decided to make a playlist that went against the grain with everything i normally listen to these days. in new york your soundtrack is usually as hectic and fast paced as your commute, so everything i listen to on my ipod is usually also appropriate on the dance floor. my ipod is filled with everything from mobb deep to phillip glass, and i thought it was time i payed more attention to the latter. this took hours and hours of patience to create. songs usually lose me after the three minute mark, but i forced myself to hear these songs, no matter how slow or lengthy, with new ears. the result, i think, is a mood the moves at a slightly slower pace, but still has tremendous energy. these are songs i’ve always loved but never make time to listen to. seems appropriate as fall speeds ahead, and winter is around the bend. STOP. hold it. hold it. you might want to sit and listen to this one.

Patiently Paced Vol.1

1. opening (live)- philip glass

2. your cloud- tori amos

3. parrallel lines- kings of convenience 

4. our way to fall- yo la tengo

5. birds- electrelane

6. at the window (cinematic shades edit)- booka shade

7. cymbal rush- thom yorke 

8. i’m not (phaseone remix)- panda bear

9. and then patterns- four tet

10. lover you should have come- jeff buckley 

11. the rip- portishead

12. everywhere you turn- the bad plus

13. hot like fire (aaliyah cover)- the xx

*rico*

yep, i stole this from sara from her post over here.

don’t want to listen to them streaming ? download the tracks here :brian eno // the big ship
blur // sweet song
electrelane // saturday
hidden cameras // a miracle
fucked up // looking for god
lightning dust // antonia jane
magnetic fields // i don’t want to get over you
neko case // hold on, hold on
lloyd cole // happy for you
billy bragg // a new england

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tegan & sara’s new record sainthood drops 27 oct.

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Off to Tallinn, Estonia and Stockholm, Sweden tomorrow.  Be back in a week…

This posting has been moved over to HDNB.BLOGSPOT.COM.  Click HERE to view this post.

This posting has been moved over to HDNB.BLOGSPOT.COM.  Click HERE to view this post.

I love Facebook sometimes.

You casually scroll through the comments and links and status updates of the myriad people who claim, mostly somewhat spuriously, to have an affiliation with you and discover this.

You know that when a band lists their influences as B-52’s,Young Marble Giants, Shangri-Las, Detroit Cobras, Joan Jett & the Runaways, Exotica!, 60’s garage girl groups, Ladytron, Cat Power, Electrelane, Tiger Trap, Barbara Manning, Connie Francis, Xavier Cugat, Hanoi Rocks, Duran Duran, the Cure, Brigette Bardot, Francoise Hardy, Serge Gainsbourg, Mr Airplane Man, Edith Frost, Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Deerhoof, Blondie, etc… they’re either gonna be the new Softies or the new Vivian Girls, but either way you’re going to be able to make your mind up within seconds.

And, with a list like that, it pretty much makes music criticism superfluous.

The new stuff from The Monster Women sounds like Holly Golightly played through one of those saturated sound filters so much in favour these days, softened with a Slumber Party/mid-80s glow. No edges left to scuff your knees on. From Eureka, CA. (Is there really a town called Eureka?)

Here’s a video. Oddly, the music contained therein is quite different from that on their MySpace page. But man, I dig both styles for sure.

Here’s another. Fuck, sometimes I wish folk didn’t have video cameras at everything now. It reduces the unique thrill of live performance.

Oh wait, it was Allison Wolfe who recommended them. Well, no wonder I like ‘em!

There’s a new book out, edited by Sara Jaffe and Mia Clarke. The Art Of Touring. It’s a lot of fun.

Pictures of fuzzy dogs, smiling wide-mouthed cats, photographs of desolate airplanes, debris, euphoric fans, a Jeffrey Lewis comic strip that’s so great I’ve already read it five times, essays on lack of concentration, blizzards in New York, Blue Oyster Cult, marzipan seals… Contributions from musicians out of bands like Le Tigre, Explosions In The Sky, Devendra Banhart, The Ex… A DVD of similarly tangled live footage. (There’s even a contribution from me in there somewhere, about being tear-gassed in Siberia.)

