The Horrors - Primary Colours

In the indie rock world of today where the debut album of many artists is considered their defining moment, commercial concerns often lead to album number two offering up a lesser version of the former, with a corresponding drop in sales and the inevitable parting of ways with the record label. In the case of The Horrors, a while back even album number two seemed just a dream. After just one long player release the band were dropped by Polydor leading to a distinct feeling that their haircuts were bigger than the hype and the band were destined for the trash can.

Anyone who had seen one of their exhilarating live shows, all flashing strobes, searing guitars and front man Farris Badwan stalking and climbing the stage like a man possessed would have known however that there was something more to this band. It seems that XL Recordings realised this, signing the group to their ever increasing diverse rosta to release album number two; Primary Colours.

Produced and mixed by Craig Silvey and Geoff Barrow of Portishead, with additional input from the renowned dark lord of video direction Chris Cunningham, Primary Colours is an album that sees The Horrors exceed their debut in every respect. This is certainly no lesser version of the former. A kaleidoscopic menagerie of psychedelic mystery, atmospheric noise, nightmarish brutality and brooding krautrock that recalls Joy Division, Psychedelic Furs, My Bloody Valentine and Jesus And Mary Chain this is an impressive, shocking album that shows that indie guitar rock can still create something beautiful out of a racket.

Take one listen to Who Can Say, a pounding art school cinema piece of work complete with swirling seaside pier organ and a tambourine stamped Phil Spector-ish spoken word interlude of “And when I told her I didn’t love her anymore, she cried,” and be amazed. This is a dark single minded album full of vast angry guitar and swirling vintage keyboards. Badwan’s baritone is trippy, echoing and hypnotic. It is a vocal delivery which has the same echoing garage atmosphere of Ian Brown on the Stone Roses classic debut. Scarlet Fields brings in droning bass, LSD weird noises and distorted vocals and wouldn’t have been out of place on one of the earlier darker Cure albums. Then of course there is the epic closer, Sea Within A Sea, a fitting climax to the album, with an ocean of pulsing sequencers drifting into the darkness. Whilst Primary Colours is possibly even less commercial than their debut, in terms of ability to take on influences but at the same time be bold in creative artistry it utterly succeeds.

Primary Colours is the sound of a band finding and properly defining themselves. Polydor you were wrong. Heres to album number three.

Alessi's Ark @ Brighton Freebutt

A nearby funfair punches out blasts of hyperactive techno, but over the road in the Freebutt, Alessi Laurent Marke and her band are producing songs that are more fairytale than fairground. Yet the only children’s story you would normally associate The Freebutt with would be one by the Brothers Grimm. The place is certainly not salubrious, with its down on its luck character and stinking toilets, but this doesn’t seem to bother Alessi at all. “What a nice night,” she starts, before adding later “It’s like a dream room, who is good in Brighton is in the room.”

If this is a dream room, then the music of Alessi's Ark is perfectly suited to it. Dreamy and fleshed with a country twang, her band are subtle and restrained; allowing Alessis’s gentle wistful voice space to be heard. Her vocal is innocently childlike yet strong, even after promises of vocal surprises due to a cold “Not the piggy flue,” she adds. Highlights of the set include the opening haunting Hummingbird, The Horse with an initial rhythm tapped out with a drumstick on the keyboard and The Asteroids Collide, played as part of an encore which she didn’t seem to expect to receive. “I’m an encore virgin,” she beams.

In the live environment Alessi is a delicately engaging performer, more relaxed and confident with her own small audience than when we last saw her supporting Mumford & Sons in Reading. The centre of the sound is Alessi’s voice; a number of the songs start and finish abruptly after she has finished singing, but the music and melodies are also pretty and vulnerable. So with the funfair forgotten, Alessi’s Ark manage to transport the small Brighton audience to a very different world than that of a smelly black room pub venue. At its best it’s a magical, enchanting world.

Beans On Toast + Peggy Sue + Cherbourg + The Agitator @ Brighton Hanbury Club - Communion

With its central glass dome, black interior, wall lampshades, patterned wallpaper, decorative mirrors and flamboyant bar the Hanbury Club has always been one of the most exotically retro venues in Brighton, recalling the 1920’s in its ambience. This lends a sophisticated feel to Communion, the new folk club, direct from London for its opening night in Brighton. Not that everything here fits under the easy label of new folk.

The Agitator is the new project of Derek Meins. Sporting 50’s styled slicked back hair and braces, The Agitator means business; delivering primal, visceral acappella rock and roll with just heavy thudding drumming to back him. His mouth contorts in rubbery shapes as he howls his way through a raw undiluted set, including Mr Wolf, a song about bills you can’t pay.

If Gary Barlow from Take That that was a little younger, had grown a beard and sported a waistcoat he may look a little like the lead singer of Cherbourg (pictured). Their songs fall into two camps. The first are almost medieval folk songs, such as set closer Never Love Again which is full of fiddle and chanted melodies, a song that is as sprightly as a child dancing around the maypole. The second are more straightforward brooding and building guitar rock songs such as Scattered at Sea, which has just a hint of Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol in its vocal delivery. The band gush about the other acts on the bill and are obviously delighted to be playing, and by the end the audience appear equally as delighted with Cherbourg.

