The Next Big Thing

Just looking at ebay there and surveying what the RSD touts are up to. Pretty sickening to be praying on what is essentially an addiction. I’d like to see measures to be brought in to crack down on these people. I know it’s impossible to instill any conception of fairness but one lives in hope. Not often but sometimes. It was a good social yesterday, culminating in the Wooden Shjips show. Ripley Johnson dj’d for an hour at Monorail too. There was a story going around that Moon Duo would play there but this was a misreading of Moon Unit who made an agreeable enough extended racket.

My travelling companions weren’t impressed by Trembling Bells but I was. They’re a little unusual compared to most of this “new folk” kerfuffle. Main bone of conention seemed to be the singers voice but after I recalibrated it in my head.

The Shjips were less loose than last time and the constant touring has toughened up that groove muscle. The rhythm section is locked down tight and the velocity of the percussion below the groove is what really makes this rumble. Their version of “Vampire Blues” has been injected with a Scientist-ific sense of bludgeoning and an intensity of The Cramps doing a particularly wonky “Mystery Plane”. The Shjips ability to swing is what sets them apart and if, for some reason, you have any misgivings about the recorded work then see them live and the final part of the puzzle will fall into place.

You see the words “trance” and “drone” associated with them but these provide little more than a flavour because the band is way more than that. “Fallin’” was transformed into something that resembled a minimal symphonic scrambling of a “Virginia Plain” harmonic loop reinterpreted by Neu and re-programmed back into Phil Manzanera’s bugeye glasses . By that time, my soul had been psychedelicised and looking around the room, it seemed like everybody else’s had been too.

A solid mighty oak vessel, capable of some pretty snazzy manoeuvres.

Ripley told me that Moon Duo might be here in July. To me, this is an exciting prospect indeed because “Escape” has been on heavy rotation since the tracks became available. They’re in Scandinavia at the start of that month so keep your fingers crossed. Soon as the news breaks then it’ll be here.