Interview: Matt Friedberger, The Fiery Furnaces

It’s an historic weekend in the US Senate. The majority leader, Democrat Harry Reid from Nevada, garnered exactly the 60 votes he needed to get an official government debate on landmark health care reform legislation in motion, one of the most viciously and idiotically contested priorities of Barack Obama’s presidential agenda. Healthcare for all Americans irrespective of their financial status is still a long way off – it’s only the move to debate, not to officially pass the bill that the vote heralded – but it’s news that’s sure to give Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger cause for mild fraternal jubilation, seeing as how they turned a number of their shows into health care reform rallies aimed at motivating the oft too nonchalant youth vote, and urged websites and fans to CALL THEIR SENATORS! But it’s all too easy to assume that fans of the Fiery Furnaces’ absurd and unconventional yield are kindly minded, liberal folk with a nose for progression in politics as developed as for avant-garde music.

Tegan & Sara, Shepherd’s Bush Empire 13.11.09

Photography: Leah Pritchard

It’s entertainingly ironic that as the supposedly more erudite factions of the alternative music press have unofficially deemed Tegan and Sara accomplished enough with the release of their sixth album, Sainthood, to forgo mentioning their sexuality every other sentence (ahem, tampon rock), all the Quin twins want to talk about on stage is, er, ladygardens. As Sara starts describing the David Mamet film that inspired her new song of the same name, ‘Red Belt’ (his film is ‘Redbelt’), Tegan cuts in.

“Was this the movie where the woman was naked and you could see her bush, and you said you were turned on?” Even from the balcony of Shepherd’s Bush Empire, thermal imaging equipment isn’t necessary to see the embarrassment radiating from Sara’s face. “I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t want to talk about anything any more!” Tegan has other ideas.

“Hey, we’re at Shepherd’s Bush! That’s kind of like Shepherd’s Cunt. Shepherd’s Vajayjay.”

“Pussy,” jibes Sara. “I wish that we weren’t talking about this. I wish that we weren’t talking.”

Interview: Christian Mazzalai, Phoenix

“It’s part of our French culture, to make artists suffer and then you accept them, and then you help them, you know!” jokes Christian Mazzalai about the amount of time it’s taken the French press to welcome Phoenix with open arms. Along with Deck D’Arcy and Thomas Mars, and later on his brother, Laurent Brancowitz, he’s been a member of the Versailles quartet since their early 90s school days, but it’s only been with the release of their almost universally acclaimed fourth album this year, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, that their native critics have bestowed upon them the rightfully deserved amount of praise.

From the French perspective, it’s almost possible to understand the distaste at Phoenix’s musical collaboration horizontale. Long the butt of many jokes, French pop music’s goat could have been saved by the band’s 2000 debut, ‘United’ – had they not eschewed their mother tongue to sing in English, thus losing the République’s famed support for native musicians and falling foul of the Toubon law, a quota which stipulates that 40% of music played on the radio must be in French.

“We are like strangers,” says Mazzalai. “The law was good at the beginning because it helped electronic music and French hip hop, but afterwards it was digested by mainstream crappy music, so now it’s not a good law. I think that law doesn’t help us.

“When we did our first album it was very new, we were the first to sing in English and our music was very shocking. But now the new generation of journalists are with us and since two albums, we are getting bigger and bigger. It’s cool because in the 60s, all the French bands were singing in French, but they were doing covers of American music. Now we are doing the opposite, we are singing in English, but we are talking about French culture, about Napoleon and New York and things, and France has accepted us.”

Interview: Chris Taylor, Grizzly Bear (Epigram version)

All photos by Leah Pritchard

Following in the footsteps of Hole and Spiritualized, Grizzly Bear are the latest in a long line of bands to interpret ‘He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)’, written by Carole King and renowned songwriter Gerry Goffin in the 1962 as a response to singer Little Eva’s defence of the domestic violence she experienced at the hands of her boyfriend. As Daniel Rossen, Ed Droste, Chris Taylor and Chris Bear close their show at the Anson Rooms with their interpretation of the song, it takes on a new meaning similar to that inferred by former Sleater-Kinney luminary Carrie Brownstein about Bon Iver’s debut album – “it’s like being punched in the heart, in a good way.” Grizzly Bear are a genuine example of the sum being greater than its parts, particularly live – their awkward, almost broken-sounding chord transitions combine with visibly manifested classical sensibilities and perhaps the greatest group male harmonies since the Beach Boys to create an otherworldly experience, one whose urgent, crashing punctuations deliver an indescribable emotional blow.

Paul Haig – Relive

The opening song here, ‘Trip Out The Rider’, sounds like a menacing post-punk version of Girls Aloud’s ‘Wake Me Up’. That’s not to suggest that the erstwhile frontman of early ‘80s indie gods Josef K had a well-worn copy of ‘What Would The Neighbours Say?’ in the studio – rather that it’s ironic that ‘Ambition’, a listless synth number lampooning the transparency of X Factor aspirations, sounds like an embarrassingly diluted version of his former self. Only ‘Round And Round’ harks back to the structural chaos and interplay of his band’s old material, which comes as welcome respite – listen to a Josef K song and it could have been written today; listen to this, and it sounds like a dated throwback.

