Spring cleaning

So I bought one of these:

And now I have a home office. My living room has become a restful place of work. In a sunlit bay window, I can curl up on my telephone chair laptop chair, my Macbook fits snugly on its surface, and I can write and do accounts. At the back of the room, tucked in a corner, is my easel and assorted art paraphernalia. There, I paint. And nestled between the two corners is my turntable, to soundtrack whatever I'm doing. It's either vinyl or Spotify; my CDs are now little more than artifacts. The TV is on a lot less these days.

As for here, I'm having a bit of a clear out over the next few days. Deleting dead links, swapping things around a bit. The content here will be more music focused as well. I love fashion as much as ever, so I will probably still write about it, but I no longer consider this a fashion blog. It's just a vault for my various scribblings. These days I write for The Line of Best Fit but some things will just end up here. I haven't really worked out a sensible way of deciding what to submit and what to keep (I guess largely it comes down to what I imagine they'll want to run).

Painting takes up a lot of my life at the moment, and lots of business work relating to it; selling prints, sorting out shows, doing accounts (I thought I'd start as I mean to go on, and actually document receipts and the like. We'll see how long that lasts). The new blog header is a quick snapshot of one of my paintings. You can see more of that sort of thing at my other blog here. I'd really like to build a proper website for my work, but I've got to relearn HTML before I can do that. I have my work cut out for me...

Pins + IO Echo @ Birthdays, Dalston

The singer does that nonchalant mooch back and forth - the one that Ian Brown built a career on, looking gloomily disgusted with the world. Only in this case, the singer's a bone-sized blonde with the silhouette of a screwdriver and a floorlength pale pink kimono billowing around her. LA's IO Echo start like Stereolab, wearing their detached cool like armour, but they rapidly heat up and abandon themselves to the kind of mad, passionate MGMT pop where the guitars and bass boing around getting in your face and making jazz hands at your ears like incomprehensible idiots at a party.

It's kind of a let down when they feel the need to namedrop the bands who came to see them play but fuck it, they're good, so let's not hate on them too much. It's apt enough that they give chops to the Big Pink, because the London duo's seismic, belligerent sound is represented here in full force. It'll be interesting to see how this translates on record, because when you step back twenty feet IO Echo don't have the power to change your mind, let alone your life. But suspend disbelief and step back into the blast zone of the speakers and it makes instant, perfect sense. The bass drills through Birthdays' eyewatering sound system like Shell in the Niger Delta, and while there's not a new note to be found, it's a satisfying, sexy noise they make.

The problem with Pins is that Dum Dum Girls were doing this before them, and Vivian Girls before that, and the Raveonettes before that, and the Shangri-Las waaay before...you get the picture. Unlike Pins, they all added something new to the mix. Gurlvox over a nihilistic, doomed wave of not-so-nostalgic surf guitar is never not gonna sound good, but... is this it? There has to be something new to add to this genre, but Pins didn't pack it with their flightcases, arriving instead with glum looks, sharp hair and, seemingly, the hope that this is enough. It's not. They don't attack with enough conviction to justify music so frantically referential. It's slick and familiar when they break from the 60s retro and dip into Suicide's isolated, paranoid crackle instead, but the lack of personal ideas still rankles. Hey, Pins - do more! Be more! Show us something new. Find a way to put it all together differently, or just do it harder than anyone else.

Maxi skirts and Morocco

A long time ago, I wrote this about maxi skirts. I have changed my mind.

Last week I went to Morocco. It was my first visit to a Muslim country (albeit a pretty relaxed one) and I decided not to be That Tourist, cheerfully oblivious to the dress code at her destination of choice. I saw one chap (orange tan, sailor tattoos) striding across Jemaa El Fna in shorts and flipflops and nothing else, and thought "..you tit."

