Eyes of Others - the album

I really fell for Eyes of Others  after the release of single New Hair, New Me earlier in the year and I've fallen deeper after listening to their eponymous debut album, out now on Heavenly Recordings.

'Post pub, couldn't get in the club music' is how John Bryden describes his Eyes of Others project and on this evidence I wouldn't mind going back to his place!

Dub groove bass lines underpin much of the 10 songs over 41-minutes. The beats that go along with the bass are inventive and all kinds of melodic, crazy, psychedelic and gorgeous stuff is layered over the top.

Once, Twice, Thrice sets the tone; blissful, balearic and cool, the kind of tune you can imagine listening to at sunset ... or maybe sunrise. 

VIDEO

Safehouse has a psychedelic dub feel to it, with Caribbean effects introduced to hypnotic effect towards the end. I'd love to hear this live, I can imagine it going for ages.

At the end Bryden whispers;

I used to be handsome, I used to be good looking

Now I clean the table, once I've done the cooking

Another hypnotic bass line carries Escalation and there is so much space that allows Bryden to bring in melodica, synth effects and to sing a beautiful catchy and dreamy melody. 

At Home I am a Leader has a space dub feel to it, but there is a catchy little synth riff going on, Bryden's vocals are deep at times, hanging sweetly at others.

 I fell for New Hair New Me instantly when It came out as a single in March. It's warm, gooey, dreamy and catchy pop music. Everything hangs on a loose funky bass; beats, handclaps, ukulele drifts in and out, a dreamy synth riff, vocals that are sleepily whispered at times, addictively melodic in a playful sing-song-y way at others. 

Sometimes the lyrics are easy to make out, other times they are blurred in the perfect way. The groove, feel and melody are more important.

VIDEO

So yeah, I mentioned that post pub, couldn't get in the club vibe earlier. With Ego Hit Bryden creates something that wouldn't sound out of place at somewhere like Optimo. It's super dreamy again, the synths sound sublime, the bass and beats are super cool and Bryden sounds like he has been recorded sleeping and dreaming. Rather gorgeous and trippy.

Mother Father is more dreamy gorgeousness while Jargon Jones and Jones is built around a hypnotic little keyboard riff and has a dub-space feel it that Bryden has perfected.

Don't want to stay in, I want to out

Don't want to stay in, want to shake it all about

If Bryden was going out, then you'd imagine he'd want to go to a club playing something like Come Inside with its layers of grooves, beats, psychedelic effects and vocals that range from dreamy harmonies to deep voiced speech. I love the way the song just takes off on one at 2 minutes 42 and then drops to percussion and Bryden before going off on a groove again. 

Closing with Big Companies, Large Tentacles, with some kind of I Feel Love synth bass groove going on, Eyes of Others takes you deep into the heart of his trip. Don't hold on, let yourself go as it veers off into psychedelic acid techno territory. You won't want it to end, but sadly it does. Again, I can imagine this being extended and being beautifully wild when played live. The video is trippy as f**k!

VIDEO

I tried to love myself

So I could love you

There is a joyful and refreshing playfulness throughout the album with grooves, riffs, melodies, vocals, synth sounds, effects and beats. Bryden has been in and out of bands for almost two decades, but he has conjured up quite the debut album!

And if you like the album, why not snap up a super cool Eyes of Others t-shirt from the brilliant We Are 1 of 100.

cdd

Doune The Rabbit Hole - Friday 2022

Welcome to the first of 3 blogs on Doune The Rabbit Hole 2022.

Rosie - ready to go Doune The Rabbit Hole?!

Sadly we couldn't make it up on the Thursday night, but by all accounts the legendary Patti Smith smashed things out of the park, while Tim Burgess defied rail strikes and cancellations to make it up for his DJ slot. Going by his video tweets of him dropping The Chemical Brothers, The Human League, Underworld and The Charlatans own The Only One I Know - he had a good time and he'll be back. 

This was my first trip to Doune and I already know it won't be my last. I've followed the festival online since inception and it's grown from very humble beginnings into a really brilliant family festival.

More on that later, as my daughters Zoe and Rosie accompanied me to test that out! Zoe has promised a vlog on the weekend, but that might come later on.

