Saturday 17 July 2010

Amoriste - Under the Hours of the Satellite Towers EP


At sixth form college, I had a rather quirky friend who said that his favourite band of all time was Supergrass. Supergrass? I mean, come on. Nobody hates Supergrass (it would be a very misanthropic soul that would) but, out of all the bands in the world, the best that ever emerged through the flow and jetsam of rock history... Supergrass? Are you sure?

Amoriste are hard to hate, and I wouldn't even try. But it is unlikely that they will ever be your favourite band. This is not an judgement of their ability as musicians, as a band or as people. It is simply to say that Amoriste are not looking to lead a vainglorious, all-conquering rawk n rowl enterprise. Amoriste are down-to-earth songwriters, not letting delusions of grandeur muddle their inherent gift and feel for melody.


The overall feel of the songs is one of sunshine -dappled lightness and brevity. 'Saturday am' celebrates notes not the rampant exaltation of saturday night, but instead the gentle promise of a saturday morning, with the prospect of sneaky half-pints, the mowing of grass and 'suburban pride for all to see.' The song sets a tone for the whole EP, cheerful, rooted in suburbia. Most bands refer to East London, Soho, Williamsburg, New York etc in their songs, often with an accompanying air of glamorous, cosmopolitan ennui. In 'City Lights', Tolan suggests to his beloved that they sail down to that fulcrum of nightlife, glamour and debauchary... Wivenhoe? (For those not in Essex, Wivenhoe is known locally as being a cross between Paris and Rio de Janiero, on account of its broad boulevards and pulsating nightlife. Yes. No. I'm lying.)

The feel pervades the album. Amoriste's clear choruses and gently celebratory melodies work to manage a marriage between the anthemic and the intimate. While Amoriste clearly aim to write memorable, sing-along choruses (and sometimes unequivocally succeed), an air of intimacy prevails. While much of rock and indie music is good at describing much of the more big emotions in life, such as love, hate, rage (and it's more bookish brother, angst), lust, despair etc, it often fails in articulating simple pleasures, like the cup of tea on a rainy day, or the first holding of hands. Amoriste attempt to plug this gap, with the occasional caustic tone ('the curtain comes down on the day/white collar criminals come out to play') never really affecting the pervasive relaxed, sensitive optimism of the songs.

The music itself (yes, I suppose I had to come to round to it eventually) is rooted in the slightly tweedy indie-rock of Athlete, Belle and Sebestian, and other such assorted cardigan-wearers. The music is clear, uncluttered, simple exercises in the verse/chorus/middle eight structure. Though the smart money will be on those songs with the easiest of choruses ('Saturday AM', 'City Lights'), 'Vagablondes' relies on some really interesting instrumentation, the guitar at the start strangely reminiscent of Peter Buck's jangle on REM albums circa Murmur or Reckoning, and a glacial, post-punk middle section. The chimes at the start are even rather Brian Eno-like. This is not to say that this represents some Ornette Coleman citing experimentation, but it makes it stand apart from the other songs on the album, and could possibly point to future developments in the band's music in the future.

Refreshingly unpretentious, easy going, its intimate aura covering up its lack of ambition, Under the Hours of Satellite Towers is pleasant company. Not exactly songs that will save your life, but at at least as good as a really good cup of tea or a sneaky half.

Amoriste - Under the Hours of Satellite Towers is out 15th July on itunes.
http://www.myspace.com/amoriste

Sunday 10 January 2010

Dirty Money: What would happen to our currency if the UK abolished the monarchy?


What would happen to our currency if the UK abolished the monarchy?

Let's not splinter our rectums by sitting on the fence; I am against the existence of the monarchy. I find the arguments employed in justifying the monarchy are just that- arguments. And I don't want to argue (You do? - shit). Well, I just don't want to be ruled by a family so inbred that their family tree resembles a stump.
The monarchy, apparently, is a valuable tourist attraction: a fulcrum for those Europeans, Japanese and Americans who are so starved of tacky chintz in their native modernist environments, bereft of the comfort of the gaudy. Paris attracts tourists in the millions, and no history lesson I'm sure is needed to outline that the monarchical history of France has ceased to be a going concern for a fair while now. The tourist revenue generating monarchy arguments hold no water. As if Arthur and Martha in Iowa are saying, "Gee, ah don't wanna holidaay in a country that don't have no constitutional moanarchy, ah mit git them AIDS disease."

The problems of abolishing the monarchy are not those of tradition, history, inbred atavism, or a resulting thinning of sunday supplements. Instead, they are macroscopically logistic - what will happen to our stamps and our banknotes? Hell, stamp collectors would be in business- the price would triple overnight (I've got a 2009 second class stamp - its got the queen on!- hear the future cry of of lamborgihni-owning philatelists).



I've never been one for stamp collecting myself, but neither would I hold that all stamp collectors are forty year old single men whose most exciting sexual experience was wanking into their elder sister's tights. However, most of us like to accumulate huge WADS of banknotes. Personally, though, I'm a little bored of having the prim, then virginal queen staring benignly back at me (though these days, I'm always reminded of the scene in Peep Show where Jeremy, on a visit to a sperm bank, has to expend one over the queen, in lieu of actual porn). But take out your wallet, go be rolling out that foldin' money. They all have the queen on! It's booorrriiinnggg. Males of an age before the internet may be reminded of collecting Panini (before it became a heated sandwich for tossers) football stickers. Completism was the name of the game. You had to last the full ninety minutes. But in every single pack, there was always one sticker that was Les Ferdinand, or some hack midfielder for Sheffield Wednesday whose name escapes memory, and probably history, too.












So, in our little hypothetical utopia, where the only issue of concern is what to print on our banknotes, how should the wise and well-endowed children of the revolution resolve this nagging issue? How do we go from this -









I turn for inspiration, like most rationally-minded people in times of great and trying practical difficulty, to the zany world of cultish Brit sitcoms, in this instance, the great, the wonderful.... Bottom.
For the criminally uninitiated, Bottom was a mildly successful British sitcom concerning the desperate attempts of two Hammersmith-dwelling saddos called Richard Richard and Eddie Hitler to get laid, and, in essence, not to be, two Hammersmith-dwelling saddos called Richard Richard and Eddie Hitler. In one episode, Eddie Hitler attempts to ameliorate their flyover-poverty by forging money. Competency and sobriety not being part of Eddie's armoury, he cleverly circumvents this by printing obscene banknotes (one such tableau depicting Sylvester Stallone fisting Mr McInnery from the Magic Roundabout), in an attempt to dazzle barmen and shop assistants in the locale in the hope that 'they don't recognise how crap the squiggly lines are'. What a brilliant idea...

Forgive the soiling of my impeccable, republican left-leaning credentials, but I believe that male boggle-eyed lechery will continue into any future socialist utopia. And to assuage the depraved urges of the filthy (yet noble) proles, I would venture for Miss UK to be the face (and rather more besides) of our currency. Yes, have Miss UK, on our banknotes, in incrementally advancing states of undress according to the appreciating value of the banknote. On the fiver, she wears a nice dress, maybe a little taut around the hips and cleavage. Onto the tenner, she's clad in a bikini; on the twenty, she's naked, except for the sucking on a lollipop and a strategically placed copy of the Racing Post. And, boy, if you get a fifty, you're not even going to be wanting to spend that. Brothers, sisters, lets get rid of the monarchy, so we can have revolutionary pornographic banknotes. Let's give filthy lucre a truer and better name.