I brought floorlength dresses and one pair of jeans, with a variety of long-sleeved tops to cover my shoulders & collarbone with, and some scarves to cover my hair. One dress was madly patterned, Pucci-style, in purple, blue, green and acid yellow; I wore a thin acid yellow jumper on top. Another was in two layers of sheer grey chiffon, over which I wore Topshop's ribbed nut-coloured cropped top, and the third was a recent purchase; a perfect, plain black jersey racerback dress. It's floorlength but not especially roomy; it still hugs the figure at one's curvier extremes, falling gracefully from the knees downwards. Amazing with the loose acid saffron separates that Monki do right now, but even better with a sheer, tomato-red lurex batwing jumper. I wore headscarves that complemented the colours of the clothes; with the black and red, I wore a flowery silk scarf in similar colours. There is an art to tying a headscarf in such a way that it stays atop one's bonce and conceals most of the hair, but does not look as though one has bandaged one's head.

For someone used to wearing less...sedate clothes, it was a strange departure, and one I really enjoyed. I felt elegant in my head-to-toe attire. I felt dignified, and if anyone had made any cheeky remarks, I think I would have felt qualified to fix them with my most owlish hard stare, a bit like my Year 10 science teacher used to do. I didn't feel frumpy, as I feared I might; I guess that's down to the cut of the clothes. They didn't swamp me - one could still see basically what shape I was - but they left much more to the imagination than, I guess, elegant and more typically western clothes do. Wearing such long clothes definitely made me feel more grown-up - and quite a lot taller.

Marrakech itself was wonderful; a festival of colour and noise and scent. Animals everywhere; the streets are filled with untidy but seemingly quite content and friendly cats, donkeys navigate the crowded alleyways tugging high-laden carts, horses pull carriages and the sound of birdsong is cacophonous and quite distinct; certain phrases reverberated in my head for days afterwards. Everywhere you go, you can smell mint and cumin, often interrupted by the less glamorous smells of the street but there were very few genuinely unpleasant pongs.

The colour is something else; predominantly a clay-pink city, the rainbow colours of the souks dominate everything. Every shopkeeper puts his wares on full display; one of the prettiest things was the frequent 8-foot high displays of coloured slippers. Every colour seems brighter, and every spice seller and apothecary (of which there are hundreds) calls out, "Excuse me! What is this??", pointing to one or another mysterious ware to pique your curiosity.

It's not a city for the claustrophobic or misanthropic but it is wildly beautiful and exciting, and if you settle into the pull-and-push of it, very welcoming. One charming young apothecary first loaded us up with free gifts and then sat us down for some mint tea, brought alive by an eye-opening burst of eucalyptus (my mother nearly spluttered her tea out on tasting it), and chatted with us for 45 minutes in French and English, teaching us Arabic words and knowing full well that we'd buy a good selection of his wares. When we made to leave and find some lunch, he fetched his brother to ferry us to the rooftop of nearby riad for a hearty lunch.

Of course, they all made a tidy sum from our custom, but we had one of the nicest meals of the entire stay, and got one of the best possible introductions to the city - as well as a lifetime's supply of eucalyptus crystals, oregano and ras el hanout mixed spice, and a ceramic lip stain (you wet your finger and run it along the gold-painted ceramic ornament, and it comes off red on your finger). The moral: stay and take a guess, when they ask you "What is this??" And remember to say thank you - 'shukran'!

Who feels like going shopping?

Ladies! STOP THROWING OUT YOUR CLOTHES.


Ignore every magazine article that tells you to streamline your wardrobe and chuck out anything you haven't worn in the last year. They're just trying to get you to get rid of your shit so that you'll go out and buy more. It's a massive conspiracy. A capsule wardrobe is only useful if you have zero interest in fashion (fair enough) or are going on holiday. Your clothes are not out of date, they probably just need re-contextualising.

I learned this the hard way. I still regret things I let go. I know now that I was wrong.