Firstly, the setting is absolutely gorgeous. Doune was under an hours drive from Uddingston, once we got off the motorway we marvelled at the rolling green hills and hundreds of bales of hay neatly rolled up, stretching as far as they eye could see.

The skies were grey and rain was falling, however as we got closer to the festival site, the clouds parted and before long blue skies were the order of the day. 

Doune's festival site is absolutely stunning. Each stage area is well thought out, Nothing is too far away, no stage is overwhelmingly huge, yet there is plenty of space. There are beautiful trees to chill under and get some shade - needed yesterday, cool food stalls, lots of quirky festival stalls and an AMAZING family area!

My youngest (7) could happily have pottered around there most of (if not all of) the day; storytelling, the legendary Singing Kettle, arts and crafts, a sandpit, giant bubble workshops and parties, drumming workshops ... and loads more. As my friend Julie (who is up with her 7 year old daughter and 4 year old son for the full weekend) said - 'if they had a coffee shop and bar here then we wouldn't need to leave!'

It was great to see kids getting up to good old fashioned fun, with a marble run proving to be a big winner! There was also a 'junk yard' for kids to play with all kinds of things, or see what they could make. Plus supervised tight rope walking and rope climbing.

Could they introduce a kids club! 

We spent our first couple of hours hanging in the kids club and taking a walk round the site to get our bearings. Then we headed to meet my sister Carla who was playing the Baino's Tolbooth Stage with her band Poster Paints at 1.30pm.

Poster Paints played a shimmering, summery set. Singles Number 1, Never Saw It Coming and Falling Hard were indie guitar pop tastic. While slow groove burners like Circus Moving On, Hard To Sweeten (a personal favourite) and Blood Orange show a very different side to them that will be displayed on their forthcoming debut album. The latter, with the hook, bursting blood orange, seemed made for the sunshine. Closing with My Song, which soared into New Order territory thanks to a sublime combination of bass, synth and infectious guitar, Poster Paints won new fans.

I got evidence of this through my daughter Zoe who went a walk round the festival with Carla afterwards. 'Lots of people wanted to speak with Aunt Carla!'

Poster Paints

Zoe with Aunt Carla

We kind of flitted between the Baino's stage and the family area for the rest of the afternoon. The next band Peaness (much amusement to the kids!) were really cool and also just a perfect summer soundtrack. 

The Rezillos were brilliant fun, they really got the crowd going. Although they went on earlier than billed, so there were a few disgruntled fans who sadly missed them. I think they went on earlier as The Deep Blue (from Ireland) were late. So credit to the Rezillos for that and due to the grassroots nature of Doune, it's difficult to spread the word of any changes across the site. Their cover of Land Of A Thousand Dances got people of all ages singing and dancing, then their punk hit Top Of The Pops sparkled with energy.

The Deep Blue showcased effortless 3-part harmonies and had a real Fleetwood Mac vibe going on. Very nice indeed. We also caught a bit of Liverpool's She Drew The Gun on the main stage who drew a cracking crowd. They are a very hard working band and word of mouth seems to be growing.

The Deep Blue

After some delicious German hot dogs we went over to Esperanza play a superb set on the Whistleblower stage. Their infectious and highly energetic ska set got loads of people dancing. I really enjoyed their set and the chance to cut loose.

The need to dance had arrived, so we decided to check out Optimo in the Comhla tent. There were loads of parents in with their kids and the Optimo guys were acknowledging that with nods and winks. The way they were layering and building their set was superb. I could happily have stayed to see what they played towards the end of their set, but the kids wanted to see what a festival headliner looked like. They were starting to flag a little, so we headed to the main stage for Amy MacDonald.

Amy seemed thrilled to be playing, packing the main stage area and swiftly getting into her stride with her excellent band. We only stayed for a few songs as after a long day in the sun of playing and watching bands, the kids were ready for rest.

Unfortunately Yard Act were on just a little too late for the kids. I'll need to see them when they play Saint Lukes later in the year!

Wickerman - Hector Bizerk, Example and Optimo

As the previous blog mentioned, the Everything Flows team expanded to 4 for the weekend and on the Saturday night we were all off doing different things across the site.....

Guest blog by Reddy....

And so all back to the Optimo after party…

After the eaglefaced Wickerman had fired fireworks from his fingers, and the entire structure had burnt to the deck – we adjourned to the main bar area to return to the SubClub. 

