Something something something some, of course the way we’re going to listen to things now is different. More albums, three more down, a million more to go…

Upright Forms – Blurred Wires (SkinGraft Records) – Knocked off the radar? Where were we? Drying out the art and cursing the weather gods, there’s never enough time and if time really is the actor, then who planted this opening track in my head? Heaven Knows really is an earworm, once it gets in there really is no way you’re not going to start singing it at random moments. you might even start punching the air, actually I think we’ve called Upright Forms songs air-punchers before haven’t we? It is that Nick Sakes sound, something runs through all his bands, that anthemic thing, that call to musical arms, You don’t really notice the cleverness in Heaven Knows , it is that natural as he and his latest band knock you off your radar. Now where were we, been trying to nail a review of this one for weeks in between a million other things  

Nick Sakes has been cooking up tasty things with SkinGraft Records for something like thirty years or more now, doing via several bands, he spent most of the ‘90s with his pinpoint prog-punk outfit Dazzling Killmen and then the glorious avant-rock challenge of Colossamite, before returning to the label in the 2010s as half of the ferocious, No Wave inspired duo Xaddax. Blurred Wires and his new trio Upright Forms is more of a return to the attack of Sicbay, a three piece that dealt in tuneful no messing yet still very rewarding rather left field slightly deeper alternative American experimental noise almost-indie-rock back in the first five years of this century – a century that is already almost a quarter way through, time is flying and this review is overdue. Blurred Wires picks up rather positively on the whole Sicbay thing, knitting it together with strands from the other elements of Sakes’ diverse musical past and fusing it to bass player Noah Paster’s songwriting craft along with Shaun Westphal’s colourfully solid sometimes delightfully subtle drumming. The whole thing feels lean, almost mean in the best of ways, ten powerfully compact songs, very much songs, songs that are defiantly hooky, sometimes elegant, always colourful, a little bit of everything in those long shadows. Now Long Shadows itself is indeed elegant – imagine Fugazi wanting to be The Police and then forget that I ever said such a stupidly lazy thing as that and we don’t really need to see eye to eye here do we? We don’t have to go toe to toe?  They Kept on Living, a song that first appeared in an earlier version on the 2022 Skin Graft Halloween comp Sounds to Make You Shudder is as much of a stand out here on this album as it was on that vitally good compilation – there it goes with that almost  grinding 7/4 bite, those lines over those scratchy noise-punk chords and that massive chorus, one of the best chorus beasts that will ever bite you and all while Mr. Sakes shouts the title line over that almost compulsory fist-pumping and they are a band who really do get stuck in your head. 

Hey look, Upright Forms are sounding far fresher and far more at it than this tired old review is, they’re sounding defiant, they sound wired at times, subtle at others and hey, some thirty-five years into his career (is this a career?) Nick Sakes is still challenging himself and here, this time around with Noah Paster and Shaun Westphal he has a new trio that really are seriously on it –  Blurred Wires might night not all be as immediately obvious as the more anthemic fist pumping moments on the album are but give it all time, let it breathe, let it brew, don’t let it stew, and hey, who needs my tired old review (do you know how many reviews I’ve written now? I have no idea, tens of thousands I imagine), there’s the Bandcamp go listen for yourself, who the hell reads music reviews in 2024 for gawd sake? Go turn it up, do or maybe don’t ignore the biology of living, send up a flare, they keep on living and you need to keep on listening to that sound, hard wired, what do we like? Then there’s the other dimension of Animositine and hey, too late to start reviewing it properly now! I could spend my whole life just listening to sound, a fine album but you didn’t need a review to tell you that, you already knew… (sw) 

Bandcamp

Nsasi – Coinage (Hakuna Kulala) – This label, based in Kampala, capital of Uganda, pretty much always comes up with the goods, they’re one of the few labels you real do need to keep and eye on in that way you once watched Stiff or Neat or in more recent times SkinGraft or Dur Et Doux “club explorations from the East African and Congolese Electronic Underground and beyond” is how they fanfare it and over the last couple of years everything I’ve encountered has been rather thrilliant, especially that Aunty Rayzor album from last year, as well MC Yallah album, that recent Masaka Masaka release, really do have or remind myself to go regularly check just in case there’s something new, the most recent check has delivered this fine new Nsasi album

