.
Did you notice the blackout this past week? No? Thought not. Never mind the editorial bit at the top or what we said the last time, you’ve read all this already, just jump down to the music. Exact same thing again today, another five (or so) slices of musical things that can do all the talking themselves and however you slice it and of course it was the price of fish and here comes the introduction to the latest Five Music Things feature thing. Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? Do we need to do the editorial bit again? Is there another way? A better way? A cure for pulling flying dogs out of the clouds? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever a reason? What do reasons make? Five more? Snake foil? Everything must go and same as last time (and the time before that) five, and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter why we started this damn thing and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? We do really try to listen to everything that comes in, we do it so you don’t have to, we are very (very) very very picky about what we actually post on these fractured pages or about what gets played on the radio or indeed what we hang in a gallery. Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial, there’s loads of music further down the page, well five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and cut cut slash and cut it, who needs an editorial or words or worms in general? What’s Wordsworth? Just facts and links and sounds then. Here you go, play the music, grab your five, eat your greens, go eat some art, go eat some fresh music and don’t forget whatever it was we said last time,
1: The BellRays – One, two, One, two, three, four, here we go…. “Blues is the teacher. Punk is the Preacher. It’s all about emotion and energy. Experience and raw talent, spirit and intellect. Exciting things happen when these things collide.” so said a BellRay. The BellRays have always been cool, we’ve said things along those lines many time of these fractured webpages and on our printed pages before that, we’ve put them on in London a couple of times, their blues drenched punk tinged hard rock has always dripped with so much soul. Apprently there’s a new single to get excited about.
The BellRays are from some place called Riverside, some place in California, i guess some town that’s by the side of some river, don’t ask me, I’m stuck in East London. The band have always revolved around the core duo of Bob Vennum and Lisa Kekaula. They’ve continually surround themselves with good people, people able to nail their vision of punk, funk, hard rock and soul down. If you don’t know then then maybe go find a copy of their beautifully electric Red, White and Black album and then kick on from there
They’ve been around since something like 1990, it feels like they’ve been constantly there, working, touring and maybe not really getting the attention they’ve always deserved. This month it is mostly about what is the 8th in the Detroit Covers Series of singles from I-94 Recordings, the 8th in the serries sees The BellRays update The Temptations 1970’s socially conscious classic Ball of Confusion. We’ve not heard the actual single yet, their man Dan was too busy going on about omelettes or umlauts or something like that. We haven’t heard it yet,we know when it does come out (or when it reaches us) it will be dripping with all that soul that always drips from a BellRays release, that it will be laced with attitude, that it will be everything you’d expect from The BellRays covering The Temptations
“We were amazed at how timely and current this song still was. So much of the original lyric content was unfortunately still relevant in America like racial tensions and political ineptitude.” – explains Lisa Kekaula. Within a very few changes, the band managed to get an age-old-classics into the whole different context. Musically and conceptually. “We wanted to bring it into a little more modern focus with the mention of the housing crisis, opioids, gas prices and active shooters. It is our way of building a bridge back to the original intent of the song.”
The flip side of the single has a BellRays’ original, I Fall Down, we’re told to expect a mid-tempo burner that will wiggle its way into your eardrum and take up residence, that we’ll be humming it long after it has stopped playing. The cover artwork for the single is awful, something designed by Ben Brown, apparently that’s a big deal. We’re told you can probably pre-order the single coming out this June via I-94 Recordings here. Menawhile he’s some live footage of them performing the track last year////
.
You see, The Bellrays have always been cool, we’ve said it many time before, here’s something from a handful of years back that still hits the way it did the first time it hit us.
.
And from way back when they first came to our attention somewhere around the first time they came over here and played the Camden toilets….
.
Meanwhile, a damn fine way to spend seventeen minutes and ten seconds of your day or your life or whatever it is you spend on these things. Something more than going on about omelettes or umlauts or something like that.
2: The Something Puffs – “The Something Puffs is composer / performer Matt Rogers aka Gameshow Outpatient. Matt, that’s him just up there in the glasses, Matt grew up playing in bands and then spent twenty years writing classical music, including several operas. The Something Puffs smashes all that together”. Certain;y epic, epic going off and things, a glorious seventeen piece that you can find on Bandcamp right now. We’re told “Lap Pool Sweats is an epic single about aspirational apartments, sleep, dreams, simulation theory and whatever else crept up from the basement while I wasn’t looking”. We could review it, we will play it on the radio, every single minute of it, you can listen to it right there,, do you really need a review as well?
.
3: Meursault – parked this here the other day, just before the black dog and the blackout and the what the hell is the point in all this, but this really is what the point is, this piece of beauty and the stadards to be mentained. The first single from the upcoming, self titled album from Meursault. Out through Common Grounds Records somewhere around the 7th July 2023, find out more via Bandcamp or go here. He’s from Edinburgh…
.
4: Nothingheads have a new track, and here comes the hype, don’t shoot me, I;m jsut the messenger – “Beam Engine will be released on June 2nd ahead of Nothingheads’ new EP Sunlit Uplands full release on June 9th. It will be available on a 10’inch lathe cut via DIY label Just Step Sideways Records (Beige Banquet, Civil Partnership, Tommy Cossack)”. I don’t know how releasing a single that’s a trac koff an EP that being released a week later, I always thought an EP was a single that just had a couple more tracks on it, still the same price down at Woolworths on a Saturday morning, here comes more of the hype; “Driven by metronomic drums, propulsive bass and cutting, fuzzy guitars, the track is a ferocious ode the dirty old river, father Thames, and the Great Stink that nearly wiped out London in the 1800’s. Recorded by Wayne Adams at Bear Bites Horse studios, it captures the frenetic energy and rawness of Nothingheads’ live show”. And there you go, it does sound kind of wired and a little frantic, we like it, the pigeons seem to like it, our thankless task is complete, we have covered them a number of times before, the press release said other people considered more quoteable than us liked them, things appear to be flowing well in the land of Nothinggheads, didn’t hear anything that hint at a doom flavour, or psych for that matter, kind of felt like spiky post punk to us, kind of sounded like a lot od fiesty spiky post punk that’s come and gone over the last twenty ofthirty years but hey, that’s no bad thing, here you go, even more the press release hype by way of background information..
“Formed in 2020, London powerhouse Nothingheads make dissonant grooves drawing influence from post punk, psych and doom. Rocks fall from the sky. The TV cuts out. A head bounces to songs covering Amazonian mines, modern super sewers and gambling in Gethsename. Since the reopening of live music in 2021, the band have become a mainstay on London’s DIY live music circuit, supporting the likes of Mclusky and Wine Lips, whilst also becoming regular headliners themselves with their noisy chaotic show. Nothingheads play a headline at the Shacklewell arms on June 17th to celebrate the release of Sunlit Uplands EP. Further London shows across the summer and full UK tour in the Autumn will be announced soon”.
Do they sound likie Gog Magog to you? Did we ask that last time? Does anyone have a clue what we’re on about? Was it this century?
.
5: Treeboy & Arc – if we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times, that’s no bad thing, they’re from Leeds, someone has to be, they work their words well, you go cut holes in it, cruel intentions or something and my brains nearly empty and there’s nothing you can do about it. here’s the Bandcamp and some kind of false object that you can feel lor taste and breathe a single sigh. Too many days turned into… And that feeling as the rot sets in, like a liquidm they could be highly addicive, they could be full of false promise…
.
And while we’re here, if we ever were here, while wwait for Dan t oforget about Umlauts and cut to the real chase and The BellRays and back to the original and…
And ….
And if you think that’s what they’re about, that doesn’t even touch on it
.
THE ORGAN 
Leave a comment