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Never mind the editorial bit at the top or what we said the last time or where the music coverage has been in recent weeks, you’ve read all this already, just jump down and let the actual music do the talking. 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 apples 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 oil? 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…
Here we go again, in no particular order….
1: Mark Cunningham/Thymme Jones – This Thymme Jones piece is so good we’re going to feature it twice, his split release with Mark Cunningham, Thymme of Cheer Accident of course. The story of how this one fell into our day will be up on line later, meanwhile, here’s the double a-sided cassette release out on Chicago DIY label no Sides Records, reach it via Bandcamp and we’ll be along with more about No Sides in a moment. For now, “After 25 years, the 50th No Sides release. Mark Cunningham of MARS and BLOOD QUARTET. Thymme Jones of CHEER-ACCIDENT and YOU FANTASTIC!. Nuff said”.
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2: Hey Colossus – Really enjoying the new Hey Colossus album and indeed going back and explore older material, here’s the review of that album – ORGAN: Four albums reviewed, the shock of French avant rock band Chromb! The class of Hey Colossus, the Post Rock of London’s Reformat and from Belgium the smouldering darkness of Takh… – here’s another track and another taste from the fine new album… Find the album and all you need to know on Bandcamp
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3: Soft Punch – Washington D.C.’s Soft Punch have just released a new single and a video for My Aim Is True. Soft Punch is the project of Washington D.C.-based musician Rye Thomas, the band have also just released their new album Above Water on Bad Friend Records, I guess the single is a taste on it…
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4: a Light Sleeper – Kind of lost touch with the recent Cuneiform Records activity which is bad of us becasue they really are one of the most rewarding labels out there, especially their more forward looking experimental prog rock flavoured output. Chicago’s a Light Sleeper released a new album back at the very end of June. More of their clever (but never too clever) forward looking, rather delightful avant-rock, clever weaving around a rather beautiful less-is-more sound
“Chicago’s a Light Sleeper initially emerged in the summer of 2005 as a duo consisting of Matthew Jung (drums, keyboard) and Dheeru Pennepalli (guitar, vocals). Having come up in the DIY post-punk/hardcore/noise scene, they were both eager to do something drastically different — a quieter band, exploring minimalism and improvisation built around Pennepalli’s experiments live-looping his atypically tuned guitar and voice.”
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5: Big Special are today, whichever day today is? probably yesterday now? Yesterday or today, Big Special are wanting us to share the fact that they are eharing a brand-new single Desperate Breakfast, which they or their mouthpiece says is a “marriage of bludgeoning percussion and buzzsaw synths that lays out the next chapter of a band manifesto that – only three singles deep – is already making converts of many. The follow-up to this summer’s ‘This Ain’t Water – which I do beliEve we also featured landed on the BBC 6 Music A-list – “Desperate Breakfast kicks against the mocking “put up and shut up” mentality that broadcasts itself under the guise of being “character building.”
The way singer Joe Hicklin’s brimstone-fired voice marches from guttural punk barks and serrated spoken word to soaring soul and back again, is a form of alchemy that only he knows how to conjure. It’s an approach siphoned from their forebears, crushed under the weight of history, and retooled for a new generation. Hicklin’s magnetic presence on the track walks us through a vision of dilapidated smalltown high streets, capturing the exasperation of living pay cheque to pay cheque.
Hicklin comments on the song: “Desperate Breakfast is about that first meal of the day you have to force down before you drag yourself to the job you don’t want in the place you don’t want to be, and the normality of having no choice but to take part In that seemingly infinite routine. It is also in part about the similar cycle that occurs in unemployment. Either way, the morning brings desperation.”
Continuing about the video, he says: “Tat Vision is a household name in Brum, we love his work, it’s spookiness, the mixture of humour and pain in those faces. We’re chuffed he was up for collaborating with us.”
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THE ORGAN 
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