Die! Die! Die! are a great live band. Hell, they’re an incredible live band. Get 100 people and give them a few beers, jam them into a sweaty room and have Die! Die! Die! roll out a few tunes and 99 of them will walk out with a massive smile on their face. That is a fact. Unfortunately, they still haven’t managed to find a way to put that energy and excitement onto a little round disc. Although they do try, this record comes up well short of reproducing anything anywhere near as good as a Die! Die! Die! stage show.

Form is the Dunedin trio’s third full length offering, and the basic formulae of past albums are all there. Short, fast, syncopated, loud. This time, the album is more melodic, the lyrics more catchy, but the main difference over its predecessors is the amount of production thrown at it. I’m not sure what Skeptics bassist Nick Roughan was hoping for when he stepped up to the producer table but it seems as though he’s trying to make up for the lack of energy of a real DDD encounter and jam the empty spaces with a tonne of reverb. The album drips with it. Andrew Wilson’s endearing scratchy schoolboy vocals get forced right back in the mix and his guitar takes the lead role as the main melodic driver. It turns what is normally bottom heavy dirty punk into more radio friendly washed out pop-punk reminiscent of Les Savy Fav. DDD have always been more popular overseas than in their hometown, so perhaps this is a calculated move for the NZ lads trying to garner more local attention after signing with the iconic Kiwi label Flying Nun earlier this year.

At first listen, there aren’t too many surprises for most of the 38 minutes of Form, however on repeat there are definitely a couple of hidden gems in there. The arpeggios at the beginning of “Howye” slowly building into a distorted mess show the band is capable of adding some form of dynamic to their songs.“Lil Ships” is immediately attention grabbing and follows the 3 minute 30 second template almost every successful pop song sticks to. The standout is “We Build Our Own Oppressors”, released earlier this year as an impressive looking split 7” with London’s Lifeguard. The intro is lifted straight out of an ’80s power ballad handbook, but gives over to a pounding rhythm section and Andrew Wilson howling “Gotta keep those bridges burning”.

With Wilson’s eloquent call of “I want it all”, it’s clear that Die! Die! Die! don’t really give a shit what you think of them. But before you make an opinion based on their recorded material, check them out live. As the man with the microphone himself says in a previous interview, “You’re in a band to play live, not to record”.

Steven Edson

The Besnard Lakes
The Garage, London
19th August, 2010

The Garage is the type of venue you want to see bands in. The room is not too big but the sound system is. The bar is at the opposite end to the stage so you’re not getting shoved constantly by people in search of their next drink. The room feels immediately comfortable, even strolling in only a few minutes before the announced set time. A few minutes in and the cracklings of distant AM radio and e-bowed guitar of “Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent” was filling the space.

Given the massive sound present on The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, there was some anticipation in how the band were going to pull this off as a four piece. With the newer tracks being a lot denser and harder to recreate live without either a 10 piece line up or a maze of effects and loop pedals, assistance came via laptop, which helped embellish the sound and keep true to their recorded material. Leading man/guitarist Jace Lasek’s voice also had a lot to do with this; the man is pitch-perfect with the lungs of a bear and a falsetto that Brian Wilson would be proud of. Looking like a cowboy version of Brendan Fraser’s character in “Encino Man” – pre-make over, Lasek was endearing, mixing onstage manoeuvres straight of an 80’s metal band’s catalogue with that type of introspective shoe-gaze “vacant stare” with ease.

There were a smattering of new songs first up, “Glass Printer” and “Albatross” rumbled heavily through The Garage’s beefy system, coming off as near replicas of the album before they settled into the first older track of the set. “Devastation” brought the mood down a little and you could notice the different direction with the new album, relying less on typical song structure and focusing more on building and layering sounds. Highlights included “And This is What We Call Progress” and “Light Up the Night”, showing off the vocal talents of not only Lasek, but also wife Olga Goreas, and the perfectly placed “Disaster” giving everyone in the audience a chance to sing along after hearing one of the longest guitar fuzz solos in history.

