Category: Music

After All
People Like You Records
thepeacocks.ch

Swiss psychobilly merchants The Peacocks are a well-oiled rock n’ roll machine, not to mention hardened road dogs; yet the news that they recently celebrated their 20^th anniversary comes as something of a surprise. Hey, maybe playing psychobilly is the key to retaining your youthful good looks, as these guys seem to be aging well.

Not that it would particularly matter if they weren’t, though, because most of ‘After All’ hits the target in fine style. At fifteen tracks long, it would have been easy for the record to start to blur into one long mass of twanging double bass and scratchy guitar, but as the arresting country-influenced title track bursts forth from the speakers, it’s clear that the Peacocks haven’t lost their ear for a great melody. Those who would dismiss these guys for supposedly not being ‘pure’ psychobilly are missing out; variety is no bad thing, and there’s plenty of it on display here.

For the most part, the tunes clock in at less three minutes, and still manage to leave a decent impression. ‘Boring’ sees the band taking lyrical pot-shots at trend chasers over a simple yet insanely catchy riff; ‘Lean On Me’ creeps along with vocalist Hasu singing sleepily over a lone organ backing, before some rockin’ double bass action kicks in, and the relentless pace slows slightly for the mellow but anthemic ‘Better Times’.

‘After All’ isn’t quite perfect, but overall it’s as fine an example of modern psychobilly as you could hope for – and will hopefully increase the band’s small but loyal fanbase this side of the Channel (strange how psychobilly seems to be much more popular in mainland Europe). Watch out for a clutch of UK dates in November.

Alex Gosman

24H
W+K Tokyo Lab / EMI Music Japan
hifana.com/24h

Openly billed as a concept album, the latest release from the Japanese breakbeat duo Hifana may well be the first of its kind in the perpetually underground genre. After all, the world of turntablism rarely considers unifying themes in an LP to be anything more than superfluous, and it’s hardly frequent as it is to come across a breakbeat album by one artist that isn’t indistinguishable from a compilation CD.

In 24H, the duo that so fluidly blend the old and the new, take their bag of traditional Japanese instrumental samples and beat-up MPCs to the notion of everyday living in a fast-paced contemporary city. Hailing from Tokyo, their hometown seems a more than adequate locale.

It begins with two unhesitant and pounding tracks that grow rapidly from a stereotypical university student’s morning-themed soundscape to a groggy bass wobbler. The growling bassline of Robot Namesake is the closest rendition of the noise I make every morning upon waking I’ve heard yet. Chinza Dopeness furthers the haze, as he yawns his way through a sleepy rap while machines cook breakfast and alarms are left running behind more bass assaults in ‘Wake Up’. Then, we progress through to ‘Work It’ and ‘Damn It Ringtone’, both of which are coherently evocative of that daily struggle in an epic slave-song meets Jet Set Radio urban beatfest, but from that point onwards I’m a little lost.

I attribute this to my knowledge of the Japanese language being extensive enough to cover ‘ohayo gozaimasu’ (‘good morning’) and that’s about it. UFO and Touring Tour could well be littered with post-modern poetry about rush-hour or standing in line at a bank machine for all I know. Rest assured, though the message may not reach you, the sonic brew is consistently boiling over throughout their scholarly follow-up to 2007’s Connect. If Flying Lotus created a cosmic opera with the intricate Cosmogramma then Hifana have likewise penned an unfinished urban symphony that’s forever on repeat for the daily downtown vernacular.

Stanley