Having trouble getting into the swing of things this week, but here’s a nice way to ease back into it: Ben Sollee, accompanied by Jordan Ellis, playing a session at the Fulton Avenue subway stop in New York for Subway Sessions. Sollee has such a unique way with the strings, and I love the sounds Ellis is getting out of his percussion.
I wonder if we could find a good place to make sessions like this happen in Cleveland…
It took me a while to realize why the music of Phantom Tails sounded familiar. It was probably the third or fourth listen to Sounds of the Hunchback Whale when I realized that this music would not have been out of place in the goth clubs of ’90s San Francisco… but more like the ’90s goth scene if I’d had my way with it. This is not music you swoopy dance to while artfully waving your lacy cuffs. It requires a little more funk in your back-end. The band’s synth wizard Sergio Hernandez has called it Deep Space Doom Funk.
While it’s definitely dance music, it’s not without grit, coming down with an industrial thump at times. Songs are written, sampled, layered, sampled again, layered some more, resulting in fuzzed out laser zaps, rounded out with jagged guitar, heavy bass and drum machine beats that go down to bedrock instead of floating off into the atmosphere.
Streetsweepers by Phantom Tails
You can dance to it and still look like a badass.
Plus, singer/guitarist Orion Treon quoted the Wu-Tang Clan in an interview, and we are all the way down with that.
You can listen to and download the two songs above, then get over to Bandcamp and pick up the whole album. It’s good from top to bottom.
Nina Simone and the song “Sinnerman” go hand-in-hand. If you think of “Sinnerman”, you probably think of Nina’s version, and if you think of Nina, you probably thing of “Sinnerman”. Simone’s version is so authoritative and brilliant that you might not realize that she didn’t write the song. “Sinnerman” (or “Sinner Man”) began life as a traditional spiritual and many other people had a turn at it before Simone made it her own in 1965. For instance, king of exotica Les Baxter did it up with Will Holt on vocals in 1956.
Kind of a shock after Simone’s version. It’s kind of… well… white. (Though not the whitest of the white. For that, check out versions by the Weavers and Tommy Sands.)
Peter Tosh had a long relationship with the song, beginning in 1966 (some sources say 1964 or 1965) when he recorded it with the Wailers. In the ’70s, he changed the name to “Downpressor Man”.
One of the most recent versions was recorded by the Black Diamond Heavies for their 2008 album A Touch of Someone Else’s Class. It clearly draws from Simone’s version, shaping the song out with John Wesley Myers’ distinctive Fender Rhodes sound and ravaged vocals.
I was going to begin this post by attempting to argue that, despite it’s name, We See Lights’ new EP Twee Love Pop is not actually twee. Considering the songs talk about holding hands, gifting a book of poetry and loving the way the object of affection’s hair curls when it rains, there was no way I was going to win that argument.
But it’s twee in a charming way.
Indeed, Twee Love Pop is so charming that my co-blogger Jennifer and I both like it. As Jennifer says, this “is one of the few times [we] agree on, well, anything, when it comes to music. Other examples: The Felice Brothers and A.A. Bondy. You are breathing rarified air, We See Lights!”
It may also be because they don’t hide their Edinburgh accents, and we’re accent whores.
We See Lights couch their sweet lyrics with acoustic guitar, banjo, bells, light percussion, a lot of happy bounce and, everyone’s weakness, harmony singing. Twee Love Pop is a sunny little love note of an EP. Take a listen to (and download) the first two songs.
My Oh My Oh My by We See Lights
I Hope You Like the Smiths by We See Lights
You can take a listen to the EP, plus a couple of their earlier releases, at their Bandcamp site, and then you can download the EP from Amazon or iTunes.
You climb the metal fire escape on this frigid, Chicago night, a little uneasy. The steps sway and clang under your feet while layers of paint and rusted metal disintegrate under your hand. You are halfway up when you make the mistake of looking down to check your progress. A pause as you close your eyes, grip the railing with both hands and whisper, “Oh please oh please oh please…” A deep breath, and you continue on.
You reach the door and sniff back some rogue snot before turning the handle. You step in to find the inside just as dark and cold as the outside. Darker. Except for a soft spotlight trained on a man and a baby grand piano. The bear of a man is dressed all in black, and his hands play across the ivories more delicately than you’d have expected. He watches you, grinning. His face is pleasant enough, but something about the grin is slightly unsettling, as if it will spread into a giant Mr. Sardonicus rictus at any moment.
“Watch your step,” the man warns casually, just before you feel age-old wooden slats begin to give way under your foot.