4/10

Download: Round And Round

Interview: Chris Taylor, Grizzly Bear

This is the transcript of the interview with Chris Taylor, as published on TLOBF. A written feature for Epigram will be up on Monday 16th November (provided that my computer’s fixed by then…).

Did you get to see any fireworks last night?
Yeah we did see some fireworks, we saw some kids… we were at another university, Leeds, and kids were setting off fireworks. I researched a bit about the holiday, trying to figure out what it’s about. We have fireworks on 4th July on our Independence Day from your fair country!

So you played with the London Symphony Orchestra last week at the Barbican – how did that come about? I know Nico Muhly did the arrangements for you.
We did a thing with the Brooklyn Academy of Music [BAM] symphony there, and actually this guy we’ve known for a while came through to see it and he’s actually the programmer at the Barbican, for events, so he came through to that show to see it, liked it, and suggested that we do this. So we did!

There seem to be quite a few bands doing this at the moment – you mention the BAM, who worked with Sufjan on that amazing ‘BQE’ project, and it was recently announced that Dirty Projectors are playing with the LA Philharmonic at the Disney Hall in February..
We did that – I wonder if it’s… Yeah, we did that.

Interview: Editors

Despite a Mercury Music Prize nomination, two number one albums and two platinum records, Editors have rarely found favour with alternative music critics. As an isolated case, it’s possibly understandable – the influences in their work are anything less than subtle and their sound has admittedly diluted over time, but when set alongside feted acts like Kasabian and the practically self-parodic Franz Ferdinand, they seem to have done very little wrong in comparison. A great deal of dislike for the band seems to come from singer Tom Smith’s relationship with Edith Bowman, which, again, is an argument it’s easy to see both sides of – their liaison should be entirely inconsequential to listeners’ appreciation of their music, but on the other hand, it grates like ragged nails down a blackboard whenever you see Bowman on the BBC3 festival couch hailing them the best band in the world. Laura Snapes caught up with bassist Russell Leetch to get his take on it the haters, their spot on the New Moon OST and their new single.

Tori Amos – Midwinter Graces

If NME were a contrary gift guide edited by Ebeneezer Scrooge, ‘Midwinter Graces’ would make for a resplendent Noel. But we’re not, and the Eastenders seasonal double bill looks more joyous than the birth of Jesus in comparison to Amos’ offerings. She royally fucks up traditional carols like ‘Star Of Wonder’, where the orchestral accompaniment has all the class of a cheap MIDI karaoke track. Aside from the drunk auntie trying to grope you beneath the mistletoe cabaret of ‘Pink and Glitter’ and the sickeningly pious child duet, ‘Holly, Ivy and Rose’, she’s tiresomely lachrymose – but even those who enjoy being miserable at Christmas won’t bother with this hideously arranged collection.

Rating: 3/10

Download choice: Listen to Low’s Christmas album instead.

ATP Film

(Photo – Annebelle Fenning)

At the end of November, the UK Festival Awards will name 2009’s victors in what will be a rare instance of the results of democracy being categorically wrong. There is no dispute about which is the best festival in the country, or even the world – nothing can touch All Tomorrow’s Parties. Held at either Minehead’s Butlins or Camber Sands’ Pontins since 1999, bands such as Mogwai, Sleater-Kinney and Slint have curated the line-up, and next May, the newly reformed Pavement will take the helm. Over the past decade, “All Tomorrow’s People” – from renowned cinematographer Vincent Moon to fans – have been lovingly documenting the escapades of spectators and bands alike, brought together in a heartwarming keepsake film from Warp.

Another beat in the wall: Techno in post-GDR Berlin

EPIGRAM SPECIAL REPORT: 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL

Flights for a week’s break in Berlin departing by budget airline on 9th November and returning a week later will only set you back about £80, even if you forget to book well in advance. A shared room in a kitchsy, cheap hostel in Kreuzberg will cost about €8 a night, and entry to the famed Tresor techno club off Berlin’s historic Potsdamer Platz around €10. Go back to early 1989 and tell someone about the notion of exchanging a unified European currency for unrestricted travel and non-government approved music, and chances are they’d laugh in your face.
9th November 2009 marks the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event which led to Germany being officially united almost a year later for arguably the first time in its long and often difficult history. It also brought about the explosion of techno in Germany, and more specifically Berlin. The fall of the concrete barrier and the resulting transgression of East Berliners to the West left over 25,000 deserted apartment blocks, supermarkets and factories in the former East Berlin – around a third of the city’s buildings. In the wake of liberation from stifling government ideology, state-approved music and living in fear of the Stasi, a wave of unlicensed, hedonistic parties sprung up in the empty shells, in a similarly spontaneous vein to the rise of acid house in British clubs during the 80s.