Of late, IndieCult has become somewhat disillusioned by The Rock (thats the musical institution, not the cabbage-faced wrestler-cum-actor). Pile after steaming pile of cd-rs from PR companies peddling their latest “The New Libertines” or worse (and far more frequent than one might imagine) “The New Oasis”. And lets not even get started on that genre we call Post-Rock which has become as bloated and stagnant as John Prescott after a night sampling the vindaloos down Kensington High Street. Instead we’ve been forced to find musical satiety from other sources, thrown out into the scary worlds of the experimental sound-artiste, “World Music” and (whisper it) Free-Jazz. But having spent the last months torn between listening to the processed sound of plastic surgical instruments and beetle activity under a tree in New York (seriously!) there was always the feeling something was missing. This music, conceptually interesting as it may be, was missing the thing that Rock music once, in more innocent times, incited in us. We’ve all known it: the feeling of rebellion, subversion, raw power the feeling that you are young and could change the world if only you turn the amps up loud enough and scream with as much passion as you can muster. But these were distant memories, like some idyllic childhood spent running through fields of daffodils with daisy chains in our hair, now lost to old age and the RIAA. And then, all of a sudden, as we lay face-in-pillow wondering what the point of it all was, the glow of the moonlight peeking through the curtains dropped to a darker hue and an ominous click sounded out from the stereo shuffle-function. A monstrous wrench of guitar squall threatened to blow the Bang & Olufsens clean off the shelf: “I’m an independent motherFUCKER!!” screamed some possessed harpy as we scrabbled to regain balance. And here it was. All the fury of alienated youth that was missing from the prepared-pianos and shortwave radio frequency-manipulations, was now threatening to tear our ears off and force-feed them down the throats of the naysayers. So yes, Be Your Own Pet have something of a spark about them. Never mind the musical lack of sophistication or the 5^th-form poetry and listen to the way Jemina Pearl spews out these lyrics like shed been raised on a diet of red meat and smarties (just the blue ones). At our certain age, we may still have too much cynicism and lethargy to fully embrace a noise we’ve all heard before but to any teenager out there whose pissed off at the hand they and others have been dealt by this cruel world these guys are salvation.

Rating: 8/10

The Gentleman Losers – The Gentleman Losers

 

I might as well get to the meat of what you, the reader, want to know. Screw objectivity, this is the best thing I’ve heard all 2006. Hear this: I condone this album. A couple of Australians have crafted here a record of inconceivable emotive power that will add quality to your life or I promise to eat the corks off my outback hat (apologies for inappropriate cultural referance – race relations ed). Enter voice of grumpy old man: “Modern music has too many notes.” For once, our elders have a point: Take one idea – a simple motif, bare guitar line – and let it speak for itself. Most of those extraneous notes (or in Keane’s case all) could quite easily be thrown into the deep caverns of audio-Hell (which is where, incidentally, the aforementioned indie-weepers reside most of the Summer) with a vast improvement in output. Each track on the Gentleman Loser’s self-titled debut demonstrates an accute awareness of the decievingly tardis-like possibility of this premise. Here, the most humble of restrained melodies imparts more information in the 97 seconds of opener An Empire of Coins than any bloated 20-minute, prog-rock “epic” (I’m looking at you Wakeman!). Put bluntly, if this record asked me to jump off a cliff you would find me approaching the ground below seconds later weeping tears of joy that these musical poets had deigned fit to address me. The ‘Losers say, through their music, more about our human condition than an entire library of psycho-analysis and philosophy.

 

Anoice – Remmings

 

Another example of a group of artists for whom their various instruments are not mere physical objects existing in the world but the additional limbs of some further evolution of homo-sapien whose sole function is the communication and articulation of the deepest abyss of human nature. Unfortunately the ears of most incarnations of our current species do not seem advanced enough to detect such subtle frequencies (well, if sales figures are any indication) but when the Earth is destroyed in 2012 by the Lizard King’s thirst for petroleum-based satiety and a new species is born from the nuclear aftermath, Anoice will be rightly given their due status as Lords of All Beauty and Soul. Rarely has the sound of horsehair on steel sounded so natural and prescient.

