What an excellent musical start to the year, we really try not to have three albums of the week but hey... and how good is that Fantaplastic demo! We've kicked in to 2008 in the same manner as we left musically rich 2007.... 

These are the things that have been in our ears this week, please explore and if it sounds interesting then just hit the links and make your own minds up, our reviews and thoughts are mere signposts designed to guide you to the things you might like to feast on yourselves... don’t you just love the instant hit of the www. 

John on the phone...

BEST OF BOOTIE 2007? Tricky Sandman - Run-DMC vs. Metallica? Love Will Tear You Apart She Wants Originality - She Wants Revenge vs. Joy Division vs.Bauhaus? Passenger Fever - Peggy Lee vs Iggy Pop? Sympathy For Teen Spirit - Rolling Stones vs. Queen vs. Nirvana? Here's the link to download it all for free   the best one is the Chemical Brothers vs Empire Strikes back Imperial March thing, or maybe The Gossip vs Elastica? Or maybe the Placebo/Kate Bush/Pet Shop Boys or? or L7 vs CSS - oh we don't know! The Jackson 5 v Guns 'n Roses one... seemless

ORGAN TV?

This coming Sunday we have the following videos...

GOAT THE HEAD - Simian Supremecy (short version) 
CHAUFFER DRIVEN AVIATOR - Leather Jacket 
EL-P - Smithereens 
TO THE BONES - Tycho 
READ YELLOW - The Association 
METRO RIOTS - When You're Gone 
GOAT THE HEAD - Simian Supremecy 
GALLHAMMER - World To Be Ashes 
MUNICIPAL WASTE - Unleash The Bastards 

Next Wednesday and Sunday we have...

CHAUFFER DRIVEN AVIATOR - Leather Jacket 
EFTERKLANG - Mirador 
THE KEITH JOHN ADAMS - The Other Side Of The Road 
EL-P - Smithereens 
BEE STINGS - Pressure (Running Away) 
GALLHAMMER - World To Be Ashes 
EMIGRATE - My World 
MUNICIPAL WASTE - Headbanger Face Rip 
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What's it all about? Simple, just good music, and the art of good video making...  Same musical policy as we've always had with Organ - the labels are just handy signposts, as long as the music and video making has that X factor - expect a healthy eye/earboiling mix of metal, punk, prog, beats, post rock, post punk, post man pat, hardcore, indie, alternative, pronk, whatever..... music and creativity for the open minded 
 

DEMO OF THE WEEK
FANTAPLASTIC – Ah, things are coming together, another impressive demo from the London band and more frantic running away from a million different (vile vile) insects and giraffes that eat leaves and run oh so very fast. The last Fantaplastic demo we reviewed was very good indeed, nowhere near as good as this glorious noise though! Raw frantic manic cardiac twitching and going off and things – raw, edgy, punky in a slightly alt.rock Melvins/Sonic Youth/Jesus Lizard manner – hang on though, Fantaplastic suddenly found some angles all of their own, some frantic (yes we said frantic again) moves that suggest the time has come for us to do some shouting about them. Fantaplastic are not always frantic though, they can break things down mid song and get almost folky in a scratchy left field kind of (frantic) way (there goes a little bit that sounds like Deerhoof). This is an excellent two track demo – recorded raw and gloriously live and wrong pop and yes! Good artwork as well. These two tracks are causing arguments now, time changing around architecture and Sonic Youth textures - Ring bites? But there’s no blues in there, you can’t say they sound anything like those Melvins!  Yes but I suspect they’ve never heard Cardiacs, they’ve come at it from a whole different American infulenced alt.punk route and sounding like Garage Concerts era Cardiacs is just a beautiful coincidence – but Sonic Youth don’t take on time changes like that! Enough of these arguments, everyone around here agrees that Fantaplastic are well worth arguing about, another fine demo and we’re off and running like eating giraffes and things – did we say they were frantic? www.myspace.com/fantaplastictheband