My favourite pair of trousers lived in a screwed up ball at the back of my wardrobe for ten years. They were a charity shop gamble, a brocade mistake. Never did I think they'd be stylish, and I thought I'd wasted my £5 (at 17, when most things in charity shops were £2.50, this was upsetting). Now they come out every summer. They would make Lana del Rey weep. She'll never have a pair of trousers like these. They are super high-waisted in soft silk copper and black brocade, slim-cut and cropped at the ankle, and they look phenomenal with wedge sandals. They didn't stay up well at the waist, so I made belt-loops out of an old black dress lining (a new challenge; easy, it turns out. Just cut the length, then fold in to hide the edges and get your needle & thread out) and I wear them with skinny belts.

Every time my boyfriend suggests I throw some clothes out, I retrieve the trousers, hold them up and make this face:



He hates those fucking trousers now.

Store your stuff better. Keep frequently worn clothes in one place. Keep things you haven't worn in ages somewhere else, rolled up very tightly, to save space. (Mothballs and clothes bags are useful.) When you get bored of your clothes, rummage through these things. Treat your wardrobe as a treasure trove. Keep a good sewing kit to hand.

You don't have to be a pro to make changes and update things in small ways. Mend your clothes when they break. It's easy to raise or repair a hem (turn inside out, fold along a straight line, pin, try on to make sure it doesn't look wack, then sew it with a machine or needle & thread). New buttons are a doddle and take a few minutes. You can take an open necked shirt and add a new buttonhole at the top so it buttons all the way to the top (buttonholes don't need a fancy sewing machine; mark where you want the button, make a slit in the right place, check it's not too big/small, and make tiny looped stitches around the raw edges to secure it). Buy different collars to add to shirts, rather than buying a new shirt. You can remove or shorten sleeves, change belts, dye clothes in the washing machine, or sew parallel seams down the sides of skirts to change the fit slightly.

Cheap secondhand clothes are awesome for risking DIY on; spend yr money something oversized and just see what you can do with it (I made a prom dress out of a mumsy old C&A dress, and I lack the sewing skillz. I just put it on inside out, pinned a new outline around myself, and then used the pins as a guide to draw and sew new seams down the sides - a smaller waist, keeping the fullness of the skirt, and a lower-cut neckline). It's not too tricky, just set aside an afternoon to do it. If nothing else, the fabric might be useful for other things. If you find a good cheap basic that fits amazingly, note it and buy two or three; better to have a standby (or something to alter later) than rue the unhappy day when it wears out and you waste money fruitlessly trying to find a perfect replacement.

Ditch your things if you truly decide you hate them, or if they'll never ever fit you again and are totally unsalvageable, or if someone vomited on them at a party and the smell haunts you. Otherwise there's a good chance they'll save you money later on.

Every time you feel the need for something new, ask yourself if you could make it out of something you already have.

If you decide you really hate your old clothes and want new stuff, try swapping them at clothes swaps, either with friends or at proper events. I surrendered a Miu Miu shirt that I finally accepted wasn't meant for the likes of me, and got a free pair of plum and gold heels instead. Or sell them on eBay/car boot sales etc, and then use the proceeds to buy something new.

Don't buy things you know you'll throw out three months from now! PLEASE.

It's fuelling the fast-fashion industry at the expense of independent stores and it's encouraging magazines to keep selling us more tat, momentarily satisfying the mustbuysomethingNOW itch but not actually making us feel like the elegant, put-together mavens they promise we'll become. And it's a huge waste of money. Find shops you can trust, shop second-hand, sniff out bargains that you'll keep for years. Try things on before paying for them.

Also, car boot sales are king. You know those clothes you're offloading because they'll never work for you? Everyone else here is doing the same, and they're not putting a £50 tag on it and calling it 'vintage'.

And stop buying magazines that tell you you're not thin or cool enough or having good enough sex. They're A4-sized Mean Girls and it's ludicrous to pay £4.00 a month to hang out with them. Unless they come with a free gift - I love those free makeup bags they give away.

