Category: music

Cigarettes After Sex: gentle, monochrome joy

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I’ll be honest. I wasn’t sure what to expect from last night’s concert at Grand West.

Texas band Cigarettes After Sex were in town (and they are again tonight), and while I love their music, I’m far from their target audience.

Except, do they actually have a target audience? Because it seemed to all intents and purposes that they were just there last night to enjoy playing their music. And maybe that’s it: the age of the audience stretched from 12 to 70, and so while there might be some demographic or other to whom their music appeals more than another (it’s white, mainly female, teenage and 20-somethings, if you want to know), I don’t think that the band really cares at all.

And that’s fine.

I don’t think I’ve ever been to a concert that’s had less band interaction with the audience. Literally “This is our first concert in Cape Town. We really appreciate you all coming along”, halfway through the set, and “Thank you, Cape Town. We love each and every one of you”, at the end. And that was it.

But that was also fine.

It left more room for the music – which is what I was there for – and (as I mentioned above), clearly what they were there for, too.

No flashy lights, no colour. Just a lot of spots, white LEDs and all of the CO2 that they could muster. They began playing in a light “tank”, with dry ice walls lit between them and the audience, but those came down early on, leaving light beams picking out the band members in front of a huge screen full of monochromatic images and videos of moonrises, sunsets, grasses, clouds, rain and snow.

This was very simple stuff, done simply.

And then for the big finale – Apocalypse – a couple of MASSIVE glitter balls which filled the place with dancing, shimmering stars for a couple of breathtaking, spine tingling minutes.

Randall and Jacob never moved from their respective stations, while lead singer Greg Gonzalez occasionally marched down to the front or out to the wings of the stage and offered up his guitar to the audience like some sort of subservient soul looking for praise or recognition, as he delivered the final riff of a song.

It might all have seemed rather emotionless, and yet it was weirdly, deeply spiritual at the same time. Outwardly cold, and yet completely captivating. I was entranced, and I could have spent literally hours just listening to their music. And I think that they could have spent hours just playing it for us.

Tejano Blue and Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby were memorable, while Dreaming Of You was surprisingly rocky and upbeat, before Apocalypse brought the house down (as much as something that slow, gentle and profoundly beautiful could break anything other than hearts). And then Opera House as a single track encore was just gorgeous.

So, after all my wondering before the evening began, am I now more sure of what I got?
Yes, I suppose so.

All in all a rather odd, but really incredible performance that will live long in the memory.

Long one

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Not a blog post. A day.

We were up early and down to Simonstown for a group hike up the mountain. It turned out to be quite a big mountain, and we ended up doing a somewhat hectic (and occasionally sketchy) 650m up in 3.1km “along”.

Steep.

So here’s me harking back to a previous post, since I’m going along to a concert this week.

It’s a properly quiet band, as well.

Let’s hope it doesn’t get completely ruined by twats.

It sounds good until you read it

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No, not this blog (more on that tomorrow, by the way).

No: This BBC Press Release:

That sounds great. What’s not to like?

Well, that would be the small matter of the small print halfway through the thing:

As part of this launch, the BBC will also be making BBC Sounds available exclusively to UK audiences and ending access to the service for international users beginning Spring 2025.

u wot m8?

Yep. They’re taking 6Music (and everything else) away from anyone not in the UK.

This is sad, because I’ve been a loyal listener there and here since the very beginning of the channel, and I listen for literally hours every day. Of course, there might be ways around the geofencing, which I am obviously completely unaware of, but even if I had an inkling of how to get round it, that surely just means an extra step, extra expense and more not to work.

A quick note here that the BBC makes it quite difficult to access their visual stuff via a VPN.

Or so I am told.

And sure, I get it. I don’t pay my BBC Licence Fee, I know (not that there is a Licence Fee for radio), but this isn’t really costing the BBC anything to share. The programme is made and broadcast anyway, I just pick it up somewhere else via the internet (a reminder here that 6Music is a digital only station anyway).

Except of course, it does, because music rights or something or other. No-one (including this radio expert) really seems to understand how these work, but the upshot of their messy implementation is that the BBC aren’t going to let people overseas access their content any more.

Although I’m not quite sure why, given that that side of their business is doing rather well:

The main commercial arm of BBC Commercial Ltd, BBC Studios generated revenues in the last year of £1.8 billion and a third consecutive year of profits of over £200 million.

