by Nick Duerden
SNOWPONY
are dim, dour, miserable bastards who wouldn’t crack a smile at Alan Partridge’s
chocolate sex gag. This is just a guess, of course, but it’s probably a pretty
sharp one. Four members, two girls and two boys, the former pair having once
dated each other (which should get them a feature in Loaded, if nothing else),
they are made up of former My Bloody Valentine and Stereolab stalwarts who got
tired of each band’s interminable inactivity and so decided to place bottoms
in gear and get someplace themselves. With cruel irony, however, their debut
album, The Slow Motion World Of Snowpony (Radioactive)***, has languished
within record company vaults for over 18 months, the label fretting over its
supposed uncommerciality. In many ways, they were right to worry, for this isn’t
the much-purported Garbage on a budget, but a wan-faced collection of gloomy
tunes sung by lapsed goth Katherine Gifford who sounds like she’s awaiting a
blood transfusion. There is humour however, albeit wry, arch and between-the-lines,
and the level of moroseness they’ve managed to capture here will make every
alienated teenager cry in shared empathy. Hurry, though, because they’ll doubtless
be dropped within a year.
Siouxsie Sioux made an appearance on late-night television sometime last year,
as a guest on Jo Whiley’s show, sitting alongside Saffron from Republica who
claimed Siouxsie her mentor. At least we now know who to blame. The former Banshee
was entertaining value - lucid, witty, erudite, and ultimately, a rather Scary
Older Woman, so much so that she made today’s Deborah Harry (another potential
Cruella de Ville) look about as harmless as Una Stubbs. Here, you thought, sat
someone who dabbles with the dark side, both metaphorically and sexually. Get
stuck in a lift with this woman, and you probably wouldn’t live to tell the
tale. Anima Animus (Sioux Records)*** is the third
CREATURES album and now constitutes a full-time job for her and longtime
partner Budgie, he who bangs the drum. It’s a spectral, tribal affair that’s
a whole lot more convincing than the output of many other fading punks, although
Ms Sioux does tend to overdo it on the old dry ice effects every now and then.
During the track ‘Cry’, on ARCO’s new EP
‘Ending Up’ (Dreamy)****, singer-songwriter Chris Healey says that he
wishes somebody would make him, yes, cry and pull his little world apart. Ah,
bless. Like a clean-shaven Mark Eitzel, Healey is someone whose fractured lyrics
and tender vocals reveal a pathos that is hard not to be moved by. Disconsolate
and depressing for sure - it remains unlikely that they’ll ever become Lisa
I’Anson’s favourite band - Arco nevertheless make really rather beautiful music
that, if listened to closely enough, can strip marrow from bone. The forthcoming
debut album should prove quite bewitching, as quiet as a whisper, but as valuable
as a secret.
Willowy of frame and sullen of complexion, East Anglia’s BETH
ORTON sounded, when she first emerged three years ago, like an updated
folk minstrel, the kind that roamed those free love festivals at tail-end of
the ‘60s, with a glorious voice that was equal parts Judy Tzuke and Grace Slick
(circa Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’). But, by simple virtue of being
signed to Heavenly, and the fact that her dulcet tones have graced club records
by William Orbit and The Chemical Brothers, she was also touched by the hand
of cool and accepted accordingly. While still essentially a cult artist, Orton
really is an absolute treasure who, by year end, should be a huge star. Where
her debut album, Trailer Park, was soft and slender, rhythm-infused folk music
for people who didn’t give a monkeys about the burning of incense, the follow-up,
Central Reservation (Heavenly)**** is all that and so much more. People
used to say, back in 1991, that Screamadelica was the perfect comedown record.
This is better, unfurling like a ball of wool and as voluptuous as the most
luxurious eiderdown. Here, she’s as delicate as snow, emitting heavy-lidded
emotion with a voice that no printed words could ever do true justice to. Everything
But The Girl’s Ben Watt guests, as do Terry Callier and Ben Harper, each helping
Central Reservation inch towards a rustic folk perfection. If any record deserves
to do a Bjork/Texas/Portishead crossover thing in 1999, then it’s this.
Taxidermy is rarely seen in the world of rock ’n’ roll, which, let’s face it,
is hardly surprising. Why should it be? DREAM CITY
FILM CLUB, however, clearly feels it deserves some exposure, and
so they’ve decorated the sleeve of their second album, In The Cold Light
Of Morning (Beggars Banquet)***, with a bunch of dead animals (lamb, stoat,
rabbit, ferret, bird), all stuffed to professional perfectionism. It was probably
the band’s music what killed ‘em, for DCFC make a noise that could give Nick
Cave nightmares. Like going into Soho on a wet wintry night and getting roughed
up by a pimp who claims you haven’t paid his “girl” enough, this is an often
soul-stripping experience that’s at once doggedly depressing, but also illicitly
rather thrilling. The song titles give every indication, too: ‘Killer Blow’,
‘Spitting’, ‘Fuck It Up’ and ‘God Will Punish The Pervert Preacher’; tunes to
whistle in hell, the devil himself on percussion. Essential for anyone who lives
life under a black cloud - in other words, fans of EastEnders.