Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 11:56:03 +0000 From: Richard Clemens Subject: Quigley & Hood live and Vespertine records Hello and sorry for the cross post. I am sure that this is relevant to both lists? On Friday 5 Dec went to see Quigley and Hood at the Briton's Protection, Manchester. Following on closely from the Labradford gig it appears that this very inappropriate upstairs room could be come a regular venue. I hope not. Having seen Quigley before supporting BEAR (Chris Trout) I knew what to expect, gentle vocal and guitar pieces, with what I assume were backing tracks, but as I was full of cold I was sat at the back and couldn't see properly. Despite the high level of chatter it was a enjoyable and emotive set. Though he appears to have budded since last time I saw him and was joined on stage by a bloke on acoustic guitar. I suppose its in the same field as Ian Masters and all that. Hood were a much larger set up with all sorts of people playing schrreeetchy violin, clarinet, and possibly a trumpet. Took a while for me to adjust, but very interesting stuff. I'd like to hear it again when my brain was less riddled with bugs. As the term now has the offical Select seal of approval I'd say they were post-rock, saves me having to be insightful! Found out about the gig from Vespertine Records when I received their excellent cd "an evening in the company of vespertine". I know its been mentioned before, but I am gonna do it again for those that missed it. This generously long compilation includes Oneironaut (Ian Masters ex-Pale Saints) though its one inch army off the single and a very short instrumental. Other bits on it includes the aforementioned Quigley, fuxa, Appendix Out, gnac, Transfiguration, Lazerboy (a band which also includes Chris Trout, few seem not to) and others. Its generally all a fairly mellow affair. Its distributed by Cargo so should be in the UK shops. Or direct for =A310 in P&P (Vespertine, P.O. Box 267, Halifax HX1 3YL UK). Details of tracks etc are on the Vespertine website (http://www.alcd.soton.ac.uk/~mdt/vespertine/) and possibly still at Ian Masters' Institute of Spoons (http://www.dfuse.com/xt/spoons/index.htm). After the gig I broke with a habit of a life time and went to have a chat, first with the very pleasant Mr Quigley and then with Richard of Vespertine. He informed me that apart from he is moving to sunny Salford (lucky man!) Vespertine will be releasing new material from BEAR in the new year, both a single and an LP. He claims that the material is excellent, but he maybe biased. However, if its up to the standards of the previous BEAR releases on Che and elsewhere it will be. Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 20:05:07 +0000 From: Andrew Norman Subject: Re: Fridge & Aerial M I have also "got" Hood, probably because the superb album on Domino ("Rustic Houses, Forlorn Valleys") is half a dozen fully-realised tracks spread over 45 minutes rather than a dozen half-realised tracks spread over 10 minutes. The single "Useless" (7", also Domino) has two tracks not on the album, all the Domino stuff was produced by 3EF's Matt Elliott. Some of it's indie strumming, some sounds like Movietone, some like Bark Psychosis. Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:23:26 +0000 From: Andrew Norman Subject: Re: The CD Frenzy v.1- > Some others I haven't listened to more than once: Rustic > Houses/Forlorn Valleys, HOOD Another very nice one. It took a > while for the tracks on Further Mutations and Angle Food > Electronics to seduce me but once they did I was a fan for sure. > This one is produced by 3EF's Matt and you can hear it but not in > the way I expected. Cleaner believe it or not. Should appeal to Bark Psychosis or ARKane fans - I had written off Hood as the ultimate lo-fi indie underachievers until I heard some of the longer recent stuff (this album has 6 tracks in 45 minutes, the Earworm 7" has 11 or 12 in 10 minutes and only a couple are worth hearing). The 7" "Useless" (also Matt Elliot-produced) is just as good.