Hype Williams @ Power Lunches, 16.04.12

This review was originally published at The Line of Best Fit.

Hype Williams are late.

Perhaps they underestimated the time it takes to flood a venue with smoke. No exaggeration here: no-one in this dark little sweatbox can see a thing. As the doors open, the only points of light are the blue LEDs on the behemoth of a sound system that the quixotic London duo have hauled in, and the beer fridges lost in the haze.

Extricating the truth from the press release prankster bullshit that accompanies Hype Williams is an exercise in futility; and it’s frankly missing the point. Whether there’s any truth to their stranger-than-fiction ‘origins’ or supposed arrests for dead raccoon theft becomes a moot point once you’re buried in Power Lunches’ ARP-like basement, straining for air and hopelessly in thrall to Hype Williams’ slippery, hyper-fractured soundclash.

For ten minutes before Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland – if those are indeed their real names - take the stage, people lurch into each other in the grey, and a looped, baleful sample echoes through the darkness, soundtracking their enforced disorientation. It’s all a touch Guantanamo. When the two culprits finally loom onstage, they don’t so much arrive as materialise, semi-solid against a violent crackle of distant sirens, gunshots and ugly, hallucinogenic layers of war field sound that’s alternately blissed out and freaked out. Forget seeing their faces; you can barely make out an outline.

The sound system they’ve brought in is intentionally too powerful for the room, and becomes a weapon. Around you, hands cover ears and there’s a creeping retreat from the stage area – futile as the duo’s confrontational noise floods the room. Nostrils vibrate uncomfortably, and low frequencies mount an attack on your eyebrows and chest cavity. The samples range from the recognisable (Le Tigre’s Deceptacon keeps trying to find its way into the mire) to the heavily processed and barely identifiable.

By controlling their audience in the most physical way, by removing sight and replacing it with ear-splitting sound and aggressive physical sensation that catches even these careworn hipsters off guard, do HW succeed in exactly the way they intended, or do they shock and awe to distract from a lack of content? Some have suggested that Hype have nicked the emperor’s new clothes and paraded through Dalston in them, scenesters riding their coat tails.

It’s a lazy accusation, and their manically textured output discredits it easily enough. Every time you acclimatise to the noise, the clashing layers transpose and align, forming a beautiful, undulating wave of dub. And just as you begin to relax, move, slink along with it, it all separates again and the onslaught resumes.

A setting like this is where Hype Williams are at their most authentic and accurate – a dark tiny room where no-one can see a fucking thing except smoke and hulking shadows, and the cataclysmic nonsense spewing from the sound system is all. The only light comes from one slow strobe which, for forty five minutes, lashes its light out and visibly sucks it back in, over and over, incessantly until you close your eyes in submission. For six minutes one brutalising loop shakes your respiratory system out of joint. This shit makes absolutely no sense at all.

As they exit, someone shouts 'Long live Hype Williams!'.

Their response: 'Nah, kill us.'

In an offensively over-marketed world where everything is for sale and reduced to a semiotic device with a quantifiable price, this feels like a legitimate response. They lie about their names and origins, they number rather than name their tracks, they smear every whipcrack beat with cringing levels of feedback and warped, paranoid samples, and fuck you if you can’t figure it out or draw your own conclusions.

And all the while, your face and thighs and earlobes vibrate with frightening force, and your sightlessness no longer matters. They have made their live set a purely physical experience. Why? Because they can. Maybe it’s not all hype; maybe they’ve devised a genuinely new way of making and experiencing live music. Or more likely not, but we’re all too shellshocked and fooled to tell the difference. Either way, they’ve made their point.

Toy + Savages @ XOYO, 11.04.12

Savages launch like a tomahawk, striking you hard between the eyes from the first minute. After a debut set supporting British Sea Power, the quartet wisely retreated to sharpen their sound to a deadly point, and have deployed it in short, devastating bursts upon unsuspecting small crowds. They’re fierce, androgynous, sexy and uncompromising, and onstage they form a close-knit unit.

