Big Joanie—Back Home

Last month saw the death of Mimi Parker, drummer and vocalist of the band Low. Parker was one of many women whose vital contribution to shoegaze is too often sidelined for conversations about the genius of pedal-headed men. Shoegaze was quintessentially 90s—a lush and indulgent do-over of the utilitarian post-punk that dominated alternative charts in the previous decade. The UK middle-class was emerging from the dark chrysalis of the Thatcher years into a stranger and more questioning world; a world where joy was suddenly palatable because you didn’t have to be a cabinet member to have it. Shoegaze fit neatly into this depoliticised world. It prioritised sensation over message, bending its massive arrangements over often inaudible vocals. But shoegaze wasn’t just quintessentially 90s—it was feminine, too. Most of the biggest bands in the genre featured women centre stage (something you can’t say about new wave or post-punk). And in public consciousness, shoegaze and the female voice are synonymous.

Now that sound inhabits Back Home, the new album from Big Joanie. This album represents an absolutely enormous shift in sound which greatly elevates the band’s material. As courageous as Big Joanie have been with this course shift, special attention must be lavished on producer Margo Broom, who makes everything heavy as bones but skyward-soaring and ebullient.

Back Home is hook-driven, but neither cheap nor cheesy. Individual songs are colourful and varied without sacrificing sonic or thematic consistency. ‘Insecure’ sounds like the 00s anthem accompanying the clean-up the morning after a Skins party. The track channels that millennial indie style; a sort of family-friendly reinterpretation of punk, all stabbing rhythms and repetition but without any nasty bits. ‘In My Arms’ bookends the other side of punk, its progenitors; it’s a riff-driven surf ballad that plays like a rediscovered Kip Tyler track.

Stephanie Phillips’ vocals are nasal, drawling, almost lackadaisical, which just adds to the grungey mood. They work particularly well with songs like ‘Confident Man’ whose lyrics are shot through with cynicism. Somehow these vocal deliveries have great resonance and clarity too. It’s clear that behind the apparent effortlessness is real craft.

A standout from Back Home is the closer, ‘Sainted’, which is something like a New Order take on krautrock. The track is lifted by a bass drone and a luminous chorus. It’s a fitting capstone for such a strangely celebratory album. Back Home is an emotional two-hander in the same vein as The Cure’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me; both bounce between pop and pallor, both demonstrate every trick in their respective bands’ books. Up until now Big Joanie had been a band with something really great in their future. With Back Home that future has arrived.

Andrew O’Keefe

Gilla Band—Most Normal

In the time since their last LP (2019’s The Talkies) Gilla Band changed their name. Formerly known as ‘Girl Band’, the group announced the change in a statement describing their previous name as naïve and ignorant. They expressed regret over using a name which was “misgendered”. This sensitivity and conscience have run through every song the group have put out so far. To any fans surprised (or, bafflingly, angered) by the move: you were getting something very different from them than the rest of us.

Any else fearing a toothless new era should also relax. Most Normal dials the noise up, and leans as far into chaos and heaviness as the band ever have. While The Talkies was a perfectly commendable second album, it lacked the danger and unhinged misanthropy of earlier work. Here the edge is back. Most Normal is suffused with a feeling that it could fall to pieces any second, and it’s exhilarating to hear the band find that again—years later, healthier, happier; surfing waves that broke on them as younger men. And what a wave they find. If grunge was the damaged younger brother of punk, Gilla Band are another sibling down the line; extreme, dysphonic, dysfunctional and strange.

There is a new intricacy to production. Where amplification used to do heavy lifting, it’s yielded to subtler and more bizzaro techniques to ruin the listener’s day. Standout ‘The Weirds’ ends with a section of high frequency whining that’s physically difficult to listen to. Songs regularly feature aggressive ducking and instruments are positioned like sardines in the mix. In the moment, these claustrophobia-inducing production no-nos sound convincingly naïve. The reality is that they’re used with precision and intentionality. Balanced on a knife’s edge, this album constructs the illusion of spontaneity, thoughtlessness; as though the inception of its ideas had been captured on tape. Behind that illusion is fastidious attention to detail.