“A founder member of Uganda’s rebellious Anti-Mass collective (alongside Authentically Plastic and Turkana), Nsasi has built up a reputation with subversive DJ sets, smashing together slowed-down dance anthems and glossy R&B with propulsive fringe club experiments. His debut album is a dynamic, industrial rasp that draws on his expertise behind the decks, expertly meshing rhythms from across the musical spectrum into a coarse, dancefloor-ready frame. With the safety of queer people in Uganda compromised by a conservative, intolerant administration, Coinage acts as a rallying cry for like-minded outsiders that mischievously perverts East African traditional sounds, considering their revolutionary potential within a new context”.

We’re talking challenging polyrhythmic anarchy, real life drums and electroid snaps that bite in a slightly different way, a constantly shifting landscape, an always challenging set of colours, sometimes kicking, sometimes pulsing, non-stop percussive reward, a never ending rush of rhythms that just sound fresh, sound refreshing, challenging, rewarding, thrilling, just different colours, just painted in a slightly different way…

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And from Uganda to Detroit although it still doesn’t sound that much like Detroit to these English ears…

Custard Flux – Einsteinium Delirium (Self Release) – They don’t sound like a band from Detroit Rock City, they don’t sound like they hang out at Eight Mile or any of that, they sound more like they’re from the English home counties and spend their time spreading slightly psychedelic strawberry jam on their bread in a perfumed garden that sometimes bites back and that is a very homely sounding Mellotron they’ve got there. What we have here is a proper old school, properly mellow, slightly psychedelic prog rock album that hints in a rather healthy way at bits or proper Genesis, Pink Floyd, the pop of Small Faces, the Canterbury bands like Caravan and yes, I guess there is a touch of the North American prog flavoured hard rock of bands like Kansas or Styx.       

“This album is a little different than our first four albums. It’s no holds barred electric! The songs blend into each other on both sides of the LP to create one nuclear based relativity, with a conceptual narrative of our historical atomic madness in variable time signatures, rests and pieces. On top of that, our whole rhythm section is a Detroit gang. Let’s rock!” –  Well no, still not hearing a “Detroit gang”, no one is kicking out any jams motherproggers, do hear a melodic prog rock album, a concept album maybe?  – “Einsteinium is a highly unstable element that was discovered in the debris after the first hydrogen bomb explosion. Using it in the title eventually compelled me to research and write about characters and events relating to atomic bombs, a thoroughly depressing subject. The infamous key scientist involved in developing the first atom bomb, had deep spiritual interests and in some interviews had made references to the Bhagavad Gita, which I was able to use for more positive, psychedelic inspiration….”

– and yes, mellow, psychedelic prog rock, we might even be talking psychedelic pop at times, pop is good, it doesn’t get any more pop than the aforementioned Small Faces.  There’s some clever details. some delightful passages, the whole thing flows rather well, and well yes, the use of atomic weapons is not a thing to celebrate. The use of atomic weapons is not a thing to forget about. Atomic weapons are not a thing to be taken lightly. there is some weight here, some heavy subject matter and well as easy a listen as this is, there is depth. Hey, amore than decent, sometimes delightful, occasionally richly detailed rather rewarding slightly psychedelic old school prog rock album from Detroit..  

Custard Flux (really not sure about that name) actually have a small cluster of UK dates coming up: July 26th – Axminster Show Ground, Axminster, Aug 1st – Half Moon, Putney, London, Aug 2nd – The Cellar, Cardigan, Ceredigion, Wales

Bandcamp

It is a non-stop operation, this endless parade of album, this gran parade – ORGAN: Our best 43 albums of a very musically busy 2023. Who did we rate?

And while we’re here, last Sunday’s Other Rock Show, brought to you every week by Marina Organ (who never ever has time to write reviews). The Other Rock Show happens ever Sunday night on London Arts Radio station Resonance 104,4FM, brought to you by Organ and driven by Marina Organ who presents an hour of music each week, music that uses unconventional structures and ‘other’ time signatures, music gathered from the worldwide undergrounds of math rock, avant prog, weird electronica, strange pop and more. Last Sunday’s show went like this…

And there hasn’t been a moment to get July’s playist in presentable form yet, so here’s June’s, they are buily every month…