Filed under: stuff 'n nonsense
A change is coming!
A new-look wearsthetrousers.com will be with you in a matter of hours.
Please bear with us while we get the decorators in.
Filed under: mp3, free music friday | Tags: the pack A.D., we kill computers, maxie gedge
The Pack a.d.
‘Crazy’
Right from the moment the bass dunk-dunk-dunk arrives amidst the grating fuzz of ‘Crazy’, it’s clear that The Pack a.d., Vancouver’s rawest and buzziest duo, aren’t holding anything back third time around. A gem of the grittiest kind, the song teeters on White Stripes messiness but retains enough composure to keep driving and driving its hooks into our heads. A perfect retort to those who still brainlessly contest the ability of women to really rock hard, The Pack a.d. make it look so easy, so effortless. There’s a fantastic energy to ‘Crazy’, building throughout the song’s duration to reach a passionate, climactic ending with shrieks and grunts. There’s also one hell of a chorus, which benefits from Becky Black’s fearless and brilliant vocal performance. New album We Kill Computers is due May 3 through Mint Records. MP3 after the jump.
Filed under: free music friday, mp3 | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, rah digga, the big 10
Rah Digga
‘Warning Shots’
Much-missed rapper Rah Digga announced her imminent comeback this week with this aptly named free download. Just over two minutes of tight, swaggering salutations, it’s a taster to whet appetites in anticipation for her upcoming album, tentatively titled The Big 10, which is set for a late spring/summer release through Raw Koncept Records. The release will be managed from end to end by producer Nottz, whose resumé includes hip hop giants such as Kanye West, Snoop Dogg and Busta Rhymes, an erstwhile colleague of Digga’s since her induction into the Flipmode Squad in the late ’90s. Previous to this, Rah Digga had been a member of Outsidaz, a New Jersey clique who made their brief mark on the mainstream through a close association with Lauryn Hill’s former outfit The Fugees. According to Raw Koncept, ‘Warning Shots’ will not be included on the eleven-track album, which is being touted rather boldly as a “female Illmatic”. It will mark the New Jersey MC’s first release since her 2000 debut Dirty Harriet, which is widely regarded as a classic. Watch this space for more news. MP3 after the jump.
Filed under: news, trouser press | Tags: black tambourine, charlotte richardson andrews, pam berry
Black Tambourine
Black Tambourine
[Slumberland; March 29]
Hard to believe that early ’90s shoegaze/twee-pop outfit Black Tambourine never released a proper album. Formed in 1989 as a side project by members of Whorl and Velocity Girl, they lasted a mere two years yet somehow remain among the most celebrated progenitors of American indie-pop. They were, after all, one of legendary label Slumberland’s first signings (an act of brilliant self-serving by band member Mike Schulman, who also co-founded the label). This new collection of odds and ends was overseen by Black Tambourine singer Pam Berry, a founder member of the still-going-strong Chick Factor zine, and features all of the band’s established catalogue plus six unheard songs. From the vaults come two unheard demos, along with four songs recorded by the band especially for this definitive release. Two are original numbers the band would play live back in the day but never had a chance to record, and the others are covers: Buddy Holly’s ‘Heartbeat’ and Suicide’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’. Available digitally and in a deluxe 12″ gatefold vinyl package.
Filed under: news, where's the gigs | Tags: i speak because i can, laura marling
Last month, we finally got our mitts on the artwork and tracklist for Laura Marling’s upcoming second album I Speak Because I Can, the first of two full-length releases she has planned this year, and we’re even happier to hear that the Hampshire folk darling will be gracing Camden Barfly on March 23 for what the club’s Fly Presents are accurately, tantalisingly calling an “intimate” gig. Tickets go on sale at midday today from barflyclub.com, but you may want to hedge your bets by taking part in a competition the club are running that goes live on Friday morning at www.the-fly.co.uk.
