The Fall and Rise of Crayola Lectern has been one of our favourite albums of the year so far, sounding unlike anyone else out there in Brighton right now. We decided to catch up with Chris Anderson to find out a bit about Crayola Lectern.
Welcome to our second monthly Top Ten feature. It’s officially regular, now that we’ve made it two months in a row! As with last month, it’s loosely based on what Last.fm has told me I’ve listened to, although this month it seemed to bear no relation to what iTunes was recording for the play counts. Also one of the tracks is just a YouTube video, so that didn’t appear on iTunes or Last.fm. So without further ado, here’s what we’ve been loving this month:
1) Watching Her Dance / DA-10
Watching Her Dance appeared on our radar roughly at the same time as we heard about DA-10’s The Shape of Space EP, but it was the EP which was getting the attention and the PR push. Several weeks later it’s this mode dancefloor friendly free download which is still on heavy rotation.
2) Battersea / AK/DK
Battersea is the lead track from AK/DK’s new cassette only release Dispatch #3, and we love it’s crazy squelchiness
3) Rio / Cave Painting
The video for Rio surfaced online a few months ago, but the EP finally hit the shops on 29th April. The packaging is every bit as gorgeous as you’d expect from Cave Painting, as is the quality of the music. There’s only a hundred of these out there, so good luck hunting one out
4) Daddy / IYES
This track was a bit of a surprise after the vocal pop of Lighthouse and Glow, but Daddy showed that IYES are just as assured at Balearic house
5) Goddess of War / Phantom Runners
Phantom Runners were one of our discoveries in the run up to the Great Escape. We didn’t manage to catch their set (although hopefully we’ll be there when they play at the Blind Tiger at the next Les Enfants Terribles night on 28th June), but we think their debut single as a great slice of indie pop
6) Anneka / Deliver
Not a single, or even a physical or digital release, but just a Youtube video, Deliver was still one of the best tracks out of Brighton we heard this month
7) Abraxical Solapse / Physics House Band
The Physics House Band’s Horizons / Rapture mini LP came out in April, and while it’s not as accessible as some of the poppier acts on the list, it’s certainly just as rewarding. You probably won’t be whistling any of the songs in the shower, but you will keep going back to them over and over
8) Hold On / Luo
Luo seem to be growing more and more with every new track we hear from them, and Hold on is no exception. In a few releases they’ve expanded their range from glitchy chill out and currently sound like a more electronic Physics House Band. Give them a few months and the sky’s the limit
9) Fallback / Catherine Ireton
A little while back, our friends over at the Some Of It Is True blog started up a record label called Hidden Trail. We got a bit distracted and haven’t got around to writing about the label’s first release yet – a compilation of some of their favourite tracks they’ve come across – but our favourite track from what we’ve listened to so far is Catherine Ireton’s Fallback
10) Goldfish Song / Crayola Lectern
We’re still listening to The Fall and Rise of Crayola Lectern at Brighton Music Blog HQ, and have grown rather fond of The Goldfish Song, a tune about suicidal pets sounding not a million miles away from The Beatle’s Day In The Life
Here’s four new videos that we’ve come across this week.
First is British Sea Power with a video for Hail Holy Queen. The track isn’t the new single (that’s going to be Loving Animals), but the band made a video for this anyway:
Then we have the beautifully shot Slow Down by Crayola Lectern. We love the album, and Slow Down appeared in our April Top Ten post, so it’s no surpise that we’re giving it another mention.
Next is the new Flash Bang Band single, If You’re Driving. The single is out digitally on 3rd June, and the band next play in Brighton at the Blind Tiger on 9th June at the Root Experience’s Games Fete.
Finally we have the utterly chaming new video from The Self Help Group. The Rapture was filmed around Brighton (see how many locations you can spot!), and is out now on iTunes.
