Oupa - Forget / Yuck - Get Away (Video)

The debut long-player from Yuck was a noisy, frizzy liaison of guitars that showed that even when the weary spirits of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and Pavement were dragged up from the dank cellar something fresh and sprightly sounding could be created, albeit without sparkling innovation. What was missing however, was the restful cigar named Hamlet ballads that had been recorded under the name of Yu(c)k. Thankfully these recordings are now to see the light of day in a physical release with Yuck frontman Daniel Blumberg releasing the tracks by way of a 7 track mini-album called Forget in June under a new name - Oupa – as Yu(c)k was considered too confusing. Listen to the title track below. Lovely.

To coincide with this news and to satisfy those who prefer Pixies bass lines, feral riffs and melodic buzz, Yuck themselves have released a video for Get Away – one of our favourite songs from the album.

Forget by oupa

Yuck - Holing Out / Coconut Bible

It's not long until Yuck release their debut album, a screaming collage of guitar shrieking and hollering that will satisfy anyone who has the likes of Pavement, Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth in their record / i-tunes collection. If however you’ve only been enamoured with the more tender side of Yuck – songs such as Weakend and the simple piano prayer of Automatic which were recorded and released as Yu(c)k you may be disappointed, for the album is largely about fuzzy, shoegazey guitar sounds. It’s the kind of record to be played loud loud loud and then some.

A regular feature on the blog last year, we’ve neglected the band a little recently and so to make things right again we thought we’d give you a blast of their forthcoming single Holing Out – a scintillating searing work of distortion together with the equally good b-side Coconut Bible. Put the two together and it’s like having passionate should-know-better-but-can’t-be-bothered drunken up against the wall sex in your local indie disco with your best friend. Yeah it’s wrong, it’s naughty, but hell it’s sweaty exhilarating fun whilst it lasts isn’t it?

Holing Out by Yuck

Coconut Bible by Yuck

Yuck - Holing Out from Yuck on Vimeo.

Yuck - Rubber

Here’s a dirty druggy beauty of a song to lose yourself in. Rubber is the new single from lo-fi fuzz rock kids Yuck and is released as a slab of 12” vinyl on the 26^th October. A droning, squalid squall of a tune that loads up the megawatts, it kicks in at an immense seven minutes plus, virtually guaranteeing it no radio play. Surely only the bravest of DJ’s will take up on something that long? Fear not though because Rubber streams for your listening pleasure below.

Yuck are out on tour in the UK throughout October and are preparing an album for release. For now Rubber sets the stall. For fans of Sonic Youth, Pavement, J Masics, Jesus and the Mary Chain and a whole host of other seminal noise-makers Yuck are just the ticket.

Rubber by Yuck

Yu(c)k - Daughter

A while back when we posted the latest instalment from Yuck we questioned why they had changed their name to Yu(c)k and also how you pronounced this new slightly pretentious name (although we would like to stress there is nothing wrong with pretentiousness sometimes - we positively celebrate this characteristic in certain cases). We still don’t have the answer to the second question, but apparently the name is to differentiate their noisy effect laden fuzz pop from the rather touching and graceful quiet songs that they are also producing. Their two live sets we’ve seen have both been of the rackety kind; hopefully at some point we’ll be able to share their softer intimacy as well.

So here’s another new slice of elegant simplicity from Yu(c)k. Daughter is a magical ballad, full of cuddle-in-the-darkness loveliness.

Yu(c)k - Daughter from Yuck on Vimeo.

Latitude 2010 - Review (Part 1)

The attempt by Festival Republic to establish and market Latitude as a safe and family friendly festival took several steps backward this weekend. The horrific reports of two alleged rapes on the site, the partial collapse of the canopy structure over the Sunrise Arena stage (pictured above before collapse) on Friday afternoon, and Crystal Castles lead singer Alice Glass throwing punches at a member of the crowd during their Main Stage set on Saturday evening all spoilt what was otherwise a good natured and friendly vibe. It highlighted the fact that despite festivals ethos of love, peace and harmony, such events can be high risk environments.

Under sunny skies girls waltzed around the site wearing flower and leaf headdresses, people relaxed in deckchairs by the now famous multicoloured sheep adjacent the lake, whilst the cream of Central St Martins and Chelsea graduates displayed fashion shows. Despite a few regulars grumbling that the site was even busier than years past, that there was a more boisterous teenage element present (lured no doubt by acts such as Florence and the Machine, Crystal Castles and Vampire Weekend) and that the toilets were still the disgustingly smelly long drop types, overall Latitude 2010 still had a significant amount of chilled goodwill at its heart.

