Volcanoes - Badchild Farsight

Badchild Farsight is a new EP from Yorkshire band, Volcanoes. It’s a record that’s getting lots of positive reviews. I usually hate to go with the crowd but, on the face of it, I will have to go along with it like Shaun the Sheep- bahhh!

Volcanoes are still unsigned despite their popularity around Leeds and Sheffield, however, they don’t sound like an unsigned band, oh no. Volcanoes have all of the instrumental skill, lyrical creativity and musical identity to make them, what I see as a ‘proper’ band.

I believe, ‘Talking Shadows’ is the high point of the EP as it displays each of Volcanoes’ talents. The classic guitar intro lets us know that what’s coming will most likely please us and then the vocal greeting confirms that. This is how I want the whole EP to sound but Volcanoes seem to lose their way a little on other parts of the EP. On the other hand, we have to remember Badchild Farsight is an EP (extended play) and due to this, it’s an experimental recording of ideas Volcanoes have. Talking Shadows incorporates harmonies reminiscent of Mystery Jets and you can’t go wrong there.

Despite the experimental nature of the EP, pretty much everything on Badchild Farsight sounds grrrrreat. ‘I think I know stuff reading the news’ has the chirpiness of The Holloways but also sounds like The Paddingtons, maybe as their lead singer is also from Yorkshire and these are favourable bands to be likened to. I mean, The Paddingtons’ guitarist, Josh Hubbard used to date Agyness Dean, didn’t he?

As I mentioned before, in ‘I think I know stuff reading the news’, Volcanoes don’t sound like an unsigned band, they sound like they’ve been in the limelight, on TOTP and Jools Holland and in NME for years. They have a very experienced and confident aura.

When I questioned the consistency of Badchild Farsight before, I was alluding to the track, ‘Monkey Gossip Cross Tesseract’. It’s not that it’s a bad song, in fact it’s very good but it doesn’t seem to fit with Volcanoes’ identity. It sounds like an electro-punk band, such as Test Icicles. Now, I’m a huge fan of Test Icicles but you wouldn’t catch them playing ‘Whatever’, by Oasis, would you?

‘Harlequins’ is another dark-sounding song but more of what I’d expect to hear from this band. It has engaging guitar riffs and some delightfully harmonious vocals. Guitars and vocals go together like eggs and bacon, everyone knows that and I think that when Volcanoes put these two ingredients together, they can’t go wrong. Volcanoes already sound like seasoned pros. Let’s hope they get that record deal and the media attention their potential warrants.

Shugo Tokumaru

Port Entropy

P-Vine Japan/Zoom

Released: Friday 5 November 2010

It is great to see Asian and Western culture colliding like this, in the form of Japanese singer/ songwriter, Shugo Tokumaru and his fourth official album, 'Port Entropy'. Shugo is from Tokyo, in Japan and first started playing the piano when he was five-years-old, before he took up the guitar and other instruments as a teenager. How often do you see someone from a far eastern culture dressing like Indie bands and playing the guitar? Yeah, you get Eurasians in western bands but Shugo Tokumaru is very clearly Japanese born and bred. It is not easy for Far Eastern kids to express themselves in creative ways like this. Their culture is more constrictive than Western culture. So Shugo's music is certainly something new and unusual.

He only sings in Japanese, which brings another perspective to his music. Most of us cannot understand his words but with the tone of his voice and the hum of his guitar, we can tell the main essence of the story he is telling. It only takes one person who tries something different to create a chain reaction and maybe Shugo will start one in East Asia.

It is actually refreshing to not be able to understand what a singer is singing when there are so many bands and artists around singing about the same old same old. With Shugo, we can simply listen and enjoy the glorious sound of his voice and his intelligent use of different instruments.

Track 5 on the album, Rum Hee, despite seeming quite suitable for your average 'hip' Hollywood film starring Michael Cera or Zooey Deschanel, is a lot of fun. The waves of harmonies are beautiful and pull you along with them on a wonderful, happy ride. It has some similarities to upbeat, US/ Canadian bands, such as Born Ruffians, but that isn't a bad thing. Rum Hee is a four minute song yet it feels like its half that length, which is a compliment to the constant movement and evolution of the song. It's such an enchanting track.

Of course, hearing someone singing in another language is always going to be novel at first but the entertainment doesn't seem like it will be short-lived. 'Lahaha' is another fun track on the record with what sounds like a wind instrument starting off proceedings. Again, it has similarities to upbeat, American bands but it has that kitsch, amusing personality, which you could only find in something from East Asia.

