Reviews
UK Stylus Pressure by Graeme McGinty
August 2006
The latest in new UK vinyl releases
Click here for Graeme's last column
by Graeme McGintySo then, let’s get down to it boppers. Some stuff I’ve listened to in the last month through the medium of small shiny black discs.
This month on UK Stylus Pressure we review the following bands:
Archie Bronson Outfit - 'Dead Funny'
Label: Dominio
Web: www.archiebronsonoutfit.net
Release: 7/7/06
Rating: 
With a nod towards loose blue grass roots and a firm handshake to Talking Heads, The Archie Bronson Outfit drive a rickety old flat bed van along the road of English mutated Americana. The Stevie Wonder-ish straight beat with its open hats and thud snare, keep the head nodding in check, while some bluesy guitar riffery keeps the chin scratching in musical appreciation. The lyrics make nice use of disco dancing, deep sea diving and being a stone mason, not normalyl found in the same song!
The Rifles - 'She's Got Standards'
Label: right hook
Web: www.therifles.co.uk
Release: 3/7/06
Rating: 
Songs about the troubles of being in bands is a risky area to cover, as there is the argument that if you don’t like it, don’t do it! However this song seems to sum up The Rifles attitude to hangers-on and ligers, of the female variety. So it’s kind of a love song. Well not really, more like a humble look at how people are swayed only too easily by what they’re told is cool. The track takes care of itself, banging along with all the standards of new indie punk. Although, I’ve seen The Rifles live recently and they had a lot more going for them than this track delivers.
John B - ' I’ve Been Stalking You On Myspace'
Label: Beta
Web: www.john-b.com
Release: 3/7/06
Rating: 
Myspace is big. Well it is. John B’s track takes a look at why. Turns out it’s nothing more than a glorified chat room site! Full of the young beautifully vain people with no real intentions other than to flirt. You used to have to go to sh*t discos to meet people who like the same music, now you can do it online. Lazy. The song’s fast bpm makes this a potential song to dance at sh*t discos, ah the irony! The electro beats and filter sweeps interspersed with 8bit samples of the kind of waffle associated with text messaging on mobile phones and chat rooms, give the song a cut-and-paste raw footage sound. A song about computers, made on one. Very hard to get out of your head. Technology will rule us all.
Cosmic Rough Riders - 'When You Come Around'
Label: Korova
Web: www.cosmicroughriders.com
Release: 24/7/06
Rating: 
Time was the Cosmic Rough Riders made folky-influenced hippy festival music, all acoustic guitars and fiddles. Now this song shows how it is possible for a band to mature. Still keeping a founding in the acoustic folk scene but this time adding additional production and blemishes. The delayed guitars that we’ve heard in everyone from U2 to Coldplay seem honest and well placed here. Not a tune that is likely to make the airplay lists, but it does stay true to the old festival feel in that it is a sound for Summer - sitting in fields with friends.
Candie Payne - ' All I Need From You'
Label: Deltasonic
Web: www.myspace.com/candiepayne
Release: 3/7/06
Rating: 
UK soul music has in recent years been, well, soulless. It’s been produced for money, not heart. “All I Need From You” comes as much as a refreshing change as a refreshing return to form. The soul influences of mighty artists like Dusty and Riperton are too clear to ignore. But the songs off-beat guitar stabs, simple drums and haunting production are also reminiscent of the more tuneful Portishead tracks. The track only works though because the vocals are so pure and believable that it’s hard not to feel emotive. Although whether we’ll hear more depends on if the track gets radio play, as it’s going to be hard to get the mass coverage that indie bands get in the UK, because there are so few venues that would take the risk to put on something with no distorted guitars.
Freelance Hellraiser - ' You Can Cry All You Want'
Label: BMG
Web: www.thefreelancehellraiser.com
Release: 17/7/06
Rating: 
You will have heard stuff by the Freelance Hellraiser (Roy Kerr), you may not know it, but you have. One of the early bootleg remixers from the dawn years of this decade. This track stands by itself, there’s no remixing, no splicing, no gimmicks. It’s a sing along, but not in a football terraces way, in a good way. The track has the head bobbing groove of early Primal Scream, Happy Mondays, Soup Dragons, in fact many of the 90’s indie rave/pop that came out of a dance generation growing up. The production is born from experience making a simple tune and arrangement grow to memorable proportions. It’s not aggressive, but it’s not weak. It’s a track that will work in the clubs as well as just listening to records in your front room with some mates. Lovely is too weak a word to use, but it is lovely.
More next month!
GM