The ‘quiet opening’ on Thursday night got underway with a special midnight set in the middle of the woods by Tom Jones, performing songs from his critically acclaimed album Praise & Blame. With a full to capacity crowd and delayed by technical hitches, Jones arrived on the small stage to ask “Can you hear me OK?” and received a roar of approval in reply. However as his set progressed a significant portion of the crowd grew restless shouting for Sex Bomb and Delilah - hits that Jones had no intention of playing. This was no nostalgia trip, but an opportunity for Tom to display the essence of his talent - his remarkable voice; a soft mix of Presley and Cash - going back to his roots. With a band including Ethan Johns of Kings of Leon and Laura Marling production fame, that played upbeat rock n roll and gospel tinged ballads, Jones may not have delivered a typical crowd pleasing set, but for those who were prepared to listen with an open mind, it was sterling stuff.

The Sunrise Arena is a beautiful fern lined clearing in the woods, covered with a tent-like canopy for shade and shelter. It provided a safety related incident on Friday. Following well received sets from local acoustic singer songwriter Mathew P and the indie-folk-rock of Kurran and the Wolfnotes, a small lunch time crowd were waiting for country singer Delta Maid, when one of the heavy central support poles to the canopy dislodged and kicked out, falling to the floor, presumably from wind force pressure. Luckily because the space was relatively empty nobody was hit or hurt. With the canopy now partially collapsed security were quickly on hand to clear the area and the public asked to leave, the stage closed for the time being.

Over at the Lake Stage local band These Ghosts drew a young home crowd to witness their brooding, epic and passionate guitar anthems. “You are the most beautiful people. Thank you for making this the best day of our lives,” their overawed lead singer proclaimed in a believable way. Next up the sensual eyed ex-Pipette and every geeky indie boys pin-up poster girl Rose Elinor Dougall took the prize for biggest stilettos of the day. Her songs reference late 80’s / early 90’s indie and Casio keyed 50’s film noir. Come Away With Me sounded not dissimilar to The Sundays, the intro to Start / Stop / Synchro hinting at Broadcast. Less commercial than The Pipettes, these songs are likely to be significantly longer lasting.

The Lake Stage continued to push out varied new bands all afternoon. The bobble hat wearing welsh surf-guitar instrumentalists Y Niwl got a varied crowd dancing. Their sound may be obvious with it’s 60’s Hammond organ and garage-twang guitars, but it was perfect for the glorious sunshine - it wouldn’t have been at all surprising to find Quentin Tarantino running down the hill in Bermuda shorts signing the band up for his next film soundtrack,

“This is my sister, she spat water on my groin,” a member of Yuck announced from the stage. It certainly made a change from the standard “Are you having a nice festival / good time,” question that virtually every band used all weekend as their conversation piece with the audience. Squalling guitars, whiney vocals, fuzzy shoe-gazing pop, Yuck have got indie-rock-like-it-used-to-be down to a fine art and are appealingly good. They’re starting to give The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart a run for their money.

Gold is her name and it seems that Gold is her colour - for Alice Gold had either overdone it with the fake tan or has gone a few rounds sunbathing. Looking more like a Jordan wannabe than a rock star she belted out her MOR rock-pop with a big pair of lungs, to a small crowd of curious onlookers most of whom were passing by on their way to buy food or drink.

Sarah from The Good Natured first came to our attention as a bedroom-demo keyboard lass back in 2009. Now playing as a three piece band she’s ditched the keyboard, relying instead on a backing track. Displaying a girlish nervousness between numbers, her performance was entirely composite and confident during the songs themselves. She prowled like a hotpants and black eyeliner wearing tiger, thrusting her arms towards the crowd, throwing the microphone lead around her neck and dropping to her knees to sing in her strangely captivating flat tones. Sarah is certainly playing at being a ‘proper’ pop star, but possesses a darker edginess. Fortune Teller was a hooky swirling danceable beast and Your Body Is A Machine a deeper scratch below the surface.

The scratch becomes a darker wound with Esben and the Witch. The Brighton trio were primitive, experimental and powerful, the reverb laden female vocal more than ghostly, the drums, thrashing guitars, electronic beats and pulses of ambient noise not for the fainthearted, but all spectacularly good. One of the highlights of the afternoon at the Lake Stage for those who like their music a little eerie.