Last time we went to Club Berlin Jennifer Left and Dom from Sweet Sweet lies played at The Jive Monkey in Kemptown. Since then the Jive Monkey has closed down and Club Berlin has had to find a new home, which they’ve done in the Green Door Store where they were last night. La Momo (featuring Crayola Lectern on guitar) opened the evening, followed by half an hour of improvised synths from AK/DK before a headline set from Das Fenster. Fujiya and Miyagi were DJing between acts, but they were in the dark so they avoided my lens. Actually, for the most part AK/DK were in the dark too!
As usual, click on the images to view large:
Here’s a new regular feature that I’ve decided to start on the blog. We write a lot of posts about a lot of bands, and quite often a blog post about something we absolutely love can easily drop out of view. On top of that, some things we write about are slow burners, and while we’ll write things up as soon as we hear about them, some tracks can creep into your consciousness weeks later. So here’s my top ten for April, based on my plays according to last.fm (although it seems to miss half my plays, so I reserve the right to use a bit of licence sometimes).
10. Interlocutor – Saturday (demo)
Alex White of Electric Soft Parade and Brakes has played a couple of gigs with his new solo project Interlocutor, despite the new ESP album due any minute now. He’s also quietly put up a couple of demos onto Bandcamp which we rather like.
9. Bat For Lashes – Laura (Vogue session)
A couple of months ago Natasha Khan did an exclusive session for Vogue.com. Two of the tracks from this session were released on 7″ for Record Store Day which was a nice reminder of what a brilliant track Laura is.
8. Pete Fij & Terry Bickers / I don’t give a shit about you
This track originally came out back in October last year so isn’t Pete and Terry’s new single. This track has crept into our top ten after being put up on Soundcloud as a free download.
7. Shrag / Sleeprunning
Officially the last track to be released by Shrag now that they’ve split. Sleeprunning is the b-side to On The Spines of Old Cathedrals, their final single to be taken from Canines.
6. Curxes / Further Still
Curxes put out their fantastic new release Further Still at the end of March as a free download, and then put up the video a few weeks later. We can’t wait to see them playing the Alternative Escape in a few weeks time (Thursday 16th May – Les Enfants Terrible stage / The Mesmerist at 18:55 or Southsea fest stage / The Black Dove at 20:50).
5. IYES / Lighthouse (Capsun remix)
We absolutely adore Lighthouse. It was one of those tracks that appeared from nowhere that was some brilliant and so unexpected. It’s spawned dozens of fawning blog posts saying how great it is but the problem was the only way to listen to it was on Soundcloud. Earlier this month though the track was remixed Capsun, which beefed up the beats and the bass and put up on Soundcloud which meant you could listen wherever you happened to be. IYES play the Alternative Escape on Saturday at the Mesmerist at 15:20
4. Black Black Hills / Red Cabin
Red Cabin, with it’s retro reverb drenched rock and roll and backwards video, was an immediate hit when we heard it a couple of weeks ago. Go download it now! Black Black Hills play Brighton Noise’s stage at the Alternative Escape on Saturday at 15:50.
3. Us Baby Bear Bones / You
You is another track which had been floating around for a while but got put up as a free download this month. You is going to be on UBBB’s debut EP due for release in July
2. Crayola Lectern / Slow Down
Slow Down is one of my favourite tracks from the new Crayola Lectern album The Fall and Rise of… The whole album is fantastic, but this is the track that we’ve played the most.
1. Electric Soft Parade / Brother You Must Walk Alone
From the moment we heard the new Electric Soft Parade single at the end of last month, it was inevitable that it was going to end up as this months most listened to track. Breezy guitar pop at it’s finest, that sounds even better now that the sun’s out.
This week saw the release of The Fall and Rise of Crayola Lectern on Bleeding Hearts Recordings, and last night they held the launch party at The Brunswick.
Do You Feel What I Feel Deer?
Support came from Do You Feel What I Feel Deer, fresh from supporting British Sea Power on tour as part of Milk & Biscuits. When I’ve seen them in this incarnation live before, they’ve been accompanied by a small string section, but last night Eleanor and Rachel were playing as a duo. Stripped of their accompaniment the arrangements were a little more sparse, but no less haunting. Close harmonies and acoustic, twisted backing on guitar and autoharp were order of the day. They only played a short set, which included Silence which is being released as a single in July which the band recently filmed a video for, and ended with last year’s download Save Your Heart.