Oddly, it continues along a conversation I was having in Perth a few weeks back, that there is an alternative to U2 tour buses and tales of overturned hotel rooms THAT DOESN’T NEED TO BE DULL… and… well, I think it’s worth checking out, well worth checking out.

The link’s right here.

Ok. Esta es mi nueva idea: una categoría de dibujos para La Caja de Música. En ella publicaré rayonsitos que hago cuando escucho música, y esas cosas. Sólo para que no se queden ahí guardados en un cuaderno. Lo haré cada vez que no tenga una flojera gigantesca de estar escaneando y cada vez que me tope con algo chido que haya hecho o… algo haga algo nuevo y que no me mate de la vergüenza.

Ésta es sobre la canción de Electrelane, “Birds”. Y bueno. Lo hice hace un par de años creo. En la imagen debe de estar el año por ahí.

Denle click para ver el dibujo en grande.

let me begin with an excerpt of my favourite lyrics..

I’ve got a letter that’s full of our secrets
The last one you sent to me
What shall I do with a life turned to memory?
I tried to forget you
Where shall I go when I wake from a dream of you?
I tried to forget you
I still see you

so hello, my names Nicole and i really only start a blog with the wish of manifesting a colourful (overdramatised) portrayal of my life that will hopefully, allow me to pacify my imagination.

 i realise i’m beginning to sound pretentious..!

anyways, I still haven’t made up my mind if i’m going to keep this blog, and myself, anonymous. if i do, i will unravel all the worries, doubts, celebrations and what not in my life to the daedal internet. the idea of keeping myself anonymous to you guys is quite attractive. in the real life i have an inclination to keeping my secrets and such of myself, and not expressing my true opinions. maybe i could even make the transition to being the diminutive and hushed girl in the corner to an outspoken and candid person who can command a rooms attention with the help of this. okay so i’ve already divulged to you what i think is my deepest desire! so i will keep this whole blog anonymous and will offer you guys only this – i’m a 16 yr old girl living in Sydney, Australia with a craving to write.

it’s late and i’m back at school on tuesday so i’ll finish up my first post here. thanks for reading, and wish me luck for actively writing on here – i really want to keep a silhouette of everything in my life for me to contemplate and eventually reflect on. oh by the way here’s the song from those lyrics i wrote before, the soundtrack to summery lunches and long days spent sleeping at the beach.

ciao.

Saturday by Electrelane

(link)

I often check Electrelane’s website, always hoping that today will be the day that their “indefinite hiatus” status goes away…still kicking myself for not going to their last show in Philly a few years back

Just ordered the last copy available on amazon.uk of No Shouts, No Calls…it’s going be a long wait til August 5th (also the day that Alex is visiting!)

weil es eben bald nicht mehr “in berlin” heissen wird, hier also electrelane mit dem besten song ihres letzten albums und einem video, welches erfrischenderweise berlin nicht als graffiti-kulisse (mit dem fernsehturm im hintergrund) für indiekünstler nutzt, sondern einfach gar nicht thematisiert. sympathisch.

[direkt nach berlin]

les (ex-) filles d’electrelane – de haut en bas : mia clarke, verity susman et ros murray

/
/
pendant leur – pourtant assez longue : 1998-2007 – période d’activité, je suis un peu passé à côté du quatuor  de filles de brighton electrelane. sans doute un rien de méfiance et beaucoup de hasard (wrong place, wrong time). j’ai beaucoup écouté leur troisième album « axes » produit par steve albini et sorti sur too pure en 2005 mais je ne les ai jamais vues en concert. certains de mes amis parlent de leur concert à la rotonde du b. (la salle sur-subsidiée de saint-josse) comme d’un  des concerts de leur vie ! le 1^er décembre 2007, electrelane donne son dernier concert au pavilion theatre de leur hometown. dans le magazine « plan b » de janvier 2008 (un an et demi plus tard, en juin 2009, le magazine vient de mettre la clef sous le paillasson – zut !), everett true finissait son compte rendu par ces mots :  « ‘no shouts, no call’ is the title of their final album. no shouts no calls. electrelane have gone. and the newest (and shyest) member, bassist ros murray, took center stage for the final show » .   