Filed under: live, review | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, dum dum girls, i will be, live at madame jojos, veronica falls, yuck
Dum Dum Girls / Veronica Falls / Yuck
Madame Jojo’s, London ••••
March 2, 2010
Queues all the way down Brewer Street and particularly unhelpful door staff meant a lot of the hyper buzzed fans only got to catch the last yells of opening support act Yuck, who faded out with an enticing swansong of distortion guitar wails. Veronica Falls followed up with a set of consistently lovely songs that have progressively stolen a substantial number of hearts over the past year. The shoegaze pop of ‘Stephen’ was dreamy enough to sway unabashedly to, while ‘Beachy Head’ rang out with romantic thrash. One of the capital’s most exciting homegrown outfits, they proved to be a well-selected warm-up for the US headliners whose appearance was the last, love-letter punctuation on a week of gigs across the capital, a doubly special affair since it marked the band’s UK debut.
Lonelady
Nerve Up ••••
Warp
Warp Records has a long history of plucking unusual and promising electronic artists out of obscurity and giving them an arena in which to produce their best work. In recent years though, they’ve branched out into music which falls outside their usual electronica-based remit, but that pushes playfully at genre boundaries – think Jamie Lidell, Maximo Park, Grizzly Bear et al. – and Lonelady (aka Manchester-based artist, poet and musician Julie Campbell) falls somewhat defiantly into this category with her debut album, Nerve Up. A one-woman wonder, Campbell has created an album that blends modern girl-with-guitar attitude with 1980s synth-references into sparse, solitary musical vistas befitting her stage name, and which could only have originated from the home of The Smiths.
Filed under: album, review | Tags: blood red shoes, fire like this, maxie gedge
Blood Red Shoes
Fire Like This •••
V2 / Co-op
It’s all a bit too easy with Blood Red Shoes. They’re the tastiest, most palatable pill in all of rock, sliding down the throats of the record-buying public with the slightest of contractions. Anyone expecting a challenging and exciting progression from their 2007 debut Box Of Secrets may find themselves confused by the first half of Fire Like This; essentially, it’s just more of the same long guitar phrases, punchy drums and sweet overlapping vocals that build up to the chorus into boring shouty melodies. Take ‘Don’t Ask’ as a prime example. You can practically hear the teenagers singing along, but there is a sense of something lacking. It’s like Blood Red Shoes by numbers. There’s a middle drop-out section with a lovely thick guitar sound, but it’s just so predictable that it does nothing to accelerate the heart rate and fails to ignite to the usual levels of angst that we’ve come to expect from Stephen Ansell and Laura-Mary Carter’s disaffected tales of boredom, isolation and frustration.
Filed under: news, trouser press | Tags: alan pedder, jenny owen youngs, last person EP
Jenny Owen Youngs
Last Person EP
[Nettwerk; March 2]
Nearly three months after the video for the title track appeared on YouTube, this new six-song digital-only EP from Jenny Owen Youngs sneaked out into the world today. With previously unreleased material including four tracks from last year’s Transmitter Failure [review] recorded live “in the Basement” and a “re-think” of another album track, ‘Dissolve’, it’s one that fans will want to snap up.
Filed under: news, trouser press | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, gina birch, the raincoats
Influential post-punk outfit The Raincoats have taken inspiration from Bikini Kill’s recently opened archive blog and are calling for fans to contribute their own personal stories and reflections of the band. In case you need a reminder (!), The Raincoats were formed thirty years ago by Ana da Silva and Gina Birch who met as students at Hornsey College of Art, London. An evolving list of band members has included Palm Olive and Kate Korus from The Slits (and later The Mo-dettes), drummer Ingrid Weiss, Vicky Aspinall on violin and photographer/manager Shirley O’Loughlin. The band released five LPs, and went on to become much lauded inspirations for Kurt Cobain, Kim Gordon and the riot grrrl movement as a whole, beaming a blindingly great path through music’s wider, male-dominated annals.
