careless whisper.

resonant guitars, crackling delicate vocals, twinkling keys, serene distortion, echoing electronics. crackling delicate vocals, twinkling keys, serene distortion, echoing electronics, resonant guitars. twinkling keys, serene distortion, echoing electronics, resonant guitars, crackling delicate vocals.
serene distortion, echoing electronics, resonant guitars, crackling delicate vocals, twinkling keys.
echoing electronics, resonant guitars, crackling delicate vocals, twinkling keys, serene distortion.
oh and of course, lots of loops.

8 tracks, laptops, computer software, tiny bedrooms, pissed of neighbours, garages, penny pinching, scuzz, a mass of wires all tangled beyond comprehension. home recording and lo-fi production have been the surprise stars of 2008.
with everyman and his dog picking up a modified synth, a broken drum kit and a tesco price guitar and having a stab at pouring their angst onto an 8-track or garage band, no mastering, and before long, it's on myspace for the world to share. i can't say i'm opposed to this, after all i run a tape label, i love the fuzzy punch of home recording and it has given me a lot more music to listen to too. some people have took the lo-fi sound and approach and ran with it, and have acquired many a more adoring fans than they had in previous years, no age, bradford cox and times new viking to name a few. some have tried and failed. i have a fair few pending requests that demonstrate this, i just don't have the heart to deny them, after all this isn't some polished, £1mil, pre-packaged jewelcase release, this is an extension of these people and who i am to judge them as people?

so aside from the big hitters and their new found record deals with sub pop or witchita, one italian born londoner has shone like a un-polished star amongst all of this, un-polised or not a star is a star non the less. his name is robert pulsan, it's not sorry, i couldn't resist. his name is actually alessio natalizia but you might know him better under the moniker banjo or freakout. he started recording his majestic art-pop a couple of years ago, surrounded by people he didn't know in his girlfriends house and without any sign of her showing up, he turned to her computer and began playing around on a music programme and not long later had written his first song, freak out. now, i can't speak for you but i'm certainly glad that his girlfriend never showed that night because since then alessio's music has grown from strength to resonating strength.

he gives himself just one strict rule when recording and that is that he always goes with the first take, of everything, including vocals. of course, he toys with the whole thing afterwards on his laptop, adding loops, and samples and all manor of other-worldly intricacies. the option to go with the first take gives his music a very punk-rock quality and with each new song or cover (upto date alessio has recorded 20 amazing covers of artists such as bob dylan, pavement, why?, amy winehouse, invisible congo people and even burial) that that he posts on his blog comes with a distinct lack of progression in terms production but a sense that he really is finding himself and his place as a recording artist.

below, is possibly the pick of alessio's original material, a track titlted '42' from his upside down ep. it brings together the resonant guitars, the twinkling keys, the serene distortion, the echoing electronics and the delicate vocals crackling away as allessio passionately lets the world know that "i'm not upside down". type banjo or freakout into any search engine and you'll be met with an abundance of interviews and mp3 blogs, which all suggest that he isn't upside down at all, in fact he is very modest and remains grounded despite his growing popularity. all the evidence suggests that 2009 could be a busy year for alessio.
keep your eyes peeled for his debut single 'mr no' out soon on the amazing no pain in pop.

banjo or freakout - 42 (upside down).mp3 (zshare)
banjo or freakout - the hollows (why? cover).mp3 (zshare)

check out banjo or freakouts myspace here
& no pain in pop here

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"i can't say we haven't had our run in's but we've never taken chair legs to each other"

i've still not quite recovered yet from what turned out to be one of my most favourite weekends of the year thus far. peep show on demand helped today and a trip to kings heath high street in which me and my housemate rickery discovered a discount freezer food store full of frozen delights, some of which were chain brand mcdonald's and kfc food, which was weird. i got 8 fairly tasty veggie burgers for 50p and a huge bag of hash browns for 60p. the man who owned it told us it was all stolen or something? for that price, who cares? plus they're fucking over mcdonalds' which can never be a bad thing.

anyway, friday day i endured a painstaking 5 hour journey in unbearable heat to london and then on to reading in preparation for cassie's grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. what a genuinely inspiring achievement. we had an awesome buffet prepared by cassie's amazing mother with her amazing culinary skills, which was just a prelude to the amazing food we'd share together over the course of the weekend. sorry if i talk about food way to much but we genuinely do love the stuff.
on saturday we got up nice and early and drove down to a little place outside of reading as we had reservations at a super posh restaurant overlooking a beautiful river which was home to lots of nice ducks and their children. the sky was bright blue and the heat was blistering. a perfect setting for a diamond wedding anniversary if ever there was one. we had such a pleasant afternoon and some great fillet of sea bass on a bed of creamy spinach. the scallops for starters were a little disappointing, i'd never eaten them before and imagined they'd taste more like chicken but in fact they were quite slimy and rubbish. after some profiteroles for pudding, a sit by the river and an amazing speech from cassie's grandad, it was home for sleep. the combined heat and eating way to much really takes it out of you. here are some photos from the dinner, courtesy of cassies mum and sister.

saturday night we headed to london to dj @ push. we arrived at the astoria 2 about 11.00 an hour before our set, we said our hello's to the tom's of no pain in pop and made use of the free ice cold cans of red stripe. push is not dis-similar to birmingham's generic indie mecca, panic. except it's london so naturally a bit cooler but still a lot less intimidating that i had imagined.
we were given a brief rundown of how to work the ridiculously designed vestax mixer, which proved not much help. i really don't understand at all what they were trying to achieve when they put that piece of shit into production. to make matters worse, the speaker out was broken and you could barely hear what you were cueing in. despite the set backs and a shaky start, due to us djing in a cage, where it was quite difficult to hear what was going on the dancefloor it didn't take us long to get into the swing of things. i soon abandoned the set i'd worked out because it was almost impossible to do anything i'd practised on the poor mixer anyway.
so we played a varied mix of everything from gay against you, to bjork to timbaland.
it seemed to go down fairly well and we ended up djing for an hour and a half and a cute french guy even came up and asked cassie who we were and told her with his endearing accent "dis is incredible, you play the murder of rosa luxemburg, it is best set i hear for long time", which is always pleasing.
after waiting in line for ages for some average chips and pita and buying a beer from a guy in the street who was selling beer from a wheelie bag, we set about waiting an age for the night bus, which took us back to tom kings and a lovely comfy bed.

we decided to get up quite early on sunday and make the most of the sun. we went to meet alex before we all headed off to brick lane for cafe 1001 lunch, rough trade east and sexfest. lunch was as perfect as ever, amazing mediterranean salad and veggie lasagna. rough trade managed to lure me into buying something, as ever. still, i figured i deserved a treat so i purchased telepathe's sinister militia 12" and a holy fuck 12" single with a no age remix on it, plus our good friend phil gave me a discount!
by the time we got to sexfext, last nights hungover was starting to kick in and the sun was raging and thus it was much to hot to stay in doors, a sentiment also shared by the 90% of the audience i think. we eventually found a bench outside 93 feet east where we sat for the afternoon putting the world to right. eventually we decided it was to much hot and the beer was much to expensive so when cassie had to go home me and alex decided to go back to his, get some cheap cans and sit on his balcony getting drunk.
i ended up having a really great time catching up with him properly, we spoke about all things holy roar, stop scratching and otherwise. we got considerably drunk and after some brief youtube, went to bed.
perfect end to a perfect weekend really, good food, good music, good company. not much else i would have asked for really.

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