilous drunk driver. “It’s just the idea that someone perceived as good can do bad things,’ says Coates: “We were in a car once with a drunk driver. Can anyone can do a horrible thing without being a horrible person?” Their take is interesting, and the band certainly do a good job of bringing these caricatures to life with their live show. Guitar lick savagery a la Rowland S. Howard, and one of the best rhythm sections in the capital, set the stage for Dylan Coates depraved on stage performance. The week after I spoke to The Drexels, I spoke to Saul Adamczewski of Fat Whites, for CLASH, who cited the band as easily his favourite upcoming group at the moment, which is pretty much the highest acclaim a deranged guitar outfit can obtain. Weird, ugly music for morally dubious people they may make, but Peeping Drexels’ music is a gloriously fucked up OST for a notso-gloriously fucked up time of human history. They fight the good fight, treading on the right side of wrong, and we can only wish them all the best.
Watch the skies, watch the sewers, for this very month they bring out a split single with Honkies, whom you may read about with a few simple turns of the page
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IT’S BEAT TIME! IT’S HOP TIME! IT’S NUN TIME!!!!
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One of the world’s most singular tribute bands, SEE YOU MATE talks to Ye Nuns. Here’s who, how, why, and what Ye Nuns are… I can remember where I was when I first heard The Monks. Two or three years ago, when I was about 18, I read about them in a Fat White Family interview. I typed in ‘The Monks’ to YouTube and clicked on an audio track of I Hate You. The first time ya hear that strutting, confrontational guitar, evil and grinding, and Gary Burger’s shrill siren of a voice bellowing like all hell, things aren’t the same anymore. If punk rock is the Devil’s music, I don’t know who the hell is qualified to listen to The Monks. Sister Delia Divinity, the least guitarist of Ye Nuns, the world’s premiere all-female Monks tribute band, remembers a bit further back: “When I was a teenager, pre-world wide web, someone said to me, ‘Oh you like ‘60s stuff, you’d love the Monks’ “A week or so later I was in single - so I brought it and quite what I expected’... it Face’ and the wrong Monks… I years later…”
a charity shop and found a Monks I thought, ‘Hmm it’s okay but not was ‘Nice Legs, Shame About the heard the ‘proper’ Monks about 15
Sister Banjo Debbie discovered them in a different manner: “I first heard the Monks on the Fall album Bend Sinister. I didn’t even know that it was a cover at the time, but when I knew I had to find out more about the band. So thanks, Mark E. Smith.” Ye Nuns are one of the world’s truly unique and most interesting tribute bands in the world. A seven-piece Monks tribute band that perform dressed as nuns, they’re a force of nature. “The idea was formed on a drunken night down the pub,” says frontwoman Sister Lolo Wood. “Usually such ideas disappear when you sober up, but this one didn’t”. The idea grew as the band’s sketchy beginnings were fleshed out, and Ye Nuns started rehearsing in the based meant of Intoxica Records, in North London.