Coming out for a surprise second encore as the crowd were filing out, a quite vocal lady was granted her request for “Life Rarely Begins with Tungsten Film” from their so-far untouched first album, Lasek remarking cheekily that he didn’t know how “Tungsten” would sound so he only wanted the die-hard fans to hear it. As if suddenly overcome by nervousness, a smoke machine roared into action enveloping the band (and the front 3rd of the room) with smoke. The audience listened on, struggling to see a few inches in front of them, which gave a very surreal end to a very great gig. With the way the album titles are being named, it will curious to see how the next one is going to come out. Future prediction – “The Besnard Lakes Are the Fucking Bomb”.

Steven Edson.

With her love of all things from the past, and her embracing of technology (blogs and Twitter) she is, as she sang on the first Dresden Dolls album, the Girl Anachronism. She has branched out on her own with her solo record Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, and has met her match in author (and soon to be Mr Palmer) Neil Gaiman. Now the brunette bombshell is in Australia, where she has already engaged in some impromptu yoga sessions and “ninja gigs” and marched alongside Angie Hart and Missy Higgins in the Melbourne street rally to protect live music. Here for live shows until mid-March, her next project will be to release the concept record Evelyn Evelyn, made with her musical soul mate Jason Webley, about a pair of conjoined twins. Their intriguing back story stirred up a storm of controversy. The Amanda Palmer adventure continues. She spoke to Sally Browne.

Where are you right now and what’s the vibe like?

I’m in Melbourne right now and it’s beautiful. I’m lucky enough to be staying with friends of my fiancé, and my fiancé has all these great book-world people all over the globe that he hooks me up with, so I wind up staying in these incredible houses. In Melbourne I’m staying with this fantastic couple who are renaissance book-world people. They happen to have a granny flat that I’ve commandeered. And it even came with a cat. I have my own cat for a week. Fantastic.

How are Neil Gaiman friends and fans different from Amanda Palmer friends and fans?

You could write a book on that, I think. Most Neil Gaiman fans are really psyched for our relationship and like me, and a lot them have checked out my music and really dug it. There’s a small faction of his fans who actively want to hate me so I’ve had to fend them off with sticks. (Laughs) But mostly it’s been a really good crossover. It is interesting, though, when you have two fan bases, it’s kind of like getting married when you’ve got two big families. You pray everybody gets along and this crazy uncle doesn’t beat up that crazy uncle and everything can stay moderately peaceful.

Did you always expect to get married someday?

No. (Laughs) Not even close. I did not.

So what happened? He transformed you? Is that possible?

He convinced me. Which I suppose you could say he transformed me. I’ve just never been in a relationship that made so much sense where I felt so comfortable. I come from a whole network of divorced parents, and I had a rule for most of my adulthood that marriage was… I wouldn’t go out of my way not to do it, but certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to do it, and my theory was if I found someone that I thought I wanted to shack up with, I would need to test it out for eight or ten years, and at that point, if I still wanted to get married I would do it.

So when did you know ‘this is the guy for me’?

That’s a good question. There certainly wasn’t some turning moment where I said, “Oh Jesus, this is it”. Our relationship grew really gradually and beautifully. It was very organic. When we first met each other we weren’t even really that attracted to each other. And I think over prolonged exposure to each other’s minds and personalities, that’s where things really started to happen and I think that’s the stuff that lasts. When you really fall in love with somebody holistically and it’s not just some really sparky, fiery passion where you see them and your jaw drops to the floor and you go, “Oh – my – god – I – have – to – have – sex – with – you – now.”

We were sort of both entangled in other relationships when we met and we weren’t really thinking in that direction. It was through working with each other and really observing the other and saying “Wow, this person totally understands where I’m coming from”, and we do, we have a really fantastic ongoing conversation with each other about just about everything. We find it really difficult to fight and argue, and when we disagree about things it can get slightly ugly, but it usually doesn’t get very ugly, and we communicate well and we just take really good care of each other. And I’ve found that really hard. My lifestyle is strange. So is his. It can be really hard to find someone to fit in with this sort of life and not feel like they’re being excluded or threatened by it. I consider myself really lucky that I found him.

