The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

 

Sometimes it only takes a little note to remember a band that you have already forgotten. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart have reunited and will be playing several concerts in Spain and Portugal early next year.

TPOBPAH released their debut album in 2009 and set new standards with their version of indie-pop. Although they are from New York, they sound very British. On the one hand, they fuse the melancholy lyricism of The Smiths with the pop of My Bloody Valentine hidden behind powerful walls of guitars. 

What remains of them are softly noisy, incredibly catchy three-minute songs with their boy-girl vocals about the worries of young people. And still worth playing again from time to time.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Everything With You

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Come Sunday

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Young Adult Friction

Monday's Long Song

 

When Spiritflesh's first full album with the same title came out in 2018, I had never heard anything like it and still haven't. This is a unique piece of British electronic music that blurs the boundaries between club music and doom with its radicalism.

In Bristol, two DJ's, Julian Raymond-Smith and Boris English have locked themselves in a basement with gritty dub techniques that spread across post-punk, drone, doom metal and techno shards to open up new worlds. All songs are based on tribal rhythms over which they lay bleebs and spherical sounds.

A dark journey into a world of dangerous sounds that will make you shudder with pleasure. Another piece of experimental music that made it into my annual review, but was unfortunately overlooked by most people.

Spiritflesh - Beneath The Clouded Veil

New Song On Sunday

 

Like every Friday, my digital inbox is overflowing with promotions for new releases. I follow a few artists and record labels on Bandcamp but over the last few weeks more and more bands have been contacting me directly asking for a review on my blog. I usually delete them completely but occasionally I do them a favour and listen to their releases. Again, the mail is usually deleted because the music doesn't appeal to me.

One exception this week was Bravo Johnson, the pseudonym of Spaniard Ricardo Amurrio, who, according to my information, now lives in Los Angeles. He describes his music as a sound that combines beat poetry with folk, blues and American guitar music.

And he's not even wrong about that. Original rock ‘n’ roll with good guitar parts that also feels at home in Americana. Nothing really new, but songs that are best enjoyed live on a Saturday night in a smoky pub. 

I See All And I See Nothing

 

Justin Robertson is back with his new project Five Green Moons. With Moon 1, Robertson moves away from acid house and takes a different path. Much is reminiscent of the best times of PIL, On-U-Sound and post-punk. Powerful bass lines characterize the sound, everything flows and enchanted voices appear from somewhere in the cosmos. 

The songs have a dark undertone in common, but they emanate a fascination all of their own. You have to listen to the album several times to understand why it is one of this year's highlights.

Au Revoir

 

One of my favorite albums in 2022 was Change by French electronic trio Société Etrange. It captivated me with it's dark and hypnotic sounds. Now they re-released their debut Au Revoir again. The roots of their music are even more clearly expressed on this album.

Mostly recorded when Antoine Bellini and Romain Hervault worked as a duo in Lyon combining drum machines, electronic post-punk with the robotic grooves of Cluster and Neu! The result was a dark industrial sound, far away from many things I listened to this genre. An album that combines the spirit of krautrock with dub with its electronic minimalism.

Another release that will be overlooked this year.

Urgh!

 

Yesterday's post has tempted me to once again Urgh! A Music War, a film from the eighties. Director Derek Burbridge's concept is simple in principle: go to concerts in London, New York and elsewhere and film the current punk, wave and reggae scene.

The result is a fantastic overview of this music from both sides of the Atlantic. I can still remember having to drive to the next bigger city with some friends to see this film. Some of the artists were known to us by name, but very few of them performed in southern Germany at the time. 

After this film, each of the three of us had a band that we particularly liked and bought a record from them as quickly as possible. For me, it was Echo and the Bunnymen and Gang of Four, who I have followed faithfully ever since.

What also makes the compilation of concert recordings special is that it features musicians who were far removed from the normal clichés of punk, such as John Cooper Clarke and Klaus Nomi.

While the British bands are still holding back, The Cramps and Dead Kennedys show us the true and raw energy that characterized punk.

And finally, some film documents of bands that have unfortunately been forgotten, such as Au Pairs and Alley Cats and bands like Magazine and XTC, who played a major role in shaping new wave and punk.

Roman Gods

 

It was in 1982 when me and a couple of friends made a break from work to take a five-week round trip through the western United States. It was a great experience for us to explore the country in a motorhome to get to know all the sights that the country has to offer.

The last days of our journey we spent in Los Angeles and I couldn't resist to go downtown in a record shop to buy me some albums. I found a little shop away from the main road and and it looked a little threatening from the outside with the visitors. Nevertheless, I entered and was greeted by a concentrated load of garage rock. 

I was overwhelmed by the power this band had and asked the owner for their name. He told me that they played Roman Gods, the debut album by The Fleshtones and recommended it to me, not only because he saw them live a couple of days ago. And indeed, it is one of those albums that stamped garage rock. The Fleshtones are deeply rooted in Rock 'n' Roll with the power of punk. Sharp guitars, a bit of organ and the voice of Peter Zaremba made them worth listening to. 

The Fleshtones - The Dreg

The Fleshtones - I've Gotta Change My Live

The Fleshtones - Stop Fooling Around

They proved that they can also impress live at their performance in Urgh! A Music War and also years later when I was able to see them live in Germany.