New bands led to more established artists on the main stage and then The Word sponsored 6,000 capacity tent, as day turned to night.

Laura Marling’s second album I Speak Because I Can may be bolder than her debut but would her songs transfer in the huge open space of the main stage, known as the Obelisk Arena ? The answer is yes, her hushed folk sound and quality musicianship only being slightly spoilt by sound bleed from the booming Wild Beasts set from The Word stage. Devil's Spoke and Rambling Man were authoritative and passionate, and when unadorned of her backing band she bears fruit with songs of beauty. Not so much the shy or humble girl she once was, Marling even engaged in some between song banter and got the crowd to accompany her on a whistling solo.

In the Word Arena Richard Hawley was un-typically quiet in between songs, which he finally explained was due a bout of bronchitis. Despite this however his lovelorn melodies were timeless and wonderful, particularly during Tonight The Streets Are Ours which was so romantic that if babies haven’t been created to its sound, there’s something tragically wrong with the world.

It’s left to The National to send folks back to their tents with the best set of the day. It’s powerful, weighty and intensely euphoric. Matt Berninger’s baritone is imposing, the bands music almost overwhelming, layered, lush and hugely emotional. They start with the slow build of the exquisite Runaway, and by the time they reach Bloodbuzz Ohio and Fake Empire grown men are on the verge of weeping. Mass singalongs occur. It’s that good. It’s that exhilarating. It’s moments like these that make you realise that, in the moment, music is that important. The National are now challenging Radiohead as the worlds best rock band. Even bigger stages surely beckon. Very special and the perfect way to end the first day.

Latitude 2010 Day 2 and Day 3 review posts will be published daily this week.

Latitude 2010 - Preview

(Photograph Copywright Andi Sapey used courtesy of Latitude On Line Press)

“It’s more than just a music festival,” is the tag line for Latitude. This is undoubtedly true - Latitude has a fantastic range of cultural entertainment from comedy ( Emo Philips, Ardal Ohanlon, and Rufus Hound to name just three ), literature (Hanif Kureishi, Bret Easton Ellis, Julie Burchill and Garry Mulholland), to theatre, opera, poetry, film and cabaret. Yet even if it didn’t have all of these things, it would still stand up to scrutiny in terms of its musical line up. Not just because of the headliners (this year Florence and The Machine, Belle & Sebastian and Vampire Weekend do the honours) but because of its rich pickings of smaller acts further down the bill - more of those in a moment.

Set in Henham Park, Southwold in Suffolk, Latitude is run by Melvin Benn, who is also responsible for organising Reading and Leeds festivals, together with an input into Big Chill and Glastonbury. Latitude is his venture into the more artistic side of festivals - taking elements of smaller boutique festivals, moulding them with bits of Glastonbury but without the warped late night madness / truly alternative ‘anything can happen’ vibe. It has gained a reputation in some circles as a ‘festival for those who grew up at Reading and Leeds but now prefer reading The Guardian, drinking Cappuccinos and lighting barbecues instead of setting fire to gas canisters and portaloos.’ There’s certainly an element of this to Latitude - it lacks the energy and edginess of an event such as Reading, yet for those who want more than just a bunch of indie and rock bands in a field near an industrial estate, Latitude provides. From its now famous coloured sheep, the beautiful Sunrise stage set in the woods, the lake stage with the lily shaped lanterns that light up at night, to the unusual and unexpected - this year for example will see Tom Jones play a set at midnight in the woods on the opening Thursday night and Kitty, Daisy and Lewis soundtracking The Blues Brothers film; Latitude has a significant amount of care put into the curation of the performances.

But despite Latitude being about more than just music, Breaking More Waves will be mainly, but not exclusively, enjoying the performances of the bands and artists of a musical variety. We’ll be bringing a full review of Latitude 2010 shortly after it finishes, and if our wireless technology stands the test we will also be attempting to live tweet our way around the event. Follow us on Twitter here to catch those.

Earlier we mentioned the many new acts on the bill, and below we present Breaking More Waves Top 5 new acts to see at Latitude 2010.