Tell us about your adventures at the Golden Globes (where she was Gaiman’s date for Coraline). What was going through your mind?

I had a couple of outfit choices, so I decided to bring both. I basically kept dress No. 2 in my ukulele case, which I was toting around with me, just in case I needed it. And I was wearing this really see-through dress for the red carpet walk at the beginning. And then I swapped it out for a much more conservative black coat dress that I wore to the after party, and on the way out of that after party, Neil and I got snagged by the photographers who asked if I would put the see-through dress back on. And I obliged them, and I got changed right on the red carpet, which I thought would be funny. And so, that was my adventure at the Golden Globes.

The event itself is pretty surreal. It’s one of those worlds that you enter where you just go, “Oh my God, there’s all this stuff happening here and I have no idea who these people are and I have no idea what’s going on,” but if you’re fascinated by people in general it’s a really incredible thing to watch. The cultural anthropologist in me gets really excited when I go to things like that, and I get to be a fly on the wall.

So does Amanda Palmer ever get nervous?

Sure. I probably get nervous in different sorts of situations. I’m nervous right now, my last blog about my upcoming Evelyn Evelyn album was really incendiary and pissed a handful of people off. The record is a concept record about these conjoined twin sisters that my friend Jason Webley and I discovered on MySpace, and their record is coming out next month, and I posted a blog about some of their back story, which involved some very unsettling and dark elements. Some people found it really disturbing and really offensive, and there’s a faction of disabled people who find the fact that their conjoined and putting out this record possibly really tasteless. So I’ve been trying to come up with a way of explaining the project and explaining myself that doesn’t cause an ever greater shit storm. Things like that.

I wouldn’t say nervous is the right word, but, when I deal with things like that, it’s so important to me to let people know where I’m coming from and as my blog grows and my fame grows, and stuff like that, I get really upset at the idea that people read the wrong things into my actions. The Golden Globes I kind of had to deal with the same thing, a bunch of people coming at me with fiery pitchforks calling me an attention whore. It’s like, well, if you really knew me and you knew my career and you knew my general life philosophy and my MO, if you knew all that and you were still saying this, then my guess is you’re looking into a mirror right now. (Laughs)

I want to ask you a few random questions while I’ve got you. One of them is can you remember a recent or standout dream?

I had a dream last night that was totally bizarre. I dreamt that I wandered accidentally into a hotel room where some ancient dance legend, like Anna Pavlova, was before she died or something, she was like 80, and she was really fiery, and she was giving a private dance lesson to two young dance students, but she was giving the lesson by strapping herself to a reclined armchair wearing like a Neil Armstrong astronaut space walking suit, and she was strapped to the chair and explaining gravity to the dance students, in this really humorous way wearing this ridiculous outfit and they were just loving it. And that was my dream from this morning actually. I don’t know what happened after that.

Can you interpret it?

Probably. I think it may have something to do with the current constriction I’m having due to the Evelyn Evelyn controversy, the fact that I need to get out there and do my weightless moonwalk before I get it going again.

What’s on your bedside table?

Right now my bedside table consists of a glass of water and my iPhone and a book by Richard Dawkins that I picked up in Sydney and am currently working on. It’s a collection of modern science writing. It’s really beautiful.

Do you come down on one side of the God debate?

(Laughs) I think God is very, very relative. I think human beings talking about God is hilarious. But then again, that’s pretty much how I approach everything. I think if you look too hard for answers then you wind up wasting your life (Laughs)

It wasn’t too much of a surprise to hear that Japan’s Tenniscoats and Glasgow’s The Pastels were making an album together. Stephen Pastel has long since held an interest in the Japanese music scene with his record shop Monorail holding many obscure releases from the Japanese Psych-folk scene and also in releasing their own through The Pastel’s Geographic label. With frequent tours through Scotland and visits to Pastel’s store their musical paths were likely to cross sooner rather than later.