 

Minamo – Shining

 

Granted this was released 2005 but art is timeless, right? And anyway, you’ll forgive my lax attitude towards chronology once you’ve sampled the aural delights herein. My defence is that Shining only arrived in K-land, during the merry month of May so it’s going in. We are all slowly decaying – it’s a fact of the corporeal world we inhabit and no amount of botox injections and cucumber face masks is going to stop this. But that doesn’t mean we should all give up and a few spins round Shinings brittle electronica gives new hope of development within degredation. Minamo don’t fight evolution but live within it and absorb it into art. If all this sounds pretentious it’s not the fault of the music which seems resolutely unassuming in creating their harrowing audio mise en scene. Each track-title provides a fairly adequate sense of the music within – crumbling, serene, stay still – but music such as this is barely articulable in words. The only resort for the journalist is to say “Here, play this. It’s good.”

 

Hisato Higuchi – She

 

If Hisato Higuchi told me my mother was conceived by dogs after they were released from coolies quarantine but did it playing acoustic over the fragile clicks and whirrs of She I probably wouldn’t put up much of a defence. 18-second opener Breath is a suitable introduction into the EP consisting of a single tone and inhalation. Girl Sister sets the mood for what follows (harrowingly bare melodies over scratchy, electronic manipulations). By the time he gets to stand-out Ghost Ghosts one wonders if his instruments haven’t in fact been lost to the Land of Nod and what we’re actually hearing is the faint whisper and scamperings of some furry little creature nextdoor. And that’s the rub: music like this is like watching a doormouse steal your edam: even if it’s not exactly what you asked for it’s so inobtrusive and the looks so meek and innocent as it peers up at you that it’s difficult to get worked up about, and double-hard to be objectively critical about. What sets Higuchi apart from being just another acoustic balladeer with a copy of ProTools, however, is when things take a turn for the experimental towards the end of the record. Here, sounds become noticeably harsher but always displaying a real attentiveness to dynamics finding gradual resolution in the lonely string-plucking of earlier.

 

7 Year Rabbit Cycle – Ache Horn

 

The more observant among you may have noticed a distinctly melancholic tinge to this month’s selections. This is due to your correspondant with the Music World being subjected to that most unnecessary interruption of student life that is the Summer Exam session and, as such, being in need first of something incidental to soundtrack his intense (ha!) work ethic and laterly to provide sounds of solace post-mortem. Deerhoof have put out more releases than Charles Clarke’s Home Office over the last few years (check their website now for a free EP download “for fun”) so this is another side-project to redress this collection’s ambient balance. Now, Deerhoof and their related projects don’t so much split opinion as take a giant rainbow-coloured candy cane to Opinion’s face and leave two raving street-preachers debating the merits of marmite-based snacks. With this in mind, if you have experienced the ‘Hoofs yelping-squeals-over-attentively-challenged-percussion style and been thankful for the invention of the off button then this isn’t the record that’s going to change your mind. Even more primal and stripped down than previous outings, 7 Year Rabbit Cycle continue to explore just how creepy nursery rhymes can be when set to Rob Fisk’s pots-and-pans crashing with Kelly Goode’s Goldilocks-on-[insert own illegal stimulant here to avoid journalistic cliche]. Their third studio release, Ache Horn is a more contemplative, less excitable (by Fisk and his cohorts usual standards, that is) excursion down the noise-rock path and all the more intriguing an addition for it.

 

 

3hostwomexicansandatinofspanners – Pegasus Bridge

 

Every couple of weeks some hack proclaim’s punk is dead. Well it may have been backed into a corner – the Big 3 of the music industry continuing to be, err… unsympathetic to punk’s independent ethic – but it’s still snarling back with teeth bared last year through the punctuation-evading and commendably googleable (given you likewise avoid the spacebar – otherwise the Other Side of w3 may be revealed to you) 3hostwomexicansandatinofspanners. From the kick-off Pegasus Bridge packs more venomous spite a hundred Jello Biafra’s stuck in a lift on the way to a job interview with The Man. With Mclusky recently confined to posterity and Emo threatening to take over the planet by swaddling it in a big, Dashboard Confessional-shaped comfort blanket, records like this appear like the logos of messiahs. So to the OC with the naysayers, the day punk rock dies is the day you’ll find me shooting pucks at beelzebub (because hell has frozen over – come on, keep up at the back!). All the corporate leviathan’s efforts serve to do is incite bands like this to fight back angrier than ever. So, in the traditional spirit of journalistic laziness under the pretense that they put it better than I can I’ll leave the rest of this review to the boys themselves: “What is music for? It’s not about selling fucking records, or promoting your image, or getting into magazines, or getting famous, or being cool, or hard, or getting girls, or getting fucked in some bog with some cunt…