ALSO CHECK OUT
THE CUBICAL – Great White Lie – A kind of raw gritty Captain Beefheart, Zutons, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Rolling Stones, Saint Silas Intercession blues stomp of a thing that just landed here from Liverpool. Six well recorded (and well packaged) tracks that I guess are in advance of some kind hot new band push that’s already underway – if that combination of bands sounds enticing then The Cubical are worth checking out, little lacking in identity and an edge of their own right now, they could really do with a hint or two of their own finger print in there with all the flavours...   www.myspace.com/thecubicalthecubical

FM BLEED – Another demo from the dreadfully named FM Bleed, thankfully the Brighton band are far better than their name. What we have here is a rather decent slice or two of edgy wired goth flavoured blues delivered with urgent attitude and a Cramps, Killing Joke, Blues Explosion, Yeah Yeah Yeahs slant of things  - www.myspace.com/fmbleed

FIREBRAND SUPERROCK – Metal! None more so; if you like your classic Maiden style metal and punching the air, if you like the storming tuneful power of classic bands like Testament, Sanctuary or Raven – that and creatures of the night and the devil’s spies and taking flight - then you’ll want this four piece from Edinburgh to be picking at your bones.  Impressive professional front line old school proper power metal, an extremely well recorded demo, highly recommended  if you’re one those who like this kind of thing – www.myspace.com/firebrandsuperrock

Last week's demo of the week - YONATAN NIV / INNER RAGE

Previous demo's of the week - NAVEL / FILTHY HABITS / LITTLE TROPHY / THE ORIENTALISTS / HOUSEHOLD / THE JELAS / COUNTRYSIDE / BASTARDS OF THE SKIES / MEHE / THE PRETTY YOUNG THINGS / HAPPY PENGUIN HUNGRY BEAR / SOMEBODY’S MIND / INSTRUMENTS / DEATH QUNT / OAKWOOD / EPSTEIN SUPERFLU

DEMO REVIEW ARCHIVES

ALBUM OF THE WEEK
BLACK MOUNTAIN – In The Future (Jagjaguar) – The ninth track of this excellent second (giant leap forward of a) beautiful album from Black Mountain is a seventeen minute epic - Bright Lights is a driving plunge through several shades of atmospheric overdriven edgy Hammond drama that flies on in to (and then well well on past) a Floydian murmour that just builds and builds (and builds) - that slow boiling Welcome To The Machine, Dark Side Of The Moon drift, that quietly burning straining throbbing 70’s organ thing that builds and builds (and builds). Before Bright Lights we’ve already been through several slants of epic (building) easy-on-the-ear/hard-edged ambitious prog-driven, Tangerine Dream synth line laced, psych-flavoured 70’s positive retro rock that has far far more to it than that lazy set of signposts I just gave you there would have you believe. Black Mountain are from Canada and their glue is their wonderfully restrained drum sound, that sparse easy flowing style of Joshua Wells that anchors an album that’s drenched in glorious Mellotron and slicing cutting steaming Hammond action. We’re talking classic bites of Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Deep Purple, Buffalo Springfield, Led Zeppelin (and maybe just a hint or two of Oasis) that just go on exploding (and exploding) with restrained epic drama. Beautiful honeyed male/female vocal harmonies, and that vital mellotron wonkyness that adds so much warm glowing humanity. Classic timeless positively self indulgent moody prog/psych rock that has a cool enough cutting edge and forward thrusting bite to make it OK for the scenesters and the ATP types to namedrop and champion (as well as people like The Flaming Lips, Mudhoney, J Mascis – all who have been doing just that in recent times). In The Future is an epic set of rides through deceptive pools of glowing calm, of meaty keyboard driven riffs, of North American alt.country rock, of refined burning demon-hiding voices and epic sky touching highs - In The Future is totally utter cool as f self indulgent Seventies flavoured progfugginrock – love it! 