You cautiously navigate your way across the room to the piano, thinking, however illogically, that if you can just grip this huge, heavy piece of furniture in the middle of the rotting floor, you’ll be safe. The man continues to grin as you listen to him play. He begins to sing. A full, sonorous voice that seems to come up from another time. It makes you think of thin, foreign men with severely pomaded hair and angular women with Louise Brooks haircuts. The man plays a beautiful song, and you begin to relax under the lilting melody. Until your mind begins to process the words…
When I come back to life, I’ll find you,
Push my thumbs into your eyes and blind you.
When you hear your name called out across a crowded street,
you’ll think of me and swear the ground was stolen from your feet.
He punctuates the verse with a high, ghostly, wordless howl-hum.
Your shoulders freeze. You glance back across the room and wonder how quickly you could make it back out the door and down the fire escape. You turn back as the man stands, still grinning, and motions you to follow him. You don’t know why you follow, but you go. Out a window you climb, onto a snowy stone balcony overlooking the city. Chicago is laid out for you in a jeweled grid, the snow making everything pristine. Clean. Wonderful. You try to remain on your guard, but the site dazzles you and your eyes widen and sweep the landscape like an excited child’s.
Beside you, the man begins to chuckle. Maybe he’s not so bad, you think. He’s shown you something beautiful you might never have seen had you let fear turn you back down that fire escape.
Then you feel a strong tug on the back of your jacket. As the snow-laden streets fly up to meet you, the man’s booming laughter echoing behind you, you realize he really was as bad as you thought.
Daniel Knox’s album Evryman For Himself, the second in a trilogy, releases May 10, 2011. The first album of the trilogy, Disaster, is available to stream, download and order on CD on Bandcamp. And, if you’re brave enough, he’s on tour.
photos: John Atwood
Raife Hacking (drums; left), David Jones (vocals, keyboards; right);
not pictured: Glen Nicholls (producer, programmer, keyboardist, crafter of twisty soundscapes, and international man of mystery).
I’m intrigued by your sound. So, tell me more about the band. Who are you, collectively, and what’s your story?
David: Well the band is a trio, myself and Raife Hacking started working with Glen Nicholls, the producer and also third band member in October last year. We are from the Midlands in the UK originally, but now work from Glen’s studio in North London.
We came together through a love of dark pop music, stuff like Depeche Mode, some Bowie stuff, The Cure, Nine Inch Nails (you’ll hear that coming out more in our new stuff). Glen is a producer/remixer and has worked with bands such as White Lies, Prodigy and Unkle amongst others, and I have been songwriting for a few years, inspired by my love of dark uplifting pop songs. I use the word pop loosely, I guess.
We’re aiming for a big powerful live show which we are debuting in May/June in London UK, and are releasing another couple of EPs over the course of the next few months followed by our debut album later this year.
I have a rough idea of where the West Midlands are but, to be honest, almost everything I know about the bits of England that aren’t London I learned from books like Pies and Prejudice and Cider with Roadies by Stuart Maconie, movies like Brassed Off and Billy Elliot and the week I spent in the Lake District before I went up to Glasgow for my junior year abroad. I can look at a map and see you aren’t from those part(s) of England, but: what is your England like? What propelled you down to London?
David: Well, my England was centred around Northampton when I was growing up, which is a large town in the middle of England. I was brought up in a Christian community where everyone shared all of their possessions and lived simply without a television or radio. It meant that I was encouraged to be creative from a very early age. So I’ve been writing songs and playing instruments from about the age of 7.
What brought me down to London was music. I always knew I wanted to pursue a musical career, and London seemed a good place to meet people and go to gigs etc. I also like buzzing places and being part of a city that’s always moving and always vibrant is a great place to be for inspiration.
Was your community akin to the Amish? Was London a whole lot of culture shock, or was the separation between the two types of worlds not as stark as the Amish/”English” division tends to be? (The old order Amish here generally refer to the non-Amish as “English.”)
David: The community I was brought up in has similarities, I guess, to the Amish, but only in the way everyone lives together. We all went to normal schools and interact with ‘normal’ society. They just choose to live a simple and humble life as they believe it is how God would want them to live. They call themselves Charismatic Christians. I think my upbringing has influenced me in a very positive way.
Are Raife and Glen from Northampton too? Did you call decamp to London together, or meet there? What is their England like?
Glen: I’m originally from Leicestershire, not too far from Northampton but moved to London in 1997.
