I am distraught. My oldest travelling companion seems to be losing it’s mind. I say it’s because, strictly speaking an iPod doesn’t have a gender. To top it all I have a 2 hour spell in public space without any earphones to use the twatphone’s iPod facility. As twatty and hollow as this sounds I am somewhat lost…I tried reading a book by the inexplicably cheery Stuart Maconie which only irritated me more.

There is undoubtedly something joyous about travelling with new music, the landscapes somehow serve to accentuate what you are listening to. Each rugged push of the latest Scout Niblett record colliding with the frozen Cumbria landscape could well have been enough to fasten that record to my own ailing heart.

Perhaps I will remember the journey when I do get to hear the record, or more likely I will make sure that I never leave the house without my earphones firmly fitted again.

Oj, Scout Niblett hade jag helt glömt bort. Jag lyssnade mycket på I am från 2003 som inte var en helt lättlyssnad skiva men det lönade sig att kämpa lite med den. Sen har hon liksom fallit bort ur min lilla skalle. Det här låter en hel del som tidiga PJ Harvey tycker jag och det är ju verkligen inte fel.
Ny skiva kommer på Drag City den 19 januari. Nedan kan ni lyssna på och ladda ner titelspåret.

The Calcination of Scout Niblett

Ladda ner här
På Spotify finns massor av Scout Niblett

Portland’s Scout Niblett is set to release a new album in January and her label Drag City has posted the first single, “The Calcination Of Scout Niblett”. We love her electric guitar. Check out previously the BCS session she did and the Take Away Show in Paris, just her unique minimal style that makes her stand out of the stack. Can’t wait to get the new songs but for now sampling them here!

Also, her title song from the Kiss EP with Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billie) and the video, both amazing!

On the 26th of November at Scala Toutpartout Celebrate their birthday with a special show featuring Scout Niblett, Monotonix and Phosphorescent. 

From Scoutt Niblett’s blog:

Please join us at the Toutpartout 15 Years Birthday Night at The Scala in London on November 26 for only £9. All you have to do is email your full name to 15years@toutpartout.be. At the night of the party upon entrance  simply mention the guest list and all you have to pay is £9, no extra booking fee or anything. Just so you know, standard ticket prices are £15+booking costs. The deadline to get a reduced ticket is the 17th of november. 

Worth doing if you fancy going.

You want a non-sensical lineup? Voila! To celebrate Toutpartout’s 15th anniversary they’ve laid on a truly bizarre lineup at the Scala on November 26th. For more information go here. Seeing Monotonix once was enough (they were good n’all, just I saw way too much of the singer’s bottom for my liking) but Phosphorescent and Scout Niblett seem well worth having my mind scarred with more hairy butt flashes. You can buy tickets here.

Go here to watch Kiss, a lovely duet by Scout Niblett with Will Oldham. It’s beautiful. The video is odd.

Here is the short, sweet, beautiful, wonderful At Death, A Proclamation by Phosphorescent. I’ve been meaning to see Phosphorescent live for ages and it would be a treat to hear him play. I don’t remember if I ever gave him Beard Of The Day (back when I was running that weird beard-centric feature) but he obviously deserves it. I really recommend checking out Pride, it’s a beautiful album full of solid tracks, including the epic nine minute spectacular My Dove, My Lamb. It’s definately night time music. Matthew Houck has a soft, warm voice. I haven’t listened in a while and am remembering how much I like it, perhaps it’s time to revisit it…

EDIT: He did get Beard of the Day!

Suicídos bonitinhos num clipe da Scout Niblett

vi skal alle dø. vi skal alle dø. vi vet ikke når, vi vet ikke hvordan.

dét synger Scout Niblett,  og jeg tenker; jeje, fredag, fest.

peace!

status: tickets given away

hey skanks and skankettes, who wants to go to a show for free?

the line-up at neumo’s tomorrow night contained a schlew of artists i’d never heard of and upon listening to some myspace clips, some seem pretty worthy. the artists:

om (they’re the headliners):

these gents aren’t my taste, and since they’re the headliners, i’d say come early to see the more interesting openers and leave early to get a drank.

grouper (portland gal, liz harris has low key vibes and gentle vocals, which may be described as ambient, seems worthy of seeing for her album name alone: ‘dragging a dead deer up a hill’):

scout niblett (another portland dwelling solo performer, this one english and known for intimate shows):

lichens (i didn’t know how describe this one, so i’ll leave it to dave segal over at sf weekly, ‘eerie, starry-void-strafing drones that are too magnificent for any sci-fi-flick director to use’):

the deets:

• tomorrow: thurs. sept.17.2009
• feat: om, grouper, scout niblett, lichens
• doors at 8 pm
• $12 adv
• 21+

for the win:

• email captothehill@gmail.com and we’ll hook you up with two free tix.

