It was only in March 2005 that we reported the launch of Dance To The Radio as a brand new grassroots seat-of-the-pants label. And here we are with a gold album for THE PIGEON DETECTIVES and a FOURTH compilation as the label's 35th release. I shudder at the prospect of counting the number of separate artists that have been included in the two and a bit years - but here are 20 on just one CD. That's 21 if you include NAPOLEON IIIrd's devastating mixing skills on the SKY LARKIN track.
True to the label's roots, the VARIOUS ARITSTS include a fine spread from the North of England, especially but not exclusively from Leeds. And true to its newer internationalism and distant-travelling the habit of making friends with fellow-artists has brought in HOWLING BELLS of Australia, BOBBY COOK from London, THE TASTE from Germany and SNOWDEN from the USA.
The general buzz in Leeds is that this is the most ambitious and most compelling of the four released to date. There is a DJs artfulness in the choices and sequencing. It makes for a great all-the -way-through listening experience. It captures the frenetic creativity and excitement of Leeds right now. It's a place where new artists want to come, and a place where three or even four fine bands will share a stage on a single midweek night.
The first thing I need to say is that the diversity of music on offer here is going to divide listeners in more ways that there are tracks, and absolutely no one is going to be falling asleep in the ruck that follows. If some Radio One presenter lined these tracks up in one show, in the order they are here, she would be making one hell of a fine broadcast. My personal response (by about the seventh run-through) was approximately as follows:
It starts in just about the lamest way possible (part of that DJ art?) KOTKI DWA's opening chord is as thin and silly as its opening bass is fumbling. But it does get round to being a cute rebuilding of the tune to Mungo Jerry's "In The Summertime" sung in an engagingly unfettered voice. THE TASTE's "Till There Was You" stomps on the tweeness with some OK lurching indie rock, and THE WALLBIRDS follow through with "Desperate", a bit of nagging skiffle call/response with a grating harmonica part. But then YOU SLUT! Start the climb upwards with "MyBloodyJesusExplorerOnFire" doing some post and math rock moves with a bit of style that easily lives up to its title.
By track five things are tearing along. SNOWDEN come out like Phil Oakey with a brilliantly tune-drenched teen synthem "Black Eyes" in what they call the Le Castle Vania Remix. It's good. So is BOBBY COOK's psychedelic "Homesick" from the Long Island Session. If you're keeping up, GRAMMATICS "The Manageress" bursts upon us with something really fresh. The complex tune, a cello line and some very clever blends of texture show just how much pressure the city is now exerting to force the pace and raise the creative expectations Wow.
HOWLING BELLS are already well-established, and "This City's Burning" is a great neo-Gothic thing with confidence and authority. Juanita Stein's burning voice and Joel Stein's triumphant guitar chords give it swagger and intensity big enough to fill their native Australia. In staccato contrast SHUT YOUR EYES AND YOU'LL BURST INTO FLAMES go hyperactive treble on "Futures Rewired" with a characteristically complex mosaic of a song. I CONCUR are an altogether dreamier guitar band featuring Tim Hann from W&H favourites NIKOLI. Their "Decimal Places" is a precisely played 6/8 with intelligent guitar parts and a rich bass line. Sweet. I know nothing of PREGO, but the London based guitar band make "The Longest Calm" into a more robust march of a thing with elated crescendos and high pressure drumming.
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By now the scene is set for a rapacious, previously unreleased recording of THE PIGEON DETECTIVES' "Left Alone". In amongst their friends and colleagues, their raucous crowd-pleasing is just right. If they weren't already filling big venues and shifting CDs like cans of Stella, this track would still stand out as exciting. MOTHER VULPINE (currently on sabbatical?) are offering "The Hammer That Cracked The Bell" in their typically guitar-slashed roar of explosive emotion. And that is exactly want we don’t get from FRAN RODGER's poetic "She Dwelt Among Th'untrodden Ways". The sudden change works very well. The neo-metal of MOTHER VULPINE and fran's acoustic balladeering have shared stages in Leeds and the immediate contrast works just as well on CD.
¡FORWARD, RUSSIA! do the ambitious "Don't Be A Doctor" (previously only on a vinyl single) and Leicester's THE DISPLACEMENTS have "AKA The Train" which is a classic melodic punk guitar burst of joy. Track 17 is a collectable gem. SKY LARKIN's wickedly macabre "Keepsakes" is chopped up like the lover in the song and hung out one piece at a time for close inspection (with trumpet fanfares) by the unmistakable and irrepressible NAPOLEON IIIRD. This is my personal choice for Track of the Day.
But we still have THE CHAPMAN FAMILY with "You Think You're Funny", probably the best track from Stockton-on-Tees ever made. It'll have 'em dancing all the way down Hartington Road in loose-limbed indie-kid manner. Their more psychedelic chums will then space out on the shimmeringly splendid "Happy Accident" by Leeds' deluxe earth-moving guitar/keyboards band VESSELS.
The finale, a gentle wind-down of the album's compelling 77 minutes is "Trading on Past Treasures" by HELD BY HANDS. Acoustic instruments, multitracked vocals and a long tune evoke something between Silver Mount Zion and Animal Collective, in very tentative lo fi kind of way. Which brings us back to KOTKI DWA.
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