Webcuts Music

In the cockney rhyming slang lexicon there really should be an entry marked “Gemma Ray” that translates to “The Hard Way” for the sultry Essex singer’s career is one filled with false starts, battles with illness and sheer bloody mindedness. Barely finished from touring her last album Ray has just released an album of covers It’s a Shame About Ray which draws its song pool from the likes of Buddy Holly, Lee Hazelwood, Etta Fitzgerald, Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, Gallon Drunk and The Gun Club. Webcuts catches up with the brunette with the beehive during a tour in South Africa to talk knives, the new album, Rosemary’s Baby, illness affecting songwriting and the recording of new material.

We told you about the bounty of international acts coming Australia’s way in the next few months a couple of weeks back, now after an announcement they would play the Meredith music festival in Victoria got those in other states chomping at the bit it’s now official — Mark E Smith and his current cohorts known as The Fall are playing headline shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne on the back of this year’s Your Future, Our Clutter album. Also tour dates for San Fran’s Girls and Canadian indie supergroup The New Pornographers.

And now for something completely different… We’ll admit we don’t feature many non-Western acts here at Webcuts but when, out of left field, comes a piece of ear candy from the east like The Suzan’s “Home” we do listen. And look. With a cute glockenspiel intro, maracas-a-plenty, chunky bass and soothing if indecipherable vocals culminating [...]

The end of winter and the onset of spring then summer in the Southern Hemisphere means one thing. Well it means warmer temperatures obviously but it also means more international tours for us antipodeans starved of name acts over the winter months (excepting Splendour and its sideshows of course). A number of big names have been announced in the past week including The Manic Street Preachers, The Charlatans, Concrete Blonde, The National, Interpol, The Morning Benders and Joan Jett!

In the space of the just two weeks one singer-songwriter who hails from Essex in England, Gemma Ray, has set up residence in the speakers and hearts of at least two of us here at Webcuts. The source of such an impact was the new album It’s a Shame About Gemma Ray, a 16 track covers album of timeless (Buddy Holly, Etta Fitzgerald) and alternative (Mudhoney, Sonic Youth, The Gun Club) classics. The first track is the sparse take on Gallon Drunk’s dark but delicious “Put a Bolt In the Door” from their album The Rotten Mile. Featured above is an acoustic session from Le Cargo! which successfully conveys the stripped down and dirty nature of the recorded version. Note the large kitchen knife tucked away at the back of the fretboard which Ray regularly uses in concert and studio in place of a slide. The Ray of light (or dark) will continue in the next week when we’ll feature a lengthy interview with the chanteuse about the album and future recordings.

For The Morning Benders, a big echo doesn’t necessarily mean a big noise, but the latter is certainly what these Californian boys encountered following the release of their sophomore album Big Echo earlier this year, easily giving Webcuts one of our favourite albums of 2010. Perfectly formed and lavishly constructed, Big Echo stretched its influences across the decades, from the lush ’60s doo-wop harmonies of “Excuses”, the ’70s Californian pop-rock of “All Day Day Light” to the peer rivaling, stark echoes (which the album lives up to its name) of “Hand Me Downs”.

Impressive third album from these exemplary Scots. It sounds like the Winter Webcuts had… except more productive.

Oh, summery shimmery albums. Why must you hook us so? Berkeley, CA’s, The Morning Benders serve up a treat.

With every other blog and dishrag praising these young Brooklyn upstarts, Webcuts feels wholly obliged NOT to review the album (in all fairness, nobody is knocking down our door waving a copy in our faces either). Though in an attempt to retain an essence of impartiality, we’ll let you decide whether The Drums are playing [...]

When we spoke to the head turning three piece School of Seven Bells a year ago they said they had ten tracks waiting to be finished. Seeing as their second album Disconnect from Desire is scheduled for release on 9th July on Speak N Spell/Inertia in Australia that they certainly have done. S7B will head [...]