New new NO sounding band #825

They play guitars and synths. Sometimes at the same time. This from yesterday's Guardian:

Sleeping Bags (No 825)

The latest side project from pop polymath Matt Kivel finds him in thrall to the drone and moan of the Velvets and Valentines

Hometown: Long Beach, California.

The lineup: Matt Kivel (vocals, instruments).

The background: It's a great time to dabble, to be a dilettante. Matt Kivel certainly seems to be enjoying the freedom you get from cheap recording equipment and the easy ways you can deliver music to other people these days. Apart from being a rock critic – and you know recording equipment is cheap if a rock writer can afford it – he's in bands, several of them. We wrote about one of Kivel's many outfits, Princeton, last November, when we described them as cerebral Vampire Weekend-alikes with a simultaneous penchant for shoegazing, Postcard jangle and echoey, epic 1960s pop. Also in Princeton is his brother Jesse, who moonlights, too, in Kisses, who we happened to describe in March as purveyors of dreamy, wistful disco with a hint of 70s Guilty Pleasures, "like New Order's Movement produced by Moroder not Martin Hannett".

Clearly seeking more approbation from New Band of the Day – and evidently taken with our purple prose about Kisses – Matt now has a "disco side-project" called Gold Room influenced by Moroder, Cerrone, Patrick Cowley and Arthur Russell. Sounds great. Concurrently, he's working on two other projects, Sleeping Bags and Mystery Claws, who are releasing a split single in August, despite being quite different affairs. Mystery Claws is a team-up with filmmaker/musician Julia Bembenek and drummer Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint that finds Kivel indulging his 70s west coast soft-rock and new wave sides.

Sleeping Bags are on more of a drone-rock, space-rock, krautrock and dream-pop tip. That Kivel loves the Velvets and the Valentines is written all over their by turns droney and blurry music (plus, he said so in an interview). Pehr is seven minutes and 37 seconds of noise that phase shifts from horizontal riff progression to eastern spice – it's Maharishi motorik, like George Harrison jamming with Neu!, or Ravi Shankar at the Ash Ra Tempel. Yellow Bulbs is more concise, in an early New Order vein, or one of those bands that trailed in NO's wake – like the Wake. Glow evinces Kivel's infatuation with Kevin Shields and shoegaze. The vocals are hazy, the sound is smeary and indistinct, but it coalesces into what might vaguely be considered a pop-song shape. Kivel is a student of that period, 1986-88, when bands like Sonic Youth and MBV were involved in, as critics hailed it, "the reinvention of the guitar". He may only be reviving not reinventing himself, but the fluidity with which he operates and flexibility of his arrangements suggest he's at least part of some kind of revolution.

The buzz: "A fantastically distorted post-rock affair; a maze of guitars and melody with a buried (but excellent) vocal performance buoying the track" – Stark.

The truth: Taxi! The Thames Valley!

Most likely to: Go nowhere, vast.

Least likely to: Move to Reading.

What to buy: The Sleeping Bags/Mystery Claws split single is released on 16 August by Jodie & Victor.

File next to: My Bloody Valentine, Neu!, Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground.

Links: myspace.com/thesleepingbags

Thursday's new band: Rosanna.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/14/new-band-sleeping-bags

More lazy journalism...maybe Fuc51 had a point in the constant hype of any electro influenced or synth using band as the new New Order.

Things like that make me want to NOT listen to said group even if their sound is what I like.

leather_girl wrote: More lazy journalism...maybe Fuc51 had a point in the constant hype of any electro influenced or synth using band as the new New Order.

Things like that make me want to NOT listen to said group even if their sound is what I like.

Quite right Miss Girl.

If this guy is a 'polymath' does he not have an original idea of his own?

The only group that has conjured up any NO-related influence recently of any note is Delphic, who are: (i) quite good; (b) from Manchester; and, (iii) openly vocal about attempting to create a new era in Manchester music that, whilst respecting the city's proud musical heritage, isn't parochial nor inward looking.

noorder wrote:

The only group that has conjured up any NO-related influence recently of any note is Delphic, who are: (i) quite good; (b) from Manchester; and, (iii) openly vocal about attempting to create a new era in Manchester music that, whilst respecting the city's proud musical heritage, isn't parochial nor inward looking.

depends how you are defining recently - as delphic have been going well over a year now (much longer if you include when they were called snowfight in the city centre) can't be that recent & as any NO related influence includes being influenced by joy division & if you think they are the only group from the last few years that fits either description you need to listen to more new music

Lazy journalism? It thought it was enjoyably pithy myself. Being a sad 30s-something they are certainly dropping the right names to get me slightly interested. I also attended that bloody 'shoegazing' all-dayer in Slough in the early 90s, so even that reference floats my boat a wee bit.

Are any of these acts actually worthy of comparison to MBV, early New Order, etc?

Clayhead Liberation Faction wrote:

Are any of these acts actually worthy of comparison to MBV, early New Order, etc?