Two Sunsets starts off slow with “Tokyo, Glasgow” but in a very Tenniscoats manner, with floating clarinets and characteristic tones from Saya’s Fender Rhodes piano. The record continues with the same feeling on the title track and you soon start to wonder where The Pastels lay as it sounds very much like a Tennicoats record so far, with the exception of some very quiet backing vocals from Stephen Pastel, but they soon start to make more of noticeable presence with Stephen and Saya sharing on duet on “Song From a Friend”.

“Vivid Youth” might be the most Glasgow sounding song there is on the album and reminds us of the Postcard Record days with some Orange Juice funky guitars and basslines. Released as the lead single from the album it verifies that the music industry is organized by 45 year old men who loved the Glasgow scene during the early 80′s. With “Yomigaeru” and “Modesty Piece” the band revert to the sound of the early Tenniscoats records which still retain their original charm. The album also includes a speedy cover of “About You” from Glasgow legends The Jesus and Mary Chain, that works well with Stephen´s voice and features some catchy jangling guitars.

Two Sunsets also includes an old Tenniscoats song, “Mou Mou Rainbow”, from their 2002 album The Ending Theme. Its appearance here is surprising as there is little difference from the original, except with the addition of more guitar. Both “Start Slowly So We Sound Like A Loch” and “Boats” have a very nice feel to them and are the two songs that show the most obvious collaboration between the two bands, which otherwise seems to be a mix of Pastels’ and Tenniscoats songs. Overall this does not overshadow the fact that Two Sunsets is a brilliant pop record that takes you away to various places, be it Glasgow, Japan or somewhere else entirely.

Tommy Karlsson

It’s not often that a successful DJ/Producer/Remixer/Party Animal ditches the glow sticks for an acoustic guitar, but I guess that’s what makes Fin Greenall’s, aka Fink, story that little bit different. Originally joining London based abstract/electronic label Ninja Tune as a DJ back in the early 2000’s, Greenall became the labels first folk act with the 2006 release Biscuits For Breakfast. With his third album, Sort of Revolution, Greenall aimed for “something more ambitious than “wow man, you’re so sensitive and deep”, creating 10 soulful, mellow and tender songs that are bound to be on high rotation in cafés and bars across the globe.

The delicate vocals and simple guitar riff on the opener/title track, “Sort of Revolution” sound as though they are building towards some sort of magical musical explosion. However, Fink’s style is understated and thus the song elegantly builds and fades without ever reaching such a peak. Although it feels like it is over before it’s begun, this track still has a lovely ambiance about it thanks to Greenall’s tender vocals mixed together with textual drum snares and electronic reverb.

Swaggering from folk to soul, Greenall demonstrates his vocal talent in the piano heavy “Move on Me”. Like “Sort of Revolution” the song swells with varying degrees of tension, emotional vocals and stirring instrumentals before sliding off into slow and reflective piano heavy finish compliments of guest John Legend, who also helps out on the track “Maker”.

From song to song Sort of Revolution weaves between soft folk/rock and soothing soul/R&B with Grenall even trying his hand at acappella in the bluesy “Q&A”, which is enhanced with deep harmonies and an effective metal pipe beat. Irrespective of their style, each song on the album is overwhelmingly piano and acoustic guitar heavy yet a point of difference is achieved with Greenall’s use of electronic effects and samples (Greenall is currently producing down tempo/dub style electronic music under the alias Sideshow).

The album comes to a close with a cover of the 1970’s Jeff Barry track “Walking In The Sun”. Although the choice is a nice testament to the R&B roots Greenall draws so heavily from throughout the album, his arrangement of the song unfortunately is more reminiscent of Jack Johnson circa 2002 rather than Jeff Barry circa 1970. Why Greenall would choose to deviate from the soulful sound of the majority of the album with this particular song is puzzling.

Aside from “Walking in The Sun”, there are few tracks likely to tear your attention away from reading the Sunday paper while this album plays in the background. The mix of folk and soul influences may be appealing to those looking for a bit of variety, but it is difficult to say if Fink’s variation in style is an indication of experimentation or a simple lack of direction. If you’ve already established a collection of albums from the abundance of male singer-songwriters to emerge over the past 5 years then maybe leave this one on the shelves for the owner of your local organic coffee shop to purchase.