Peggy Sue have evolved somewhat since Breaking More Waves last caught them live. Then they were known as Peggy Sue and the Pirates. They are still resolutely lo –fi, mixing elements of blues, soul and alt. folk together in a slightly scrappy detuned style. But now they flesh out their material with accordion, ukulele and a drummer who bashes and clatters heavily, occasionally sounding like the start of a war march. Katy Klaw is dressed in an Eminem T Shirt, a reference and influence which seems about as far away as you can get from the sound they make. There are lyrics concerning sins and forgiveness on Lazarus, stomping changing time signatures, and a cover version of a Missy Elliot number. They remain quirky, odd and charmingly uncommercial despite their big bluesy harmonies doing their best to make them more accessible than their lo-fi leftfield acoustic sound really is.

The late night graveyard shift is left to Beans On Toast. Beans On Toast stands on a chair, elevated for easy viewing. With just an acoustic guitar and a gravel rough voice his performance is a mix of the comedic, personal and political. “You don’t like me in Brighton, because I make jokes about gays,” he gamely grins at the start of his set. Then as everyone begins to clap along to a simple riff, he announces “Let’s all clap hands,” pauses and then adds “F*ckin’ queers”. There’s plenty of laughter. Beans On Toast gets away with what could be conceived as arrogance and homophobia through his cheeky humour. With songs about rich kids in the music business and being old “Just turned 28 and going bald,” he wins virtually everyone over. “I think this is the best Beans On Toast gig ever. I’m gonna crowd surf in a minute,” he jokes. From way up on that chair it’s probably a blessing that he doesn’t as it’s a long way to fall; if he did though you get the feeling that he would be held triumphantly above the crowd in the manner of a rock star.

So the first Brighton Communion is a success. Breaking More Waves will be back for more soon.

Bestival 2009 - Returfed Reseeded Revamped

Last September Robin Hill Country Park, Isle Of Wight paid host to the fifth Bestival and the worst rain Breaking More Waves has experienced at a music festival since Glastonbury in the late 90’s. The site, normally a beautiful woodland and grassland country park, looked like the photo above. But now almost seven months on, the same location looks like this.

To say that the rain and mud at Bestival 2008 was cataclysmic would not be much of an understatement. The fact that the majority of the event was able to run at all in such conditions was miraculous, even if some stages such as the newly located BBC Introducing stage were rained off for significant parts of the weekend. With the Isle Of Wight receiving an amount of rainfall in twenty four hours that it would usually receive in the whole month of September, conditions were treacherous, muddy and desperate. But punters who left the site after three days of hard dirty partying, mud and mayhem to nice warm baths, didn’t have to endure what must have been one of the mammoth clear up operations of any UK festival.

Even Glastonbury, which has had its fair share of famous muddy years occasionally has a year off to allow the site to recover. Not so for Robin Hill Country Park which is a leisure attraction and has a business to operate for the rest of the year. Restoration works had to commence immediately. However even with significant reconstruction, the Isle Of Wight Spring Garden show due to be held in April 2009 had to be cancelled as the main area field, still being reseeded, would not at that stage have been able to withstand heavy traffic, particularly if the preceding week was wet.

Breaking More Waves recently had the pleasure to visit Robin Hill Country Park to see the work that has been carried out, four months before it once again welcomes the colourful sights and sounds of Bestival; and the work that has been going on is quite staggering. It appears that the field that has been used for the main stage for the last five years has been completely returfed, now a soft, lush blanket of green. The area next to this that houses the Bollywood Bar and a variety of other stalls and stages is being reseeded, and that grass is slowly beginning to take hold. New white gravel paths have also been laid and the hill that hosts the village and bandstand areas has also seen some significant returfing and reseeding works. Standing at the bottom of the valley on a sunny day at the start of May it is virtually impossible to visualise the carnage that occurred in the same place last September. This picture shows the area where the main stage has previously been located.

But now changes are afoot. It seems that after five years of gradually developing the site and improving the infrastructure, Bestivals head honcho Rob Da Bank is proposing a big site revamp this year. In order to mitigate some of the risks of a further bad weather situation the main stage is to be relocated to higher, possibly drier ground where the Big Top has been situated the last two years. This according to Da Bank will make the stage more accessible whatever the weather. The area that suffered the worst of the flooding, namely the bottom of the valley will be free from stages therefore reducing the risk of cancellations.

Here at Breaking More Waves we look forward to seeing the newly modelled site layout, and will be reporting back from Bestival later this year. As our Festival season is about to get underway, look out for reports from The Great Escape, Wychwood, Winterwell, Blissfields, Camp Bestival, Summer Sundae and Bestival itself. Fingers crossed for as little of this as possible....