 

It’s for making a statement, and confronting core beliefs and standards, and creating an emotion, a feeling, without exclusion, and fucking off corporate wank.”

 

True that, and here’s to the overlooked gems that June will bring.

Last year Kaizer Chief Ricky Wilson claimed he’d suck off a tramp for success – which, oddly enough, is the sound I hear when listening to his records. Point is, for most bands Rock is just a good way of making a few bucks (they did call their album ‘Employment’ after all). You could go and work for the Halifax but it’s a lot more fun snorting coke of models backstage at the NME awards. But enough about my weekend, it’s refreshing to come across a band so apparently committed to alienating whatever audience they might have amassed at every turn thereby sacrificing any chance of commerical success. “Was I naive to think they’d stay?” asks ‘Mt Heart Attack’ with a heavy dose of cynicism. New York’s Liars are, in other words, a PR nightmare: about as predictable as Mexican jumping beans but equally colourful and mesmerising. The band decamped to the former East Germany to record these propulsive, tribal mantras and the stunning acoustics afforded by their labyrinthian studio has proven worth the move. Echoing the pioneering work of This Heat but equally the fascinating neo-psychedelica movement currently emanating from Scandanavia their third record encompasses a brutal, unforgiving cacophany. Polarising critical opinion like a marmite buffet at the Kyoto summit, Liars third lp will do little to heal this rift but ‘Drum…’ is a revelatory kick to the teeth of those pundits who lambasted their refusal to cow-tow to the great industry tenet of ’sounding like your last record’. Cyclical, raga-esque vocals and gentle acoustics intersperse more forceful, percussive tracks forging an compelling, if slightly disturbing new path through the swampy mire. Like watching a David Lynch movie, it makes you feel a bit uneasy but you can’t help but look. For all its pretentiousness, this is music that grabs you by the cerebral cortex and kicks you deep in the gut. It’s raw, emotive and genuinely affecting. Amid tense, crawling scree and wailing, eerie falsetto, ‘Drum…’ makes for an overwhelming crucible at first, but those who choose to invest a bit of time in Liars will be counting the epiphanies till doomsday.

Rating: 8/10

31st December 1999, and the world is in a state of extreme apprehension. Witness the bearded harbinger as he stands atop his wormwood-infested soapbox announcing the coming apocalypse; furrow your brow at the broadsheets warning of global consumer credit reset and the collapse of Western capitalism as we know it; peer anxiously from your window-seat at the people-ants busying about on the ground, steering clear of immanent plummet-dom and puffing up a dozen flights of stairs rather than trust their fate to the god of silicon. But the second millennium came and went, our microwaves didn’t turn our chicken kormas into anti-matter and ATMs didn’t start spitting blood. Truth be told, six years on and we’re still in a state of relief about it all (by virtue of K’s Law: the more absurd the fear the more hysteric the reaction. See also: bird flu). As with anything that seeps deeply into the public consciousness, it cannot help spilling over into the art world and consequently we’ve seen an exponential explosion in music reflecting a morbid fascination with the destructive potential of our dependence on technology. The first release on newly-created label Brother Rat Recordings, and the first full-length release from apoplectic noise-monger, Brother Rat, Fear of a Rat Planet, lets loose the full-frontal cacophony of post-y2k heebie-jeebies. A squirming mass of trojans, worms and viruses scrabble to be heard above the glitch-drenched din, worrying at the cerebral cortex like hungry honeybees tugging at a frail and wilting flower. It’s an unsettling and suspense-driven listen and speaks (presumably in binary so I doubt if anyone’s listening) directly to the auto-tuned, airbrushed cynicism of pop culture. Pretentious journo-musings aside however, Brother Rat hold their own against the legion of similar-minded noise-warriors, and this record will suitably pass the time between the next release from their uber-prolific peers: Wolf Eyes, Merzbow, Prurient et al. Seriously though, how many more people are going to pun Public Enemy (surely the undoubted kings of the pun in contemporary music). I hereby proclaim the PE-pun fund closed for business. The two may appear unlikely bedfellows but squint your eyes and you can just make out the imposing figure of Chuck D standing at the gates of the terrordome, dual-barettas in hand, making a LOT OF NOISE.