Melanie Mahony

Dinosaur Jr. epitomises the reunion success story. When the original trio reformed for a European tour in 2005, I doubt anyone expected an album as youthful, vital, and just plain good as 2007’s Beyond. Though not a return to the sound of their early years Beyond showed the focus, power, and energy the band lost with the expulsion of bassist Lou Barlow following 1988’s Bug. What Farm shows is growth, moving away from the chaos of their earlier work and the lukewarm grunge of the ’90s, towards a heavy, distortion-encased pop sound that boasts the beauty and consistency the band has struggled to find since their inception.

The best thing about opener “Pieces?” The riff kicks ass. Over a world of melodic distortion, singer and guitarist J. Mascis nasily croaks the sort of vague, aching poetry that would have felt at home on any of the band’s first three albums. He sounds older, warier, but still desperate, wide-eyed, and self-consciously in love — all the qualities that made him such a compelling songwriter twenty years ago. This vulnerability returns on the beautiful, sludgey ballad “Plans”. “And I don’t know what to bring/I get pissed at everything/I need you to see me sane/Can you believe it?” Mascis moans, reminding us that being an adult is just like being a teenager, only achier. But it’s the guitar solos that show the purest feeling. Mascis has grown from a scrappy teen prodigy into a masterful virtuoso, a player who emotes through his instrument, and it’s this that elevates the songs from being very good to fantastic.

Bassist Lou Barlow’s “Your Weather” adds little to a songwriting repertoire that boasts triumphs like Sebadoh’s “Brand New Love.” Though Mascis’ songs shine in this realm of soaring sludge-pop, Barlow’s effort feels generic. Taken into a high fidelity world, this songwriter, notorious for his devotion to one-takes and tape hiss, seems somehow less honest and powerful. Beside Barlow’s stumble, the Mascis-penned  “Over It” feels even more successful. It’s the sort of slacker anthem the ’80s and ’90s extolled, something artists born in this decade have so often tried, and failed, to replicate.

“Said The People” creeks and groans like a sinking ship, climaxing at the three-minute mark with a grief-stricken solo. It holds its own for three minutes more, time enough for a reprise that, winding in and out of a new guitar melody, becomes a truly beautiful moment that no metaphor can match. “See You” strips away the distortion and flirts with jangle-pop; to some, this may seem a display of how the band has softened with age, but to me, it’s proof that Mascis’ songs have become strong enough not to need the coating of distortion to stand out. “I Don’t Wanna Go There,” a chunky, folk-grunge jam, meanders, but not aimlessly, and though the melody and lyrics lack, there’s enough in the rhythm and tone to make it compelling. “Imagination Blind” seems a curious choice of closer: as with Barlow’s first offering, it’s not bad, but amidst so many classics in the making, it feels hollow making for an untriumphant finish.

More than anything, Farm is a statement of confidence and security. Dinosaur Jr. knows what it’s capable of: great songs, for one thing, and not just lyrically or melodically, but tonally. This is a band whose worst songs still sound good, if only because of the force of the distortion and the timbre of Mascis’ whine. After twenty years of personal turmoil and a desperate search for a sound, Dinosaur Jr. finally sounds comfortable in its own gnarled, reptilian skin.

Nathan Goldman

Laura Groves, otherwise know as Blue Roses, epitomises DIY music-making. She started writing songs at the tender age of seventeen in Shipley (population 28,487) outside of Bradford England, being inspired by artists and composers as varied as Bartók and Tears for Fears. She dreamed of recording an album that would inspire people in the same way artists like those had inspired her. Her debut, Blue Roses, was recorded in the bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms of her family and friends and, in a heartening display of altruism, using a wealthy music enthusiast’s new Steinway piano.