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We now meet the band several years down the line, and most notably since that juncture, the group have put out an album, and played with everyone under the sun; most notably The Fall, and Eddie Shaw of The Monks. But just how is and the existence of Ye Nuns different to just listening to Black Monk Time? (and therefor worth your time from the start) “Well, I sing in a ladyvoice rather than a manvoice in a ladyrange,” says Lolo. “But I’m still quite caterwauly.” “Other than that, I think we just pull out the bits we like best and focus on them rather than trying to exactly replicate everything in an ‘authentic’ way”, says guitarist Sister Charley Stone. “It’s actually much more authentic as a result, as it keeps the freedom of the original.” Whilst a Monks tribute band popping up in North London might not be the most logical thing to happen, it’s testament to the music of The Monks that their sound is still enviable, novel and inspiring half a century on. “Exhilierating, shouty and intense music that was waaaaay before its time,” says Lolo. “The songs are very interestingly, well, weirdly, structured,” adds Banjo Debbie. “There’s a lot of counting bars to stay in time, and those bars can be grouped in 5’s, 9’s, 13’s or 11 1/2’s, so it’s a challenge. “Also, the lyrics are different, as they deal with very ‘punk’ themes, like in I Hate You and Shut Up – a good decade before punk happened. Very anti-Beatles, which I think their management were actively contriving as an image for the band. And they were written by Americans to be understood by Germans, so they are very simple and direct, sometimes devastatingly so, considering some of the content.” “My brother died in Vietnam - James Bond, who was he? Stop it, stop it, stop it! I don’t like it, it’s too loud.” [Black Monk Theme] Ye Nuns do, however, make the higgledy piggledy proto-punk of The Monks their own. In 2015, their existence was stitched into the fabric of history, when they recorded their debut album, Nun More Black. It sees fifty-odd year old songs injected with a new lease of life. “It’s not quite the same as the Black Monk Time
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album,” jokes Sister Charley. “But it has similarities, let’s be honest.” Ye Nuns have more fire left in the tank, though. Whilst The Monks burned bright for one album and then disappeared (like every great band in the sixties) into obscurity for a prolonged period of time, Ye Nuns gear up to release more music. Their forthcoming single features two songs written by Eddie Shaw, the bassist Monk. “They are not actually Monks songs,” assures Banjo Debbie. “But we took a long time turning them into something approaching Monks songs. The demos we received were very different in execution to what we ended up arranging and recording. We all did our own parts, but Sister Delia played a huge part getting the songs to a point where we are all really happy with them. And so is Eddie, which is very rewarding.” There are very few tribute bands that deserve your time like Ye Nuns. No one can see The Monks at their peak at the this point in time. But here we have a fresh, fierce take on some great source material executed by some brilliant women. Robe up, get your banjo ready… it’s Nun Time.
Nun More Black is being “lovingly repressed” soon, so you can do the noble thing and own it on vinyl. The band have a single chalked in for the next couple of months, which launches at the Lex on June 15th.
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COVER FEATURE
Goat Girl’s debut album is simply a delight. Out on Rough Trade, the 19-track LP is perhaps the best coming-of-age-in-the-capital album guitar music could possibly have to offer. SEE YOU MATE (YEAH, SEE YOU MATE) catches up with Lottie and Ellie from the almighty quartet From the murky, muddied streets of South London, Goat Girl have already gone down as one of the big breakout bands. Last month saw the release of their self titled debut, a scrappy document that turned the streets of Lewisham and Brixton into a scorched psychedelic Wild West scene burgeoning with baddies and beasties. However, considering the intangible – no – mythical nature of this record, its beginnings are humble and easily graspable. Formed when the quartet were 17, the band came into fruition after going to many gigs together at venues like The Windmill. After starting out as a country trio, they forged their feral garage rock sound after the recruitment of drummer Rosy. Quickly they developed a fearsome live reputation, before putting out their debut single Country Sleaze with Rough Trade at the end of 2016. Nearly two years later, we’re at a crossroads with Goat Girl. Our interview takes place a day before the release of Goat Girl on Rough Trade. My favourite album of the year, for sure, it tears up the rulebook of just what a big-label rock band