And while Most Normal can lean on some previously established sounds and techniques, it’s far and away their most eclectic album in terms of style. A great example is ‘I Was Away’ which has a really unexpected Primus-y sound. 2020s bands sounding like Primus is a trend that’s bubbled up out of nowhere but seems to be working well for everyone—Gilla Band included.  This album has one foot in the band’s past, one foot in their future; standing in a confident power stance over The Talkies and ready for more.

Andrew O’Keefe

The Rebel—REMEMBER YOUR FAILURE IN THE CAVE

BR Wallers has, over the course of his musical career, employed a good many styles and aliases—none of which have proved as enduring or prolific as The Rebel. Through all of The Rebel’s billion-or-so tapes are two contradictory feelings: that of oversharing, or slipping up; and of withholding, revealing very little of what’s behind the curtain. This balancing act is impressive. What’s even more impressive is Wallers’ ability to sustain the illusion throughout his entire career —early work in Country Teasers balanced on the same knife-edge. The resulting tension is perhaps what feeds Wallers’ quasi-mythical status among fans; the intimate inscrutability of looking at something through a microscope.

REMEMBER YOUR FAILURE IN THE CAVE is, unsurprisingly, full of contradictions. As the cover might have clued you in, the album is domestic and playful (at one point featuring enthusiastic guest vocals from what I assume is Wallers’ infant daughter). But it’s also anxiety-inducing, and sometimes apocalyptically terrifying. This uneasy juxtaposition makes me think of 70s kids’ TV. The people who made those shows had it hard—you can only be so jovial when you’re staring expectantly into a Cold War sky. Opening track “And Now” sounds like soot-covered CBeebies presenters blasting from a set in the nuclear wasteland of what was once a living room. “Baby Chick Went Down To The Fayre” is another beautifully mangled track, and sounds like a Texas two-step refracted through the prism of the (fantastic) show Roobarb and Custard.

Another commonality with kids’ TV, Oliver Postgate sort-of shows, is a blending of compositional sophistication and an affected naiveté. There is no question that Wallers is a formidable musical talent (and there’s strong case to be made for his genius). Without this as a known quantity, REMEMBER YOUR FAILURE IN THE CAVE would probably make me say “is he doing that on purpose” or “is this supposed to be funny”. Wallers’ work is confrontationally odd, and most listeners eventually get to a breaking point where they realise how silly both of those former questions are, and just start enjoying themselves. Large sections of this album sound like the blissful few minutes when you’ve given a child one of those Yamaha PSR keyboards and they haven’t discovered the fucking DJ button yet.

For some reason this album keeps making me think of kids, of childhood. Only in gathering thoughts together two write a review did I realise this. A catchy, kiddy charm and instant likeability have throughlined Wallers’ career—even stretching back to the days of the Teasers and their ‘hit’ “Golden Apples”—but this new album finds its compositions, with a couple of exceptions, unmoored from venomous and mucky lyrics. Consequently the album, gnarled and misanthropic as it may be, finds an explicit kind-heartedness. It’s a strange feeling. Imagine watching a dog who’s finally caught a mouse or bird they’ve been chasing for ages, and is taking infectious delight in shredding it to bits. You can’t help but cheer the little pooch on.

REMEMBER YOUR FAILURE IN THE CAVE is available for purchase and streaming here.

Words: Andrew O’Keefe

Coded Marking—Coded Marking

This self-titled EP from Leeds three-piece Coded Marking marries beat sequencing with brash bass to evoke the forgotten misery and terror of the 1980s. The decade had seen temporary whitewashing in younger people’s heads, and been painted as an endless John Hughes/Señor Spielbergo schmaltz-fest. The resurgent popularity of post-punk, though, has helped resurrect awareness of the period’s financial desperation and nuclear paranoia. This isn’t to imply that contemporary post-punk acts are a nostalgia trip. Their existence more likely symptomizes the 80s’ cultural anxieties rearing back up like a fucking hydra, as the craggy ghost of Thatcher cackles from the sky.