/
alors que, justement, ce samedi soir avec maxime de matamore et les camarades de la compilothèque nous faisons jouer ray rumours [anagramme de ros murray, dernière bassiste en date pour le troisième tiers de l’histoire du groupe  de mi 2004 à fin 2007 ; une période correspondant cependant aux trois quarts de sa discographie en termes d'albums] il apparaît que – au moins – deux de ses amies d’alors ont-elles aussi des projets musicaux post-electrelane :

/
- sous le nom de vera november, verity susman l’ex-chanteuse et claviériste du groupe a entre autre repris la très belle chanson our last night together d’arthur russell au piano. sa version se retrouve e.a. sur le quatre titres « four songs by arthur russell » (rough trade, 2007) et en supplément du dvd du portrait documentaire « wild combination » (matt wolf, 2008 – par ailleurs repris dans la sélec de juin 2009)…
> vidéo de la chanson d’arthur russell par verity/vera

/
- en duo avec andy moor (dog faced hermans, kletka red, the ex, multiples projets duo… ), mia clarke a sorti – malheureusement uniquement sous forme digitale sur file 13 et sans existence physique ou matérielle – «  guitargument », deux improvisations pour guitares électriques…
> l’espace de mia et andy

/
/
ray rumours (gb) ~ a people you may know (b)
samedi 20 juin – 20h – la compilothèque
50 quai des péniches – 1000 bruxelles – gratuit (fête de la musique)

/
/
lien 1 [court – extrait live de ray rumours]
lien 2 [autre extrait live – ukulélé]
lien 3 [petit bout de répétition d’electrelane] 

After the (relative) success of the previous entry in this series – Melissa’s ‘Making Plan B’ from right at the magazine’s inception – I thought I’d re-post an early blog entry from the same year.

The file is dated 29/6/04, and I see no reason to doubt it. It must have been written after issue ‘0′ came out, and before the (alternate) cover shown above. Beautiful photography by Sarah Bowles.

Life spirals out of control.
Life lurches in fits and starts between long periods of abject boredom and a welter of activity culminating in performing the songs of Mr Daniel Treacy in front of a crowd of mildly interested indie sorts in a queer-themed Belfast nightclub. I tell a story of prison boats off the shore of England. I tell a tale of a punk band that once supported Nirvana, big show, big date, big chance – and slowed all their songs down to third-speed to fuck off the grunge kids. I speak of beauty, and try to emulate what I speak of, through the sound of my voice wistfully singing words of defiance and Outsider Status, love and heartbreak. Underneath it is a mini-disc recorded in Chris and Sadie’s excellent Hove seafront flat a few days hence – one song is too slow, and I stumble painfully.
Belfast is magic. Our hostess Helen is at pains to keep us topped up with company and food, and I even win a tiebreak on Trivial Pursuit final night. All this, a second viewing for Harry Potter AND a bomb scare (which nicely broke up Goat Boy’s birthday bash at the Front Page, and simply moved the party onto another part of town). It brought back a nice warm glow, me in my early twenties, shunted off one more train, out of one more building, London 1983. The pop quiz (a reprise from the Brighton night) went down a treat, especially the last prize of a pack of cold onion rings, left over from a visit to Ballycastle, and, previously, Giant’s Causeway, which itself was viewed through a slightly auburn haze after I’d downed eight or nine whiskies at the Bushmill’s Distillery. I was elected taster. Shame I can’t stand Bushmill’s, then.
Also in town, The Chalets – we found their voices and contrived pub bounciness a fraction grating in our delirium of no sleep, but listening to the single a week later, it does retain a real Bis charm. I’m a sucker for male/female vocal interplay. Songs should tell stories. Or, in the very least, be written by Herman Düne…
The sound you hear is rushing silence playing around the more gentle parts of my head, concentration and good humour broken by yet another sleepless night spent fermenting plots of revenge against everyone I know, but especially my friends (although probably not Andrew Clare, for some reason).
I vow to do away with this Plan B bullshit, soon as I can.
I vow to stop writing.
I vow to stop listening to music.
I vow to send emails to everyone looking for input from me, telling them to go fuck themselves. (This last one I do.)
I vow to move to America.
I vow to never leave my house again.
I vow to be like Howe Gelb, or Jon Slade, and be loved only for my maverick brutality.
I vow to stop mentioning Jon Slade so much.

The sound you hear is the silence of my basement, broken only by the rumble of distant cars (always) and trains, a clock ticking on the kitchen wall. Last week was spent in a hazy largesse of train journeys and insomnia: many men with nice smiles give me many CDs and seven-inch singles, some of which are even by bands I like. Many men with nice smiles pat me on the back (not literally) and tell me how good Plan B looks, like they have any fucking right to do so. Many men with nice smiles buy Chris Houghton and I food, and I realise that Chris probably has a nicer smile than all of them combined. (This isn’t necessarily a plus.) The only parable I remember from the age of 10 runs thus: the smile you see is on the face of a tiger.
I am hailed as the prodigal son in Rough Trade Records, Ladbroke Grove – outside of which I once danced my ass off, bopping to the sweet sounds of Violent Femmes on their debut acoustic busking tour of London: outside of which I once busked myself as The Legend And The Swinging Soul Sisters, regaling passers-by with a cappella versions of ‘Sweet Soul Music’ and ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’.
I am given a James Kochalka single in XL Records, for which I am very grateful, because it is – indeed – exactly what you’d expect. I meet two dudes from Fatcat Records on the rooftop café of Brighton’s Duke Of Yorks cinema, and they exchange gossip about Sigur Ros that I cannot hope to divulge here. On the way, Chris engineers a moment whereby his mobile rings and we are offered a full-page clothing ad for our next issue. I accuse him of getting one of his interns to call.
Another evening, I DJ at an architecture party in Farringdon – Electric Six, Throbbing Gristle, Dance Disorder Movement – and attempt, half-heartedly, to live up to my reputation for being a mean drunk in front of a captive audience. A man is very excited to hear Shock-Headed Peters once more, and shares his enthusiasm with me.
Someone claiming to be Tricky’s touring guitarist offers to perform with me on stage, possibly when I support The Cribs at their NME in London next month…er, assuming they contact me first.
England lose at football.

The sound you hear is the gorgeous, enflamed tone of Ms Rachel Nagy of The Detroit Cobras, sweating and sweltering but never once losing her poise. Steve Gullick phones, to let me know Plan B looks like Careless Talk Costs Lives from the back: and it’s lacking him. I tell him I know that already. (I’ll share a secret with y’awl here: neither me nor Andrew expected Plan B to appear looking the way it does. We thought we’d actually made it look different. Yes, we are disappointed…but that’s what pilot issues are for.) Steve drunkenly emails the forum to complain at both our magazine and Bright Eyes – he doesn’t do this overtly, but I’m fully aware of his intentions. I like Steve.
Yesterday evening after a Plan B night at Border’s, Brighton, a bearded man who once wrote for UFO magazine and produces television pilots suggests that I drop a copy of Plan B magazine over to the Sussex Arts Club where it is well known cantankerous critic Julie Burchill has a residency. He thinks she’ll hold court. Lovely. I also enjoy films made about people who make films. The talk went fine, thank you – David was composed and frighteningly erudite (thank God he didn’t hold the mic too close, he might have shown us all up). I rambled and fell back on my usual defence of repetition. Chris seemed confused by the question about whether Issue Zero (the cover you see here on the site) is simply ‘a teaser’. “Well, of course it is…” he smirked. Through familiarity, eager media students taking notes of my lecture bullshit no longer disconcert me. No one mentioned THE MUSIC and that’s a fucking shame.
We should have.
Saturday evening, Jon Slade plays surf and twang guitar in a three-piece composed entirely of Taurus musicians – even says a few words into the microphone (probably “I’m thirsty”).  They’re called Electric Bull, and have a ‘list’ song that contrives to be smart, rude and vaguely spontaneous (although amateurism should never be confused with spontaneity).
So there’s Jon Slade, and he’s as swarthy and unkempt as ever. And there’s his pal Stephanie who dresses like a Teenage Mum, with her four-day teeth and obscene mini-skirt. And on the walls – heralding another clinical performance from the oddly pure Miss Pain (odd, because they aim for a sleazy afterglow from their invigorating electric buzz) – are Rorschach inkblots, and nicotine stains. Pills litter the bar. Bucks fizz is proffered to early risers. Girls dress as nurses. Boys look seedy (as ever). Personality tests afford a five-minute sideline: Hey I’m highly neurotic. We call it ‘moody’ in the 00s.