debut should be. Yes, there’s clear singles, but Goat Girl is a very fluid album where fully formed songs, scratchy minute long ditties and improvised sound collages boldly live in harmony. Perhaps the main thing that sets this apart are the spindly, skeletal interludes that open the album, and break songs up. The creepy piano motifs of skits like Salty Sounds and Moonlit Monkey almost place this album in a wholly different world to that we are familiar with. “The foundations of the interludes were written by Rosy, who played piano,” says lead guitarist Ellie. “Then the rest of the band improvised over the top. It was all very free and thoughtless.” The pick of these is probably Swamp Dog’s Tale that features the contorted voice of “band friend” Lincoln atop a brazen soundscape. However, it’s reductive to say that Goat Girl’s debut LP stands out from the debuts of other bands simply because of its madcap interludes. On the album, the band constantly caricature the world around them and seem to view it from an almost entirely new 45
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COVER FEATURE perspective. “I find inspiration for these characters in an almost paralleled world to the one I live in,” describes lead singer Lottie. “I try to look through the eyes of a fictional being who perhaps doesn’t understand the goings on in front of them. I find it more interesting to assume characters for yourself, and to explore perspectives other than your own to create these strange ‘beasties’ and ‘baddies’.” Tracks like The Man With No Heart or Brain, Creep and Viper Fish certainly seem to exist in a world more surreal than ours. Creep sees the lyric “creep on the train/with his dirty trouser stain” chanted atop sweltering guitar lines, as the track snatches exaggerated imagery from the everyday and places delicately in a much more profoundly strange universe. Whilst it’s quite clear that most of Goat Girl’s lyrics come from experience, and a lot of the sounds of the instrumentation come from a pool of influences, every now and again Goat Girl throws something entirely transcendent of this. “My personal favourites [on the album] have to be Throw Me A Bone and I Don’t Care pt2”, says Lottie. “They don’t have the same heavy focus on politicised
“I find it more interesting to assume characters for yourself” SEE YOU MATE
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COVER FEATURE
“I feel like the cover depicts this strange kind of alien-like world, but really it’s the world we live in. It’s a very strange place.” ideas, they explore lyrics and passages in more of a chant like voicing. “Maybe that’s why I enjoy singing them more, especially with all the harmonies – it becomes quite ritualistic and collective. I think especially …Bone transcends a sound that has been coined to us,” she continues. “It explores more of an 80’s synth and Twin Peaksesque sound which puts it in a much more exciting context for me.” The album is less of a conventional record, more a desert; moribund ground for flora, yes, but ground which is fertile for wholly singular ideas and characters, which thrive and bloom at their own accord. Like many records, the best synopsis you can find of it is not a review, but the artwork within which it is contained. A Miguel Casarrubios painting, the erratic colours and ghastly characters that haunt the cover would look stark and remarkable in anybody’s record collection. “Miguel’s art is incredible,” Ellie says. “It wasn’t commissioned, I think it was just an incredibly lucky fit. I guess his work depicts 47
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COVER FEATURE these characters, some who look devilish and some with more friendly, or scared expressions. The lyrics of a few of our songs depict these same kind of wicked or corrupt people in society.” The album cover is strange, and impenetrable at first, but for such a unique record it fits. “I feel like the cover depicts this strange kind of alien-like world,” continues Ellie. “but really it’s the world we live in. It’s a very strange place.”
hearing from Country Teasers was Spiderman in the Flesh,” declares Lottie. “It realised themes and ideas that are so taboo, and put them right to the forefront in a controversial, yet satirical manner. It was a use of language I hadn’t even begun to imagine using, and takes from the great satirists like William Burroughs, Lenny Bruce, et cetera. “I was fully moved, and I think from sharing that with the rest of the group, an inspiration came bigger than any of us could have imagined.” She continues: “I think it shows in my lyrics, and also in the way as a band we play our instruments. We don’t necessarily abide by rules that guitar bands essentially have; we have that similar scratchy, slacker approach, and celebrate the imperfections!”
Like much of the music scene in South London, the band’s sound does fall into a heritage that can be traced in the immediate future to The Fat White Family, and to the likes of Country Teasers, The Fall, and The Raincoats. The band tour this album with The Rebel, the alias of Teasers frontman Ben Wallers, who now plays haunts like The Windmill and The Five Bells even more often than Goat Girl do.
Goat Girl are true originals. Their music is both tilted and evocative of the place and generation from whence they came. It’s difficult at this point to say at this point, whether they’ll become one of the country’s biggest bands and become one of those festival headliners that people bang on about. However, at this point that couldn’t matter less. Goat Girl have produced one of the best debut albums of recent times, are one of the UK’s premiere live bands, and have managed to create a world that is wholly their own for us to squat in.
