PRECOCIOUS NEOPHYTE — MY ELECTRONIC IDOL

⌾ LISTEN TO MY ELECTRONIC IDOL BY PRECOCIOUS NEOPHYTE ⌾

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A shining candy floss sky, the sun merely a white blinding circle behind hefty clouds. It's the scene conjured by the warped scuzzy chill of 'My Electronic Idol' by South Korean, Chicago-based aritst Precocious Neophyte, aka Jeehye Ham. Imbued with shoegaze aesthetic, all fuzz and delay pedal, waves of guitar provide a soothing wash of noise while the chorus jostles with riffy muscle for an exercise in deftly dynamic balance.

In the tossed salad of it all there is a mingling of genres, the shoegaze sensibilities centre stage, while Ham's vocals summon the ethereality of dreampop, floating cirrus-like and carefree amid the din of distortion. The bass hums with laid-back psychedelic flair, wandering with the drums to create an effortless groove, a stoned-by-the-lake kind of feel that feels at once feels as awesomely aimless as it does pointed and present.

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• 🔔 'My Electronic Idol' is fresh, new music. It's the first track taken from Precocious Neophyte's upcoming album Home in the Desert, scheduled for release on 1st September on Graveface Records. You may pre-order it on Bandcamp, if you like.

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☟ Precocious Neophyte Internet Presence ☟
bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram

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🐣 DRENS — BICYCLE RIDER

⌾ LISTEN TO DRENS, BICYCLE RIDER ⌾

A frantic wallsmash of an ode to riding bicycles, the theme of German band Drens' pogosticking 'Bicycle Rider' doesn't need to be guessed at. The drums are destroyed as the thud fuzz of the snare and splashing razor cymbals become a crashing cutlery drawer of mayhem, setting the rocky terrain where the rest of this track tumbles and divebombs.

We asked the band about the background to 'Bicycle Rider'.

"Our rehearsal room is in a rough area in Dortmund, so we park our bikes inside. [Drummer] Joël saw them and started to shout this "bicycle rider" thing," Drens co-founder Fabian Livrée (vocals, guitar) told us. "The special thing is that we didn't replace the lyrics, because we started to like it. It's our kind of humor and we really like riding bikes."

It's just over a minute of wiggling arpeggios, thrashing guitar and thick galloping bass – complete with stringbreaking guitar solo and vocals overflowing with breathless bite – for a punch-in-the-face parody of the surf sound: instead of hitting the waves, they're tearing up the streets by pedal power.

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• 🔔 Get this brash and bouncy bike ballad via your fav streaming service.
• 🔔 'Bicycle Rider' is taken from Drens' recently released Nowhere Beach EP, which you can/should listen to on their SoundCloud.

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📠
☟ Drens Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

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LAZY INTERVIEW #20: SUPERFOOD

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← #19: BRETON #21: DCUP →

I didn't find or didn't try to find a suitable image for this particular little piece, so I made one. What it is, as you can see, is the word Superfood, in stylised font of course, repeated six times. It's a good thing that who I'm writing about is actually a band called Superfood, and not a band that has a completely different name. Did my research, you see.

However, in all seriousness, I'm here to talk about a band. It is a band from the Midlands – Birmingham, specifically – called Superfood. I've said that already, but saying it again makes you think of the name a little more. Remember it. Savour it. Let it flash in your mind like a gently alluring neon sign. Because that's what it should be doing. And if it isn't, and you haven't heard their music, then their music should have the same effect on you. Why? Cause it's real good, that's why.

First encountering the band at the start of summer in the form of a self-titled demo, I basically got addicted to their sound there and then. Moving onto another demo called 'TV', whose lyrical content included such things close to my heart as being unable to sleep unless the TV was on quietly in the background, they've since picked up the pace with a video for their latest tune 'Melting'. And just yesterday, they released a 12" of two songs: Bubbles/Melting – get that HERE.

But what they sound like? A kind of revitalisation of Britpop, quirky guitar melodies played slapdash-style in a kind of Anglo-Weezer sound with all the beautifully mundane lyrics and laid-back style that has given and still gives British music its sense of cool. Kind of like that. Or to sum all that up in two words: "college rock"... In other news, the band's frontman – Dom Ganderton – was kind enough to lend his time and brain to this latest edition of the Lazy Interview.

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Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
My name is Dom, I am from the beautiful Midlands and I play guitar and sing in Superfood.

