>>Nostalgia For Infinity

It’s the arse-end of May again and that means it’s time for another Nice Weather For Airstrikes Festival, once again here in Brighton, once again at the Druid’s Arms by the Level, and once again playing host to a throng of post-rock, math and shoegaze bands from around the UK. Supposedly the good weather here will hold for the next few weeks, which is good news because it gets goddamn hot in that pub and it’s always a relief to step outside between bands. It’s running between Friday 27th and Monday 30th, with events running from the early afternoon on Monday. Did I mention that it’s free?

This year’s line-up features, in no particular order, The Strange Death of Liberal England (will they have room for all those signs?), Monsters Build Mean Robots, Shapes, Evi Vine, The Continuous Battle of Order, Crowns on the Rats Orchestra, Alright the Captain, The Slow Revolt, Juffage, Last Days of Lorca, Nordic Giants, Theo, Kontakte, Orders of the British Empire, Speak Galactic, Crooked Mountain Crooked Sea, Silent Front, These Monsters, Delta Sleep, A Genuine Freakshow, Karhide, Dark Dark Horse, Laish, Sorebones (loeb), Karl-Johan Nilsson, and Lowland Runners.

NWFA are also offering up a bunch of tracks for free download on their FB page, so hit that up if you like free songs. Songs by The Continuous Battle of Order, Orders of the British Empire, Silent Front, Nordic Giants and Last Days of Lorca, for example. Yes?

See you there.

Chicago-based three-piece Mountains for Clouds are a good band to listen to after a hard day at work and an evening spent writing, and you can trust that I’m speaking from experience there. This, as far as I know, is the first EP from the outfit although they did previously play together under the less evocative name CoachHouse. Released late last year, it’s a soothing collection of six pieces of gently atmospheric indie/emo rock with expansive song structures ala. Explosions in the Sky but lacking the pomp, splendour and bombast of such emblematic post-rock. Noodly Deep Elm outfits like, hmm, Settlefish are another reference point, in terms of the relaxed tone and clean guitar, as are widely-beloved melodic punk rockers Small Brown Bike for pace and songwriting.

The EP’s first song, ‘Operation Latte Thunder’, features looping riffs with the rhythm guitar and bass neatly in sync whilst the lead guitar noodles over the top. It’s instrumental – all but one song here is – and its percussion is laid-back. Occasional handclaps and distant sirens drift in and out of the song, with a net effect that can’t help but be mellow and relaxing.

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Hailing from London, fulangchangandi (that’s pronounced “foo-lang-chang-and-eye”, and is the name of a Frida Kahlo painting) are one of those bands you wish came along more often… and at the same time find difficult to write about. Why? Well, because they’re inventive and thus resist lazy comparisons.

It’s fortunate – for me, fc&i, and anyone who’s reading this with a piqued curiosity – that over the last few years I’ve finally started getting shoegaze, post-rock and noise-rock. For some reason most of it never really clicked for me before, but there’s now been enough confluence of coincidence and recommendation that things have fallen into place for me. I’m still pretty fuzzy on a bunch of the big names – Slint, Shellac, MBV et al -  that fc&i name as influences, but on the strength of what they’ve done with this inspirational fodder I need to pick up my retroactive pace.

So, sonically the band play music that straddles shoegaze and post-rock territory. Their songs and riffs loop lethargically and dreamily, heavy on the distorted chords/clean picking juxtaposition, with prevalent bass lines and minimalist drums. Minimal is a good byword, actually – while the vocals are kept to a minimum here these guys aren’t chasing the textural build-up of post-rockers like This Will Destroy You or the rockier instrumental take of And So I Watch You From Afar. It’s impressionistic, almost, as each element of their songs emerges clearly but is integral to the greater whole. Excuse the slightly pretentious metaphor, readers…

The first track on the EP features jangly, dischordant guitar front-and-centre, with sporadic Enablers-esque spoken word vocals over the top. Lyrically these aren’t exactly on a par with the San Francisco cult favourites, but they’re a nice touch and work well. Next up is ‘Godolphin’, probably my favourite of the three, which is a sort of mournful victory march with great tremolo guitar picking and some soaring melodies that builds to a close awash with noise. Rounding out the trio comes the seven and a half-minute epic ‘Emergency’, a song of several parts, crescendoes and decrescendoes alike, slightly varying its central hooks throughout to great overall effect.

All in all this is a very cool first EP and I’m looking forward to seeing what fulangchangandi do next. Two of the three songs on this EP are up on their MySpace page, so go have a listen.

Del.icio.us links for February 16th through February 17th:

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