Rating: 7/10

According to my calculations, the quality of releases from a particular genre is inversely proportional to the number of bands practising it. It happened to Prog, it’s happening to the instrumental Post-Rock of the Godspeed You!/Mogwai ilk and now it looks like Math Rock may also be suffering from over-saturation, every kid with a guitar and a knowledge of compound meter eager to jump on the last train to Jazzville via a Phd in music theory from the Hella Laboratory of Rock . Fortunately, there are a few not content to simply bow down at the alter of Don Caballero and spark the movement with invention and progression. Ahleuchatistas (say that three times as fast as you can!) take the free-form pointillism of Volta Do Mar to its furthest extreme, jagged angular guitars careering into the rhythmic geometrical blast-beats of caffeinated drummer Sean Dail. It’s Dail’s precise, economical kitwork that epitomises the Ahleuchatistas ethic: have something to say and say it succinctly and with passion. This is unsurprising considering where they take their name – a moniker as tongue-twisting as their music – which combines “Zapatistas” (radical Mexican revolutionary movement – politics ed) with the name of a Charlie Parker improvisational piece. It serves as an adequate explication of the fusion at work here: song-titles like Remember Rumsfeld at Abu Ghraib ally the group with the ‘disenfranchised’ of society whilst doffing a knowing cap to Charles Mingus’ Remember Rockefeller at Attica. Challenging, cerebral music like this has a tendency to get a bit academic, melding seemingly endless guitar noodles with intricate lock-step passages in 5/8 time hardly likely to stock the shelves of Woolworths, but What You Will explodes from the start with a boundless, deceptive chaos that captivates more often than it confuses.

Rating: 8.5/10

Remember when you were in music class at school and the teacher handed you a wooden block that was to serve as your sole contribution to the orchestra? Remember when the Polish kid was told he got to be the “clapper”? Remember when reviewers wrote about the music instead of relating nostalgic goo? No, neither do I. But I do get the impression that Clogs were at the back of that music class, spoons in hand, noise-making to their hearts content. The instrumentation has been augmented for the bands fourth outing: bassoon, melodica, viola, mandola and ukulele make up a masterfully complimentary audio mise en scene and it’s an altogether more studied affair than previous records. Slow-building motifs continually evolve into deeply evocative, beautiful melodies. But there’s a playfulness here too: the band switching seemlessly from the riotous crescendo of “The Song of the Cricket” to a swaggering jazzy skit without it sounding misplaced. Invariably, the trained musicianship of the collective’s players keeps their many influences (Avant Classical, Baroque, European Folk , Post-Rock) from conflating, creating an assured whole. So back to that sunny day in primary 6 and our little Clogs are bashing away, oblivious to the classical-crossover inroads they would later be making into the Indie scene. Beeming like they’ve been let loose in a candy store, they pick up their “Well Done” dino-stickers and run into the playground. End of term report: it’s A*s all round, children. Just don’t tell your parents you’ve given up on schooling and are going to play in a rock band.

Rating: 8/10

Of all the genres in the modern music family, Improvisation is the ugly duckling; the evil twin of composition. Ignored and misunderstood, confined to spend most of its days chained up among the dusty cobwebs of obscure record store basements and mail-order warehouses, a lifetime searching for coppers down the back of the sofa beckons for the Improv artist. In a world where industry-generated brands far outnumber genuine artists, Lou Larson (financial status unknown) has represented the antithesis to the Universal/Sony/EMI/Warner juggernaut for longer than a US exit strategy. His latest project – America’s Next Hero (http://www.myspace.com/americasnexthero) – is an experimental guitar/tabla duo. Who better to ask then where music’s misunderstood offspring is heading in 2006? The Gaudie met him to discuss free-form Jazz, American politics and working within “The Machine”.

