Yoav @ Dingwalls, 23.04.08

Conventional. Uninspiring. Dull.

South African maverick Yoav is none of these things. In fact, he couldn't be further from them.

I caught him at Dingwalls in Camden last night: the venue was busy - bustling with eager fans and curious music aficionados alike. The nature of the acoustic guitar wielding singer's sound is awe inspiring; armed only with his guitar and a loop pedal he managed to forge deep, multi-textured soundscapes to accompany his expressive vocals. Imagine any and every sound and effect you can get out of a guitar - Yoav can do it. From tapping out syncopated layered beats on the wood to singing onto the strings creating an eerie echo, what the man does with his guitar boggles the mind.

Performing a contrasting set of beat-heavy bangers and more conventional melodic strummers, the South African effectively showed his versatility. Mid-set he unleashed single 'Club Thing' on the crowd, and as if some mysterious force had taken over their bodies every single soul started moving, entranced by the beat, singing the chorus. After performing killers 'Adore Adore', 'Beautiful Lie' and 'There Is Nobody' among a whole host of other songs, Yoav finished off his intense, atmospheric set to thunderous applause.

I think it's safe to say people liked it.

'Club Thing' is out on 28th April, be sure to peep it. Here's the man doing his thing with 'Beautiful Lie':

Website fixed!

Yes indeed. Thank the lord.

Website problems 17.03.08

Yep, we know that the reaction sheets are playing up at the minute. No cover art, no press blurb, just a blank page with some response boxes. Rest assured we're on the case and have people looking at why it's gone skewiff and hope to get it fixed ASAP.

In the meantime, please do the best you can and leave your reactions as normal as they still come through to us and get logged. Also, once you've filled in the response all the press release and artwork magically appear for some reason but we don't know why.

Thanking you for your patience.

Delays @ The Barfly, 12.03.08

If you've ever been to the Barfly in London then you know how much of a sweatbox it can be. If you haven't been, I'm sure you can sympathize by thinking of your own local venue and all the times you've squeezed in there to see a band who really should be playing a larger venue. And so it was with Delays - myself, Ian and Gemma from the Wild office went down to see the show and it was exactly what you'd want from Delays. With three albums of songs to choose from it was almost a Greatest Hits set, kicking off with 'Long Time Coming', blasting through new songs like 'Hooray' and 'Love Made Visible' with a fervour you rarely see these days and climaxing with a massive run through of 'Valentine' which sent the crowd into overdrive.

There was definitely a section of the crowd in from Southampton as Greg was joking about the football team and local landmarks to whoops and cheers. But the bulk of the audience seemed to be a cross section of very cute girls and very trendy looking indie boys who knew every word to every song.

They've just announced a load of dates for May where they're playing proper sized venues. You should go.

In the meantime, remind yourself how good 'Long Time Coming' is.

DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist, 13.03.08

I'll admit that I was very worried when I went into this gig as I had, erm, "obtained" an mp3 of the Hard Sell set that these two were performing in the States and I wasn't overly impressed. I'm a big fan of Brainfreeze and Product Placement, the two preceding shows they have put together (I went to see Product Placement at the Scala in fact when they did it, and it was blinding) but the new direction away from the old funk records didn't gel with me when I listened to it. So despite having spent £25 on a ticket as soon as they went on sale I was dubious as we actually got to the venue. Ian from our office was similarly nervous but we crossed our fingers that we'd be proven completely wrong and guess what? We were.

It was brilliant, loads more old school hip hop than I was expecting, a fantastic bit in the middle of the first set when they recreated loads of old De La Soul tracks using only the original records from which the samples were taken and plenty more to make this boy very happy. It was definitely more eclectic that either of its predecessors mixing more electro, indie (Bloc Party, Foo Fighters and Blur at one point!) and nearly venturing into drum & bass at one point.

Obviously the technicality of both DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist was amazing but even they seemed to have a couple of slip ups where their respective tunes went out of synch with each other and needed to be kicked and shoved a bit to bring it back. But I actually enjoyed that to be honest and seeing Shadow give a bit of a wry smile and a shrug of the shoulders proved that they weren't just playing off some DAT but it was a real-time performance and those couple of small blips demonstrated just how difficult the whole thing was and the fact that the rest of it went flawlessly is testament to their skills. Eight turntables, four mixers, a selection of guitar pedals and a couple of samplers are hard to keep on top of I would imagine.

And then to top it all they encored with a scratch version of Metallica's 'One' which lifted the roof off an already ecstatic Roundhouse.

So, definitely one for the geekier among us but an absolute treat to watch and listen to. I'm very glad I was wrong.

If you haven't heard the Brainfreeze mix yet then you owe it to yourself to do so as soon as you can. You can download the first part here.

Wild Top Ten of 2007

Just realised I didn't put this up at the end of last year when we all took a vote within the office on what were our favourite albums of 2007. The final decisions were compiled using painstaking mathematical formulae and fistfights.

1. The White Stripes - ‘Icky Thump’
=2. Arcade Fire - ‘Neon Bible’
=2. Interpol - ‘Our Love To Admire’
4. Future Of The Left - ‘Curses!’
5. Radiohead - ‘In Rainbows’
6. PJ Harvey - ‘White Chalk’
7. The Horrors - ‘Strange House’
8. Band Of Horses - ‘Cease To Begin’
9. LCD Soundsystem - ‘Sound Of Silver’
10. El-P - ‘I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead’

Feel free to tell us that we've missed out a classic but you'll be wrong.

Parka @ The Fly 05.11.07

It was hellish cold, I can tell you that much. Fireworks night in the capital and as I was driving down the A40 into the West End you could see big jets of colour exploding from all sides. Very pretty, if slightly distracting but don't worry, I managed to keep my eyes on the road just enough to ensure I didn't crash.
Parka were first on on a four band bill down at The Fly and despite this fact, and that they were having to miss the fireworks and celebrations going on outside just to entertain us they were in wicked form and top moods. Singer/guitarist Matt Thompson is a proper fucking livewire, jumping all over the stage like a madman throughout the set. I had never seen the band play live before so I didn't know what to expect and I came away very impressed. The addition of live sax and cowbell brings to mind The Rapture obviously but they're more intense than that, not as louche as the New Yorkers. Parka want to make you spazz out on the dancefloor (as indicated with a songtitle like 'Disco Dancer' for their forthcoming single) so they step it up a level. I was reminded of the pounding rhythms of The Music, but with bigger and broader tunes and choruses. If Pigeon Detectives were a bit cooler.

After setting off a party popper in their own personal tribute to Guy Fawkes night Matt finished off the set with a full on somersault on the dancefloor while still playing his guitar. Nice touch.

Songs like Hoxton Hair, Better Anyway, the aforementioned Disco Dancer and If U Wanna just sound so much better when you see Parka live as well. Bigger and ballsier. Go see them on this November tour that's currently happening (contact us for guestlist):

November
13th Nottingham Approach
14th London 229
15th Leicester Charlotte
16th York Junction
17th Sheffield Threads vs Filthy Few @ DQ
19th Glasgow Barfly
20th Edinburgh Liquid Rooms
22nd Aberdeen Tunnel Club
23rd Dundee Doghouse
24th Liverpool Bumper Club
26th Cardiff Barfly
27th Brighton Pressure Point
30th Winchester Railway

December
1st Southampton Lennons
4th London Metro
5th London Club Fandango

We've got hold of a very exclusive Subsource Remix of the new single which you can download here.

If you haven't seen it yet, here's the video for the new single as well: