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Last updated 9th February 2008
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| The Cesarians - Flesh Is Grass/Woman Label: Imprint Format: CDS, 7"
The first track, "Flesh Is Grass", starts off timidly enough, then builds and builds into what sounds like Kurt Weill beating the shit out of Jacques Brel with a bottle of whiskey. Or possibly it's Brel who's doing the shit-beating, with Weill his hapless victim - it's hard to tell, especially when you keep getting distracted by the instrumentation, which contrives to sound like there are a lot more of them in the band than there actually are in real life. Which isn't studio trickery - live, the combination of trombone, clarinet, piano, drums and vocals somehow sounds a lot, well, bigger and more epic than you'd imagine. If the Tindersticks were to do a bunch of PCP and somehow manage to get their hands on a time machine and go back to 30s Germany, and sneak into a club and get into a fight, the band on stage would probably sound, to their angel-dusted ears, something a little bit like this. Think of the World/Inferno Friendship Society if they lost their Dead Kennedys obsession. Or something like that. The other track, what us old bastards might quaintly refer to as “the B-side”, is a much brasher affair, all sleazy brass and stomping swagger, bringing to mind some of Foetus's more Steroid Maximus-y moments, only more organic. I could almost imagine Firewater doing something like this, round about the time of The Ponzi Scheme, though it doesn't quite sound like them either. I don't know what you'd imagine a band featuring ex-members of, among others, Penthouse, Christian Death and Monkey Island to sound like, but I'd be willing to bet a large sum of money that you wouldn't imagine they'd sound like this. Which is why it's GOOD that your imagination is wrong, both because I win the large sum of money and because The Cesarians are pretty unique in music today. All these comparisons I keep making are only very vague and tangential, like I can't quite find a box to put them in, just a couple of shelves on which they might fit more or less comfortably. Which is the way a band should be. Considering I only had two words in mind when I started this review, and they were “grimy” and “troubadour”, and I haven't actually used either of them, it's pretty good going. Buy this single, and bask in the tarnished glamour and decadence of The Cesarians. If there's any justice, they'll be huge. -Deuteronemu 90210 just before the Nazis arrive and close down the club- |
| 3 Daft Monkeys - Go Tell The Bees Label: 3 Daft Monkeys Format: CDS  I
don't know if it's just the stuff I've been hearing, or if it's a
general trend, but for some reason there seems to be a resurgence of
all things raggle-taggle. Maybe it's the Eastern European influence
thing, and since Gogol Bordello
people have suddenly remembered there are people playing these weird
things called violins, but it certainly makes a nice change to hear the
folky element coming to the fore again. I mean, I know it does every
few years, but it's always nice.Well, it is when it's done well, anyway, and 3 Daft Monkeys certainly know how to do it properly, only this is much more of a Western folk-music type thing. This is kind of reminiscent of the early Levellers stuff (you know, the stuff before they got all big and everyone said "I like their early stuff" - this sounds a bit like that "early stuff" that everyone liked, A Weapon Called The Word and so on). And like that, it's very catchy. Probably the best track on here is "Social Vertigo", a duet with a nice almost-polka intro suddenly turning into a spinny-round-by-the-elbows-oops-don't-drop-your-cider campfire stomper, on which the vocals seem to slip alarmingly close to sounding like Half Man Half Biscuit's Nigel Blackwell at times, which gives the whole thing a nicely almost-but-not-quite cynical edge. Although the closer "Astral Eyes" gives it a run for its money, with nice spacey flute and a violin that manages to do that thing stringed instruments do which I'll never quite get my head round where they sound like there are about four different people playing them. It sounds like there are a lot more daft monkeys than just the three credited, without losing the intimacy that the first three tracks have built up. So yeah, I'd say the bees should DEFINITELY be told. If they find out later that they'd missed out on this stuff, they might be pretty pissed off, and if there's one thing that's bound to put you off your picnic, it's angry bees. Or maybe a bear. -Deuteronemu 90210 pursued by a bee- |
Hailing from Hackney,
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