With both the music industry and the Irish economy going down the tubes, it’s heartening to realise there are still people who can be bothered to do things at a grass roots level at all. It’s a freezing Friday night in West Cork, yet here are three young bands united under the banner The Certain Three getting up there to do their thing in the name of independence and damning the torpedoes.
The three bands in question are far flung geographically and equally disparate sonically, though from where I’m standing that’s a good thing. With their belting second album ‘It’s Never Night’ recently released by the Out on a Limb label, Limerick’s WINDINGS are up first. Led by former Giveamanakick frontman Stephen Ryan, they have moved on significantly from their relatively sparse and tentative debut (a Ryan solo album in all but name) to embrace a much wider sonic palette, with organs, melodicas and glockenspiels colouring the more traditional two guitars, bass and drums.
Opening with the deceptively mellow ‘Apologia’, the set is a little more introspective and experimental than their last De Barra’s visit, with gentle acoustic workouts like ‘Lil’ Hands’ and the memorably fragile J Mascis tribute ‘Old Like J’ quietly rubbing shoulders with the epic ‘These Horses Also Ran’ which slowly ramps up the tension before finally delivering its’ squall of Sonic Youth-style overload. The pure 12-string chime of acclaimed recent single ‘Brain Fluid’ remains as blissful as ever, while only Stephen Ryan could possibly write a manic pop thrill of a tune like ‘Embury Greenway’ and name it after his two favourite members of Napalm Death. If that’s not class, I don’t know what is.
To these ears, Windings are the stars of the generous three-act bill, though Dublin/ Meath collective THE AMBIENCE AFFAIR have been coming up on the rails since I saw them at the Cork XSW bash last summer. They have become three since then, with guitarist/ vocalist Jamie Clarke and drummer Marc Gallagher joined by new bassist Yvonne. Her presence is immediately apparent and while I’d like her Rickenbacker to sound a little earthier in the mix, she has given their slightly monochrome post-Punk/ Post-Rock amalgam a dash or two of colour.
The Gods are not on their side tonight. Their sound relies upon the loops and samples Clarke works up on each track and the whole thing falls apart (ironically during a song called ‘The Fallen’) when his amp conks out. Further momentum is then lost when he breaks a string on the next song and has to request a replacement electric guitar. Things improve from there on and while Clarke prefers to scream like he’s trodden on a scorpion rather than sing, there’s an intensity here which can be exhilarating, especially on the closing ‘Fragile Things’ which is by some way the best thing they play tonight. I’m still not wholly convinced but would like to see them again in six months when they should be touting their debut album.
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Mild-mannered school teachers by day, Dubliners John Duignan and Conall O’Breachnain morph into the extroverted WE CUT CORNERS at night. Their reputation precedes as does the quality of their atmospheric tune ‘Go Easy’ which is their main selling point on the web at present. In truth, though, it’s by far the best thing these ears hear from them tonight with its’ layers of sound, bizarre, bitchy lyrics (“I woke you up with a Communist kiss/ hoary old bedroom politics, that’s no way to get woken”) and enviously close harmonies.
That they make a hell of a layered racket for just two blokes is undeniable and there are some favourable Hawksley Workman-style inflections in the falsetto-inclined vocals, but when they sound like a camp They Might Be Giants (as they do during the execrable ‘Dumb Blonde’) they leave me cold as stone. The smart money is on them making good, but they are the weakest link on this bill tonight.
Still, we’re not here to vote anyone off or even play sudden death. Nights like these are about appreciating that spirit of independence that refuses to be killed off even in these precarious times and to that end tonight was a triumph. To call the success of any band ‘certain’ these days is sticking your neck on the block, but there’s plenty here to suggest the Irish underground remains as fertile a breeding ground as any in 2011.
Windings online
Out on a Limb Records online
The Ambience Affair on Myspace
We Cut Corners on Myspace
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