Country Teasers are particularly big influence on Goat Girl, a group whose twisted satire has been incredibly pertinent with the band. In an interview prior to this with the NME, Goat Girl said “when we heard them we changed our tune and how we were writing music.” Indeed, the deranged sexuality of their debut single Country Sleaze plays as a gnarled tribute to the Teasers, a bastardisation of country garage with a thirst for blood. “The first song i remember
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PHOTO CREDIT: HOLLY WHITAKER
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REVIEWS
Unpicking the records that have piqued our interest over the last three months 51
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GOAT GIRL - GOAT GIRL Goat Girl’s sound is one far removed the urban settings the band frequent, their debut record engulfs with the bubbles and squelches of a quagmire, and at times guitar riffs and nonchalant vocals coo and caw like The Wild West. Despite this, though, they remain one of the capital’s most exciting and singular guitar bands. Savagery! Depravity! Debauchery! All is on show for the world to see; the Creep with ‘his dirty trouser stains’, and the higgledy piggledy world of The Man With No Brain or Heart, all coming direct to you with a hefty dosage of self-described Country Sleaze. The seediness of Goat Girl’s music does sonically allude to a tilted Leone western, but it’s difficult to typecast the band with the ten-a-penny country garage outfits that frequent backwaters pubs. Goat Girl’s country-western sensibility is mixed with an eye for the uncanny, rip roaring psychobilly is juxtaposed with bizarre skits which revolve around piano loops, liminal guitar hiccups and vocal scraps, making this not a collection of songs, but a wholly unique listening experience as difficult to make full sense of as the ghoulies and spectres that adorn it’s technicolour cover illustration.
a personal highlight, a woozy number with vocal harmonies that spook and a guitar riff that protrudes through the gloaming with its torrefying tones, whilst murky banger Cracker Drool is simply perfect. The 411 on Goat Girl is thus; a refreshing take on rock ‘n’ roll for fans of The Fat Whites or Country Teasers, but with a sense of humour that extends to playful riffs and strangeness that extends to every second of the album. If Goat Girl make it as big as some of Rough Trade’s other recent signings, then the world can rejoice.
Goat Girl have reached a perfect balance of weird little skits and sketchy ideas, and bona fide great tunes. Viper Fish is
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PHOBOPHOBES - MINIATURE WORLD Whilst Phobophobes have always been one of the most eagerly followed bands from South London’s gigging scene, there was always a sense that they were just Fat White Family-lite. If Fat Whites were the mint choc chip, then Phobophobes must be the vanilla. Right? Well, maybe not dear friends, maybe this is a band that deserve praise in their own right. To rehash the trepidation the band went through to make this album would be reductive, for although they’ve been to hell and back, this is an album that stands on its own two feet valiantly. Whilst the country-teasin’ garage rock high points are enjoyable, the high point of this record comes five songs in in the form of rumbling 7 minute dirge Free The Naked Rambler. Not just a political statement we can all agree with, but a genuinely menacing marauder of a beast with dulcet tones that side-step into your very soul.
From a band have seemingly been around a while, this is a very rewarding listen; Human Baby’s dry wit and tilted saunter remains a bizarrely moving nugget, whilst the carnival horror pop of The Never Never is a stupendously enjoyable study in just how much a good organ punch can enhance a song. Miniature World is a charming album that definitely positions the ‘Phobes as their own entity.
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THE
OSCILLATION
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UEF
The Oscillation have been making a hell of a racket since the mid-noughties, but with U.E.F they’ve taken off into a brave new world. Since 2016’s effort, it’s evident that Demian Castellanos, the group’s figurehead, has got his hands on one hell of a synthesiser, as on U.E.F the band present us with the soundtrack for a film that showcases what might have happened had the replicants taken over at the end of Blade Runner. (or even at the beginning, just at some point during Blade Runner) The LP is split into 2 halves, both of which are free flowing 22 minute space jams. The first half of the record is taken over by Flight Sequence, on which a monstrous oscillating synth battles with a whirring dystopic soundscape and pounding motorik grooves, ever descending into some kind of hellish darkness. The same synthesiser dominates the more sparse side two, U.E.F, as bleeps wrestle with screeching synthesisers to create a more full, arresting sound with far more earth shattering drones that entrance you into its vulgar underbelly. Considering this is a band unafraid of tackling the darker side of psych to begin with, this is an especially invasive and arresting effort from The Oscillation. Gone are the six minute jams, here are the impenetrable twenty two minute drone compositions. But that, of course, suits us just fine.
