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Kiint, Shrinking Violent CDR

I toss my quill nonchalantly onto the green leather plateau atop the large and deeply burnished antique desk, the final words of my third play, The More Random Bubble Machine, still echoing around the chambers of my mind. I chuckle at the depth of my own wit, lean back into the uncomfortable but expensive chair and slacken the sash on my Burberry smoking jacket an inch or two – during composition, the pain of constriction releases the artistry within. I flick through the demo pile, light a pipe of Ukranian Shag and find myself idly wondering whether Kiint are trying to call themselves Kűnt in a way circumvents offence. I suck on my Great Narlburner and consider whether we forward-thinking folks at Careless Talk censor words like Kűnt. Or Cunt? I turn my attentions to the irony that you, dear reader who cares little, will know immediately while it will be 3 months before the answer is revealed to the question’s poser. But time waits for no man, and Kiint are aware of this truism, licketty-splitting through Life Imitates Pop in a fuzz bass plus electronics and scraped guitar kind of way that pleasures one greatly. www.handcrimped.com kiint@handcrimped.com

My Alibi CDR

“Gigs with the likes of Halo, Echobelly and Mass.. chords of Muse, upbeat hollers of Biffy Clyro and soothing calms of Elbow” House! My Alibi win Indie Bingo. Which is a perfect description so let’s just leave it there. www.my-alibi.co.uk

Maypole In Flames, Demo #1 CDR

Opener No Poem is a warm-up for the main event, Us & The Inevitable. Yeah sure, it could be any one of a thousand bands – mostly ones that have been through Touch and Go in some incarnation or other – but on this occasion Maypole In Flames have been handed the baton and they’re not letting it go without a fight. Serrated guitar lines battle with drums on the edge of nervous exhaustion and a chap yelps like the postman trying to get past next door’s Alsatian. www.maypoleinflames.com

Tract CDR

“There were rumours that you played our friends’ CD on your radio show and if you could do that for us that would be porn.” It’s true. I did play The Shining Reserves on my show. I doubt whether it was porn. But if I can give that kind of pleasure to someone, well all to the good. I won’t be playing Tract on the show, so they’ll have to get their jollies elsewhere – old tapes of Dave Lee Travis doing snooker on the radio or something – because for all the perfect foreplay (“Pixies, Sonic Youth, UNKLE, Tortoise.. we love you Jimmy”) the money shot never arrives (support band sound, tendency to Oasis vocals, songs that seem to last for ever.) tract_detract@hotmail.com

Monster Bobby, Even Monsters Can Be People CDR

Your Words Can’t Hold Me is the pick of Monster Bobby’s three little songs. To the tick of a crackling drum machine played through a polythene speaker, the warm hum of machines is added. Then Bobby drops in his touching vocal and a million little tunes wriggle free and dance around the room. For no good reason that I can think of, beyond the fact that I thought of it, this reminds me of The Chemistry Experiment. And that is a high recommendation. monsterbobby@totallybored.demon.co.uk

The Dusty Five, Identify, Process, Analyse, Move On CDR

Do we all remember Kingmaker? Did we all think they had something going on, and then lost it? Or is it just me? I Wanna Be Your Cat (ha ha) has the buzz and energy of the early Kingmaker with a touch of REM bigness. There’s the identification. The process is that the band get picked up by the indie arm of some major record label. I review the debut release (I Wanna Be Your Cat on cream vinyl) and my analysis is that I never really liked it or any other music from Sweden for that matter and anyway guitar music is dead. We all move on. dustyfive@hotmail.com www.dustyfive.com Anders Karlsson, Odens vag 22H, 517 36 Bollebygd, Sweden.

Baskin CDR

So quiet they’re almost not even there, Baskin’s five timid steps into the wide world could be mistaken for the sounds of a distant radio carried to you by a fortuitous wind. Except that there’s nothing as good as this on the radio (Careless Talk radio excepted, of course.) It just glimmers and hangs in the air, the picked guitar and the enveloping beauty of her voice, twined together with the complexity and fragility of a spider’s web.

baskinltf@hotmail.com

The Shining Reserves, Number Two CDR

Four blokes who’ve probably been round the musical block making music for other blokes who’ve probably been round the musical block. So Cardiacs and Wire and Gang of Four, jerk and work, short attention span, all the good bits and none of the slack. I’d like to hear Number Three. www.theshiningreserves.cjb.net

Lionshare CDR

There’s a beautiful typo in the note with the disc: “vocals in the vain of Neil Young..” He’s had his pompous, precious, egotistical moments, has Neil but Lionshare never get close to Young’s gut-wrenching falsetto, vain or otherwise. What they do put up is a slow and dark, drawn-out trawl through the mid-West. Spare arrangements with melody provided by moody mouth organ are the backing for the miserabilly sound. This is the record that’s playing on the jukebox of the diner you never leave. simonloynes@breathemail.net

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