Dystopian indie-rock for dystopian times, with She Drew The Gun, Burning Alms, INHALER, Jay Som, Dry Cleaning, Liz Lawrence, King Nun, Vistas, Fabian Jack et. al. Embrace the abandoned fridge that still works…rock will survive!
Sometimes, we need music to survive. To stay alive. Apparently, a small proportion of the population can live/survive without it. I’ve never met one of these aliens and don’t wish to. They are welcome to the planet when the music stops, but for now we need the music. Times have gotten very strange indeed - dystopian in fact. No need to watch anymore dystopian box sets on Netflix, just live in them instead. Weird.
Then again, while gigs everywhere are being banned as the COVID-19 pandemic hits, this is an opportunity at the very least, to listen to more music at home. Times like these, what kind of music works best for you? It takes all kinds, but let me recommend some good guitar based tunes. Simple solos, good riffs. The comforting clatter of drums and rumbling of bass. As recently as three years ago, theory was that rock bands, or indie bands even, would all be extinct by now. Panic not. Look what’s happened in the intervening period. Rock, indie, post-punk and the guitar-bass-drum combo not only soldiered on, but it got much more interesting. With bands like Porridge Radio and She Drew The Gun causing serious buzz it might even be argued (whisper it for now) that Brit Pop is coming back too. Maybe it survived in a bunker somewhere for 20 years and just sort of recuperated.
Our Riff Raff cover stars over the past 12 months illustrate this renaissance. Pictures and music say it better than I can write it (especially Mick’s portraits). The likes of Boy Azooga, Sam Fender, Alex Lahey have been our poster children of rock for our times! And they operate in a very impressive field. And for this edition (Vol. 4!) it had to be She Drew The Gun. A favourite of our artist Mick Clarke, Louisa Roach is a didactic lyricist with a penchant for tuneage and just a hint of Morricone-tinted menace to be perfect for this particular time.
After the very appropriate opener, we continue the mood with a low fi chord riff by Burning Alms that somehow just gets across the whole vibe we wish to convey with Riff Raff. It’s just terrific, uncomplicated stuff, but wait until the closing minute of the track, for the solo. Anyone holding a guitar could play it, which somehow makes it even better. From there in comes Dublin indie band Inhaler, with what we might recognise as a pop song from a less complicated time. A keyboard riff, thumping bass, soaring vocal, some heavy guitar notes and a nice arpeggio riff. Proof that melody is not missing from modern indie.
By track four we are truly motoring. Jay Som is an artist to watch. Melina Duterte’s ‘dream pop’ is attracting over half a million monthly listeners on Spotify which is extraordinary in one way, but in another makes perfect sense. As ‘Bedroom Pop’ has become yet another streaming-created genre, there’s nothing wrong with throwing a bit of distortion-guitar into the format and Jay Som does just that with a beautiful, soaring soho that emerges from this track like a Phoenix from the flames. Apparently her album Anak Ko was recorded in a retreat at Joshua Tree National Park. Yes, you can hear it.
From there we segue into Dry Cleaning’s prescient Viking Hair. Originally slated for appearance on the next instalment of our occasional series ‘Talking Voices’ (you can tell why when you hear Florence Shaw’s flatly expressive vocal delivery and beautifully intoned chorus refrain:
She’s beautiful
She’s got viking hair
She’s a tragic heroine
I’m in love
The band are slated to play Brighton’s Great Escape in May (like that is gonna happen) and will be ones to watch. The band stems from London whereas to me they sound like they’ve been keeping Jay Som company in the Nevada desert. Expect to hear them again on New Americana perhaps. Get that abandoned fridge on stage with you guys, is all I can say.
And then to Liz Lawrence, the Brit indie multi-instrumentalist recently coming into her own after honing her craft as a sometime member of indie ‘stalwarts’ (can I still use that word?) Bombay Bicycle Club. She seems to have got to the point where being contained within a band (one perhaps no longer blazing a trail (can I say that?)) was perhaps not the optimum use of her talents. A few listens to Liz’s most recent album Pity Party makes the point beautifully. Go ahead and listen twice, then thank us later when you are hooked.
I wish we had more space and you had more time and we would provide a track-by-track on everyone of the artists featured in this volume simply because all of these songs are awesome. Credit to those new music media brands like So Young, She Shreds and Goldflake Paint that are bringing more printed lines to these bands from wherever in the world they are emerging, or re-emerging.
Speaking of re-emergence and guitars, a case in point is The Strokes. The Strokes were extinct. Way back in 2001 they brought indie-rock back all by themselves with This Is It, but from there it seemed a slow burn out and for a long time...nothing. Yet they’re back. Perhaps they sensed the timing was right for a return to the fray. Worth thinking about as you wander through these quieter city streets. Indeed, if the streets do look a little quieter than usual right now, enjoy the uniqueness of the time. Put your headphones on and just wander. Don’t forget to set your Spotify playback to a 10 second crossfade, and fire up Riff Raff Vol. 4 and play (in order). As you walk and listen, you may come across an abandoned fridge that still works.