This band appear to be. And they're called 'Ceremony' (ya see??). Know nothing about them other than this song fucking rocks. It was on a brand new 'Something In Construction' compilation called 'Better Pop Music' I downloaded off iTunes yesterday. 28 tracks for £2.49. Some really amazing stuff on it including Memory Tapes who I posted about earlier today.

hibster wrote:

noorder wrote:

The only group that has conjured up any NO-related influence recently of any note is Delphic, who are: (i) quite good; (b) from Manchester; and, (iii) openly vocal about attempting to create a new era in Manchester music that, whilst respecting the city's proud musical heritage, isn't parochial nor inward looking.

depends how you are defining recently - as delphic have been going well over a year now (much longer if you include when they were called snowfight in the city centre) can't be that recent & as any NO related influence includes being influenced by joy division & if you think they are the only group from the last few years that fits either description you need to listen to more new music

and Lisa Brown before that, and the guys behind Delphic have just found the right sound and for the years before that the ripped everyone off from the strokes to camera obscura. It's a shame that whatever a new band does it's seen as copying whoever fashionable at the time

hibster wrote:

noorder wrote:

The only group that has conjured up any NO-related influence recently of any note is Delphic, who are: (i) quite good; (b) from Manchester; and, (iii) openly vocal about attempting to create a new era in Manchester music that, whilst respecting the city's proud musical heritage, isn't parochial nor inward looking.

depends how you are defining recently - as delphic have been going well over a year now (much longer if you include when they were called snowfight in the city centre) can't be that recent & as any NO related influence includes being influenced by joy division & if you think they are the only group from the last few years that fits either description you need to listen to more new music

Not being a pendant, 'recently' to me is, well, recently. Twelve months is recently. Of course, I don't listen to new music, I sit in my bedroom, curtains closed listening to Republic on continual loop recalling the days I had a Barney haircut.

Now, I would have saved you some time Hibster if I'd originally written, "The only group that has conjured up any NO-related influence recently of any note for me is Delphic..."

New Order are omnipresent. My missus, only knew Regret before she married me, now she sees NO/JD references every day of the week when she's out and about.

GlasVegas wrote:

Clayhead Liberation Faction wrote:

Are any of these acts actually worthy of comparison to MBV, early New Order, etc?

This band appear to be. And they're called 'Ceremony' (ya see??). Know nothing about them other than this song fucking rocks. It was on a brand new 'Something In Construction' compilation called 'Better Pop Music' I downloaded off iTunes yesterday. 28 tracks for £2.49. Some really amazing stuff on it including Memory Tapes who I posted about earlier today.

Very good! I like those Memory Tapes boys a lot and will be investigating further, and these Ceremony chaps above are rather good too - my opinion having absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they sound exactly like a hybrid of New Order and early Ride, of course.

A hybrid of New Order and early Ride is possibly the best thing I can imagine. The thing with that shoegaze sound is that it can't really go anywhere but who cares? Still sounds ace. Still nice to listen to the young 'uns that roll around every 4/5 years or so and try to sound like MBV. No shame in that.

For the ultimate influences-on-our-sleeves 'nugaze' check out...

Amusement Parks On Fire

Butterfly Explosion

frads did you know the telescopes have reformed recently & have released a new album?

& there is a great compilation of the black tambourines stuff including never released before tracks that was released earlier this year

noorder wrote:

hibster wrote:

noorder wrote:

The only group that has conjured up any NO-related influence recently of any note is Delphic, who are: (i) quite good; (b) from Manchester; and, (iii) openly vocal about attempting to create a new era in Manchester music that, whilst respecting the city's proud musical heritage, isn't parochial nor inward looking.

depends how you are defining recently - as delphic have been going well over a year now (much longer if you include when they were called snowfight in the city centre) can't be that recent & as any NO related influence includes being influenced by joy division & if you think they are the only group from the last few years that fits either description you need to listen to more new music

Not being a pendant, 'recently' to me is, well, recently. Twelve months is recently. Of course, I don't listen to new music, I sit in my bedroom, curtains closed listening to Republic on continual loop recalling the days I had a Barney haircut.

Now, I would have saved you some time Hibster if I'd originally written, "The only group that has conjured up any NO-related influence recently of any note for me is Delphic..."

New Order are omnipresent. My missus, only knew Regret before she married me, now she sees NO/JD references every day of the week when she's out and about.

if it's 12 months & if we are being pedantic then delphic don't fit that

oh & i didn't say listen to some, i said listen to more new music, there are some great bands out there

for another band with new order influence the xx released a pretty good album that's bound to feature on the mercury nominations

hibster wrote: frads did you know the telescopes have reformed recently & have released a new album?

& there is a great compilation of the black tambourines stuff including never released before tracks that was released earlier this year

Jesus Christ - really? "The Perfect Needle" was a big 'tune' amongst the spotty, disaffected yoof of North Salop when it came out. Sounded particularly good on mushrooms as I recall. I also loved that last, brilliant LP they released that was clearly heavily indebted to "Screamadelica" but was comedown genius nevertheless.

Is their new stuff worth spending my dole on, Hibster? Or should I just dust off my old Telescopes vinyl? (Some of the bands G has been recommending above already have me reaching nostalgically for old Seefeel records, FFS....)

GlasVegas wrote:

Clayhead Liberation Faction wrote:

Are any of these acts actually worthy of comparison to MBV, early New Order, etc?

This band appear to be. And they're called 'Ceremony' (ya see??). Know nothing about them other than this song fucking rocks. It was on a brand new 'Something In Construction' compilation called 'Better Pop Music' I downloaded off iTunes yesterday. 28 tracks for £2.49. Some really amazing stuff on it including Memory Tapes who I posted about earlier today.

Well, they've obviously tried to learn to play Run (or Run2, whatever) & then made another song out of it - disguising it with production that makes it sound more like The Alarm

Ahhh. The bassline and wee guitar riff in the opening few bars is indeed identical to Run but that's about where the similarities end. And I can't hear anything by the bloody Alarm in there (thank Christ).

I remember Hooky described Green Day as 'The American Alarm'. A brilliant observation by the man. I've used the same reference when anybody I know who likes Green Day has brought them up but it's usually been met with a 'who are The Alarm?' response.