In a cafe somewhere in cyberspace:

Gaudie: Morning Lou, so do you have any plans for today or are you just going to make it up as you go along?

Larson: (silence accompanied by weary grin)

Let’s start at the beginning. When did you start writing/playing music?

I started playing guitar when I was 8 years old. I’m 39 now, so that’s more than 30 years. I remember seeing Jimi Hendrix on TV and I convinced my parents to buy me a guitar.

What did your parents make of this? Was it a musical life chez Larson?

My father could play some basic things on guitar. He played in a band in High School. I remember hearing some things recorded on reel-to-reel. It was your basic 50’s rock style.

My parents enjoy listening to music, and my Dad had pretty diverse tastes. He liked everything from jazz to rock and was an avid record collector. My Dad even built his own Hi-Fi system.

My parents (Louis II, and Gayle Larson) had a huge influence on me. My father was incredible smart, and overcame tremendous odds as a cancer survivor to lead a full life. My mother is the definition of tenacity, and has been a true inspiration.

And when did you realise music was going to be more than a hobby?

I never had formal lessons until I got to University, but they set me straight. I studied Classical Guitar & Music Composition and I did complete my degree.

There’s been some talk agonising over a name for your next project. How important is the name of a band, in general, and what does it say about the people behind it?

I think the name should represent something about the band, even if it is our sarcasm. The new name of the group is official: Americas next hero and the Darlings of Kali.

Wow! An exclusive scoop. I’ll alert the Mirror.

We have gone back to being a Duo, having bass was pretty cool, but having a third person made it more difficult to organize rehearsals and gigs. We might add a “guest Artist” from time to time, but we are sticking with the duo format.

The far reaches of northern Scotland don’t currently seem to be on your touring schedule. I’ll let that slide for now, but could you describe the America’s Next Hero live experience?

The music is 100% improvised. The venues we usually play, draw a “listening” audience. That is people who are used to seeing free-jazz or experimental music.

Do you have a particular listener in mind or are you writing for yourself?

This music is definitely “art for art’s sake.”

So to go a bit high-brow for a moment, is a life without art a life without meaning?

I wouldn’t say “without meaning”, but I would say “not very satisfying.”

Do you find the reaction of the crowd affects your performance, particularly as the music is constantly evolving?

It is important to stress that we don’t play any “songs”. We strive to create new music at every performance, everything is 100% improvised.

The mood of the crowd influences the music, if the crowd is really into it, it really pushes us to create something exciting.

And I guess the opposite is true as well? Can an apathetic crowd affect your performance and in what way? Is there anything you can do to inspire a crowd who just aren’t ‘feeling’ it?

It is sometimes impossible to inspire an apathetic crowd. The only “apathetic crowds” I know of are a result of “bad booking.”

We are pretty good at what we do, and if we are performing for a crowd that
has an open mind, they will usually get it.

The crowds that are looking for Creed, or Britney Spears just are not
interested in what we do, and they don’t ever get it.

What kind of demographic comes to see you play? Are the kids getting into what you do?

Oh Yeah, we have opened for some really good indie bands. We played with [Mogwai-esque post-rockers] the Shipping News a few months ago.

Our fans are mostly college kids that are into challenging music.

The old-heads opening for the upstarts then.

I was familiar with their other groups Joan of Arc, Rachel’s, Slint and my friends were
listening to their records before we played with them.

There was no “mentoring” going on. We hung out and drank beer and they
asked questions about my weird guitar, but that is about the extent of our
relationship.

Any anecdotes of obsessive fans or deranged groupies (excluding myself) you’d like to divulge?

The only one I can think of is about “the guy who insisted on helping me carry my gear at the Knitting Factory in NYC”

This random guy insisted on helping me carry my gear at the Knitting Factory, and he tripped and dropped my pedalboard (which was in a softshell case), breaking the input jack of the DC power. I had to franticly cut the ends of all the wires and splice them together with electrical tape before the show. I spent the next day running all around NYC buying replacement parts, and getting my gear fixed.

Moral of the story: Never let other people move your gear, unless it is in a hardshell road case.