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INSECURE
MEN
-
INSECURE
MEN
The latest jaunt of Fat White Family’s lead guitarist Saul Adamczewski is - at first listen - unlike any of its repulsive garage rock predecessors. But delve deeper into this junk shop pop curiosity, and Insecure Men is thematically more ugly than Songs For Our Mothers or Champagne Holocaust. Adamczewski’s lyrics are vulgar, songs about convicted paedophile Gary Glitter and suspected paedophile Cliff Richard, as well as a bleak ditty about Whitney Houston and her daughter, Bobbi who both met the same grizzly fate in the space of a few years. With lyrics so bleak on a record so sonically beautiful, you can do one of two things. You can ignore the lyrics, let the music consume you and allow yourself to be sucked into its syrupy timbres (which is fine), or you can address the reason for which such lyrics are garbled. Adamczewski has the faith in his audience to decode the grotesquery of his lyrics, to interpret them as art and not take them at face value. Saul’s lyrics seemingly come straight from the part of our brains that think the most horrible thing possible when hearing of a tragedy, and expects us to know that without him explaining further. Songs Bleak
like Buried in and Teenage Toy
genuinely gorgeous, synthetic textures meet wilting guitar lines in hypnagogic bliss, whilst Adamczewski’s monotone depictions of suburbia on Heathrow and Saddest Man in Penge are almost glorious. It’s easy to see where people might take issue with Insecure Men, but even easier to listen to it and fall in love with its skewered aesthetic and the strange world it creates within.
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MELT
DUNES
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FLESH
Melt Dunes have, over the past few years, gained a reputation as one of the best live guitar bands in the world. The Hampshire four-piece are not so much a band as a supernatural force; a vice to channel darkest vibrations from beyond the void. In the beginning, they went by the name of Elephantantrum, and their set comprised of one composition that stitched together a miasma of dark ideas. 2018 sees the group release their debut EP Flesh.
Evil and winding, it’s an entrancing death-waltz with sauntering guitar licks that seem to generate smog of their own with every twitch. The band’s live shows notoriously capture a kind of cathartic intensity, but What’s Your Name and closer Grotesque are confrontational in a wholly different way; beasts that slowly suffocate the life from their victims by the neck, rather by brutal slashes straight through the nerve tissue.
Whilst all four songs contained within its grooves clatter past the five minute mark, it seems their free-form gnosis has successfully been refined into a set of clear songs with the potential to scorch the very surface of the Earth. The Flesh EP is a weapon of mass destruction, and after a few years of nuclear testing that’s gone pretty much unnoticed by the UN, someone really should put a stop to this group of terrorists
Epicaricacy burns slowly, meandering most treacherous depths before a haunting organ-powered middle 8 takes you to a whole new ghostly level, whilst title track Flesh is a fucking face-melter. Fuming riffs, bubonic keys samples, twisted yelps. Ever seen David Cronenberg’s Scanners? If not, watch it. Or the trailer. Yeah, that’s what it does. Pop. Melt Dunes have dealt out a heady blow with this EP. One of my favourite bands in the world, this is a record that proves that the darkest psychedelia is definitely the most satisfying.
Swampy guitars entwine with each other to create something truly blackening, whilst clanging synth sounds fester within the cobwebs created. Listening to opener What’s Your Name loud through headphones is like listening to the same Birthday Party song, at half speed, on a loop for hours, in the midst of a week-long cough syrup binge; like being dragged into the depths of oblivion by a colossus made entirely out of chicken wire; like waking up after a night out at the very bottom of a prehistoric tar-pit. SEE YOU MATE
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CONFIDENCE MAN - CONFIDENT MUSIC FOR CONFIDENT PEOPLE With their debut album, the Australian pop outfit have established themselves as one of the truly great singles bands of our time. Janet Planet and her band of party animals make self-aware, unashamed pop music, and that’s to be admired. Planet’s caricature ‘party girl’ persona is endearing, and the band constantly come across as a band that just want to have a good time. Even to the jaded, their endless supply of catchy pop is a beacon of light in an otherwise self-serious world. Let’s start with the good bits. The great bits. I’ll say that on balance I do really like this album, because Confidence Man are about focusing on the good bits, right? Don’t You Know I’m In A Band is an incredibly well judged ironi-smug pop song with an outlandish synth line that sends the song into a spiralling technicolour groove. Boyfriend is a sugary disco banger that sees Planet give a caustic, calculated takedown of her wetwipe boyfriend. And Better Sit Down Boy sees the same theme of ridding yourself of useless men to an off-kilter club groove.