Clare Maguire

With an album being recorded with Fraser T, (Tynchy Strider, James Morrison) Clare Maguire is a name that remains unknown to many. We first wrote about her at the start of January 2009 after hearing her collection of demos that displayed an artist with obvious talent - she has a hugely powerful and gutsy voice that stands the test versus pretty much anyone you could care to line her up against. So confident were we that Maguire has the voice to be a huge commercial success that we named her in our Ones to Watch List 2010. Yet up until now there has been nothing from Maguire, her record company keeping her quietly under wraps. Come Latitude 2010 we’ll be better positioned to judge if Maguire has fulfilled the early promise that her demos such as the sultry Strangest Thing suggested. There’s no You Tube footage to view, no music clips that we have permission to put out, but if you’re going to Latitude, head down to the Lake Stage when Clare Maguire plays. It could be something very special.

Morning Parade

Morning Parade may not be creating anything particularly new or ground breaking, but what they do they do exceptionally well. Big rock tunes with indie /dance crossover, they seem to have arrived fully formed and ready to step up to the next level. You can grab a free download of their song Marble Attic which we featured a week or so ago here.

The Good Natured

Since we first featured The Good Natured aka Sarah McIntosh on Breaking More Waves back in March 2009, she has been featured on the last Kitsune compilation, released Your Body Is A Machine as a single, played a number of gigs and bagged herself slots at various festivals including the Isle of Wight, V and of course Latitude. Slowly growing her profile rather than being exposed to huge hype, she seems to be bringing a darker edge to synth pop. “We are influenced by self love and benevolence, narcissism is overwhelming, vanity is quite exhausting, self indulgent, hedonistic, blame it all on your upbringing,” are not the typical lyrics of your modern day pop star. An intriguing prospect. Here's an acoustic arrangement of the single, the original video and song can be seen here.

Yuck

Yuck have made fairly regular appearances at Breaking More Waves since the beginning of the year. Like all great noise pop bands, Yuck surge with fuzzy guitars, but under the racket have a neat line in melody. Their Camden Crawl set was one of our highlights of that event, and although their music may be more suited to sweaty dark basements, we eagerly anticipate their arrival on an outdoor stage. Here's the song Georgia by Yuck.

Rose Elinor Dougall

From ex-Pipette to indie credibility, to providing vocals for Mark Ronson, Rose Elinor Dougall has been on some journey since she offered up her first solo offering Another Version of Pop Song back at the end of 2008. With a debut album Without Why due for release at the end of August, Rose Elinor Dougall holds the unlucky status of being one of the miniscule number of artists we have interviewed for the blog, before deciding that interviews didn’t fit with what we were about. What does fit though is Rose’s rather wonderful dreamy melodies.

Latitude 2010 takes place on the 15th-18th July 2010 and is completely sold out.

Yuck - Weakend

We’re not sure why, but the band that have up until now been known as Yuck, seem to have changed their name to Yu(c)k. This may mean that we should be changing our pronunciation to You-See-Kay, but for now we’re sticking with Yuck, because as rubbish as it is, it requires less effort.

Yu(c)k continue to confound us with astonishment and beauty. Their live set we saw (here) was full of buzzing and fizzing guitars that screeched and jostled in their rawness, yet they have now delivered several laments that are full of dreamy softness. Weakend (again the spelling may or may not be confusing) is the third of a trilogy of comfort blanket beauties, the other two being Suicide Policeman and Automatic. Here Yu(c)k create another song to utterly immerse yourself in. It’s due to be released on a forthcoming cassette EP, out soon through Mirror Universe.

Right now in our digital age, where everything is easy, the cassette tape is having a nostalgic analogue rebirth. Witness how many of the coolest indie / underground labels are putting out releases on tape. Maybe the cassette, like 7” vinyl has taken on a new identity. It now stands for something; the fight against the corporate giants and the mainstream. The ipod is marketed as cool, but can something be that cool when everyone has one? Furthermore the cassette represents a labour of love. We’re always very disappointed when we see that someone advertises a ‘mix tape’ but it’s actually a CD or even worse an online play list. It smacks of efficient convenience rather than a time consuming and incredibly painstaking effort.

Of course ultimately cool counts for nothing. This weeks cool is next weeks naff. Better to trust your instincts and decide what to fall in love with on the basis of what moves you.

So this weekend, enjoy weakend. Falling in love with this isn’t hard. Do it.

Yu(c)k - Weakend from Yuck on Vimeo.

