Cougar Microbes

 Have you ever been painting whilst there was a riot outside your window? I have. I was listening to ‘IFUCKINGLOVEYOU‘ by Big Black Delta. It was poignant.

It was as chaotic as it was beautiful in equal measures (Try mixing M83 to The Strokes), much like what was on my canvas in contrast to the thieving bastards kicking in windows outside.

Jonathan Bates, of whom Big Black Delta is his solo project states, it’s all about context: “If you didn’t have standard pop music as a reference, what would your pop music sound like?”

Well, Batesy you have a ruddy good point. Anyways, I suppose we should talk about you now.

‘BBDLP1‘ is the debut album from this creative wizard who incidently has worked extensively with similar mastermind Anthony Gonzalez aka M83.

It would be easy to say that this is where BBD have got their chops, but I think that would be doing them a great disservice. It would be also unfair to say phrases like ordered chaos to describe this LP. ‘BBDLP1‘ is the work of a soundscape artist who happens to have all the traits of a gifted and concise songwriter too.

‘IFUCKINGLOVEYOU‘ is a bomb exploding on a Picasso. All the beauty merging with all the ugly; The tight melodies are shards penetrating the canvas and residing deep beneath a surface of colour and chaos. There are some great sounds in this song, from angular bass synths to the huge choir that it opens with. The vocals seem to jerk from aching, emotive phrases to the manic punk rock banshee wails.

In the same vein, the dark moment of joy that is ‘Roost‘ and brooding, vocoder lead ‘Put The Gun On The Floor‘ that opens the album, roll like a train through the night; chugging and swelling in a vast space, pistons exploding into life.

As I said before there, minus the instrumentals such as the closer ‘Gimme A Ride‘ (that does sound like it belongs on the opening credits to ‘The Hitcher), these are for all intents and purposes pop songs, but they have been laboured over with some terrific sounds. ‘Betamax‘ is almost kitsch but rocks along 80′s fashion like Talking Heads.

Going back to what Jonathan Bate‘s said about pop music, I think the best way to describe ‘BBDP1‘ is an 80′s pop song that’s been completely fucked with. For the good of all mankind.

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Post by T.R Wicks

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TRACKS:

Huggin & Kissin by Big Black Delta

Cougar Microbes caught up with the members of Maps & Atlases munching on a vegetarian platter hours before they were due on stage at Cargo.  We discussed sweaty clothes, Cee Lo Green and scary songs:

- Cougar Microbes – So to start off; what time did you guys get out of bed this morning?

- Maps & Atlases – We got up at 8:30.

- CM - 8:30? Was that out of choice or where you dragged out of bed?

- M&A – Well we had to get down to London from Manchester so it was kind of like we dragged ourselves out of bed.

- CM – How do you guys kill time on the road? Do you play games?

- M&A – We had a couple of fun games. We used to have games, now we just don’t talk (laughs). Fortunately there’s lots of scenery to take in.

- CM - And the great weather?

M&A – Of course your great weather!

CM – What have been your favourite venues on this UK tour?

M&A – We really liked the venue from last night, Manchester Deaf Institute was really cool, and Glasgow just looked awesome as a city.

CM – Any absolutely shocking venues?

M&A- Actually, kind of funny you bring that up… they were mostly good.

CM – We like to name and shame

M&A – All our shows have been good experiences…. but it got so packed at our Brighton show and it got extremely hot, the air conditioning wasn’t working… people were passing out, literally. We nearly passed out. It was pretty bad.

The clothes we have from that show are still wet.

CM – Are there any tracks in the set you are sick of playing?

M&A – Not yet but probably by the end of this tour (laughs).

CM – And what’s your favourite?

M&A – You know, I think ‘Pigeon’ is a fun one to play it’s got all these things that could go wrong so it is just scary enough to be exciting every time. Its high energy but it has a good root to it. It’s pretty easy to mess it up but it is so great to play.

CM – Are you guys able to write on the road?

M&A – I guess writing lyrics can happen any time, but we don’t necessarily as you would imagine. I guess sometimes we will have a 2 minute jam on the side of the soundcheck but for the most part when you are playing live you don’t wanna be pissing off the sound guys.

CM – Whats more important for you, the lyrics or the melody?