Right. All good up to here. And alongside that, Cool Party, Try Your Luck and Sailboat Vacation are pretty solid fun tunes. But it does go downhill. So piss-poor, so stodgy are the sub-Primal Scream 5 minute chill out tunes that they leave an awful taste in your mouth. I loved the first four or five tracks on Confident Music for Confident People, but so horrendously bad was Catch My Breath that I felt like I didn’t enjoy the album. It was like eating a delicious four course meal with a loved one and then throwing up each course one by one into their face. Confidence Man have put out a fine debut here, but it’s with singles that they truly thrive. 57
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DAVID
BYRNE
Despite the quality of his recent output, the music industry will always have a habitual respect for David Byrne. No. Scratch that. I will always have respect for David Byrne and so will everybody else, but for someone reason unknown to myself and everyone I’ve spoken to on the subject, David Byrne’s American Utopia seems to have got decent reviews across the board. Is there an unspoken rule that David Byrne must get good reviews? Are the other music journalists listening to a different album to me? I have no idea. Maybe it’s just easiest to give this album a fine review, and not address that it sounds like a cross between David Bowie’s Reality and David Bowie’s Earthling. “My mind is a soft boiled potato” he rasps on Every Day Is A Miracle. He’s right. American Utopia does genuinely feel like an out-of-touch once-great pop
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AMERICAN
star clutching for his last morsels of relevance. The best summation of American Utopia can be found on the first song, I Dance Like This, which sees his convention funk-inspired pop get up (if you’re being nice, third rate Talking Heads garb if you’re being truthful) spliced in between a chorus that sees the Scot chanting the song’s title above an awkwardly placed electronic texture. It’s self consciously weird, and indeed somewhat endearing, but undeniably awful. Bullet, another lowlight, sees Byrne’s truly awful lyrics repeated over and over again for some kind of emphasis. But the only thing cries of: “The bullet went right through you,” only serve to emphasise how bad his lyrics are. American Utopia is part of a wider artistic project of Byrne’s called Reasons To Be Cheerful. Obviously there’s nothing 58
UTOPIA wrong with a man like Byrne putting out albums still; he’s certainly earned his right to become one of those artists that just put out bad solo records long past their peak; it’s just genuinely baffling that this is an album that exists, and an album that people are making a fuss about.
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CHUPA CABRA & NOFRIENDZ - SPLIT LP The latest full length release from Trashmouth Records sees two bands from very different locations working as one magnificent beastial power. The label that brought us Fat White Family, Meatraffle and Madonnatron have managed to scout out and find their trademark elsewhere in the country. Chupa Cabra are from Deeside, Wales, and NoFriendz are from somewhere called St Neots in Cambridgeshire. Despite their g e o g r a p h i c a l differences, they effectively craft a blinding LP of all the mucky, grimy, Voidoid rock ‘n’ roll we can’t help but devour. Chupa Cabra take their name from a mythical bloodsucker found in the folktales and forests of Central and South America. An apt name, then, for a trio whose youthful sound captures the grimy and ravenous sound of this scene, and transmits it with a thunderous energy
that can make the most jaded and aged feel young again. Mars and Venus has an instant payoff, with its chorus that can’t help but be remembered, and tracks like Sides of My Skull and King Leech being grade A scorchers too. Chupa Cabra are a great band, but and it’s probably personal preference rather than anything else I prefer NoFriendz’ half of the record. It’s probably even more charming, affecting and diverse, as the Cambridgeshire group power through songs that go from carefree bubblegum fuzz-pop bangers (Hedgehog) to slow-burning Western crooners (Old Man Shiver) with masterful ease. Essentially, this is among the most solid garage rock LPs you’ll hear all year; it doesn’t take itself too seriously, yet is still a fucking belter.