I think I might adopt that as my life motto. How important is your relationship with the other players in a group? America’s Next Hero is a duo so I assume it’s pretty vital the two of you have a good communication.

Jim [tabla] is a fantastic musician (one of the best that I have ever seen), and a really inspirational and wonderful person. I feel really lucky that we have gotten to hang
out, and play music.

Improvisation in music is usually either ignored or misunderstood by the mainstream. Can you describe your approach to recording and writing?

I will have some type of melodic theme or motif that I start out with and then we just develop. Jim will play along with me in a supportive role, or he will challenge me and push the music in a new direction.

All of our recordings are recordings of live performances. Sometimes, we set up in the studio and play for a few of our friends, and other time we record our live performances.

So you don’t have any conception of what the final result will sound like?

Most popular music is like a high school composition, based on a formula. Now, there is some great pop music based on that formula, but not many people are trying to develop or even experiment with new approaches.

I feel like our music is more of an investigation. We try to start with an open mind, unsure of what we will discover. The evidence we find guides use to the next logical step. Ultimately, we are solving a problem, and solution unfolds through investigation.

Writer’s block isn’t a problem for you?

No, the only thing that slows me down is a lack of resources. I have been lucky receiving grants, and minor support from benefactors, but the bureaucracy involved can be challenging.

I find it hard to listen to my old recording. I always like I’m improving and growing, and wish I could re-record some of those old songs.

You don’t get too involved in the commercial side of things then?

I am really trying to create great art, and I know that I should spend more time on publicity, marketing, finding a booking agent, etc… I just don’t enjoy that aspect of being a musician, and the returns for all the effort isn’t usually very good.

Improvisation doesn’t translate very well to record companies who want a product that is consistent. How do you see yourselves as compared with song-writers?

This is not strictly process oriented. I think we are more like detectives. We have spent years honing our skills, and we have a set of tools, and we often find new uses for our tools during the investigation of the problem.

There is certainly a lot of formulaic music out there, with some good and some not so good results. But even within an “investigation there are rules and limits.”

You must at least have a some kind of formula for how you are going to carry out the investigation. I recently read about a band, I think on Load, who perhaps were aiming at the same thing. They never repeated a performance. What does free improvisation give you over more ’song-based’ music?

We improvise everything in America’s Next Hero, but I also play music
that is through composed, music that combines both.

I think that improvised music is similar to having a conversation. There
is a dialog between myself and the other musicians. We have a shared
language that is based on traditional music theory, but we also have a
language of sound that we have created “collectively.”

I am very serious about the music I play, and I always try to tell a story
through the music. Music that is composed, I always tell the same story.
Music that is improvised, you never have any idea what the story is going
to be. The only thing that is agreed upon is “a story of some kind will be
told.”

And what about the down-sides?

The disadvantages of Improv based music are mainly related to the small fan
base of the style. I’m sure any musician that has the skill set to play
impov music will tell you that it is incredibly fulfilling. Now, if you
ask the audiences, they will say that it’s not much fun to watch unless the
group is really top notch.

Well we’ve established you are, indeed, America’s Next Hero but who was America’s Previous Hero?

It was obviously Jimi Hendrix, Jackson Pollack, Kurt Cobain and every other artist/musician/business man who continued to fuel the “romantic ideal” of “The American Dream” by overcoming poverty to become a self-destructive pop culture icon.

You must have been saddened by the death of [Improv legend] Derek Bailey last Christmas. I see a lot of parallels between the two of you.

I was introduced to Bailey through his book “Improvisation – It’s Nature and
Practice in Music.” I was at the library looking for method books on Jazz
Improvisation (Bebop), and I stumbled onto the Bailey book. I read the book before hearing his music, and it left me intrigued. I had to hear Bailey’s
music, but in 1989 you couldn’t just go down to the local record store and
buy a CD.

A few months later I was in New York City and bought a couple of CD’s
at Other Music. Aida was my first exposure to his playing, and it blew my
mind.

What was it about that record that so intrigued you?

It was like he had never heard anyone play guitar. He invented a
completely new language for the instrument, not a hint of Django, Jimi, or
Wes, It was 100% Derek Bailey. It was like he created an entirely new type of “music”.

How has he influnced your own music?