And.BLACK MOUNTAIN have made a taste from their excellent forthcoming album, In The Future, available to download. You can now download the 8-minute prog epic song Tyrants from here “And, yes, please share Tyrants with everyone you know” say the band. Find out more about Black Mountain and their new album at www.blackmountainarmy.com or www.myspace.com/blackmountain
 

ALBUM OF THE WEEK 2 YESAN DAMEN – Chronos/Kairos (New Wine) – Subtle band, beautiful band from Seattle - warm, gentle, glowing, inviting, easy, sensuous – clever vocal arrangements, delicate understated confident playing, a band who sound like they have noting to prove, a band who sound totally at ease, a band with all the time and space to back some delicate beautiful songs with some equally beautiful instrumentation. Intelligent indie pop that flows with emotion, music that glows and lights up everything – delicately confident, confidently knowing – rays of hope and strands of reassurance, deceptive sunny textures amongst the lyrical self doubt, re-evaluation, missed opportunities and the melancholic dissatisfaction - humanity. This is beautiful hopeful humanity and clever vocal arrangements flowing over clever instrumental layers. Oh look, you just want me to tell you the album is a breezy upbeat Belle & Sebastian, Luna, New Pornographers flavoured delight – and it is, so so much more than that though. Sometimes you just hear an album from someone you’ve never heard of, some band you know absolutely nothing about and yes. www.yesan-damen.com or www.newwinerecords.com ALBUM OF THE WEEK 3 CLUB 8 – The Boy Who Couldn’t Sop Dreaming (Fortuna Pop) – Exquisite, perfect creamy dreamy pop, classic sunny Swedish minimal pop. Karolina Komstedt’s voice is perfect, perfectly beautiful, she has the ability to gently melt just about everything with her perfect perfect beautiful voice. Classic sensual creamy sunny breezy indie pop that just really is perfect. Classic beguiling St. Etienne, Cardigans, Whipped Cream style indie pop and a just right in every way mix of melancholia and sunshine – gloriously good. Club 8 are Johan Angergard’s band and they’ve been rather quite while he’s been busy with his other bands The Legends and Acid House Kings (and his rather fine label Labrador). To borrow a quote (because I can’t put it any better) “the sweet transience of life and the closeness of death come wrapped in the shape of twelve perfect pop songs in a summer dress”. This is just perfect simple clever dreamy indie pop. Beautiful, you really need to go find it – www.club-8.org or www.myspace.com/club8 or www.fortunapop.com. Oh and they’re in London for a rare UK date on Thursday 10th Jan at the Luminaire in Kilburn.

Ah hell! ALBUM OF THE WEEK 4 - THE YEAR HAS STARTED WELL!

OUR OWN DEVICES – All Have Gone (Natural History) – We like this, you’ll like it toooooo – a London band trying to be just a little different and a little less obvious about things. Nice looking CD as well, good looking artwork, feels like things are going to be good – artwork does matter. Our Own Devices are a five piece band, their sound is scratchy, edgy, a kind of vaguely post rock/post hardcore alternative indie sound, packed with light and shade, noise and restraint, the power of quiet versus the need for angular spiky aggression and violent creativity. Our Own Devices aren’t as easy to pin down as this lazy review would have you believe, we’re dancing about buildings and admiring the structure once more – jagged musical architecture and jagged edges that aren’t sure if they want to rip in to you or allow you to catch the beautiful light of Someone Else’s Blood. This is a fine fine album, an album that’s very now, very 2008 - and full of days of static and celebrations of the musical things going on right now – the creative cross pollination and the feeding off each other – of fine bands like Cats And Cats And Cats and Jarius and Mayors Of Miyazaki and Thumpermonkey Lives. Our Own Devices have made themselves a fine fine six track album, an album that challenges both you and them – an album that shudders, explodes, fights, points of uncertain strength and this is the season and they’ll give you a reason. We like this. There’s nothing like making a stand, nothing like making a point.  www.myspace.com/ourowndevices