Dancing with the neon facepainted kids, the music was banging and the party vibe was in full effect – Absintine made an appearance on the dancefloor, along with Kate Bush with her cloudbursting, Prodigy took your brain to another dimension – it was the age of love for a committed number of focused dancers. Optimo knew where we were and where we wanted to be and reminded us with their final song, Lost In Music.

Earlier Example had got the packed main crowd jumping and fist pumping to his and DJ Wire’s party and indeed cheesy beats – Example ‘kickstarted’ his set with some bouncing tunes, with DJ Wire providing the dancebeats; it seemed like the party was going to continue well into the night. However with a strangely lo-key exit from the stage, the mood lowered and we all got into position to witness the Wickerman’s grand gesture.

The finest hip-hop storytelling happened before the cheese-pop of Example; Hector Bizerk rocked the Scooter tent with frontman Louie getting the crowd totally in the zone, including a flag-waving breakdancer and an artist painting out the Wickerman scene as the gig flowed along proving an additional visual to Louie’s tight rhymes and manic performance with ‘Party at A&E’ topping the bill. The set might have been cut slightly but everyone who saw Audrey and Louie will remember the all-round party-zone and especially the lowering onto their hunkers and bouncing aloft…

Photo by Gordon Reid

LCD Soundsystem @ Glasgow Barrowlands, 29th April 2010

This was a gig to savour.

The night started in one of my favourite Glasgow bars - McChuills on High Street. I don't go in nearly as often as I used to but some things never change and that is a good thing. Martin from Figure 5 working behind the bar, old Ted wandering around, good music, Barca v Inter on the TV and a nice couple of pints.

As the second half was kicking off we wandered around to the Barrowlands. Why bands play the soul-less O2 Academy over the Barras I will never know. The Barras combined with an up for it Glasgow crowd make an unrivalled combination.

We'd just got a beer from the can stall (Carlsberg unfortunately) and went down stage right when the lights dimmed and the band walked on stage shortly after 9pm.

The band launched into the funk disco groove of 'Get Innocuous' with James Murphy's cowbells taking an early battering. The line-up consisted of Murphy on vocals (with a nice 1920'2/30's style mic), bass, guitar, drums and keys/synths. With occasional assistance for Murphy on percussion.

Murphy then warmed the Barrowlands audience by saying 'tonight and tomorrows show is dedicated to Optimo' the legendary club night that has just finished at the equally legendary SubClub.

'Us v Them' was next up and the band turned things up a notch. Dry ice filled the stage and there was minimal lighting, the sole light bouncing off the classic Barras disco ball, creating just the right 'warehouse party' vibe. The groove developed into something quite special with Murphy calling out the repetitive 'Us....and them' vocal line as if he was making a political statement.

A fast version of 'Daft Punk Is Playing At My House' followed before 'Yr City's A Sucker' went back into classic LCD disco funk groove territory. Two new songs followed including current single 'Drunk Girls' that sees the band come across like a 60's garage band.

Next up was a real highlight and one of my favourite songs from recent years 'All My Friends'. The crowd responded to this excellent song that dips, flows and soars with an infectious guitar line, and when Murphy sang 'if i could see all my friends tonight, if I could see all my friends tonight' he was quite literally singing to the crowd.

Another new song 'I Can Change' highlighted Murphy's talent for melody and harmony and there was almost a Beach Boys type vibe at times to the song. 'Tribulations' and 'Movement' followed before a ferocious 'Yeah' enveloped the crowd with it's funky groove. Growing and flowing with the crowd bouncing along. This was an epic and we were watching and listening to something truly special.

The cheer and applause afterwards rang out heartily and it wasn't long before the band came back on, Murphy coming on a couple of minutes after them to take the deserved acclaim. 'Someone Great' got the band and crowd quickly back into the swing of things before the outstanding 'Losing My Edge' sent the crowd wild.

Murphy looked visibly moved and said that 'this is the best venue in the world and we'll always play here when we come to Glasgow. It's the right size for a party and if we have to play 3 or 4 nights we will.'

'All I Want' brought the crowd down gently before a gorgeous 'New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down' showed that Murphy could right ballads for Sinatra.

A truly special gig.

Set list at http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/lcd-soundsystem/2010/the-barrowland-ballroom-glasgow-scotland-4bd4ef1a.html