“When you grow up in the East End of London in the 1970s, you wanna believe in evolution, I’m telling you. You don’t wanna believe that this is the end game.”
Hefty interview with Rudy Tambala of A.R. Kane over at Tone Glow.
I’ve listened to the Up Home! EP a few times in recent weeks, A.R. Kane on my mind since the review of the box set in the Wire. Filleted from the Complete Singles Collection, the EP sounds more striking than ever, almost incomprehensibly accomplished for a band only on their third single, and a quantum leap on from their debut, “When You’re Sad”. The lacerating distortion, the cavernous dub spaciousness, the rough sutures between the musical ideas left defiantly exposed…even in the febrile milieu of early UK post-rock, there weren’t many bands who sounded so individual, so unexpected. Maybe My Bloody Valentine (the jagged stop-start noise of Isn’t Anything more than the amniotic wash of Loveless) or Disco Inferno. It surprises me that several times in the interview Rudy mentions Slowdive, who I always thought of as being irremediably obvious and plodding, but perhaps I underrate them.
Elsewhere:
Keith Leblanc (Tackhead, Sugarhill Gang etc.) talks to Burning Ambulance.
Aquarium Drunkard explores guitar/drum duos, talking to Steve Gunn, Jim White, and Rick Brown of 75 Dollar Bill (who played two transcendental sets at the Workman’s Cellar last Saturday).