1. Moondog / Death When You Come To Me // 2. Paul Simon / Gone At Last (Demo version) // 3. Michael Jackson / Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough (1978 Demo version) // 4. Casiokids / Knust Hjerte (Cover of Magistrates’ “Heartbreak”) // 5. Jimi Tenor & Kabu Kabu / Magical World // 6. Arthur Russell / You And Me Both // 7. Jens Lekman / Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death (Cover of Scout Niblett)

(RRRRRRRespect to Dionne)

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy der Ruhelose. Nachdem er in diesem Jahr bereits das Album “Beware” und die EP “Chijimi” veröffentlichte, hat er mit “Among the gold” jetzt eine Sammlung von sechs Coversongs, deren Originale zwischen 1873 und 1913 entstanden, herausgebracht. Aufgenommen hat er sie allesamt als Duette mit Cheyenne Mize. Leider erweist sich hier wieder mal, wie abhängig Will Oldhams, so Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billys bürgerlicher Name, Output inzwischen von seinen Duettpartnerinnen ist. So widerspenstig bisweilen bei “The letting go” der sphärische Gesang von Dawn McCarthy ins Ohr ging, so wunderbar harmonisierte auf dem 2008er “Lie down in the light” der countryeske Gesang Emmett Kellys mit Oldhams Stimmfarbe.

Cheyenne Mizes dünnes Stimmchen nun ist in keinem Moment dem ausdrucksstarken Grummeln des Mannes aus Kenntucky gewachsen. Doch wer Oldhams letzte Alben als zu üppig arrangiert empfand, dürfte an der kargen Instrumentierung der EP seine Freude haben.

Download

Und hier sei noch einmal an das großartigste Duett Oldhams erinnert, sein “Kiss” mit Scout Niblett, allein das Video ist ein Kunstwerk für sich:

***DOWNLOAD***

*TRACKLIST* LULLATONE - FLOATING AWAY CHAIRLIFT - SOMEWHERE AROUND HERE LALI PUNA - TOGETHER IN ELECTRIC DREAMS STEVE MARTIN & BERNADETTE PETERS – TONIGHT U BELONG TO ME KING CRIMSON – MOONCHILD MELODIUM – FLACANA 05 SCOUT NIBLETT – RELAX MILES DAVIS – BLUE IN GREEN THE SMITHS – ASLEEP BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – DREAM BABY DREAM

47:58

SWEET DREAMS!

wonderful song here by scout niblett and bonnie prince billy this song is taken from the album “this fool should die now”

So, anyway. The other day I discovered this ace new Riot Grrrl band, randomly (the best way).

Well. It’s been a while since I interviewed anyone (not since Speech Debelle, in fact) – and I’ve never interviewed anyone using instant text messaging via Facebook – so I asked Sarah from The Ethical Debating Society if she’d be kind enough to spare me a few minutes of her time.

P.S. The Ethical Debating Society describe their own music as “Sonic Youth covering Spiceworld on a found cassette” – which is way off, of course. But as (surely) one of the very few music critics to have interviewed Sonic Youth and The Spice Girls (original line-up, with Ginger in the band) face-to-face, I thought it was worth a brief mention.

OK. Interview follows:

