soundCHECK 286 – February 12th 2015

I love this time of year. And by love, I mean hate. That’s almost exclusively because of ill people. Specifically, the kind of ill people who find it impossible to differentiate between the common cold and influenza. You know the type of person I mean. The moment they get a sore throat and a headache they surrender what little strength they have left to the pursuit of climbing aloft the nearest rooftop and declaring to all within earshot that, yep, they’ve got the flu. Influenza. The infectious virus so aggressive that vulnerable groups have to be vaccinated against it annually in case they die. Well done, humans.

I can categorically state that you don’t have flu. If you had flu you wouldn’t be able to rouse yourself from your bed to pick up the £50 note I left at the bottom of your stairs. You wouldn’t be able to broadcast sanctimonious updates about your condition on Facebook because the normally tolerable light that emanates from your smartphone’s screen would feel like the caustic, cornea-rupturing glare of ten thousand halogen bulbs. Best of all, you wouldn’t be able to talk to me about your symptoms. No, what you have is a cold.

Illness isn’t the only thing humans are bad at correctly categorising. Guessing a stranger’s age, for example, is an enterprise best left to idiots and sociopaths. But to find the area where our inability to categorise shines most luminously, you need only look to music.

Spectres are a Bristol-based four-piece who formed in Barnstaple after the fatal implosion of two erstwhile local favourites: LOAD.CLICK.SHOOT! and Fen Tigers. They are currently attracting hugely complimentary reviews in national music press (NME, Q Magazine, Uncut et al) as critics attempt to make sense of Spectres’ debut album, Dying, released 23rd February. While describing the North Devoners’ sound, Spectres have variously been tacked on to the psych scene, pioneered new-noise and adopted a new-krautrock sound, all with a deferential nod to nineties shoegaze. Sigh. What does that mean? Thanks for ruining my life, music journalists.

To be clear: Spectres sound like the eldritch, urgent soundtrack to your worst nightmares. They are equipped with blustering drums, revved up Joy Division basslines and two guitars that construct wiry walls of wailing feedback. Aural reference points – admittedly lazy ones – include Sonic Youth, The Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine (they lurk in the murky shadows of each). Yet amid the layers of haunting feedback and crashing cymbals there’s an energy and urgency to Spectres that makes them a fiercely compelling proposition. Not least live. In fact, especially live – where every sound you hear is impossibly loud. Like when you have flu and that.

Good news, then. Because Spectres are homeward bound as part of their UK tour. They roll up to Golden Lion Tap in Barnstaple on February 21st – almost five years to the day since their first ever gig at The Rising Sun on Boutport Street. Support comes from unfathomably talented Bristolites The Naturals, whose leftfield experimentalism and musical astuteness is genuinely – really genuinely – mind-blowing. North Devon’s TripToTori open the bill.

Stop pretending you’ve got the flu and go. I’m sure you’ll be able to order some man-up juice at the bar.

CONTACT: Please talk to anyone but me, unless you have local music news: jharper[at]northdevonjournal.co.uk | @testforpulse

soundCHECK 285 – February 5th 2015

It’s February. Not a bit February. Or slightly February. It’s totally February and couldn’t be more February – not even if Noel Edmonds offered it a big bag of twenties and diplomatic immunity for the rest of eternity in return for unshackling itself from January and March and catching the fastest train out of 2015.

This is salient. Because February means it’s no longer January. Your bank account is replenished, your joy-stifling new year’s resolutions have failed – like they always do – and you can get back to having fun instead of being the sanctimonious, parsimonious bore that, fleetingly, made all of your friends hate you.

Identify this rebirth as cause for celebration.

Now, I have zero inclination to organise your party for you, but I do have column inches to fill. So allow me to suggest a couple of venues for your sordid jamboree: 1) Lilico’s in Barnstaple; 2) St Mary’s Church Hall in Appledore. As for the dates, 6th February will do for Barnstaple or 7th February for Appledore. Those are your options.

At least they are if you want to see Elles Bailey perform.

Who? WHO!? Elles Bailey is a singer-songwriter from Bristol. It says in this here press release that her voice has been described as the lovechild of Etta James and Janice Joplin. Let’s ignore the fact that it’s a physiological impossibility for a voice to be a lovechild – even with 3D printing and machine guns – and instead thrust attention toward the fact that Bailey’s voice is really rather good. Like, stunningly good.

She is the guardian of a soulful, honey-soaked howl freighted by a gravelly, smoky kind of gravity. Forget Etta James and Janice Joplin, she has the tonal beauty of Courtney Love on Malibu – albeit less revved up on vodka and smack. Aural arousal is a certainty. And if you don’t believe me just you go and listen to Howlin’ Wolf at ellesbailey.com. Do it.

Bailey is backed by a band that articulately peddle non-offensive pop songs with unsubtle nods to soul and blues. The Bristolians are in North Devon as part of a tour to promote pronoun-pondering new EP Who Am I To Me, which is released 23rd February. Here is Bailey answering my question about why she wanted to come to North Devon:

“We have included North Devon on the tour for two reasons: 1) because my drummer Tom Gilkes grew up in Braunton and only moved up to Bristol a couple of years ago; 2) because we have built up a steady following of fans in the area so we wouldn’t want to miss it off the map as the gigs are always wild.”

There you go. A slice of measured wildness is what you need. You’re celebrating, remember?

CONTACT: Please talk to anyone but me, unless you have local music news: jharper[at]northdevonjournal.co.uk | @testforpulse