I've been to a few shows and I'll tell you about them.
Last night I went to see ZOMES, BILGE PUMP and KOGUMAZA crank one out at the Packhorse.
Kogumaza played droney, sometimes mathy, heavy jams backed with real minimal drums, best described at Velvets-esque. The guitarists have played in Glenn Branca's Orchestra (like Sonic Youth's guitarists were many moons ago) and you can hear some of that, in the open tunings and volume pedal control on display. Sometimes they hit some pretty nice Codiene kinda stuff, other times it was more bluesy and fuzzed out. They weren't enormously loud though, people were even sat on the floor. It was definately head music.
Things got less chilled out for a second as Leeds mathy spazz rock legends Bilge Pump played a turn. It's really hard to sum these guys up. They've been around for like 15 years or something, have two records out, and sound like...Primus meets Mclusky with jazzy bits and tech skills? Something like that. They whipped out a few old classics like "Observe These Crazy Arms" too.
They are pretty much the most legitimate band in Leeds, certainly in the LS6 noise rock scene.
Zomes took forever to start their set. Their equipment consisted of three Casio keyboards, a homemade effects box, and a little drum machine. One of the members used to be in Dischord signings Lungfish back in the day. But this isnt any angular post-hardcore. This is strictly drone. Bits of it sound like music from Zelda on the SNES, but if you were on Ketamine or something. It's really good, I could imagine using it as background music for some far-out thinking. Probably good for meditation, I'd say.
Blog where you can hear/read about some Zomes -
http://hardcorefornerds.blogspot.com/2008/09/zomes-st.html
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Before that, I went to see Corsano/Flower Duo, Tsar, Rampant Rabbit's last Leeds show ever, and Action Beat.
Tsar is Brian from Monster Killed By Lazer doing some noise stuff with delay and tapes and stuff, it seems. There's no net presence so you'll have to take my word for it.
Rampant Rabbit are splitting up, they had two bass players and did kind of post-hardcore stuff, that in all fairness is pretty common here. Nothing amazing about them really.
Action Beat were more interesting. It's like Glenn Branca/Sonic Youth massed guitar stuff, I think they have 4 guitarists, but strapped on to a body of rock power. They also had 3 drummers and a sax player. No vocals, just riffs.
The guys from Corsano/Flower Duo can play. They have played in Bjork's band, supported Sonic Youth, been in Vibracathedral Orchestra and know their improv. One guy plays tumbling jazz drums while the other plays a weird stringed instrument on an ironing board. It's really dreamlike, soporific.
www.myspace.com/chriscorsano
www.myspace.com/flowercorsanoduo
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FEATURED RECORD - Cay - Nature Creates Freaks.
Cay were an English band from various parts of Europe, I believe. This is their only album. They dont have an official website. I have no idea what the members are doing now. They are a forgotten gem.I came to hear of Cay beause they were friends with My Vitriol (another very elusive band, although they are still active and occasionally put out bits of new material) and played some shows with them. It would be easy to say that Cay were Hole to MV's Nirvana, but it's not quite like that.
For a start, the production on this, in my opinion, sucks. Vocals too loud, rest of the band too quiet, far too polished. This band wanted to sound raw and fucked up. If they could have afforded Albini you'd all know much more about this disc.
But the songs are interesting. Lots of them revolve around strange chords and weird melodies, twisted in with the grunge dynamics. Vocally, Anet Mook is more Kim Gordon than Courtney Love, and since her voice is mixed so high, you can't ignore it.
There's something nice about a record like this, a failed attempt at something great that's now totally secret. I've never met anyone who likes this band. But for some nostaligic early 00's rainy day grunge rock, this is perfect. As a teenage Nirvana freak, this little pocket of music takes me back to when I started reading rock magazines and hearing new bands. The sound of indie in Britain has changed a lot since then. The Alternative Rock influence of the 90's has been washed out with more retro. Bands now do "all sound the same", and a lot of bands then sounded much the same, but the sound itself was different. There's a line through Placebo, JJ72, My Vitriol, Cay, early Muse, some Manics, and even Suede, that was a fairly mainstream sound at the time, bands and producers alike tried to emulate American bands and records of the 90's, and technology was changing. It was, in my opinion, so much more interesting sonically than what the status quo of indie pop stands at today. Pop music started to get really weird for a moment there.
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