Blue Roses opens with “Greatest Thoughts” which provides a glimpse of the genius that is apparent throughout the entire record. The theatrical style is reminiscent of early Kate Bush and is equally as enchanting. From the beginning you are drawn into an inner world created by Groves, one which she makes you feel few people are privy to. Both “Cover Your Tracks” and “I Am Leaving” expand on the talent displayed in the first song whilst also expanding the number of instruments used. Piano, guitar, violin, accordion and synthesiser are all utilised to achieve Blue Roses’ creative vision. This, along with the addition of both female and male backing vocals, helps to add depth to the heartfelt lyrics and Laura’s crystal clear delivery.

The disc reaches a definite high point with “I Wish I…”. Despite it being one of the more minimalist tracks on the record, from the moment the first few piano chords ring out and Groves sings the first line “I called you and got what I deserved/Heard that laughing in your words” it really doesn’t seem to matter that it is missing the instrumental depth of some of the other songs. Despite some slightly weaker efforts towards the end of the record, such as the contrived sounding “Rebecca”, the triumph of “I Wish I…” makes it difficult not to fall in love with the album and indeed Blue Roses as a whole.

Blue Roses is a surprisingly strong debut from an artist who has a refreshing view on making music. We’ve filed Laura Groves firmly under “one to watch” and if her songwriting skills continues to flourish then her dream of creating a truly inspiring record could be realised.

Roisi Proven

Expectations are always high when Andrew Bird releases an album. This is largely due to Bird’s sheer consistency: he’s yet to release a dud album, and Noble Beast is no exception to the norm.

I was immediately interested to hear where Bird was going to go on this album: he’s been to so many places already. Noble Beast is an album full of insects, natural disasters and human nature, and is less conventional than its predecessor Armchair Apocrypha. In some respects, this album harks back to Bird’s excellent 2005 album Andrew Bird and The Mysterious Production of Eggs: Noble Beast sees Bird’s eerie whistling return to prominence, and is noticeably less electric than Armchair.

Noble Beast is a complicated album that lacks any real resemblance of a verse/chorus/verse structure. Bird’s fantastically detailed violin plucks and strums weave over his Theremin-like whistling, and his lyrics are a series of convoluted wordplays. Heck, at times Bird isn’t just playing with words, he’s playing with syllables: who else could come up with the line “From proto-Sanskrit Minoans to Porto-centric Lisboans, Greek Cypriots and harbour sorts who hang around ports a lot”?

Bird manages to strike a balance between using words predominantly for the way they sound, and managing to convey a piece of himself in them: on the track “Effigy“, Bird closes with the contemplative lyric “Like the words of a man who has spent too much time alone”. Despite the sometimes ridiculously elaborate lyrics (see “Nomenclature“) one would struggle to find a musician truer to themselves than Bird: Noble Beast draws you in and leaves you feeling an emotional connection to the songs.

Bird branches off into some new territory violin-wise on this album, and it is obvious that his talents in the area continue to grow. Noble Bird is not just about pizzicato (playing a violin more like a guitar, a trademark move of Bird’s) – he heads boldly into some country fiddling on “Effigy“, and the album concludes with a goose-bump inducing finale, which sounds like it has been lifted from the soundtrack to a particularly dramatic film. There are plenty of high notes, too – the swirling violin and flamenco-ish handclaps of “Master Swarm” are a highlight.

This album is absolutely a ‘grower’ – Noble Beast is complex and dense, and as a result, it takes time to reveal itself. Initially there’s so much going on it seems impossible to really appreciate the songs for anything other than an elaborate (yet thoroughly pretty) mess. There was always something, though, making me return to this album over and over: a part of me that knew this album simply needed a bit of effort, and a bit of work. It paid off, and I’m thankful to Andrew Bird for not giving himself up easily.

Kelly Ventress

After nine albums and a mountain of hype, Merriweather Post Pavilion has been heralded as Animal Collective’s most “pop” album to date. This is largely true, but where Animal Collective is concerned, this is definitely not a bad thing. The songs are detailed and dense, and despite the bursts of a more electronic, bass heavy sound, there are plenty of moments of mesmeric, meandering repetitiveness (such as the gently lulling “No More Runnin”) which are quite reminiscent of vocalist and drummer Panda Bear’s recent solo album Person Pitch.

