back to more Careless Demos
forward to Careless Talk

The Groove Criminals, Kicking Up Dust CDR

Earlier GC efforts pilfered breaks from the cobwebbed vaults zealously guarded by DJ Vadim’s fighting bear. The resulting instrumental hip hop was wracked with the uneasy guilt and the paranoia that comes from constantly wondering when you’ll get found out. This time around, Oli Bell has gone legit, tidying up the vinyl crackle, pushing his skeletons into the closet and flattering his beats with the commercial gloss of a soulful vocal. Mr Dan is currently doing very nicely, thank you, with just this kind of conversion and there’s no reason why the crims shouldn’t do the same. www.groovecriminals.co.uk

Braer Rabbit CDR

"Their management considered it for the current re-release. But not for very long." Puffinboy – yes, Puffinboy – is talking about Braer Rabbit’s Sour Kraut remix of Electrelane’s Film Music which closes this CDR. With all due respect to Electrelane’s mentors they must be fucking mental. The remix starts off with Mantronik splicing John Barry through an acid box, blends seamlessly into the chap who plays the Wurlitzer at Blackpool Tower Ballroom vamping John Barry numbers through the interval and ends up with John Barry evacuating himself through an echoing length of railway tunnel. I don’t know about you, but that’s what I call a result. fools@foolproofprojects.co.uk

Tin.RP/Hinyouki, Killing Aubade CDR

Aubade is a French lingerie company famed for its stylish and artful – or degrading and pornographic, depending on your point of view – advertising. Their posters consist of black and white photographs of headless female bodies in provocative poses and scanty underwear with "lessons" for women helpfully added. Voyeurs and budding Mary Whitehouses can look them up at www.aubade.com. On Killing Aubade, Tin.RP (from France) and Hinyouki (from Spain) have collaborated to produce 50 minutes of "frontal noise assault" as a protest, mostly, although in the extensive sleeve notes Crypt of Hinyouki seems genuinely confused by the others’ objections: "To me, the use of female images to sell coffee, cars or liquors isn’t necessarily an abuse, it’s an expression of freedom, happiness and beauty." The music is scalding effects-mongering of the kind pioneered by Merzbow compacted down into bite-sized chunks and lobbed under a passing train. www.burningemptiness.fr.st or Del Nista, Chemin de Saint Marc, Mauran 13130 Berre L’Etang, France.

Misterbuster, Major F’ing Stars CDR

There’s nothing like false modesty. And this is nothing like etc etc. Misterbuster bill themselves as the only interactive band in the world and, in fairness, they may have a point. Anybody can interact with Ben and Mike by sending a sound sample which will be incorporated into the next tune. For all their future-modernist posturing, I can’t imagine turning up at U2’s next Wembley extravaganza with a minidisk full of farts and having The Edge mix them live into the intro of Pop, can you? The pick of these three controlled dada cut-ups (where the beat always rules the mess) is Fatty, So Nasty which, I’ve been trying to persuade myself, is an anti-tribute to Norman Cook. www.misterbuster.com PO Box 2584, Arlington, Virginia 22202. USA

Steve Escott, Issue 1 CDR

".. as I hit middle age, and the middle class, I’m having problems defining my position, relevance and attitude to music." And it shows, Steve, it really shows. The majority of Issue 1 is taken up inward-looking drone and tone experiments, crackling with restlessness and dissatisfaction, divisive and quietly nihilistic. It’s obvious that Steve doesn’t know what he wants and that’s why he can’t produce it, which would be the launching point for my self-obsessive treatise on the malaise of contemporary culture if only Neuter and 12 didn’t shake things up with a dark drum’n’bass rampage and a brief, and tricky, electro burst. Perhaps Steve might make Issue 2 after all. £3 to 80 Hawthorne St, Leicester, LE3 9FQ www.391recordings.com

Luxembourg CDR

I went to Luxembourg once. It was crap. I was inter-railing, can you still do that? I don’t know what the kids are into these days. "Inter-railing? It’s all inter-NET these days, you fucking grandad." Anyway. Luxembourg. Is. Expensive. Which means that, desperate times and all, MacDonalds becomes an option for the hungry traveller. Sat in MacDonalds with Donna Donnelly, feeling rather virtuous at having bought a salad to go with the monosodium glutamate burgers, she was struggling to open the sachet of dressing. Big man Possession to the rescue. Flexing my biceps, triceps and potentially other ceps, I snatched the silver packet out of her hands and tore it with a miniscule movement that disguised the amount of effort needed – as men are required to do by the universal code of masculinity (it’s in the subsection on making women feel inferior while acting like David Hasselhof.) Unfortunately, the flourish with which I ripped the thing open and the vacuum that was released when it tore conspired to send a stringy ejaculation of salad cream arcing over our table, over the plant box-topped partition, against the decorative mirror and onto the head of the large, muscular chap sitting at the next table. I have never finished a meal so quickly. Now where was I? Luxembourg, the demo is sub-Sarah terrible. david@luxembourgweb.co.uk

Owen Tromans, Box Of Tapes CDR

Owen used to be the man behind Black Country bootboys, San Lorenzo. That three-piece made a couple of coruscating rush-of-blood post-rrrrock records for Gringo and latterly Bearos before calling it a day. There was always more to the band than loud-soft (but in retrospectives, wasn’t there always?) and so it’s no surprise to find that Tromans was recording gentle and intelligent, folkish semi-acoustic songs, noisescape drones and garage trash-meets Arab Strap rock on his bedroom 4-track all the time. On the standout tune, There Is No Progress, he recalls the rockabilly bendiness of early Eat but by neglecting to put dates on any of the tracks we can’t tell whether or not he’s right. £5 from sacred_geometry@hotmail.com

Trilemma

The accompanying letter is an essay in indie underachievement. How do I think Trilemma should go about getting more coverage and reviews, they ask. You’re the only person we’ve sent the demo to, they tell me. Doh! Trilemma. It sums them up. One more than a dilemma. But at least naïve in a touchingly appealing kind of way. And they rock with the same gently swaying motion. Like Ride stripped of any momentum, half their pedals and the bloke who couldn’t really sing, or Galaxie 500 with an inferiority complex and smalltown mentality. Beautiful music. Rob Jones, 6 Oakshaw Grove, Trentham, Stoke On Trent, ST4 8UB.

www.carelesstalkcostslives.com