Crayola Lectern
These days proper intervals in the main feature have all but disappeared, unless you’re at a theatre. Cinemas now project films digitally so there’s no need to swap reels halfway through, and music is for the most part digested in the form of a compact disc or a digital stream. The Fall and Rise of Crayola Lectern was conceived as a good old fashioned long player though, where getting up to turn the record over is as much a part of the experience as the music itself, so for his album launch Crayola Lectern split their set in two with each part being a run through of each half of the album, nearly. Last night’s version of the band was just Chris Anderson and Alistair Strachan (although tomorrow night’s London launch gets the full complement of album contributors) – Chris on upright piano and guitar on Trip in D and Fall and Rise, and Alistair on trumpet, keyboard, and all kinds of percussion. The piano playing was sublime, and and to describe Alistair’s contribution as trumpet playing doesn’t do justice to range of sounds that were made. The first half ended with non-album track and live favourite Barbara’s Persecution Complex – I understand that Crayola Lectern have another couple of album’s worth of material so hopefully this will get a full release at some point. The second half kicked off with Trip in D, the psychedelic high point of the album, which has in the past formed the entire basis of improvised gigs but tonight only lasted for a few minutes. Later, the album’s title track sounded more in tune with the more experimental tracks last night rather than the film soundtrack it could be on the record. After rounding off the second half of the record to a room full off applause, Chris and Alistair rejoined the stage for a triumphant rendition of Combobulatory Explorations (from the first half, but not played because of the inclusion of Barbara’s Persectution Complex). It’s one of the boldest and most intricate tracks and was a superb end to the night.
Crayola Lectern
Back in the seventies there was a television program called the Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, built around the general premise of the main character having a mid life crisis. You could suggest that releasing your debut album when you’re in your mid-forties might be some kind of mid life crisis, but to do so would ignore Chris Anderson’s presence on the music scene in Brighton and beyond over the years. You could suggest that the title implies some kind of trip – maybe physical, maybe psychedelic – and perhaps you might be right there.
Crayola Lectern are a bit like The Beatles. But I hate it when bands are compared to the Beatles, partly because you can’t even make any sort of meaningful comparison between the band who released Please Please Me and the band who released The White Album. If you can’t even compare the band to themselves how on earth can you compare another band to them? Also the most repeated Beatles comparison of recent times has been Oasis, and Crayola Lectern are nothing like Oasis. That said, there are parts of The Fall and Rise which recall A Day in The Life or maybe Fool on the Hill. Songs from when the Beatles were at their experimental best.
Crayola Lectern at The Hope 6/3/13
You could also say that Crayola Lectern are a bit like The Durutti Column. This is another poor comparison – Vini Reilly was all about the guitar and most of the Crayola Lectern album is piano based. But there’s something about the Durutti Column’s style (which they once referred to as Avant Garde Jazz Classical) that you can hear with Crayola Lectern. Then there’s the standard of the playing, and also the wider range of influences than most music manages to encompass. Vini was never the strongest singer either, but there’s something endearing about both their deliveries which you wouldn’t want any other way.
Crayola Lectern at the Bleeding Hearts Christmas Party at the Prince Albert 3/12/12
Crayola Lectern are also a bit like Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. Actually, Crayola Lectern are probably more like the psychedelic bands of the sixties and seventies who influenced Gorky’s but at the time of my life when I was listening to Gorky’s, songs in Welsh with time signatures that changed halfway through was far out enough for me and I didn’t investigate any further. Maybe it’s time for me to invest in some Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt albums. Nevertheless The Fall and Rise’s unifying theme is the quirkiness that runs throughout, not just in some of the lyrical themes (“My goldfish died of boredom”), but also in the twists and turns that the music takes. There’s also a similarity in the gentle psychedelia which runs from start to finish, the high point of which is the album’s centrepiece Trip in D, a ten minute spiralling psychedelic epic with hypnotic guitars tuned to sound like sitars.
