at 5 is that Our Girl Bedroom EP.
The new Moonface is great, if dense. Will take a while to fully wrap the head around…
Still rinsing the bounty of wonderful albums from October (Soap&Skin, Julia Holter, B.E.D, Neneh Cherry & Cloud Nothings)
Loving the REM listening club thread… Onto Fables this week 
Mostly favourite picks from October along with some records by Car Seat Headrest and Flasher both of whom I caught live this week.
Still mining those weekly Deerhunter Sunday Night Radio Hour playlists for album recommendations and discovered a couple of doozy’s in the Dean Hurley, Jad Fair and Michael Hurley records. Saw ASIWYFA live earlier week and they are brilliant. Really dig the new J Mascis release too which is rather autumnal.
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saw Kurt Vile the other night (and Courtney Barnett on Monday - no guests appearances despite them being in Ireland around the same time though) and seeing Interpol this week
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nice, seem em countless times now but always reliably good.
Yeah the energy and passion they put into their set was ace! Hadn’t really given them a huge amount of time in the past but a friend convinced me to go so now I’ve got some catalogue catch up to do!
How were Kurt and Courtney? Was gutted that I couldn’t make Kurt’s Bristol show. Really dig the new record but also the support acts of Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore would have been great to check out too!
yeah, played with them in a tiny pub in my hometown once in 2007 and they blew me away. they’ve gone on to have a massive following in Belfast obviously so seen them loads in some increasingly bigger venues. not as enthusiastic about their recorded output as i used to be (though the new album is pretty decent) but they’re still always pretty fun live.
Courtney was great, was excited to see her play a full set, missed her touring the first album and just saw her do a very short festival set earlier in the year. nice that a few of the early EP tracks are still in the sets and she threw in a Go-Betweens and a Gillian Welch cover
Kurt was good, don’t think he sounded quite as good live as on record for the most part but some songs worked better than others (the more laid back ones like Bassackwards sounded great). the crowd was a bit chatty, not so much that you couldn’t hear the music but enough to sort of spoil the atmosphere slightly as every feels a bit too distracted and disconnected. was quite an early gig (one where the venue wants to chuck everyone out in time for their club night after) so i ended up missing Baird and Lattimore’s set, walked in to catch literally the last 5 seconds of the last song before they started packing up!
had only ever listened to B’lieve I’m Going Down before this week so been exploring the rest of his catalogue. enjoying the new one but massively needs trimming, as if the last couple of albums weren’t long enough! really got into Smoke Ring though which passed me by at the time despite all the hype.
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Prior to the gig I did check out their most recent record (which had some great moments for sure) and also their first record (which my friend recommended the most), both of which I enjoyed greatly but definitely felt more of a connection to their live set and would happily go see them again given the chance.
Glad to hear that about Courtney’s show! Must have been quite a lengthy set if she played covers and material from her EPs plus tracks from both the albums too? Not that I would be complaining - just sounds very good value for your money! Need to give Tell Me How You Really Feel more of a listen.
Arghh hate this ^! I can never work up the courage to ask the chatty people to shhh so just end up seething for most of the show. Don’t get why people think it’s okay to do this especially at more laid back shows when surely you’re already familiar with the artist.
Shame about this! I didn’t twig that they would probably be playing stuff of their collaboration record rather than solo material…
Aha I love how much Bottle It In sprawls! Feel like it’s running time floats by just like when listening to B’lieve and Walkin’. Would probably say that Smoke Ring is still my favourite of his though as it bridges quite nicely between his earlier more lo-fi intimate leanings and his latter day mumbley wig out odysseys! He’s not really put a foot wrong in my books and I find I can return to any of his albums in any particular mood. Give Childish Prodigy a go next and see what you make of that!
first ASIWYFA album is the best for my money. on their early EPs they were a very sweeping, ‘epic’ post-rock band and then gradually turned to more heavy, frantic math-rock (i think from touring with Adebisi Shank loads). first album captures both sides quite well as it mixes old and new songs together. second sticks more rigidly to the latter but is very solid and still makes up a lot of the live set. initially loved the third, which sounds very Tera Melos, less distortion, more vocals, but only tend to revisit a couple of tracks now. never really got into the fourth which felt like they were trying to be a bit too ‘anthemic’ to me but haven’t gone back to it in a while. new one is pretty back to basics which is good, though haven’t spent as much time with it as mathy stuff doesn’t make up as much of my listening time as it used to. but always fun live (though they sometimes don’t vary the setlist as much as i’d like)
think Courtney was about an hour and a half. standard enough really. actually only played about 4 from the debut, to fit in EP tracks and overs, though i think the setlists have varied a bit and some of the others look a bit longer.
couldn’t pinpoint isolated repeat chatters at Vile but just a general murmur through the crowd that was annoying during quiet songs and sort of kills momentum between songs for me. but otherwise good. haven’t listened to Baird/Lattimore either solo or together tbh but probably should. one of them guested on backing vocals for Baby’s Arms (whichever one of them is on the original, Baird i think?) not sure there was anything bad on Bottle It In but just find it a bit much for one sitting. only know Freak Train off Childish Prodigy (which he finished with) but it’s recommended to me before so i’ll give it a go next.
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