It takes a while. It always takes a while. For a new year to shake off its torpor and find its feet. For the new releases to start flowing with any regularity and vigour down the pike.
There have certainly been a handful of new releases that have excited me thus far in 2024 and I've tried to express that enthusiasm here in the last couple of weeks. But while we're waiting for the drip drip to become a steady flow, lets look back at another hidden gem and forgotten band from yesteryear.
Today's dogged underdog strugglers are Bay Area indie fumblers The Aislers Set and their 2000 record The Last Match. Really 'struggle' is the wrong word here because listening to the record it's immediately clear that this is actually an expression of the purest youthful joy and true fanzine vision. The record is certainly a joy to listen to.
Looking at photos of the band onstage it's clear that along with Belle & Sebastian, the C-86 set, Jesus & Mary Chain, Shop Assistants and the like, the guiding inspiration for what's going on here as so often with bands like these is the Girl Group sound of the mid Sixties and The Velvet Underground.
A photo of The Aislers Set onstage at work reminds you of no one so much as the early Velvets. Perhaps they don't have Gerard Malanga and Mary Woronin in black, brandishing whips and doing dances your mother wouldn't think much of but the essential spirit and attitude is in place. Fringes hanging over faces. Everyone staring intently at their instuments. Not looking at the audience unless they really need to.
Most of the band's songs are written and sung by Amy Linton and they seem enchanted by The Shop Assistants as well as their immediate forbears, The Ramones and The VU. But occasionally Amy's lieutenant Wyatt Cusack is allowed a turn at the mic and steers proceedings towards Belle & Sebastian. The record is flawed but you get the impression that many of the flaws are by design. Pitchfork give it 7.5 . But they're unreasonably harsh. Lacking in the generosity evident in the record they're reviewing. Like a Primary School teacher who doesn't understand the criteria they've been given for the upcoming OFSTED inspection. We're forced to wonder who exactly needs to resit the test concerned. I'd give it 8.5.
Another band I knew, but hadn't listened to before! I would have loved this at the time, but it was a fallow period for me... Always linked them in my mind with The American Analog Set, probably because they both had Set in their name and were around at the same time! Now on to Marmoset, who I have never heard of....
ReplyDeleteMarmo-Set! Hmmmmmm
ReplyDeleteAnalog Set have been recommended. Onto them next.
ReplyDeleteLoving American Analog Set this morning Darren.
ReplyDelete