Crayola Lectern at the Kemptown Coach House 14/12/12
Most of all though, Crayola Lectern aren’t really like anyone else. You can pick out references here and there, but comparisons don’t really do justice to the defiantly wilful independence of ideas on The Fall and Rise. They don’t help describe the feelings that the album conjures so well, often shifting from one emotion to another mid-song, as naturally as our own mood changing. For some people the album may seem a challenge, but if it is then it’s a brilliantly rewarding one. One thing’s for certain – you won’t hear another album like this all year.
The Fall and Rise of Crayola Lectern is out on Bleeding Hearts Recordings on 15th April 2013. The album launch gig takes place at the Brunswick on Wednesday 17th April with support from Do You Feel What I Feel Deer. As a taster, Crayola Lectern are offering My Big Idea as a free download:
Wednesday night we saw Interlocutor at the Hope.
Octopuses
First up were the new band Octopuses, formed by Adam Bell out of the remnants of Foxes! with Alan and Rob Grice, Alan Odgers and the legend-in-the-making Tom Matthews playing the part of unlikely font man. The band play ragged but fast-paced indie pop, with strong songs and a beefy rhythm section that belies the off-ball keyboard riffs and laconic artless vocals up front. overall a most enjoyable confection and one worth watching.
Crayola Lectern
Next up was the Crayola Lectern playing songs from his forthcoming album, a beautiful psychedelic monstrosity being released on the Bleeding Hearts label. Crayola Lectern is a nervous live performer, trying out one song and stopping when he seemingly couldn’t remember it. But he was accompanied by Alistair Strachan on trumpet and percussion, who gives a rich rewarding texture to the enchanting piano-based melodies.
Horn section
Finally, the headliners gathered on stage, all dozen or so players with a fantastic concoction of blue-eyed soul led by Alex White, of Electric Soft Parade. A big meaty brass section, some stiff guitar riffs and the superb manic drumming of brother Tom helped to power an excellent collection of songs, including a Steely Dan cover for which Alex sort of apologised and then played a blinder. Billed as an album launch of sorts, it wasn’t quite as the album isn’t finished, but judging from the collection played here it is going to sound amazing. Really looking forward to that one.
Alex White
So three great bands playing some fabulous new music through a messy soundsystem in a hot sweaty little venue with sticky walls and terrible beer. It was made even more memorable by Chris Tomsett’s brilliant innerstrings psychedelic light show, which is becoming a regular feature at a lot of Brighton gigs these days, so much so that it seems it isn’t really a rock gig without it. All in all, a great night.
(Photographs by Jon Southcoasting)
So you’ve done the weekend now, except for that post-Saturday hangover-recovery dance, and you’re starting to wonder about your next big thing to do?
Well, you’re sorted. On Wednesday we have a gig by Alex White’s new band Interlocutor, Alex being the other brother out of the Electric Soft Parade and one of Brighton’s most prolific and talented musos. Interlocutor are an 11 piece alt-soul-rock band, and if Matthew E White or Lambchop’s your bag you will love this. Wednesday night they’re playing their new album right the way through. It will be great.
In support we have the amazing Crayola Lectern with his psychedelically-infused torch-rock, and the ramshackle indie-pop of Octopuses, comprising ex-members of the now legendary Foxes! And if that isn’t enough, these three bands will all be bathed in the warm glow of the Innerstrings Psychedelic Lightshow, a satisfying sight worth the meagre entrance fee on its own.
This one will sell out, so get your tickets pronto from the usual local stores or online at http://www.wegottickets.com/event/208205
Crayola Lectern’s debut album will be hitting the shelves in April this year, and to whet our appetite, he’s put a couple of tracks from it up on his Soundcloud. My other half reckons Slow Down sounds like Mary J Blige’s No More Drama, something which I imagine would amuse Crayola Lectern no end.
Brighton Music Blog 