Life slows down to a crawl.
I’m stuck on a train up to London. I’m stuck in London. I’m stuck playing a Gameboy on a train stuck somewhere in London. I’m stuck with this pornographic teen-fest of a novel, The Wanderers. I wanted to throw some words into this blog somewhere about beauty – beauty and the riotous, geeky, pure dancing of the two brothers from Herman Düne with their stories and travel and travail, and their chugging stop-start rhythms and four-second guitar solos and clouds of cigarette pluming above their bearded, beautiful heads, and their laconic dry wit and enflamed harmonies, and the way everything got stripped so gentle so quiet so beautiful and aware during that cover of Tom Waits with the singing saw… but this is why I wanna quit writing, one of the many maddening reasons.
I had Herman Düne pinned down as somewhere between mediocre and Belle And Sebastian but – oh my God, the laconic wit, the brief brutal-sweet interludes of plangent guitar chiming and ringing out like the Modern Lovers raised on a solid diet of The Velvet Underground (or should that be the other way round?), like all the dream New Zealand bands of the 80s back for one last great hurrah, the brothers Herman dancing and lolloping so gracefully bear bellies hanging out and tales of debauched weed-infested train journeys and remembered loves seeping out, the harmonies so beautiful and beautiful and FUCKING BEAUTIFUL.
I had Herman Düne down as – and this despite Mr Gullick and Mr Vanoli and Mr Clare’s recommendations, despite the fact that David dances like Mr Gullick in slow velvet motion and nods his head likewise, sports a pair of broken shades like The Legend! circa 1991, and all these songs are all new not that I’d know, Mr Vanoli has a tape of another show in France,  three weeks back, and that an entirely new set in itself but nothing from even that performed for the first 40 minutes…and it’s like the Velvets and the travelling bed from Little Nemo In Wonderland and Calvin Johnson and Howe Gelb and Jonathan (of course, because I’ve been listening to hardly anything except his new album for the past month) and all your other cool male friends all got together and decided to not scare you, only comfort you, only hold you close and make you sad make you happy make you sweet make you sour with the cute ghostly wonderment of life.
Something that Royal City singularly failed to do. There’s a reason why Classic Rock was so reviled round these parts formerly, y’know.
And something that The Customers will only ever be able to dream of. Such fluidity! Such easy grace round an amplifier! Such smoking! Such unravelling and ravelling back up of dreams. Oh man. Oh daughter.
And just a quick word to say how much I fucking LOVE Electrelane – they are everything that is good and pure and passionate and melodic and righteous and female and mysterious and wicked about music. Someone grabs my hand. It’s my wife. And we’re dancing to the sweet Sixties sounds of Brighton’s own Phil Spector-tribute act, The Pipettes (matching polka dot outfits, hand movements, perfect two-minute self-aggrandising pop songs and all).
Man, I’m a fucking lucky bastard sometimes.

Keep the roaring silence away.

(With apologies to Electrical Storm.)

The Legend! meets The Young Liberals
The Legend! and Edward Guglielmino
The Legend! vs Shady Ladies
The Legend! w/Verity Susman
The Deadnotes + The Legend!

Part IV – reviews of Ray Rumours, Valet and Abigail Washburn & The Shanghai Restoration Project.

* * *

Ray Rumours
Le Pont Suspendu •••
Stitch-Stitch

Ray Rumours is essentially the solo project of Electrelane bassist Ros Murray, but she is often accompanied by Gill Partington and other friends sometimes join the singalong. Le Pont Suspendu may be a retelling of events and memories from the winter of 2007 and spring of 2008 but there’s not even a tiny whiff of self-indulgence about it. The themes are abstract, the music light and uplifting, and the album drifts along, not asking too much of its listeners. Even songs called ‘Snowman’ and ‘Winter Coat’ have the sun shining out of them.

Despite this surface ease, the stories being told can become engaging: the reminiscing about youth on ‘Berlin To Poznan’; using late-night travel as a metaphor for emotional stability on the charming ‘Nightbus’. Le Pont Suspendu doesn’t break any new ground, nor does it aim to. It can provide the perfect background to a leisurely daytime pursuit but, with music as stirring at ‘The Turtle’ or as joyful as ‘Meaningless Words’, it’s happy to give a little bit more when required.