This music inspired me to experiment with new combinations of
instruments, and to concentrate on performing with Sound Research Project
which focused more on the experience of the performance and improvisation.

I could say it focused more on the process of creating sound. I conducted
the SRP group by projecting images of drawings from a slide projector. The
images all had strong emotional connotations, each having different meanings
to the various performers. The images projected ranged from drawings of
handguns and tornados, to religious and political iconography.

I still continue to create new Sound Research Project recordings with [Chicago-based Improviser] Ben Perkins who was involved in the original performances. Ben was the first musician I worked with that was interested in process oriented improvised music, and it was really exciting to find another person to collaborate on these projects with.

And are there any contemporary musicians you’ve been getting into?

There is some great new music. I enjoy music that is influenced by Minimalism, and Krautrock. I was really into Hip-Hop a couple of years ago, and I always listen to lots of jazz (mostly free-jazz and contemporary).

What’s on your i-Pod?

Polar Bear – Held on Tips of Fingers; Jeff Parker – The Relatives; Tony Rice – Manzanita; Kailip – (rough mixes of upcoming CD from another Larson project); Ellery Eskilin – Arcane Moderne; High on Fire – Blessed Black Wings; Mastodon – Leviathan; Jesus Lizard – Head; Them – Them; Aesop Rock – Labor Days; William Parker Trio – Scrap Book; Kronos Quartet – Black Angels; John Coltrane – Interstellar Space; John Adams – Violin Concerto; Captain Beefheart – Doc at the Radar Station; US Maple – Purple on Time; Ernest Dawkins New Horizons – 30 years of great black music Vol.2

That’s quite an eclectic mix: Metal, Psychedelica, a lot of Hip-Hop, Indie rock. Do you think they have any influence over your own music?
They all influence my playing. I try to keep my sound palette open to any
idea. I think the America’s Next Hero recordings show influences of all those styles.

What doesn’t influence you? Is there any direction you wouldn’t want to see America’s Next Hero going in?

I can’t really answer the question, the music is about “what we can do”, and “what we are good at.”

Is it safe to assume you’re not a fan of the music industry machine?

No, I think major record labels, greedy business people, MTV, and the “herd mentality” are the music industry’s biggest threat.

What do you think of the recent advancements in technology that have enabled bands to get their music out to wider audiences such as Myspace or peer-to-peer file-sharing. Will it result in the advent of true democracy or a lot of broke musicians?

The record industry embodies consumerism, and this conflicts with my
ideals about art. I’m trying to create great music, that is challenging and pushes boundaries. The record industry is trying to “make money” and that is their only commitment, they don’t seem to care about art or artists.

The best artists are the ones that sell the most CDs. This makes the assumption that people with enough money to buy CD’s are experts in determining what is “great music.”

You work in many other mediums outside music, particularly with sculpture. What elements do the two have in common in regards to the creation process? Have you learned anything through working with sculpture that has helped you as a musician and vice versa?

My musical training has helped my sculpture tremendously. It has taught me to approach the installation in a very complete way. I am concerned with every aspect of the viewer’s experience in the gallery.

I understand the development of themes, and use of motifs.

Who do you admire in that world?

My wife, Millicent, is a very talented painter, and the most creative person I know. She inspires on a daily basis.

And who do you admire outside of the art-world?

My friend Shawn Blythe who lives in NYC and works as a photo retoucher. He’s successful in his field and is amazing intelligent, and brilliantly informed about contemporary philosophy and literature.

My friend Paula who was the first person I knew to successfully fulfil her
career goals/life’s dream.

Sorry, they aren’t more glamorous.

Everyone seems to be making post-911 ‘political statement’ records these days. Especially as an American artist there must be pressure to make some kind of commitment either way. Is Lou Larson going to keep out of that melee?

I think the current political situation is bad, but the only solution is for people to become self actualized, and educate themselves. This is never going to happen. Most people are selfish, not smart enough, or motivated enough to change anything.

You’re President for a day and can bring in one piece of legislation. What do you do?

I’m not really qualified to answer that question, but it would have to be something to improve the inequities between the rich & the poor.

Globally or within the US?

Both! I believe that you would have to be educated enough to understand what [the general population] contribute to the problem, and that we don’t need cheap tennis shoes and televisions enough to have children working in sweat shops. That people as a society have to take a stand, possibly against their families or neighbours.