In this sense Coded Marking vanish amidst a sea of their own peers. There’s a lot of people around who are worried about the same stuff, it seems. Where the band distinguish themselves, however, is in their fairly unique and sickly sonic palette. Instrumentals are rich, full and bass-laden. Everything sounds muggy and indistinct, as though the master was found in some plane wreckage or one day bubbled up out of a swamp. When instruments poke their heads above this miasma, they buzz and clip (see: the guitar which plucks its way through closing track “The White Cord”).

Vocals, too, are treated almost to the point of inhumanity. Words become hoarse exhalations who find most of their meaning through the expressiveness of their delivery. Beneath the post-processing is a voice similar to Jason whassaname from Sleaford Mods—and I’m not saying that because I’m a Southern willy who thinks Leeds and Nottingham are the same place. There’s a gravelly and overexerted timbre to vocals—halfway between apathy and pure rage—and a relaxed attitude towards staying “in time” (whatever the fuck that means).

These tracks are unassuming but still make themselves known. They basically function as a collection of dark jams who lock into grooves most sane people would be happy to listen to for ages and ages. There’s no doubt this band would be a great experience live, but until you can go see them, this EP is the next best thing.

Coded Marking is available for purchase and streaming here.

Words: Andrew O’Keefe

black midi—Cavalcade

The second album from Windie-darlings black midi, titled Cavalcade, largely improves upon its predecessor Schlagenheim. Perhaps the band had too much to prove on their self-consciously weird debut, because this sophomore sees them relax a bit and stop foot-pumping smoke up their own arses. Their “experimental” imitation of Scott Walker, Beefheart, and Zappa stays—but it’s now tastefully incorporated into songs which have something of their own to offer too. There’s an exception in closer ‘Ascending Forth’, which sounds so much like Tilt-era Walker it must be a deliberate parody.

None of this really hurts Cavalcade. It’s possible to be derivative without being shit. Zappa’s mania, jazziness and lyrical oddity aren’t things everyone would be able to pull off. And it’s refreshing to hear some actual musicality from BRIT school alumni. Half the time I feel like a post-war dad, waggling a cane around and asking, “what do they teach you at that sad excuse for a school”. I know I’m not alone: BRIT school’s spectre hangs over BM at the Brixton Windmill where, in one of the toilet cubicles, at one point was scribbled a disparaging message about them in marker pen. I don’t remember exactly what it said, but it was something pretty meaningless along the lines of “art school punks”, and was probably left there by someone called Oscar whose dad is a stockbroker.

Cavalcade has a mid-heavy mix that could sound a little tinny if you have Skullcandys, Beats, Marleys or any of those other toy headphones they sell next to the Funko Pops in HMV. It’s a unique counterpoint to lots of modern releases, which are automatically smiley-face-curved to de-emphasise mids. This is so you can rattle your nan’s windows when you roll up in your Citroen Saxo for Scrabble. Cavalcade’s mix reminds me a bit of Death Grips’ Year of the Snitch, which sounded like a computer being sick. Cavalcade is overall the better-engineered album; no individual elements compete for space, and even the bizarrely quiet vocals are easy to pick out.  

Cavalcade is a step forward for black midi. They still have some ways to go, but there’s definitely potential that it’d be great to see fulfilled. Unless it’s baby's first paddle in the experimental, black midi offer few surprises, and aren't quite the earth-shattering God-band that many hail them as. But they're not exactly Ed Sheeran either. black midi occupy the same Goldilocks zone as Radiohead, and will likely hoover up much of the same fanbase. They do scare the hoes, but not all the hoes. Cavalcade is a promising album—but unless black midi step out from the shadow of their influences, they’ll never shake that “buzz band” label. Whether they have it in them or not, it’ll be fun finding out.

Cavalcade is available for purchase and streaming here.

Words: Andrew O’Keefe