ALSO CHECK OUT

TRIGGER EFFECT – Dare To Ride The Heliocraft (Signed By Force) – This rocks! They’re from Montreal (Canada) and they’re here to rip shit up right down to the bones. Looks like Signed by Force is a label to keep an eye on. Dangerous road racing punk rock bomb throwing – incinerating everything - the past, the now and the future with some scathing proper punk rock – the kind of punk rock that’s all about danger and nothing to do with free stickers and selling shoes. This is real, believe in the real  - explosive blistering fast raw street punk of a Black Flag, Fang, Everything Must Go, Turbonegro variety. Glorious chaos – violent short blasts of blistering splattering guitars and verbal battle calls, come on muthafugger, wooaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhhhhhh!! Spread that fear and loathing, oh yes. This rocks. www.signedbyforce.com or www.myspace.com/heliocraft

TIM BURNESS – Vision On (Expanding Consciousness) – Another solo album from one time Burnessence leader Tim Burness, and a return to the melodic (polite) side of prog that originally brought Tim and his band to the attention the early 80’s UK prog followers (Burnessence were a regular part of that healthy scene alongside bands like IQ, Pendragon, Twelfth Night and such). Melodic prog, Porcupine Tree flavours, Pink Floyd textures, ambient hints of Gong - there goes the mighty Om riff again (as recently heard performed live by Cardiacs). An album that has a stand out moment or two, on the whole things are a little polite and pedestrian for our tastes – worth it for the early Marillion/Twelfth Night moments though and you followers of Pendragon, recent Marillion, Porcupine Tree and such will find this worth investigating  - www.timburness.com

BLEEDING HEARTS – Politics And Love, Sex And Understanding (self release) Energetic folk-punk, political agitation and provocation from the anarchic left. Driving on-the-fiddle Levellers flavours and raging at the ills of England. Regulars on the festival circuit, and a new model army of a band, they do their chosen thing extremely well – www.bleedinghearts.co.uk

THE OBITUARIES – The Obituaries (Highgate) - Some raw raw wired old school lo-fi DIY power pop flavoured new wave blues/punk from the USA. Running on adrenaline, attitude, Ramones/Blondie/Voivoids/Patty Smith/Pink Faries flavoured American 70’s (s)punk rock energy and some raw raw garage blues courtesy of the oh-so-sweat-but-do-not-mess voice of Monica Nelson. This is a collection of demo recordings, (good) bootleg quality live bits, radio sessions. Twenty three slices of it gathered together from the last twenty-one years and collected on one fine CD as one fine document. The pure art of just getting out there and making music – proper punk rock made for the right reasons and done in just the right way. www.myspace.com/theobits

THE GASMAN – 001 (self release) - Cut up electronics and expensive atmospheric keyboard ambition from the rather mysterious Gasman - Aphex Twin, Rephlex, Speedranch, Squarepusher, Plexi squelchy oddness meets the more obtuse atmospherics of Tomita or even the ambient classical cathedral stretching side of Cardiacs (The Gasman has recently been providing in between band atmosphere on the recent Cardiacs tour). The sounds and textures can be a little relentless, but hey, if your head is the right place then and strange electronic squelch that soothes rather than attacks is your thing then this is rather good – www.myspace.com/thegasman

ANOTHER KIND OF DEATH – Sleepless Every Night (Underhill) - Intense brutal metal from Spain and while they may not be doing anything that radically different they are worth your time and ears  - all well put together, well produced, well played and thrashing away in a Converge/Norma Jean manner, hints of Neurosis or Dillinger around the edges. They’re good at their thing – their thing is slightly discordant hardcore metal and it isn’t really until the challenging instrumental passages of the sixth track that they adventure anywhere near an original or inspiring moment – by then they’re battling to hold attention – curiously their better material is to be found lurking on the second half of the album, give their album a little time (and maybe start with track six)  - www.underhillrcs.com

CAFFEINE KILL – Still Bleeding (Casket) – Well played, well paced, crafted melodic tuneful industrial electronic goth metal from Bristol. Tuneful Marilyn Manson, Gary Numan earfood  - they do it well. www.caffeinekill.co.uk
 