Daniel Clatworthy
UK release date: 30/03/09; www.myspace.com/rayrumours

Valet
False Face Society ••••
Mexican Summer

Valet is Honey Owens, a wonderfully creative Portland native who has made a name for herself by releasing two somewhat daunting albums, Blood Is Clean and Naked Acid, and touring with the likes of Deerhunter and Jackie O’ Motherfucker. Released as a limited edition 12″ vinyl on the boutique label Mexican Summer, third album False Face Society is an item of rare beauty inspired by tribal themes, specifically by the titular Native American group best known for its dramatic wooden masks (“false faces”) which are used in healing rituals to invoke a dreamworld full of spirits. 

Owens has taken this idea and channeled the traditional rituals into a musical output that is both hypnotic and disturbing. Dark undertones, drawn-out guitars, strings and electronic noise create layer upon layer of sound, until you are left with a sentiment rather than a song. The album’s three tracks exceed the 25-minute mark altogether, a large chunk of which is taken up by longest piece ‘Angels Can’t Stop’, which spans the whole of side one, throbbing and racing with distant chanting. Of the other two songs, ‘Dealer vs. Ocean’ is mournful and haunted while ‘Rainbow’ sets a different tone, with a steadier rhythm framing timidly enchanting vocals. An inspiring psychedelic release.

Anja McCloskey
Available on import only; www.myspace.com/honeyowens

Abigail Washburn & The Shanghai Restoration Project
Afterquake EP ••••
Afterquake Music

To anyone who has read our recent interview with Nashville-based folk songstress Abigail Washburn, it might not come as a surprise that the artist has released an EP to raise awareness and financial support for survivors of last year’s Sichuan Province earthquake. Washburn has a long-held fascination with China, and the Sichuan Province especially, having studied in and toured the country extensively. What will come as a surprise, though, is the nature of this release. Collaborating with New York-based Dave Liang’s Shanghai Restoration Project, a fascinating collective that combine the sounds of 1930s Shanghai jazz with electronica and hip-hop, Afterquake uses actual recordings of the rebuilding of the area and vocal takes of relocated school children to produce a quirky electronic sound.

While the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake reminds us of the sheer horror and immensity of the event, the EP instills a positivity in the listener that is inspiring and heartbreaking. The children featured on the recording display such moving belief and optimistic spirit, despite what they have already had to encounter in their short lives; ‘Song For Mama’, a Tibetan traditional number sung by a 14 year old boy, is especially touching.

Anja McCloskey
UK release date: 12/05/09; www.myspace.com/abigailwashburn

I’m not entirely sure why, but it feels like I should (re-)post my review of Electrelane’s final gig.

If anyone would like to see the review in its original printed form from Plan B 29, with fine Greg Neate photography, then click here.

Electrelane
Pavilion Theatre, Brighton

There’s no fanfare.

There’s no phone-in vote to determine the winners. My emotions are strained: halfway saddened by the passing of all flesh and halfway happy that some folk – some gentle, proud folk – know when to call it a day. If only all art was finite. If only all creators cared. It seems that Electrelane reached their height with 2005’s astonishing Axes: one album, no breaks, no fills, just the pull of separation and transitory comfort of friendship: and that all that’s happened since is a gradual comedown, a dawning realisation. Don’t get me wrong: this year’s No, Shouts, No Calls is special indeed and saturated with love, but when I caught the band warming up at Brighton’s cosy Westhill community centre a few months back, prior to what turned out to be their final tour (barring, of course, the inevitable Don’t Look Back series of concerts 10 years hence) it already seemed they were split in two – on one side, Verity Susman’s explorative piano and space rock imaginings: on the other Mia Clarke’s Marnie Stern-influenced, Chicagoan guitar shredding. I feared then what the future would bring: the future brings what the future always brings. Nothing, and the death of desire.