10:12pmEverett
hey, are you there?
10:13pmSarah
hello! I am.
How are you, Mr True?
How are you, Mr True?
10:14pmEverett
good. listening to ace all-female Melbourne band, Beaches.
wanna do this interview now?
10:14pmSarah
yeah!
That sounds excellent!
10:14pmEverett
ok. let me see if I can find yr myspace page again.
10:14pmSarah
okay.
www.myspace.com/ethicaldebating
that should point you in the right direction
10:15pmEverett
got it! man, you should check out Beaches! They rock
FUCK! Your page is LOUD!
10:15pmSarah
um, yeah, it is, sorry. :$
That first track was live…complete with fuck ups.
I think that was at the Windmill in Brixton
10:15pmEverett
’s good. got me headphones on.
i liked that description of your live show at Kimya Dawson in that comment on my blog – sounded like you were having a party, and someone wanted in desperately
d’ya reckon my comparison points were fair, in my blog post?
10:18pmSarah
oh, absolutely. Very, very flattering. It’s so wonderful that you “get” it.
10:19pmEverett
so, what made you want to get up on stage and shout?
i mean, sing…
10:19pmSarah
Well. Firstly, that I have been listening to bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, etc, since I was very young. 13 or so.
10:20pmEverett
… what attracted you to them…?
10:20pmSarah
I like that they broke down barriers between what can and can’t be done.
As a 13 year old who is “uncool”, certain things seem impossible, for others, you know?
Boys, fashion, going out…
I’d resigned myself to that being for other people. Instead, I had music.
and the more I listened, the more I realised I didn’t want all the supposedly cool stuff anyway.
10:21pmEverett
did those bands being…y’know.. FEMALE help?
10:21pmSarah
Without a doubt, that surely goes without saying…!
10:22pmEverett
ever hear Skinned Teen? An early Riot Grrrl band that often is overlooked
10:22pmSarah
I loooooooooove skinned teen so much
Actually, we’re recording a single with Ant Chapman, who did the album
he also did lots for Bis, who I also love.
10:23pmEverett
so why did Ethical Debating Society, you know, congregate, what d;ya have in common?
10:23pmSarah
I’ve known both Lauren and Chris for a long while.
Chris is my best friend Zoe’s boyfriend…we’d talked about playing together, never got round to it…
Lauren has been a very, very good friend for a long while.
She nagged me, we managed to get together, and haven’t looked back
10:25pmEverett
good not to look back
10:25pmSarah
absolutely.
We were offered our first gig within a week or so of forming, so we HAD to be on the ball
10:26pmEverett
that’s the best way to form!
who was that first gig with?
10:27pmSarah
It was at the Good Ship in Kilburn…
a truly progressive little venue in the sense that they actually PAY bands.
10:27pmEverett
sweet!
ok. 5 lyrical concerns.
be broad
or specific.
or lie
10:28pmSarah
Right. The concept of “cool”, or “scene”, or whatever…
That’s pretty much covered in ‘Extreme Vintage’.
How people can get it so wrong.
there’s some stuff about sexuality in there ,too…
10:29pmEverett
confused?
10:29pmSarah
discovering, or TRYING to discover what’s right and wrong.
I’d say not so much confused, as more exploring.
(I’m thinking about what each song is about here..)
10:30pmEverett
how many you got?
10:30pmSarah
about 5, haha.
10:30pmEverett
awesome! pure Skinned Teen!
5 bands you currently like (um, sticking with 5 as some sort of random signifier)
10:31pmSarah
right. Hm. Currently, I’m loving Applicants for their insane but truly amazing live shows and quirky popness…
Lauren is absolutely into Health at the moment, and they too are very good…
I saw Male Bonding the other night, they were great…
and will never tire of Sleater-Kinney, Helen Love, The Frumpies.
oh, Scout [Niblett], too!~
(oh, Lauren adds Marnie Stern!)
10:34pmEverett
um. do you dress up when you go on stage
10:35pmSarah
Well, not dress UP exactly, not in fancy dress or anything…
but I think that Lauren and I always look rather super.
She’s such a style icon.
10:35pmEverett
how so?
10:35pmSarah
She knows what looks amazing on her, and she always, always dresses beautifully.
In case you’d um, not noticed, both Lauren and I are kinda fat.
Not big boned, curvy, any of that…we’re fat. and that’s OKAY.
10:36pmEverett
that’s cool
reclaim reclaim!
10:36pmSarah
yes, exactly
it’s the same as someone being tall, short, bald, thin…it’s just a word.
If me and L can get onstage, look great, and have fun, I hope that other people can feel THEY can do it
10:37pmEverett
do you get extreme reactions from yr audiences?
10:37pmSarah
We get very extreme reactions.
Some people are quite simply horrified.
10:37pmEverett
!!
10:37pmSarah
Most are, in fact.
10:38pmEverett
!!!!
10:38pmSarah
We had one rather well known person, who shall remain nameless, who was making vomiting gestures as we were playing (it was Fruitbat from Carter USM)
Other people love us, and seem to truly enjoy what we do
10:39pmEverett
ok. i think i might call a halt here
how long you been playing live? …
10:39pmSarah
Since March.
Bis still make my heart leap. Oh, Bis, how I love you. ♥.

I can’t stop listening to Scout Niblett’s song entitled Relax. I finally found Kidnapped by Neptune on Secretly Canadian Records.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/Relax

A Vashti by any other name is still a Vashti … and so it goes: I will always associate unknown, reissued or recently paid-tribute-to female folk artists with the great Vashti Bunyan. That’s no slight against the lady balladeers I’ve caught since VB, it’s just that Bunyan represents to me the idea that something forgotten from the past can be more valuable than ever in the present.

I’ve been in all sorts of odd moods today. Last night, and most of this morning, I was pretty focused on one thought, and I was humming “Miss In Love With Her Own Fate” by Scout Niblett over and over. Like most of the songs on the album (I Am), instrumentation is sparse – at best – and very beat driven, but still so easy to hum, which is a nice acheivement, I think. Anyway, it was the line “Ma, this boy is driving me wild” that I kept humming.

I was scouring YouTube for the song (I have the CD, but I wanted to post the song here) but alas, like so many other songs I look up, it’s not there. (I should maybe do something about that one day). So then I looked through all the stuff of hers that is, and got thoroughly immersed in the live renditions available of Scout singing the track “Nevada”.

And just like that, the sadness, the heaviness, I was feeling before I logged in just melted away. My mood turned and the purpose of this post changed - maybe it has no point anymore, or never did, but I’m still humming and now it’s with a smile.

This is why I love music.

S4E

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.