'Linne' is a more downbeat song about Shugo diving off a sinking ship and surfacing out of the water where he sees a bird flying away. It serves as a necessary change of pace as a constant happy tone would become sickly sweet. However, Shugo goes back to making us smile again with, 'Malerina'. It's another upbeat track but it has a seventies American rock 'n roll feel about it but with Japanese lyrics.

For most of you, this will be the first time you've heard of Shugo Tokumaru and unfortunately, who knows how many more will. I don't know how well a Japanese singer can do in the British or American charts. I mean, there is a reason it feels like such a find hearing his music. This makes Port Entropy a haul of treasure though and it has made me want to discover more East Asian bands and singers. I really recommend you listen to the album!

The Duke & The King live at the Deaf Institute, Manchester 31/10/2010

I think the Halloween demons might've got to the band after all 

It was Halloween yet no-one in the building was dressed for the occasion (including me). It could have been something to do with eighty per-cent of the audience, who had come to see The Duke & The King, being middle-aged but who cares, I hate Halloween anyway?

The artist in support was Gabriel Minnikin, a folk singer from Nova Scotia, Canada. Apparently, he was a last-minute inclusion and despite not being able to decide if I liked him, a longer set would have helped me to decide and would have eaten in to the massive, sleep-inducing wait we had before The Duke & The King arrived. Nevertheless, his short set was genuine and honest and he seemed to mean what he was singing. It was just that when Gabriel told us that the following would be a song about people from back home in Canada, it was a somewhat uninteresting introduction.

After Gabriel Minnikin left the stage, a young scallywag stumbled as he walked to his seat and spilled some of his beer on a shocked old woman – nice bit of light relief after the constant low-tempo but well-intentioned country twang.

For some reason, maybe to create an eerie atmosphere on Halloween, the workers at the Deaf Institute turned all of the lights off apart from one behind the bar, which lit up bottles of spirits. This made the one hour-plus wait for The Duke & The King all the more excruciating after a hard day’s work. It didn’t create a scary atmosphere either, it just looked like there had been a power cut. I felt for the audience who were standing on the dance floor – at least I had a hard wooden seat to sit on in the football stadium-like seating area. After about half an hour – forty minutes, a few bold and impatient old souls in the audience began to do a slow clap while some stomped their feet on the wooden floor boards, in protest at the long wait. Standing around waiting all night isn’t exactly what you want to do when you just came out for a nice time.

Eventually, after about an hour and twenty minutes, four Americans who look like the Village People plus one foxy chick, moseyed on to the stage. I actually didn’t remember them apologising for the late arrival so I was wondering if their performance would make up for it.

The Duke & The King’s low-fi sound and old-fashioned, hippy appearance is understandably attractive to my parents’ generation. However, you should know that if the oldies are in to a certain band or artist then, most of the time, the act must be half decent. These guys grew up in the 60’s and 70’s when music was at its best!

The Duke & The King opened with ‘If You Ever Get Famous’. It was immediately obvious that Simone Felice is the leader of the band and despite being a poser, his charisma and strong singing voice shone through. The song is laid back, not really what I wanted after such a long wait, but the emotion in the song and warmth of the guitar perked me up and the audience seemed to slowly become appeased.

In ‘No Easy Way Out’, we saw that the band is full of beautiful singing voices. Simi Stone took the lead here and her voice is just as pretty as her face. So clear and fluttering with colourful tones, she could win the heart of any man and sing any babe to sleep.

The Duke & The King is a very talented theatrical troupe, however, I believe the jewel in their crown is Nowell Haskins’ husky, soulful voice. When he belted out, ‘Shine On You’, I was reminded of the late Marvin Gaye. He has the same ability to convey strong emotion.

Most of The Duke & The King’s songs seem to be autobiographical but I’m not sure where their song, ‘The Morning I Get To Hell’ comes from. I mean, yes, the band did look a bit ‘happy’ and seemed to be somewhere else in their heads, but the line doesn’t really fit with their ‘let’s all hold hands and sing around a camp fire’ image. However, it seems to be more of a spiritual lament to what it might be like to die and see God than a song about wishing you were dead.

Ultimately it seemed that those who were stamping their feet and clapping their hands in frustrated protest before The Duke & The King were finally on stage, were eventually won over by the talents of this big-hearted, sweet-sounding, soulful band.