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JONNY SHITBAG AND THE SMOKES NOT HAVE GIVEN THE SLIGHTEST
YOU OF
COULD FUCKS
Indie music is short of great figures, of singular visionaries carving out this era for themselves. Oh, how Jonny Shitbag could have been The One. Shitbag’s story is an enigmatic one, and the conception of You Could Not Have Given The Slightest of Fucks is marred by confusion and elusiveness. Shitbag and his trusty band The Smokes were working on their debut masterpiece, when suddenly the singer disappeared. Whilst this record could have been lost forever, what happened next secured its place in rock ‘n’ roll mythos; lead guitarist Curls received some cassette demos of Jonny’s vocals and sketches for songs in an envelope embellished with a strange Asian postmark, and the band turned them into fully formed songs.
Pastels, or The Fire Engines, and is genuinely refeshing in its take of the genre.
The album we have before us, then, sounds like something outta fiction, right? Probably, but who cares? The Smokes’ music speaks for itself, and is a truly inventive indie pop record. It’s energetic, it’s profoundly moving, and it just captures that sparkle of adolescence perfectly. Hypnagogic synths sparkle, rumbling basslines, and melodic guitars provide the perfect soundbed for Shitbag’s thick Glaswegian accent. You Could Not Have Given The Slightest of Fucks is a gem for fans of Felt, The
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It almost has moodswings, as a record, fumbling skate punk pie-chuckers like Bedtime are segued quickly into tilted dream-pop ballads like Book, as moods and genres are jumped to with ease. In its relenting depiction of youth, of coming of age, and of love and hate, You Could Not Have Given the Slightest of Fucks is utterly perfect from start to finish. EDITOR’S NOTE: During the production of this magazine, this prolific provocateur put out yet another album. Chase it up. 60
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TABLE SCRAPS - AUTONOMY There are very few bands that nail down their aesthetic as perfectly as Table Scraps; the Birmingham trio make a guttural kinda garage rock in the vein of The Cramps or The Gories, and with ease bring to life pulp horror villains and spooks that go bump in the night. Acid-wash vocals, scorching guitar lines and a pounding rhythm section lead you by the hand into the macabre world of Table Scraps. New record Autonomy is the band’s second, and features spook rock classics like the spectral Always Right and My Obsession, the latter of which has a glorious retro 3D video was the most pleasing of 2017. Ever present haunting vocal harmonies and prowling instrumental frenzy make up most of Autonomy’s lure, but moments of raw, unhinged venom give the record that extra bite - like on Frankenstein, with its Birthday Party style chorus that feels like a loaded weapon being cocked and pointed right at your headphones. But don’t be fooled, dear reader; this isn’t an exercise in macho rock posturing. Autonomy is the antithesis, the solution, if you will. For all the prowling Frankensteins and other ghoulies that haunt this record, there’s millions of infectiously fun synth lines, playful call-and-response lines, and music videos that’ll endlessly put smiles on all of your faces.
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PARQUET COURTS - WIDE AWAKE Parquet Courts. Par-kay Courts. Parquet Quartz. Thishere New York are among the most liked bands there are. Everyone I know likes Parquet Courts, and every publication I regularly read reviewed their last record Human Performance extremely well. As well as that, their sophomore record, Sunbathing Animal, did extremely well critically, and debut Light Up Gold the same. When it came out, Light Up Gold was one of my favourite albums of recent times; an incredibly enjoyable, playful guitar record, that basically sounded like Pavement playing Pixies and Dino Jr records with an urgency and furore that was just so satisfying. However, their two records afterwards seemed almost to see the band slowly lose their character, and whilst definitely being solid, weren’t all that special. I know this, and I think Parquet Courts know this, because it seems like its all change for the Brooklyn band.
of LCD Soundsystem, dealt out with so much gusto that it’s hard not to nod your head. This album is definitely more fun than Sunbather Animal, and the staleness of Human Performance (staleness often labelled ‘maturity’) is pretty much all gone. But tracks like Mardi Gras Beads (straight up Range Life Rip Off) and Death Will Bring Change (which seems overly wishy washy, even by the standards of today’s US indie) show that this group still haven’t sussed the balance having fun and being serious. Tracks like Violence and Extinction will remind you why you care about this band, but maybe Wide Awake! feels a bit lethargic on the whole.