It’s weird, because I would imagine that there’s a good percentage of 6Music listeners who aren’t in the UK. Calls and messages to shows come from expats all over the world, and the presenters read them out almost as a badge of honour. It’s going to hurt all the stations, but 6Music might notice the biggest drop, given that it has one of the smallest audiences (although it’s not clear what the UK/non-UK split is here).

Either way, I have to make a plan, because the other day, having left my phone at home, I listened to a local radio station on a short journey. It was more horrific than I had remembered.
I cannot do that again.
Let alone every day.

So much new music

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I know, I know. Most of you have stopped reading already. My eclectic musical tastes often mean that no-one is satisfied and everyone goes away metaphorically empty-handed (and usually quite quickly, too).

Mind you, given the state of the world (as documented here and here), who would deny me a bit of delicious escapism? Surely not you, dear reader.

But let’s run through what has happened recently, and what is going to happen presently, because I feel that last year was a bit sparse as far as good releases went. That’s not to say that there weren’t some very good releases – I mean, of course there were – but the quality far outweighed the quantity, and I’d actually like a bit of both, please.

Great news. 2025 has started well (IMHO).

First of all, the stuff that’s already out:

January began with a confusingly really laid back, electronic bang. Magne Furuholmen (you may remember him as the keyboard player from a-ha, and also from Apparatjik) gave us another solo offering: living with ourselves.

Here’s a live version of white horses from the album:

To be fair, I’m actually not sure that this is a good representation of the overall feel of the album. I’d say that time is on your side gives a better idea of the rest of the tracks. I still quite like it, though.

And then: Ludovico Einaudi’s The Summer Portraits is a very welcome return to basics from the Italian neoclassical composer and Pianist. Sure, a few edgy strings to keep your guard up, but alongside some beautiful smooth, relaxing piano. It calms me in the traffic, and that’s a good thing for everyone except my cardiologist.


Sequence would be – and indeed, is – my track of choice.

And from the sublime to the… also sublime(?) – Mogwai’s new album – The Bad Fire – is also out now. I’ve yet to really work my way through it, but already, it’s typically dark, grumpy and rumbling. However, somehow there’s a bit of an electronic element to it which has got me more interested than usual. Give their current single Fanzine Made of Flesh (great name) a go.

And then, can I mention (again) my excitement at the upcoming albums from three of my top 10 bands:

Manic Street Preachers – Critical Thinking is out next Friday (14th February).

Doves – Constellations For The Lonely is released on the 28th February. You may remember this from them at the end of last year. And their latest single Cold Dreaming has really whetted my appetite. (OMG – 0:58 in… SOOO Doves!!!)

Following those… The Lathums. Matter Does Not Define comes out on 7th March. And the first three from that album (including this) have sounded very promising.

What have I done to deserve this? Because honestly, it does feel a bit like I am being spoiled.
Or maybe, somehow musically “fattened up” for slaughter.

I’m not actually sure how that would work.
And I don’t really fancy finding out.

But what a three week spell this promises to be. Hardly enough time to gorge oneself on one album before the next banger arrives. And even when all is said and done for this lot, we’re not even a quarter of the way into the year.

Treats galore.

2 at once

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It’s the video we’ve all been waiting for. Two recorders at once. In the nose. Two blowholes (I think that the technical name is nostrii – 1 nostril, 2 nostrii), so two recorders. A descant and a treble.

It’s beautifully done. And I love the t-shirt.

Little known fact about me: I’m actually pretty good on the recorder. I know we all did it for a year at school when we were 6 or 7, but I kept going for many years afterwards, playing for the leading youth recorder group in Sheffield. We toured widely, as far as Manchester, Holmfirth and London (amongst other places), winning several (or more) competitions, and I still have my recorders to this day.

Could I do this, though?

Well, almost. The whole nostril thing wouldn’t be an issue at all: in fact, I do a great rendition of Jingle Bells like this.

But… the balancing the descant on the half loaf or white bread? No.

I only eat brown, seeded stuff now* – doctor’s orders, see? – and that’s simply not spongy enough to allow for adequate movement. In fact, trying to do this with a loaf of this heavier stuff might even result in some sort of bizarre injury. Hopefully only to your nose, but you never really know, do you?

So I’ll leave this sort of thing to the expert in our video above.

Safety first.

* Apparently, there’s some in the freezer.