Why did you decide to start creating music?
I don't think there was ever a conscious decision to get into music initially, it was just after I had some cello lessons at primary school that I kind of drifted onto guitar and carried on until now. The reason me and Ryan started Superfood however was because we had both had a few years out of playing in bands and only having a computer to jam with became quite stale. We both kind of realised how much writing songs and singing them meant to us and how it kind of emptied a tank in our heads that would otherwise just overflow and send us bonkers. I'm really happy that I'm not completely bonkers yet.

How would you describe your sound? What makes you and your style stand out?
This is always such a tricky question as I feel that we're really not going to know exactly who we are as a band till after we've had a little more time together and got an album down and stuff. It's pretty songwriting with big beats that's a little rough around the edges.

Is there a perfect time and place for listening to your music?
Right now the best place to listen to our songs is in a 200 cap club while we are on stage playing but we want to bring it to the bedroom dancers and pre-lash legends.

What inspires you most when writing a song?
I think what's inspired our songs so far are the two years we took out of being in bands dancing in nightclubs, trying to pay rent and attempting to go to university. But inspiration musically can come from anything. We wrote a song using this old harp my sister made in school years ago.

What is your most memorable musical experience?
So far it has to be this *moment* I had half way through out UK tour with Peace, I can't remember where we were but we were halfway through our set and there was like 5 or 6 seconds where I was like fuck we're actually pulling this off... Kudos.

What are your favourite three songs at the moment?
The Turtles - I'm Chief Kamanawanalea (We're the Royal Macadamia Nuts)
Isley Brothers - Love The One You're With
The Cardigans - Been It

Who do you most admire in the music world?
Jeff Lynne

In your opinion, what is the future of music?
I reckon the future of music is for people to realise that you don't have to be futuristic and use machines to make music evolve. I think people need to get back to the fact that music requires real instruments played by humans. Computers are great tools but people shouldn't rely on them as a main component of their sound.

What's the future of your music - what do you hope to do next?
We're going into record our album in the new year and hopefully we're going tour Scotland a lot fingers crossed.

What, aside from music, is most important to you?
...

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Due to the luxuries of censorship, I'm unable to tell you the answer to that last question. Sorry. But I can tell you that along with sounding like a perfectly down-to-earth chap with honest intentions with regards to music, feeling impulsed to write, sing and play, Dom also has a good sense of humour. A sense of humour is key. Taking oneself too seriously leads to being unable to take a joke, and stuff like going completely crazy on Never Mind The Buzzcocks.

But with that little apologetic and revelatory blip outta the way, to wrap up, it seems that Superfood, at least with Dom involved (cause I don't know what the rest of the band – Carl Griffin (drums), Emily Baker (bass), Ryan Malcolm (guitars) – think), are onto a winner. Songs that spill naturally from people's minds, the work of wordless, intangible inspiration, are often quite good songs; it's been true so far. Gloriously stepping into the future without relying on typical tropes of "futuristic" music, Superfood fill a void in Britain's musical landscape that eschews effects and electronic instruments in favour of "real instruments played by humans". Of course, they haven't been around for long, so what the future holds: who knows?

However, without wanting to sound too dramatic, these guys manage to create music that is not too dominated by throwbacks to past eras, not trusting computers for palatable and zeitgeistical gimmicks – music that sounds like it's from exactly when and where it's from, played honestly and without pretence. GET TO KNOW.

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← #19: BRETON #21: DCUP →

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THE FIN. FADED LIGHT [VIDEO]

Wow I haven't heard a new song from these guys in ages. Well, actually, this song isn't that new really – in fact it's like a year old. It's just that very recently it's received a video treatment, which does serve to update a song. And it's come at a good time, well, perhaps me writing about it right now has come at a good time since the video's been out a while – The fin.'s debut EP Glowing Red On The Shore, which also includes the song of theirs I wrote about back in May, 'Misty Forest' , and which is out tomorrow (6th December).

The fin. is a Japanese band from I'm not sure whereabouts in Japan. But where they're from doesn't particularly matter: they're good, they sound good, and that's kind of all that matters really. Yep, it's better to be meritocratic about these things rather than operate on a geographical bias. In any case, let's talk about the video. It's a trip around London on a double-decker bus and also a trip into the English countryside, shot to create the illusion of seeming much older than it is – and it works really nicely, having a retro sound themselves, the retro look to the video is the perfect companion to their song, 'Faded Light'.

Moving between the driving stadium-rock-esque sweeps of supremely delayed and reverb guitar first blasted out in the song's intro, and the relatively sparse, indie-summoning verses – where the raw, simple drumbeat joins hands with the basic plucked lines of the bass – 'Faded Light' is an homage to the music of yesteryear. The vocals, coming from The fin.'s singer and songwriter frontman Yuto Uchino, are thin and soaked in a wonderful echo, adding subtle touches of nostalgic emotion to the song in rich layers.