David: Raife is from Northampton, and still lives there. He comes to stay with me in London every week so we can work on the band, though. Raife is the youngster of the band and we love him for his energy and enthusiasm, and also his crafty beats. I guess our collective ‘England’ is quite similar, we are all from relatively small places and have a desire to do something bigger than the confines of where we are from. That isn’t to say that we’re not proud of where we’re from, and I still really enjoy being in Northampton, it’s a great place with lots of creative people around.
Why did you name the band Strangers?
We came up with the name Strangers because firstly we thought it fitted perfectly with our sound and secondly everyone is born a stranger into this world and we really find the concept behind that idea. Also we all interact with Strangers everyday, more so than we ever have, and its a really interesting idea and can be used in loads of different ways.
You mentioned NIN as an influence; is that early NIN or later? Also, is that a violin I hear, on one of the tracks?
Yes, that is a violin in one of the tracks. Our producer is very much into ‘filmic’ sounds, by that I mean epic, huge soundscapes, and so he will often spend days coming up with a string part for one of our songs. I think it really works well for our sound. To be honest I’ve only recently got into Nine Inch Nails. I love ‘Hurt’, Closer, tracks like that. Glen is more of a hardcore fan, and he has turned me onto them.
Oh, okay, Closer and so on, that’s early NIN. Those are some of my favorites, too! Would it be appropriate to read “dark pop” as a synonym for “gothic”? Or at least as being related to certain strains of gothic music?
I guess there are gothic elements to our sound, but Dark Pop sits better with us as a way to describe our sound at the moment. Some of influences definitely have gothic roots; The Cure, Depeche Mode.
![[ Strangers ] - In Chaos](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/WJWcMBiqIao/0.jpg)
Where was the video filmed? It looks very dark and pleasantly creepy, wherever it is. Also, how long did take to do it, using just the iPhones as recording devices?
We filmed the video in Holland Park, which is a national park in West London. They are very strict about what is filmed there, so we had to stealth it a bit, and stay ‘under the radar’. It was raining for most of the filming so we were all standing there drenched, trying to get the right shots, it was an interesting day to say the least! We were there for about 3 hours the first time, and then went back for an hour or so a week later to get a few of the shots we missed. It was all shot using two iPhones, yes, and I think we were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the footage.
What was your transformative song – the rock and roll lightning strike?
David: A guy who I was in a band with a few years ago played me Depeche Mode Enjoy the Silence and it was literally love at first listen. From there I got really into The Cure and bands like that, as well as purchasing the entire Depeche Mode back catalogue.
Glen: Mine would have to be Head Like a Hole, by Nine Inch Nails, literally blew my socks off!! haha!
Raife: Everlong – Foo Fighters. The first time I heard it I wanted to be Taylor Hawkins, just such an entertaining drummer to listen to, and watch, he’s so animated. Also, it’s just a great track, I’ll never grow tired of it.
What was your first show (that you attended, not that you played)?
David: My first show i went to was a local band called Glendon. The guitarist used a food mixer on the fretboard to make some cool sounds, back then that was enough to impress me haha.
Glen: Depeche mode’s ‘Devotion Tour’ in ’93 was the first big concert I went to in London!
Raife: The very first show I went to was to see a Scottish metal band called Mendeed, I was 13 at the time. It was at the forum in Kentish Town, proper battle metal type stuff, there was mohawks and dreadlocks all over the place. Loved it. I really clearly remember just how loud it was, I couldn’t believe PA’s went that loud, pretty sure the ringing in my ears right now is because of that first show I went to.
What was the first record/tape/etc that you bought? What was the last one?
David: I wasn’t allowed to buy tapes when I was a kid, as all other music other than Christian music was considered ‘worldly’ and wrong. I used to go round to my mates house and he would copy me stuff that was in the charts at the time.
Glen: Damn! probably Michael Jackson’s Thriller on vinyl and the last was the Inception movie score by Hans Zimmer.
Raife: Nirvana, Nevermind, the most stereotypical album to be a bought by a teenager. I listened to it over and over, really opened up my musical ears. The last one I bought was Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, full of great hip-hop grooves, some really interesting instrumentation on some tracks, and a cameo perfomance from Chris     Rock at the end of the last track, couldn’t ask for more.
And finally, where will you be playing the live shows?
David: Our first show is May 20th at a new venue called Victory. We are playing this show for Club. The. Mammoth and will be the main support for FOE. Also we are playing at Bull and Gate in Kentish Town, North London for Mybandsbetterthanyours Presents on June 7th.
To hear more from the Strangers, visit them at their Website or on Soundcloud!
