Tuesday, July 14

electricity in our homes : WE AGREE COMPLETELY

ELECTRICITY IN OUR HOMES
WE AGREE COMPLETELY
(PARLOUR RECORDS)

Electricity In Our Homes continue to push their idiosyncratic noise onwards. Moving away from the scratchy Fire Engineisms of their first singles, their sound has evolved into a more complex series of minimal rhythmic layers and artful repetition, sounding a little like the Desperate Bicycles covering Can. The spiky three-way vocals grant them a further remove from any other band around today. As an extended release, though, We Agree Completely doesn't go far to prove EIOH's credentials as anything more than a singles band. While the two best tracks, Hooves and Don't You Want To? (Follow) would make a fantastic seven-inch on their own, the other four tracks are rather more throwaway: Scenes from the Life of a Double Mattress and Goodbye feel like undeveloped sketches, Message of Joy is utterly unmemorable, and the ironically-titled Are They Wearing Thin? is an unlistenable failed remix experiment (so yes, they are). Over the course of an album some of these cuts could probably make the grade, but since this is EIOH's first progression beyond the single format it would be nice if it had a few more songs to bear it up. It's not a complete failure, but it does suggest that this is a band best suited to serving up bite-size listening rather than a full meal. Although we'd love to be proved wrong next time around.

We Agree Completely is released on 27th July, and is limited to 500 12" copies, now available for preorder. Electricity In Our Homes perform live at Rough Trade East on the 25th to mark the release.

Monday, July 6

TNT007: a brand new broadcast.

Now available: The New Thing broadcast, volume 7. We present our bespoke one-hour soundtrack to a hazy psychedelic summer, featuring Hatcham Social, Ipso Facto, Slowdive, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Neu!, Spacemen 3, and July, plus a further nine artists from today, yesterday, and tomorrow. Direct yourself here to listen or get it as a free audio file here, and thank you for listening.

N/C -1

Shocking news: just over a month after Neils Children finally released their debut album X.Enc., bass player Keith Seymour has decided to leave the band. Seymour, who previously played for post-rock group Hope of the States, replaced former Neils Children bassist James Hair in 2005; his departure has forced the group to postpone their forthcoming shows at Dice Club and Southend's Railway Hotel, and the remaining members will be searching for a replacement as well as recording new material in the near future. Best of luck to them.