Finally, what’s your poison? I’m buying.

Vodka. I used to drink red wine, or Bass Ale. I recently discovered that Vodka doesn’t have anywhere near the hangover potential, and it makes me half-crazy when I’m drinking it.

Thanks for your time, Lou. Stay frosty.

Larson is currently involved in several other projects. Kailip can be found at www.myspace.com/kailip and 3-Legged Stella should have a new cd available soon.

I sense that Emo is about to make a comeback in this fragile musical universe of ours and, like the holocaust survivor I feel compelled to warn its progenitors of the Pandoras box they may be unleashing. Listen, we lived through this the first time. Trust me, its not a good idea. And whereas this revival is more likely to result in a slurry of dead-pet odes and unrequited valentines day letters (own blood optional) than mass genocide its worrying nonetheless. Just because you spend Sunday inscribing your own personalised lovehearts (ask your local sweetshop lady) doesnt give you the right to bring the rest of us down into your wallowing. That said, Lights and Sounds presents a band with loftier ambitions than many of its peers and the title track is a riff-crunching anthem of Jimmy Eat World proportions. But the earnest quest for the Epic Sound ( Spiritualized) leads the group down the dark alleys of tagged-on string orchestras and ethereal piano interludes. As is always the case when Pop-Punkers such as these seek to widen their canvas beyond the 3-chord pallate it comes off like Classical mode on your Yamaha keyboard demos. This is music that aimed at younger ears than mine (those with arrowed hearts scribbled on their mathbooks and schoolyard rejections scribbled on their minds) but my mother always taught me if you cant say anything nice dont say anything at all so…

Rating: 4/10

“Brapp, Brapp!” Enter, little Derek Safo aka Sway. Hitting the Grime scene in a whirl of bitingly cynical and hillarious mixtapes last year, Sway has quickly joined with Lady Sovereign as UK Garage’s gutter royals. Articulate, self-effacing and, often side-splittingly funny, Sway is the urchin antithesis to everything Hip Hop has become under the jewel-laden hands of 50 Cent and ?Usher. Possessing the sardonic wit of Roots Manuva, the playground japes of Dizzee Rascal and the ascerbic cynicism that could only be the product of a North London yoot, the record is brimming with laugh-out-loud one-liners (even the skits are funny!). But it’s when Sway sets his sights on society’s mores and ills that his gift of the gab is put to its most devastating effect. Despite being loaded with the obligatory sugar-sweet R&B chorus that lurks in even the grimiest of the Grime, Pretty Ugly Husband is a haunting portrayal of domestic violence that hits harder than a dozen HEBS ads. In Rap, Race and Reality, Chuck D calls Rap “the Black CNN”. By which I don’t think he means it’s the vehicle for fundamentalist Republicans to peddle their quasi-religious, corporate back-slapping dogma, but that it’s a voice on the world’s largest soapbox for a still under-represented and oppressed minority. In the capable hands of this street-wise anchorman, the call will soon be heard.

Rating: 7/10

First impressions are notoriously stubborn. Make a bad one and you have to work eight times as hard to reverse it. Julian Casblancas named his bands latest effort after the song titles reminded him of what an aliens first impressions of Earth might be. And we better hope they aren’t of First Impressions of Earth as if they are well all be zapped Mars Attacks!-style by the Intergalactic Rock Commission. But wait! wed plea holding out tattered copies of Is This It but it would be too late. They’re still a great rock band: they rip through opener You Only Live Once with their patented competent abandon and Nick Valensis guitar work is as crisp as ever but if you thought the bewilderingly fun Juicebox was a sign that Casablancas was expanding his musical horizons youd be more wrong than an Intelligent Design-advocate with a penchant for pineapple on his pizza. And thats just wrong. The song-writing takes a dip from track 3 and even pinching Barry Manilows Mandy for the melody line of Razor Blade cant save an album thats not so much a disappointment (that would be their sophomore lp Room On Fire) as a resignation. Music is in ruder health than it has been for a decade and although we have the Strokes to thank for a lot of that it seems the pupils have outgrown their masters. So time to move on I think.

Rating: 5/10