 

Last week's album of the week - DIMENSION X / THAO With THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN Previous album's of the week - AHLEUCHATISTAS / AIRBOURNE / KINDER SCOUT / 4 BONJOUR’S PARTIES / VERNON ELLIOTT AND THE VERNON ELLIOTT ENSEMBLE / JOHANN JOHANNSSON / LAZARUS / FRIGHTENED RABBIT / DEERHUNTER / KMFDM / BY THE END OF TONIGHT / TERA MELOS / RUBENS / RASHOMON / SAMARA LUBELSKI / EFTERKLANG / TAINT / AMERICAN STEEL / ATHLETIC AUTOMATON / YOU AND THE ATOM BOMB / GALLHAMMER x

ALBUM REVIEW ARCHIVES

Creedle are an avant-jazz-punk-art-damaged band based in San Diego, California. They formed in 1992 and released three full length albums on Cargo Music/Headhunter Records in the 1990s (all well received and featured here at Organ at the time) along with numerous 7" singles. The band was primarily composed of Devon E. Levins aka Devon Goldberg (guitar/vocals), PieBoy aka Tim Blankenship (bass/vocals), Dr. Gein aka Dion Thurman (drums), Stretch aka Robert Walter (keyboards and samples) and Cheme aka  Cochemea Gastelum (saxophone). Members of the band continued on to record and perform with The Greyboy Allstars, Morricone Youth, Pretendo, Pillowhead, The DaoSon For, Fluf, Robert Walter's 20th Congress and Sharon Jones and the Dap Tones. Contributing members include Angie aka Scraps, Rob Crow, Scraps, Peeair, Pete Skinbus, Rob DeMolay and Toastmaster Heatlog aka Kyle Avise. Cochemea, Devon, Tim and Dion reunited for a show on December 30, 2007 at the Casbah in San Diego with Rob Crow as the Fifth Creatle on vox, keys and samples. A new album and tour are being discussed.

Here at Organ the news of a reformation and gig caused great interest, not only from us but from you readers and especially you listeners when we played a track on our Resonance FM radio show – caused a record amount of e.mail response! Mostly from people who had never heard of them before – a band ahead of their time?  The world wants more Creedle..

Here are Creedle's Devon E. Levins thoughts on the night 

CREEDLE @ The Casbah, San Diego, California – 30th Dec 2007. - Well it's all over.  Wow!  What a night.  We could not have asked for a better bill.  Thanks to all of the bands and friends who came out.  people came from all over the country:  L.A., S.F., Lake Tahoe, Portland, Seattle, Arizona and NYC.  Secret Fun Club opened with a typically brief but intensely inspired set. For only a duo, Sal and John created the racket of ten!  Donald Wilson hit the stage next and just plain ruled, not having played together in over ten years with only one four hour practice earlier in the day it was as if only a month had gone by.  Johnny happened to be in town for work for two weeks and were therefore able to satisfy Creedle's original wish list for them to be on the bill.  Ex-Casbah bartender Scotty commented that the only thing this bill was missing was big tension... and then  Matt  was spotted dutifully in front of Eric rocking out.  The whole thing kind of made me teary-eyed.  Hopefully they throw a show together at the Texas Teahouse like old times while Johnny is down here. Bunky was next with the complete band, horn section and all. They threw down a fun and inspired set. Impeccable musicianship, instrumentation and arrangements. A great time. 
       Creedle busted out the ol' pie uniforms and forged ahead for an hour and a half set of old favorites --  Moto x, My Buddy, Fisher Price, Georgia x, Maxton, When The Wind Blows/Rabbi Steinman's, Maiden, Otto, Violetta, Kowerko, Greenday, Jesus, a Circle Jerks cover of Red Tape.  Dion, Tim, Cheme and Devon were joined by the honorary "fifth creatle" Rob Crow.  As many know, Rob contributed vox to WTWB and was planned to sing backups for the show but when we ran into him at The Germs, Adolescents, Battalion Of Saints show three nights before he offered to contribute live samples and keys since Robert Walter was unavailable for the show.  In those three days, he was astoundingly able to compile most of the old samples off of the internet and other odd sources along with other newer updates.  Just such a joy to hear them in a live context once again.  Thanks so much, Rob.  It all went by like a blur but highlights were the intro compilation of the "getting the band back together" samples rob put together, getting toastmaster Heatlog Kyle Avise on stage (a first!) for a rendition of pocket knife, the "have you seen junior's grades" poll and the surprise to us guest "bird call guy" subbing for the 8 month pregnant "bird call girl" who was unable to make the show down from LA.  in honor of the Creedle Jerks, Dead Creedledys and Creedle Flag cover night which never happened, the show ended with Red Tape fronted by Rob.  Thanks again to all who made the show happen and a sell out.  We hope to do it again sooner rather than later and have loosely discussed such things as a little touring and maybe another album. Only time will tell. (Devon E. Levins)