The songs veer from insistent Section 25-esque tension to the Cure’s woebegone grandeur. At their core is a taut rhythm section, and Ayse Hassan’s belly-rumbling bass notes stretch out like a cat, embellished with shredded guitar flourishes. Fronting it all, French singer Jehnny Beth is like Ian Curtis in heels, all elbows and cheekbones and boy-hair. Having cut her teeth in arch, elegant duo John & Jehn, here she sheds her impish quirkiness and coyness to become the fully-fledged leader of the pack.

Her remarkable voice has enormous power but is kept firmly in check, only let loose at occasional, opportune moments to swoop, holler and attack. At one point she riffs on a Gang of Four lyric but this is something much slinkier. There’s no plastic sexuality or fey girliness; Savages’ approach is sensual but tough and utilitarian. Jehnny’s nonchalance gives way during Husbands, a stampy Killing Joke-esque sonic assault, as the title is whispered, gasped, shrieked to a shuddering crescendo. Savages' confidence is cool, unstudied and magnetic; it’s a perfect endorsement of the theory that you’ve either got it or you ain’t.

I really want to like Toy. They ply the sort of overwrought shoegaze that I have infinite time for, and they make a nervy, infectious noise that you can swivel to. Think the meanest thoughts you can; your hips will still move disobediently.

But something’s missing, and it’s massively conspicuous by its absence. Is it talent? No – try experience. Though they have played together before (as the Jing Jang Jong for the dubious Joe Lean), Toy are a new and wholly different incarnation, and it’s early days for them to be selling out venues like this. Their sound is compelling but there just aren’t any complete songs yet. ‘Bright White Shimmering Sun’ has a sexy, petulant hook but after the chorus, it’s unmemorable. Singer Tom’s voice needs to toughen up – it dissolves under an unedited miasma of guitar scree. At their strongest his vocals sound stroppy, but is that really what he’s going for?

It’s frustrating because I really want it to work. I first saw this band before Christmas in a small basement in Shepherds Bush, and my interest was piqued by all those squealing guitars, laid over She’s Lost Control bass references. It built to a raging climax and, staggering home, the overwhelming sense was one of ’MORE PLEASE, NOW’. They can obviously handle a headline crowd - psychologically, they’re ready for this. But watching them’s like chasing the dragon; subsequent adventures just don’t live up to the first hit, and you’re left feeling disappointed and increasingly resentful.

But as the set progresses, the hope returns. I know they can do it, and I really want them to. Every time you give up on them, they throw out a melodic phrase that buckles your knees… and then the chorus takes over, and you’re let down and bored again. “I never thought I’d lose my way over you” - that line, if expertly delivered, should hurt, should remind you of your last proper heartbreak, but the vocal needs something (anything), and they haven’t stripped all the miscellaneous shit off it, so it gets lost. Their finest moments emerge when they abandon the songs and just let a wave of densely layered psychedelia submerge them.

The rhythm, the suggestive bass, all that guitar and the staggering noise it adds up to – fuck it, the sheer amount of hair between them (they could supply weave for half of Hollywood) – it’s too much fun not to come to something, but as yet it’s a long way off. Let’s hope it happens before the hype wears off; premature success can be a destructive thing.

An abridged version of this review was also published on The Line of Best Fit.

The Chap @ The Lexington

The Chap are a really funny band. They’re like something out of a good comic - they’re like wry, nerdy superheroes. What they are not is a comedy band, and to dismiss them thusly would be to completely overlook their worth.



Their intentions are clear from the outset. They make an awful lot of jagged, cheerful noise, and periodically STOP! And freeze pose. And resume movement, and repeat. They dress like former CBBC characters who never gave up the dream; the night’s winning look is a hard-fought battle between hairy guitarist Panos Ghikas’ neat running shorts and drummer Keith Duncan’s fabulous Wurzels-esque facial topiary, accessorised with a beaming grin. They pursue the surreal, am-dram stage attitude with zeal, but back it up fearlessly with an arsenal of infectious, upside-down pop.

