I am going to feel like one of those parents trying to turn a two-year-old into a champion as I write this review, because this album is really good, but I fear I might spend most of the time nit-picking. Straight A's? No A-stars? You have FAILED ME! Okay, it's not going to be like that, but I personally feel that Jamie from the Japanese War Effort has a work of absolute fucking genius in him, but I am not absolutely certain that this is it. Basically, none of the songs themselves fall [...]
Never mind fucking jetpacks, SPRING is what I was fucking well promised. A few weeks ago I awoke to a pleasantly mild morning and strolled into work without ducking the head or turning up the collar and genuinely believed that Spring was on its way. It wasn't, of course, it was just Mother Nature fucking with my head. I remember last year the crocuses and snowdrops were out in January, it was that warm, whereas this year it is pretty much April and they are still not out in the shadier parts of the garden. A [...]
The Japanese War Effort From: Scotland, United Kingdom The Japanese War Effort is a one man band, based in Edinburgh. Martin Moog (surely an adopted name otherwise baby he was born to moog!) initially formed the band as probably the world's first ambient joke band on Aprils fools day a couple of years ago and his tongue remains firmly in his cheek. There can't be many bands, even in Scotland, who sound like Ivor Cutler [...]
It's fairly quiet in Edinburgh this week, which is good for me, because I am so damn busy there's almost no chance of me getting out of the house at all - I will be up to my neck in prints and album covers for Cold Seeds and for Trips and Falls, and stuffing promotional copies of albums into envelopes for Meursault and Loch Lomond. My brain feels liked an over-stuffed Filofax at the moment, and I keep writing down endless lists which look just like the list I wrote a day previously, just in case at any point my [...]
I don't know what the damn hell it is about dressing formally which makes me feel so uncomfortable, but it does. Presumably just because I'm such a scruffy fucker for the entire rest of my life, those few hours every year I spend in a (vaguely) ironed shirt and pair of proper shoes just seem so completely out of character as to be really quite discomfiting. Still, at our age everyone we know seems to be either getting married or breeding (and not infrequently both) so the old whistle is going to have to get used to seeing [...]
This is just a brief list of some stuff I'm looking forward to in the Edinburgh music scene over the coming year. I don't intend to be parochial about this, or too narrow, but I am not as close to the precise ins and outs of what's happening in the rest of the country so there's a limit to what I can meaningfully say about what's going on there. It's not meant to be exhaustive either, just some thoughts pottering about at the front of my mind. New Labels Last year saw the first steps made [...]
It's Fresh Air time again, and once again Ruth and I have a splendid live session. We might even have Ruth's voice back, just to make matters even more special. This week The Pineapple Chunks are going to play live in session for us. And instead of being sensible and doing it acoustically we are going to end up having the full band in the studio and are going to just have to try and find some way of arranging the mics so that we pick it all up. Basically, I think we are going to [...]
Hello again, Ruth and I are back on air tonight on Fresh Air , Edinburgh's student radio station. As per usual we'll be having some live session stuff, this time from The Japanese War Effort . Jamie is a bit of a band-whore actually, and plays in the Occasional Flickers and Conquering Animal Sound as well as ploughing his own solo furrow. It's this stuff, however, which is my favourite. I haven't much idea what it will sound like, stripped back to the extent that it will need to be in order to be [...]
It's a rather varied week of gigging this week, with Richard Hawley at the Queen's Hall at one end of the spectrum and the Japanese War Effort at the Traverse Bar tonight at the other. There are a few side-notes worth mentioning as well - like the vanishing Whispertown 2000 gig at Sneaky's on Saturday which I would have liked to go to, but which I assume was cancelled and the appearance, for free, of 4AD's Big Pink at Sick Note , late at Cabaret Voltaire on Thursday. I think I can manage maybe a couple of [...]
ooh what a palaver! daily mail readers campaign for right to call anyone brown skinned paki. bloody pc brigade. can't call my dog nigger. get back to your own country. bbc run by militant leftie homosexuals proffering hard core communist pornography to yr kids while handing ten pound notes out to anyone NOT WHITE! racism excused by either laziness (pakistan is too long a word to say) or if yr a nice handsome man-dancer who wears shirt and trousers. people too frightened to look up in case they're mistakenly branded a child molestor or [...]
Good grief, it's a busy week in Edinburgh this week. I am going to have to drive everywhere just to stop myself drinking my liver into oblivion. Personally, of course, I am advocating the Song, by Toad Spring piss up at the Bowery on Thursday. Those of you yet to acquire a copy of Meursault's blinding new EP , I'd very much recommend you take this chance to do so. We've only made 300 copies - all hand-painted - so I don't think they'll last all that long. Tigerfest and the [...]
We've not had a bloody good Toad Night for a while, so it really is about time one was on the immediate horizon. And it is! Next Thursday - a week tomorrow at time of writing - I have put together a lineup for Tigerfest which is sort of not really a Song, by Toad Records showcase. Meursault , obviously, aren't bad at all, but you know them already. They have a new EP out, did you know that? Available only from Avalanche Records, live shows and from the Song, by Toad Records [...]
If you're looking for rad new music, you have to check out 10.Deep and Benzi's The New Deal mixtape. It features features exclusive new material from the likes of Kid Sister, Blaqstarr,...
Jamie, who is the Japanese War Effort , also plays bass in the Occasional Flickers , so he's not entirely new to the scene around these parts. He is new to me however. I only heard about him when he got in touch to ask about playing a couple of songs during the open mic part of the Toad Christmas Party last week, so I've been familiar with his music for about, erm, a week perhaps. His music struck me as a little odd, first and foremost. I thought it was okay, and [...]
Song, by Toad
The Devil Has The Best Tuna
cowsarejustfood
Radio Exile
I’ll Just Leave This Here #161
Antony and the Johnsons - "Rise"
Santigold – The Keepers (Duke Dumont Remix)
Video: Dreamers - "Appaloosa"