The quieter moments are always interspersed with enough bursts of energy to stop the mind wandering completely –- a problem with previous Animal Collective albums is that they can occasionally be dreamy to the point of making one nod off. Merriweather… is much less accentuated by the urgent yelps and screams of albums past, instead building to a series of much more falsetto-harmonised climaxes.  Animal Collective’s two vocalists, Avey Tare (Dave Portner) and Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), harmonise on this album better than they have ever done,  even though the erratic urgency of the vocals — which punctuated their recent albums Sung Tongs and Feels — is less noticeable here. Panda Bear’s trademark fuzzy harmonies are balanced remarkably well by Tare’s catchy choruses and collection of pretty lyrics.

In trademark Animal Collective style, Merriweather Post Pavillion dabbles in the usual bizarre and eclectic array of sandwiching African beats with sweet instrumentals and layering it all over a series of unintelligible noises and repetitive drone: it’s just that this time, it seems as though Merriweather… draws much more on all of the things Animal Collective have picked up along the way. The songs sound more cohesive than they did even on its predecessor, Strawberry Jam – ”My Girls” is a fine example — shifting seamlessly from a slow, synth-heavy intro into a bouncy electro pop song with a sprinkling of handclaps and soaring, overlapping harmonies.

Merriweather … is surprising in its sprinkling of electro and deep bass beats, which work particularly well as a slow, thudding heartbeat on “Also Frightened”. The excellent closing track “Brother Sport” is a fittingly chaotic and hyperactive finale. It just makes you want to dance. Alone. In the kitchen. There has been so much hype and excitement surrounding this album since its release, which is most likely due to the fact that no one who has been looking forward to this album would be disappointed. Those who subscribe to Animal Collective’s unusual brand of dense, psychedelic strangeness will love it.

Kelly Ventress.

This August Sweden was graced by a visit from San Diego’s finest, Louis XIV, a band that shocked parents groups in Alabama and who have enticed numerous girls with their classic rock’n'roll moves. But behind the media image the band is bursting with creativity and musical ambition. Louis XIV not only have lots of attitude but are also endowed with a great sense of humour, with also a tiny bit of humility as well.

“We didn’t get that it was a festival that we were playing at”, says Brian Karscig, flicking through the Way out West programme. A mixture of surprise and disappointment can be detected in his voice. No wonder. Festival gigs are something that they love. They are sitting at Sticky Fingers, an old rock club in Gothenburg, where they will later play one of the club gigs at Way out West. At Brian’s side is Jason Hill, singer and songwriter of the band. They lean back in the black leather sofa and look just so relaxed and chilled out, exactly how you want rock stars from the US to be. We talk a bit about the festival and they are impressed by the bookings. Most of all they want to see Li’l Kim. Not a big surprise, they like her for her extrovert vocabulary. “She’s got a dirty mouth”, Brian grins behind his big fat sunglasses.

Louis XVI saw the day of light in April 2003, in a rehearsal venue in Paris, where the band’s front figures Jason Hill and Brian Karscig were living temporarily. Eventually Mark Maigaard and James Armbrust joined the duo and since then band, currently based in San Diego, released three full-length albums, have toured with The Killers and supported The Sex Pistols. Since the third album, Slick Dogs and Ponies, was released in January they have been on the road. They first covered the US and then worked themselves exhaustively through Europe with a solid gig schedule. Apparently not too grueling, though, as they do what they love the most. Life is about playing music and no one in the band dreams about doing anything else. Everything during the tour is about music. It doesn’t matter what country it’s in, so why be disgruntled? That they were joined by a string ensemble that, other than break some tour tediousness, gave their post punk, glam rock sound a touch of a harmonic lushness, had not so much to do with it. “It was great having them with us but after awhile we realised that we wanted to get back to our normal set up. We like doing our own thing”, says Jason with a serious tone in his voice.