Comparisons with Devo will be made, and while they perhaps share a soul and a mutual sense of determined oddity, The Chap’s output is more erratic and frenzied than Devo’s streamlined weirdness. Shredded bows hack at cellos, staccato riffs jerk back and forth and singer Johannes von Weizsäcker (what a name!) lurches goggle-eyed about the stage, losing a fight with his guitar, and announcing before every song, ‘You’re gonna love it!’. The drummer demonstrates a delighted fascination with a plastic bottle, analysing it from all sides like Kubrick’s gorillas in A Space Odyssey, before returning efficiently to the task at hand.

Despite the studied eccentricity, there’s a keen, taut sense of purpose, never more evident than during a fervent, Patrick Henry-paraphrasing chant of “Give me surrender or give me death / Give me my life back or give me death”; their ‘us vs everyone else’ attitude recalls the Fall at their most defiant. Their antics perfectly punctuate their songs, marching poses and freeze-frame shapes emphasising the frenetic rhythm and imaginative structure rather than distracting from it. Ask anyone in the front row what they think of The Chap, and... well, you may have to wait. They’re too busy flailing about and out-frenzying their heroes.

People say there’s a delicate line between finely tuned, quirky genius and ill-advised wackiness. It’s actually a really thick line, and The Chap know exactly which side they’re on. Only those with the emotional limitations of a potato could fail to be filled with grinning pleasure by The Chap. They inspire absolute devotion from a flailing, joyous crowd, and deservedly so.

Photos: Teeth of the Sea @ The Lexington, 14th March 2012

Since I got my beloved secondhand Canon EOS 350D I've mainly used it for city photography. But I really miss doing live music photography so I'm going to see what sort of results I can get with it over the next few weeks. Aside from an odd bug with shooting at a very open aperture sometimes (which I'm going to investigate and try & find a solution for), it's a lovely and intuitive camera to use so I hope I'll get some decent results soon. I suffer from a lack of flashgun and limited lenses, but money is what it is, so that won't change for a while (and I don't like using much flash anyway); I shall work with what I've got. I hate the 'all the gear and no idea' approach to photography anyway; what counts is a decent eye, understanding your environment & subject, and knowing what your camera can do.

Here's some photos of Teeth of the Sea, who are always fun to photograph. Not great pictures, but this was something of a test run with this camera, so time will bring improvement.

Roman holiday

Typical, you wait for a year in the rain, and then three come along at once.

I think I've realised where I'm meant to be.



I spent a few days in Rome between Christmas and the new year.



Rome is a city of mixed memories for me. There was the first encounter; the whole place was cold and windy and rainy! Not whatI had hoped for. Everything since has been better, from romantic getaways to simple family returns to my favourite not-London city. It's a couple of years since I've been back, so I was excited.

It hit me as soon as I was there - I've never felt anything so powerful for a place. I knew I loved the city but I had never felt any city pull me away from London before. I dreaded going home. I didn't particularly revisit places I knew, other than the cat sanctuary I always visit. I explored Trastevere properly, and sought out vintage shops in Via del Governor Vecchio (success - the suede lace-up black ankle boots to eclipse all other boots, 80 Euros - secondhand Gucci!), and sipped Aperol alone at sunset behind Piazza Navona, and plunged into the huge Saturday fruit & vegetable / spices market in Campo del Fiori. I walked along the river for the first time for a few hours - what a beautiful, desolate, lovely, lonely walk it is. I fell in love with every single bridge. I took eight hundred photos on three cameras.



Things:

- The colour of the city. Everything is sand and sunset coloured. Even the grey buildings are warm looking. Everything is lit at night. The cobbles reflect everything. It's not a city for heels but I did admirably nonetheless.