Overall, it's an epic-sounding slice of indie that sounds like nothing else at the moment, nothing that I've heard anyway. It's this mix of old and new with influences from all over the place: vocals that conjure a kind of MGMT-slant on singing and guitar sounds that clang and thrum in ecstatic U2-like handraising numbers. But rather than clashing, its different elements blend into each other like only the sweetest of memories can do.

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Like The fin. on Facebook
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Follow Yuto Uchino on Twitter

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THE ORWELLS LIVE @ MADAME JOJO'S

Well. Last night I went to see The Orwells live at Madame JoJo's, a venue in Soho, London. There were actually three bands playing. I didn't see the last band (whoops/oh well) because, well, The Orwells were quite good and we decided to leave on a high. Which is always a good thing, I think. Judge for yourselves though.

The first band that played were called Polterghost - a London post-punky trio. Each track had a similar vibe, and that was Nirvana-esque riffs that oozed grunge, some shreddy guitar solos dotted here and there, alongside palm-muted guitars with some high-pitched vocals - almost a little like Smashing Pumpkings. The drums pounded out the rhythm. Perhaps a little "teen" sounding for my liking, and not a commanding stage presence, but nice enough. Their track 'Holy Smoke' should give you a good idea of their sound.

But then The Orwells bowled onstage. Not only did they move around as if completely possessed by the music they were playing, but they played the music in a ballsy, aggressive way. Lead-vocalist Mario Cuomo towered over his bandmates, looking almost too big for the stage, in cream skinny jeans, a red Chicago Bulls vest and sporting a luscious mop of wavy blonde hair that he used to his advantage the whole time: playing with it, letting it cover his face, whipping it around. Oddly sexual.

They opened with 'Mallrats', which set the tone for the rest of the show: its maddening yet tongue-in-cheek "lalalalala" screamed out alongside crushing distortion and crashing drums. They went onto smash through their set, going through the addictive 'Other Voices' and stopping by for slow-dance numbers 'Blood Bubbles' and 'Halloween All Year', yet with the wholly crazed vocals from Cuomo still on top form. My friend suggested that he looked like he needed an exorcism, and I said that playing live probably was the exorcism. However, I wholly doubt there's anything like that needed. I mean, in some ways, yeah he was going crazy - falling offstage at one point and generally screaming out the lyrics with a hardcore rockabilly drawl as if his life depended on it. It's just angry stuff - and I loved it.

Of course, they played recent hit 'Who Needs You' from their new EP of the same name - it sounds even better live. They also went through a perhaps extended version of their psychedelic song 'Head', which in its second half repeats the same majorly distorted riff over and over - at this point they were pretty much all in a frenzy onstage. It's good to see that kind of thing. People getting into their music, I mean. What better way to show that your music's likeable by liking playing it so much that it makes you go into a bit of a trance? Mm-hm.

They ended with a cover of The Stooges' 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' - it was a raucous affair. Truly raucous. Raunchy. The lyrics were roared out, the guitars totally abused - huge noise. I suppose you could equate it to their performance of the same song at another place, but the stage was smaller at Madame JoJo's; maybe they felt claustrophobic or something, because they seemed to be even more mental.

Overall, what more can I say? I suppose that it was really good is a start. It WAS damn good. I thought the recordings were good enough, but the energy that they drew from playing live to people in a room is clearly something that can't be captured in essence. Also, to see them like actually playing was amazing.

They had a very punk dynamic, the bassist Grant Brinner grooving modestly to the rhythm and at one point taking the cord out of guitarist Matt O'Keefe's microphone, who later knelt on the floor and pulled the mic stand down to him, relentless drumming from Henry Brinner, frenzied bent-double playing from other guitarist Dominic Corso, and general madness from Mario Cuomo. He stood out, dancing, pulling at his clothes, moonwalking (probably?) at one point, and as I said earlier, falling off the stage, then falling off the stage again trying to pull himself back onto it. They all scream pent-up aggression and youthful frustration - a feeling that's easy to summon up in yourself after seeing these guys freak out so much themselves. Basically really fun to watch. And really nice to have seen them at such a small intimate venue, cause I think they're only gonna get bigger from here on in.

Afterwards we were so punk, threw straws around in McDonald's, got the guy who served us to give us a free cheeseburger each, and I sold two cigarettes for £5. Imagine that. Our slowly diminishing yet endless youth. Go see The Orwells if you get a chance - you won't regret it.

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Like The Orwells on Facebook
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