M&A – Hopefully there is a balance between both. I think the lyrics are important to give a sense to the songs you are singing but without the melody tying it together its not really worth anything. I guess if i had to chose one Lyrics would be slightly more important.

I mean look at Cake, who are a fantastic band, and notice how they emphasise the lyrics whilst he almost talks over it.

CM – and says ‘Oh no’ a lot of times…

M&A – Exactly!

CM – You guys have toured with Ra Ra Riot, mewithoutyou and Minus the Bear, who would you like to tour with again

M&A – We did a few shows with Rar Ra Riot and those were fun and we did some with Foals which we also enjoyed. Really any of those tours we’d love to do again.

I’d like to do Frightened Rabbit again. There aren’t too many bands that we’ve toured with that we disliked.

CM – What is the most flattering thing you’ve read or heard about yourselves?

M&A – I really like some of the comparisons we get all the time. we are one of these bands that always gets oddball comparisons. People are like “yeah you sound like Talking Heads and… Prince” and I’m just thinking yeah, I guess thats pretty awesome. We’ll take that.

The other day Dave was compared to Cee Lo which made us laugh.

CM – Which other bands are doing stuff that you like at the moment?

M&A – I like Phantogram a lot, Wild Beasts came out a while ago but that was an awesome album, a band that is coming out soon called Gypsyblood will be pretty awesome.

CM – When was the last time you queued up and paid for a show?

M&A - I just got tickets to Dismemberment Plan in Chicago, hopefully I wont have to queue. I got tickets for a Thermals show last year and didn’t really have to wait in line for very long. Not because I’m a rockstar or anything, just that I got there at the right time.

CM – Are there any covers you are planning to record or have recorded?

M&A – We are always trying to think of an awesome cover we could play.

CM – You could do Cee Lo?

M&A – Now that’s an awesome idea… We were actually working on a couple of songs earlier in the tour like an Echo & The Bunnymen track.

CM – Final question, if you have to bring an artist back from the dead and swap them with a living artist who would it be and why?

M&A – We’d probably wanna bring someone back whose career has been cut short like Buddy Holly or someone like that. Someone who was unfortunate to die but fortunate for their career to go that way.

I say we bring back Buddy Holly. Swap them with someone like Puddle of Mudd. In fact you don’t even have to bring anyone back, just take that band away.

The album ‘Perch Patchwork‘ is out now on FatCat.

TRACKS:

With the accessibility of music today, hearing bands and their influences through their music is inevitable and unsurprising. Unfortunately, for every appealing mockery you get 3,000 rip-offs. Robbers On High Street aping Spoon comes to mind and, of course, the popular rip-off artist of the moment Owl City, who practically admitted to copying The Postal Service sound.

Occasionally there are the rare examples where you say to yourself, “Wow, this sounds exactly like , <insert popular, genre defining band> but it’s still great!” and that’s just it; an act can tastefully wear their influences on their sleeves without sounding talentless.

For example, without Joy Division‘s moody, melancholic expression there would be no Interpol. The Brothers Wilson paved the way for the Fleet Foxes with their intricate and lush harmonies. Regardless of how ridiculous it may seem for preppy, educated white kids to dabble in world and afrobeat rhythms, the Talking Heads beat Vampire Weekend to the punch by over 30 years.

Although on a much smaller scale, Daddy Lion fall into the latter category. The unsigned band from Washington D.C sound like all of their influences (listed on their myspace) and they’re all the better for it. A hint of Joy Division can be heard on ‘Falling to Pieces‘, Hüsker Dü can be heard on ‘Just Die Young‘ and ‘Morning‘ could easily be a Dinosaur Jr. B-side slow burner.

According to NPR, it’s a bedroom breakup album by a semi-stalker using the name “Daddy Lion” as a pseudonym… you know… a typical stalker move. But stalker or not, his varying display of songs make for a good listen, and even though it’s a “break-up” album it doesn’t bog down with sadness.

Although they only have a 6-song EP to their credit, they cover a lot of ground in those precious 19 minutes, mining the past 30 years of pop influences. My hope is that they hone in on a specific genre for their follow-up, or risk falling into that previously mentioned latter category.

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This post written by Adam, aka Simon & Cougarfunkel

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Tracks available from http://daddylion.bandcamp.com/