- It's a city you can get lost in, after a hundred twisting streets explored, and think yourself miles from anywhere you know, only to find yourself thrown out onto Vittorio Emmanuele - recognisable bus numbers, and that shop you walked past two hours ago! A compass will not help you in Rome. Optimism will.

- Everyone in Rome wears puffa jackets. Everyone. Some of the men wear discreet navy options, and some wear terrifying PVC abominations with shiny jeans. Some of the girls wear short casual versions, and others wear snow-bunny style knee-length fitted puffa coats. Inflation is alive and well in Roma. If I lived in Rome, I would not succumb to this trend. I will never clad myself in balloons.



- The girls do not seem to wear high heels! It is in my nature to make an effort (to be taller), and while I thought I looked perfectly December-practical in skinny jeans, soft jumpers, a warm fluffy hat, my aunt's old plum boucle jacket and a big wrappy scarf, my stilettos seemed to attract attention. A man followed me across a piazza in Trastevere to tell me I was 'the best tourist' he had ever seen. Damning me with faint praise perhaps? They were nothing flashy - warm brown leather ankle boots, albeit mounted on lethal weapons holding me aloft. I looked at the other girls' shoes, and to a woman they were all either trainers or flat boots. I guess the cobbles partly account for that, but they really aren't that difficult to negotiate if your shoes are comfortable, heels or no. Heels are perhaps just not the culture.



Going home was awful. I didn't think I could bear to get in the taxi to the airport. A week later I am still not used to London. It feels cold and unreflective. This has never happened - I LOVE London. I think Rome is the place for me. I know no-one there but it deters me not. Time to sell some paintings and learn Italian.

Ulterior - Wild in Wildlife

Ulterior? Ulteri-phwoar, you mean. It's preposterous that I haven't seen Ulterior before. Since HTRK knocked my socks off back in 2007 (and kept on keeping on, their recent post-Sean full-length is an inky masterpiece) and S.C.U.M. caught my eye with a live set back at Offset a few years back, I have had my eye on this whole goth revival. Fuck it, I've had to put up with people calling me a goth for years, it's about time I got something back. So how did I miss Ulterior? It's not like I never heard of them; I just never got round to them.

Anyway, last night I did, and onstage marched this gang in black (except for the keyboardist in white jeans who didn't get the memo); tall skinny guitarist with his too-big clothes pinned roughly around him, and singer who looked like the chappy from The Big Pink if you wrapped him in gaffa tape and shiny puffa cladding and made him wear leather trousers against his will. There were also some unjustifiable reflective aviators, but he carried it off because when you're wearing a pvc puffa jacket, nothing seems ludicrous in comparison. (The Italians know this.)

And it was all *SLAM SLAM SLAM* (no, NOT in a Spice Girls way) and vocals shouted into the stagesmoke and massively overstated synth drums, but it felt very industrial and brutal and empty and - key - MODERN. Something newly carved and freshly birthed, not a rehash of all the stuff that was done better by better rehashers.

I'm listening to them now on Spotify. Strange, they sound very different. It's a funny thing, when a band you like live is a completely different band that you still like for completely different reasons on record. This record is properly gothy and 80s crashdrum-laden. The vox are sung, not roared, and they have that purified quality that every singer who loves Dave Gahan tends to cultivate. It really really works because they're just harder and better than a lot of the bands that attempt this sound.

Part of me can't help but think this is the sound that White Rose Movement would have aimed for if they'd had a brain cell between them. Which is a bit mean, not to White Rose Movement (because they deserve it), but to Ulterior, because I really think they're better than comparisons to WRM suggest. But nonetheless, that's what comes to mind. It sounds like sleaze and leather jackets and tall buildings and the moon through smog and fast cars with buzzsaws for tyres. And that all sounds shittily cliched because this sound is, it's nearly 30 years old, but fuck it, if chaps like Ulterior can keep it alive and kicking, then long may the life support continue.