Yuck - Automatic

Whilst the Yuck live show may be full of fuzzy noise pop and squalling guitars, there’s another more restrained side to this band. We first wrote about Automatic a few months back and now Yuck have released a simple video for song, shot from an aircraft coming in to land. Automatic is a slow burning tranquil hymn formed out of simple piano and hushed harmonies - it’s built for that late night come down. So perfectly full of restraint and calm in its structure, it coaxes you into sitting perfectly still as it plays. Automatic deserves to be heard quietly rather than loud, like listening to a light rain against the window.

The band are due to play Latitude, Field Day and Bestival festivals in the UK this summer and an album, which has a working title of “Sexy Album” is being recorded on old fashioned 8 track recorder. We look forward to hearing the results. For now, fingers on lips, shhhhh..... listen to the sound of beauty. Yuck - Automatic.

Yuck - Automatic from Yuck on Vimeo.

Yuck - Suicide Policeman

One of the people pictured above is not in the band Yuck. Can you guess which one ?

Since Yuck first appeared on the musical radar with the exquisite torch song Automatic and the manic fuzz-pop of Georgia there has been a small storm brewing around the band, with Breaking More Waves being just one blog getting a tiny bit excited about them (here). Now the group have released a new song, which you can download from the Yuck blog. With Suicide Policeman, Yuck produce a third string to their bow; a soft, wistful tune that has subtle washes of county-pop, Simon & Garfunkel and captures the mood of laid-back indie sounds from The Pastels to earlier Belle and Sebastian. Hushed tender-hearted vocals sing “I just want to let you know I could be your suicide policeman, don’t you go till my eyes have left your face,” and we’re immediately transported to a lazy, cigarette stained Sunday morning. With boy-girl harmonies and a drifting slacker sound its a peaceful moment in the day.

If you want to hear Suicide Policeman live, Yuck are out all over the UK playing gigs with Japandroids and Times New Viking. They also have a number of festival slots including Camden Crawl, Dot To Dot and Latitude lined up. In the meantime click on the link above to take you to the Yuck blog and get the download.

Yuck - New Waves @ Breaking More Waves

Brand or band? It’s an argument that seems to be cropping up a lot recently. Ask the Sugababes and the answer is simple. Brand. As a group of identifiable musicians or personalities the concept of the Sugababes no longer exists. Members can be replaced and the brand continues.

As the viability of music as a commercial revenue stream decreases, the brand becomes all important in generating income. For a band to be commercially successful it now seems that music is just a small part of the package. Synchronisation earnings are as important as selling CD’s or downloads for a significant number of artists who want to make a living from music. Right now in this rapidly changing world bands need to find a brand that people identify with to generate income. One day maybe a band will form and be a huge commercial success without ever releasing a song. We suspect that time will come.

So what happens when your brand doesn’t generate the money you hoped it would? It seems that one model is to re-brand. Fear of Flying became White Lies. Delphic have operated under different brands before finding some commercial success. Ex-members of Mumm-Ra are currently trading under the name Mirrors. Change the product, the image, the style and the music (yes the music is only a part of the re-branding) and commercial success may come your way.

Now of course this all sounds very cynical. We’d like to believe that bands just evolve naturally. Personal differences and life changes sometimes lead to a band splitting up. Sometimes some members remain and form a new band / brand with a new name.

This brings us to the subject of this post. Yuck are a band who test the branding argument right from the word go. Not because they don’t have good product, but because they have the worst name for a group we have ever heard of. Even worse than Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head. (If you haven't heard of the later, trust us they exist, just Google them.) Furthermore they’ve evolved from a previous band, two of their number having once been Cajun Dance Party. Remember them?

The music that Yuck create is, on the evidence of the two demos on their Myspace, nothing like Cajun Dance Party. Georgia is a fuzzy, swirling pop song reminiscent of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Yo La Tengo or Ride whilst the gorgeously quiet Automatic is a slow candlelight ballad similar to something you might expect from Spiritualised or Mojave 3. We have been playing it on repeat for the last couple of weeks almost non-stop. It really is that good. It’s very early days for Yuck, having only set up a Myspace page two months ago. However in terms of the music, on the limited evidence we have heard, Yuck deserve your attention. On the question of branding, we’re not so sure yet. Just judge the songs yourself. Click here and you can download and listen to the two songs we’re talking about, legally, for free in the January section of the Yuck blog. With a quick scan of the internet we've also managed to find one piece of footage of the band playing live from just a few days back. The song here we believe may be called Rubber. A less melodic affair it's one for those who like their musical landscape filled with a cartilage of sustained shoegazey sounds.

YUCK- The Lexington from Stacy Martin on Vimeo.