So Electrelane are no more – or rather, on “indefinite hiatus”. That’s quite a deal in my life: since my return from Australia in 2000, and starting Careless Talk Costs Lives and Plan B, they’ve drifted in and across my vision: a welcome, reassuring constant, old friends that you never need to call on cos you know they’re always around. I can trace my forties through their personalities: hanging out in their Brighton practise space opposite Duke Of Yorks in the bitter, cold aftermath of 9/11 for CTCL’s first ever interview (2001’s Rock It To The Moon), listening wonder-struck to Verity’s vocals on frantic 2003 single ‘I Want To Be The President’ and the tumultuous, brief Bruce Springsteen cover ‘I’m On Fire’, recording bassist Ros Murray’s previous band, the minimal poignant/funny Lesbo Pig, for my one Totally Radio session, in clubs and in trouble with drummer Emma Gaze and Mia Clarke…those horrible, dark weeks following my father’s death where a spoken-word piece I’d recorded with Susman was played at his cremation…down the Freebutt, the Pavilion, the Concorde, the Old Market (where The Legend! band featuring Scout Niblett and Sam from The Go! Team played heartbeat ante-natal support, a few months before Isaac’s birth)…in Berlin with Verity for an art gallery concert…frustrated and chided by the fact we had no magazine around to celebrate Electrelane’s wonderful, melody-drenched second album The Power Out; in 2004 with a front cover…numerous DJ spots where Electrelane’s stunning choral piece ‘The Valleys’ was the only relief on another bleak, friendless night…

And now Electrelane have gone. No fanfare, no flourishes: just a bottle of champagne passed down the front after a second, noisy encore (2001 single ‘Film Music’ followed by the Springsteen cover), a couple of hasty bows and that’s it.

“Do you think people are going to cry,” my wife asked early on, following an awesome version of 2007 single ‘To The East’, Susman moving possessed, throwing out formless words and near-shrieks into the void, as her keyboard built layer upon welter of emotion and desire. I found it difficult to answer. Sadly – or perhaps thankfully – ‘To The East’ was the set’s highpoint, five songs in. After that stormy interlude, the band reduced the pressure with a muted version of new single, the reflective ‘In Berlin’ – and, two songs later, introduced tour support Anni Rossi to add violin to metronomic pulse beat of ‘The Greater Times’ (about the only time they came close to a grand gesture). The guitar sounded oddly muted. It wasn’t like it didn’t fit in, or that Clarke wasn’t giving her all, but it sounded muted – or maybe it was that Susman was thrashing her keyboards so wildly during certain numbers (2007 single ‘In Berlin’, set closer, 2001 track ‘Long Dark’, opening song ‘Bells’) that it countered the wildness, the dissonance. Even when Clarke was sawing her instrument across her amp (2001 B-side ‘U.O.R’, heavy rocking 2007 song ‘Between The Wolf And The Dog’) it seemed subdued.

As the end grew closer, the knowledge this was the final time seemed to hang heavier in the air: odd yelps of “I love you Verity” and extended applause breaks (particularly following the first encore of ‘On Parade’ and 2005 single ‘Two For Joy’) interspersed the sound of a band finally winding down a musical legacy they can be immensely proud of.

No Shouts, No Calls is the title of their final album. No shouts, no calls. Electrelane have gone. And the newest (and shyest) member, bassist Ros Murray, took centre stage for the final show.

With drumming this repetitive you’d think these albums would be boring to listen to.
But they never get old or cease to surprise me.

A recent article in Gourmet, “Eight Great Rock Venues With Great Food,” combines two of my obsessions, food and live music (three if you count travel) The article is written by Mia Clarke, guitarist of Electrelane (who are now on indefinite hiatus), and is gleaned from her years of touring with the band. Cambridge’s own Middle East made the cut for its fare, as did the Bite Cafe at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. Nothing made the list from Seattle, sadly (although the Triple Door got a shout-out in the comments). While not on Clarke’s list, the reputation of Stubbs Bar-B-Q in Austin has reached the barbecue-deprived north, and I’m looking forward to checking it out this summer (SXSWers, any feedback?). I’d also add Toronto’s Sneaky Dee’s for its Mexican fare; it frequently appears in the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, and his band, Sex Bob-omb plays there (inevitably, the performance is interrupted by a homicidal robot, which Scott fights off with his bass guitar).

Check out the list, and then tell us what you think it’s missing. Where do you go in your ‘hood for good food and good music?

MP3: Electrelane – To The East [buy]