Singles

The Go! Team, Cosmo Jarvis - Singles Round-Up 24/01/11

Rachel Miele 29/01/2011

Hello lovely GIITTV readers, how are we all? Braving that last week in January before payday finally arrives? (Hallelujah) If you can take a few minutes out of your busy schedule eating beans on stale Ryvita, why not have a little read of this week's gorgeously put together singles round-up? As always, it is an 'eclectic' mix as some like to say but we all know that means "about one brilliant single and a few that are alright but not as god awful as the crock of shit still sitting in the inbox." No, really it isn't ALL bad; at least we're not sexist toward females in the industry or anything ... (Get this done by Friday, if you aren't too busy watching Sex and the City whist getting your nails done. And make me a fucking sandwich! - Ed.) Right, let's get cracking shall we?...

If you are the sort of person who enjoys annoying other passengers on the bus with sound leaking from your headphones - then step right up, Random Hand are for you! Young guns who like to 'rock out' may also enjoy new single Find What's Out There; they do that loud, bashing thing with every instrument they lay their hands on including a Reel Big Fish style brass section. What I don't understand is, there are potentially great parts to this song if you were to separate it out a bit and expand on some of the sections. However, if you can imagine a band sitting in the studio, throwing around ideas : "I want to scream stuff", "I want to smash stuff", "I want to pretend I'm in Iron Maiden", "Eh... guys, I'm REALLY into trumpets at the moment." Find What's Out There is what happens when nobody wants to be the mean one and say "Nah, that sounds a bit mental, maybe we should only do one or two of those." On the other hand, after listening to the song on repeat for about an hour I am becoming slowly hypnotised by the backing singers wailing FIND WHAT'S OUT THEEEEEERE!!! Well, that and it is giving me an overwhelming urge to spin around the room and smash everything in sight, maybe even pretend I am in the music video for it... Bit Awkward?

Either way, Random Hand clearly have enough support out there (or enough money being thrown up at them, depending on how you want to look at it) to tour throughout the UK and Europe. As well as gaining official releases in both the US and Canada - is there some sort of underground, leaky headphone membership club going on?

Now, have you ever been in a situation where one of your friends has said "Hey, have you heard these guys? They're well funny like. Listen to this!" Then you do, and you wish you had never, ever done that smile and nod of the head. But by then, it's too late, the song has started - keep with the smile and nod, keep with the smile and nod, it will all be over soon. This is exactly what happened to me when I pressed play on the new single from Cosmo Jarvis. I should have known better, after all it IS called Gay Pirates. Don't get me wrong, I love a good guitar based comedy single, a la Flight of the Conchords...just not one with too many words and lasting more than three minutes - now there's a duo who know how to do it. Gay Pirates will appeal to your thirteen year-old brother though, so you might say they have a niche market.

Up next we have some boys with drums and guitars and apparently their very own "eff you" attitude. Aside from the fact they are pretty much unsearchable online Disappears latest single Guider isn't actually too bad once you find it. They claim to record and accept everything in one take and the cynic in me automatically...well...agrees. And not in a good way. Disappears reignite this love/hate relationship I have with The Fall - part of me is all YEAH MAN, SHOUT STUFF AND PLAY GUITAR, the other part of me thinks REALLY?! WHAT A WASTE OF TIME AND STUDIO SPACE. However, if this is the sound they are going for, then well done on their part - they have clever punk based roots in their sound but manage to bring it up to date by nicking the way The Enemy play drums (who of course took influence from Rick Buckler in The Jam). Guider is not necessarily a bad piece of music, but neither is it particularly brilliant or groundbreaking - not that all music should be of course. Where the track trips up though is that it isn't catchy enough to stay memorable - a feat which isn't exactly impossible when you think about it. Artists with this style of sound definitely have to posses that knack of making sure a track is loud and driving enough to actually stay with you after you listen - Guider starts off on this promise but becomes lost as the song goes on and eventually fades. Never the less it is a harmless, rhythm driven song which (hopefully) doesn't offend too many ears; that might depend on this mystery lyrical content though.

Moving across the continent slightly, let me direct you to a remix of Swedish quartet Fortune Cookies Blues song Berlin, now titled Arch of Berlin. Why the name change? Why not just do what everyone else does and say Berlin: Remix version? Anyway, it's alright if you like listening to music in order to get confused and/or hypnotised. I am trying to decide whether or not the strung out tone of the vocal and string part are there to give me a headache or to confuse me and send me to sleep. It would be nice to hear the original mix but since they have made it so hard to reach I might just leave it out.

For the sweetest jingle jangle pop to come out of 2011 (it is early yet, I am confident it will make the top 5 jingle jangle pop anthems of the year - easily) we come to.... Buy Nothing Day - the latest single from Brighton-based boy/girl troupe The Go! Team. Before I go on, let me get one thing out of the way:
It is fucking fantastic.

Even being recorded over a year ago doesn't make any difference - it is still as relevant now as it was back then. Not content with their own band members, they have drafted in Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast to take lead vocals role - a clever choice. There is no escaping the inevitable 90s indie comparisons, but surprisingly The Stone Roses comes to mind when listening to it, but what they'd sound like if they had a lovely American girl singing it (this Stone Roses relation is not a bad thing by the way, so stop that screwing up face thing you're probably doing right now, you music snob). In simple terms you can say it is a brilliant song to start your year, or to sound track your 2011 summer holiday with. If you want to act the prick you can say: “I love late 80s indie-rock and this less evasive version is right up my street - HAVE YOU HEARD THAT MANI-ESQUE BASSLINE?!?! LIVE FOREVER! I LOVE THE 90S!” We all know that's what the cool guys are thinking isn't it? Either way, whichever opinion you intend to say out loud, the sentiment is the same - Buy Nothing Day is an absolutely brilliant tune. Not gonna lie, I think I have listened to it about forty times in the space of three days - and not just during review-writing time. It's being listened to in spare time readers, SPARE TIME!!!

Buy Nothing Day will no doubt please both current Go! Team fans as well as generate new ones, and is clearly the single of the week. My only qualm is the '1, 2, 3, 4' count in at the start but it is easily forgotten (and in my insistent mind; removed.) It's OK though; once those jingle jangle guitars kick in, the world is happy again. It's available to buy NOW!