THE MASONICS
Sometimes Friend / On The Jungle Floor (The Hungry Monkey)
Circle 7”
www.circlerecords.co.uk
Parenthesis-loving Medway garage punks The Masonics are on the rise in popularity across the UK and Europe and have put out this limited clear vinyl 7” in an attempt to translate their raw live sound onto plastic.
The A-side ‘(You Can’t Keep A) Sometimes Friend (Forever)’ didn’t particularly prick my fancy, despite adding a powerful lead female guest vocal from band associate Ludella Black. Personally, I found nothing to raise it above a thousand other garage fuzz rockers though if this is your bag you could do worse than check this out.
The B-side, however, is tremendous; a delightfully silly ditty called ‘On The Jungle Floor (The Hungry Monkey)’ recalling The New York Dolls’ ‘Stranded In The Jungle’ and featuring an evocative effects driven “talking” solo. More in this vein please guys, though let’s hope overzealous record store clerks don’t file it under Jungle Garage.
Austin Matthews
THE MONKS
Pretty Suzanne / Monk Time
Red Lounge 7”
Rescued from a 1967 acetate and – if historically accurate – the self-produced ‘Pretty Suzanne’ is perhaps the last thing The Monks ever recorded.
A heavy slow-droning fuzz bass figure provides the main emphasis – imagine trying to do the watusi in a treacle-filled dungeon. In juxtaposition they deploy a rhythm track and vocal decidedly late-50s in flavour. Then there’s the brief guitar solo, a dissonant flag-up gesture to herald the soon to come Krautrock era.
As single material, this strange slab of Monknoise would’ve certainly been a defiant, blatantly uncommercial venture back in the day. Germany’s Red Lounge label have used the already well-known (and much-loved) ‘Monk Time’ as the flip, one of the signature cuts from their astonishingly brave Polydor LP from ’66, Black Monk Time.
Simply put, this can only further the legendary status of these anti-pop, non-rock pre-punks. Extremely cool cover photo too.
Lenny Helsing
US & THEM
Fruits de Mer EP Volume 8
Fruits de Mer 7”
www.fruitsdemerrecords.com
Fruits de Mer surely deserve some sort of award for musical wholesomeness having put out a whole collection of interesting EPs of diverse artists from Mark Fry to Vibravoid, either revisiting their own classic material or covering seminal psych, folk or Krautrock songs in their own unique styles.
Swedish acid-folk duo Us & Them provide the latest entry in the series, covering Tudor Lodge’s ‘Home To Stay’, Jackson C Frank’s ‘Dialogue’ and, most intriguingly, a version of Floyd’s ‘Julia Dream’ cross-pollinated with the nursery rhyme it was originally based on, ‘All The Pretty Little Horses.’
This said, in spite of the pedigree of the label and the material, the actual songs themselves left me a little cold. Suffice to say if you like music that sounds like it was recorded under a duvet by Nordic rainbow pixies then pick this up forthwith.
Austin Matthews
THE VELCRO LEWIS GROUP
Half A Man / Fall To Pieces
Self-released 7”
www.velcrolewis.com
I would imagine that the thought of crossing Mountain and early GFR, with gospel stylings and the rhythmic minimalism of the Velvets, could be seen as a tricky proposition but I’ll be damned if Velcro Lewis haven’t done that right here with great verve and skilful execution. This record might very well be the sound of Helios and his four immortal horses as they ascend to the sun; scorching the earth below with the blustery hard rock power!
‘Half A Man’ conjures up images of a Sunday Gospel meeting gone the way of the devil, with lead vocalist Andy Slater at the pulpit blowing the congregation’s hair back while ‘Fall To Pieces’ inexplicably but joyously manages to cross early ’70s hard rock with The Seeds and shows off the impressive talents of lead guitarist Phil Hunger, who really flies off the handle shooting freaky notes off into the stratosphere.
Eric Colin Reidelberger |
