The Phantom Sound

First Thursday, whatever happened to all that? Two or three years ago First Thursday in East London was a such an exciting buzz, FIrst Thursday was alive with anticipation and just a touch of chaos, it was alive, it was vital. Whatever happened to that buzz, September First Thursday and the main discussion is can we really be bothered? I mean, hair needs washing and it all looks so tame and lame and conservative where once it was street party art attacks and people dancing in the street, naked red me covered in honey and galleries awash with energy, attitude and exciting art, where did it all go? Why did it all become so uninviting and conservative? So art school polite and why are the few things that are happening tonight appearing to be so, well, just so uninteresting? Here, have some Trojan Horse, they play East London on Saturday, there was a  warning about it yesterday, don’t say you weren’t warned. First Thursday then, we’ll go poke around again tonight, Stolen Space should have something to offer, that healthy mix of painterly things that fall somewhere between that place occupied by the contradictions of pop art and graphically-slick street-influenced urban art, Stolen Space has a new show, a group show featuring work by artists represented the London gallery as well as L.A’s Think Space gallery

LAX/LHR – Stolen Space

‘LAX/LHR’ is a group show co-curated with Thinkspace Gallery (LA), it opens tonight, 3rd September and then runs from September 4th until October 4th. Stolen Space is at 17 Osborn Street, London,  E1 6TD

THE PHANTOM SOUND have a debut album out sometime very soon, the album is a subtle pleasure, a simple pleasure that gets way down to the bones – lush pop, keeping the devil from the door, refined pop, proper pop, full album of it, not just a couple of strong tracks and a bag load of filler, a strong consistent body of work   The self-titled first album is infectiously smooth late 70’s North American pop rock and the fact that Clem Burke, Blondie drummer, is part of it all tell you rather a lot. The Phantom Sound is an album born of the time of Blondie, Duran Duran, The Cars, a touch of the Posies, .  The driving force behind the band is Marisa (apparently), she wrote and recorded the soon to be released album in Berlin, Amsterdam, London and Paris. she’s originally from Los Angeles, and now resides in London.  It really is just infectious pop rock, nothing complex, nothing chewy or hard boiled, nothing revolutionary, some days decent sounding proper last century glossy easy-listening pop rock is all that’s needed, this is good,  good is what we need this first Thursday of September

More later….. maybe….