Wide Awake! Is produced by Danger Mouse, of Gnarls Barkley fame, and features a much more impassioned performance from the band. At times, it feels almost like they’ve got their spark back; opener Total Football and second track Violence are pretty spot on, the lyrics to the latter being particularly poignant, whilst title track sounds like a shameless piss-take of LCD Soundsystem, dealt out
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SORRY - HOME DEMO/NS VOL 2 There’s something about Sorry that just feels so utterly effortless. It could be that they’ve churned out another one of these Home Demo/ns mixtapes of eight hi-quality songs just a few months after the first. It could be that the band seem to have a creepily intuitive chemistry. It could just be that singer Asha Lorenz often sounds disinterested by the songs she’s singing. Or that all the wilting bedroomy production that makes the group stand out from beige indie contemporaries simply sounds like the effect of leaving reels of tape in the sunshine for days on end. Whatever it is, Sorry sound effortless, but their music is beautiful, rich and intricate. Ultimately, it is quite special. Tracks like Lying Next To You In Despair and Tearz are forlorn and beautiful, and frankly what we’ve come to expect from this group done to perfection. Delicate guitar lines not unlike Alex G (or any of those bedroom albums that come up as a recommendation on YouTube no matter what you’re into (side note: how the fuck does that Crywank album have 1.7million views?)), they’re extremely well written songs with fingerpicked guitar lines that simply make you feel things. However, this is far from straightforward, and skittish sections of lo-fi hip-hop (Ballin Hard For U, Manic) give the mixtape a real depth, a whole new, warped dimension, and clearly earmark Sorry as not just another grungey indie band, and as well as that, the Contortions-esque Moment is a delight, too. It’s still only an early indication of what we can expect from Domino’s newest signings, being a mere demo tape, but if this is anything to go by, Sorry are the ones. 63
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The SEE YOU MATE (YEAH, SEE YOU MATE) gig list
In London, it feels like there’s an endless source of good gigs, like you can pick a single night and there’ll be at least one thing worth seeing, somewhere. For that reason, it feels increasingly difficult for gig-list publications to keep on top of it all, and for websites to compete with Facebook’s miasma of events that simply everyone is ‘interested’. However, here, we attempt to pick out the best things you can see between Issue 1’s inception, and the time when you can probably expect another volume. May 10 The Longcut at the Lexington May 12 Calibro 35 at Under The Bridge £15 May 15 - Rascalton, Free Money Peeping Drexels at Lock Tavern
and
15 May - Snail Mail at Oslo Hackney £8.50 16 May - US Girls at Scala 18 May - Say Sue Me at Windmill 19 May - Pere Ubu at Borderline £20 22 May - Birdstriking & The Wolfhounds Windmill £8 May 23 Ezra Furman at Brixton Academy £16 May 24 - Sorry at Courtyard £9 May 25-28 - Raw Power Fest (Snapped Ankles, Godflesh, Circle, Madonnatron) at Boston Music Room & Tuff Dome. 2 June - Hotel Lux at Moth Club £6 The Rebel’s Residency at The Windmill 6 June with David Cronenberg’s Wife + Slushy Guts 13 June with “Rebel Girl” + NoFriendz 20 June with Peeping Drexels + Honkies 27 June with The Glugg + Dairy Classics Windmill £5 each £13 season 28 June Table Scraps at Lexington
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Special thanks: Aimee Armstrong, Alex van der Noond, Eden Tizard, Gareth Thomas, Lucy O’Brien, Tim Perry, Femme Collective, Thea at The Leaf Lable, Jamie at Rough Trade, Matt at Carry On Press, and all of the other PR people that have led us on to great things. A final thanks to everyone that bought a copy of this magazine, and all of the bands churlish enough to talk to me or play our launch party. @seeyoumate www.seeyoumate.com 67
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The SEE YOU MATE (YEAH, SEE YOU MATE) team Editor-in-chief, all writing Cal Cashin tw: @calcashin_ ig: calcashin email: calcashin@gmail.com Creative Director, all art Hannah Woollam tw: @hanediwoo ig: edina_x email: hannah.woollam@gmail.com For advertising, promotions, submissions, and contributing email Cal. For all design enquiries contact68Hannah.
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