More Creedle here
 

LIVE REVIEW ARCHIVES

SINGLE OF THE WEEK
HELLO WEMBLEY – Up Great Britain (Velocity) – I blame last week’s NME, that and hoodie tops, nu-rave, the Daily Mail, Tories, scenesters, posers, anyone from Shoreditch, people who call other people rock and roll frauds. I blame frauds, Art Brut, people who want to be Art Brut and come out sounding more like the bloody Wombats trying to be the Pin Ups. I blame you, him, her, the Camden Crawl, the state of the nation, I blame bad estuary English from Reading and skinny fit emo jeans taking the piss out of skinny fit emo jeans in a Happy Mondays gone all wrong Flowered Up Klaxons eating bad eggs with rock and roll spoons and rock and roll crap. You get what you want in your no class not very Great Britain in 2008 – David Camaron’s favourite band apparently, he heard them on a roller coaster or a helicopter or a helter skelter in the eye of a storm, happy new year – www.myspace.com/hellowembley

ALSO CHECK OUT
MULLER AND PATTON – How’s It Done (Vexin) – Sophisticated story telling semi-orchestral slightly eccentric pop of an extremely impressive Ben Folds, Beach Boys, Beatles, They Might Be Giants, Billy Joel nature. Three fine tracks that may just spread and spread – watch the skies. www.myspace.com/mullerandpatton

Last week's single of the week - UNDERWORLD

Previously -  WAX AUDIO vs GEORGE BUSH / HAZEL MILLS / DEERHOOF / F*CK BUTTONS / IMPERIAL LEISURE / CLUB 8 / TURBO NEGRO / CANDY PANDY ATTACK / SUNS OF THUNDER / DEPARTMENT S / TERRY EDWARDS & THE SCAPEGOATS / THAT F*CKING TANK / ODD SHAPED HEAD / VESSELS / 4 OR 5 MAGICIANS / TIME.SPACE.REPEAT / WE START FIRES / LOVE AND A .45 / 

SINGLE REVIEW ARCHIVES

PREVIOUSLY - STRIBORG / THE WEIRDOS / THE MOB / ARSONISTS GET ALL THE GIRLS / THE VERVE / KHAYA / GREASY TRUCKERS PARTY / HERE AND NOW / WALLS OF JERICHO / CARTER USM / THE HOUSE OF LOVE / MONO / 

PREVIOUSLY - PARALLEL WORLDS, PARALLEL LIVES TV documentary / NEVER MIND THE SEX PISTOLS: AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY – DVD / THE ZINE DIRECTORY / BATH BOMB / NEMESIS TO GO #4 / DVD: MIGHTY ROBOT: SLEEP WHEN YOU ARE DEAD / DVD: GLASTONBURY - THE MOVIE / BOOK: THE LANGUAGE OF THE BLUES – Debra De Salvo / BOOK: BERNARD SUMNER – CONFUSION

That's it for this week -  IF YOU'VE GOT ANYTHING TO SAY then say it - response

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