Thursday, February 27, 2014

Three peas in a pod, they are not: Benjamin Shaw/POBPAH/Plantagenet 3

Benjamin Shaw - Goodbye, Kagoul World

Shaw's cracked anti-folk (literally rather than figuratively) drones first came across our radar five years ago, and on this first taste of a second album of the same name, out 21st April through Audio Antihero, it sounds like a highly individual step forward into the void, circling guitar parts getting subsumed in funereal wind instruments, free jazz drop-ins and general oppressiveness before his downcast vocals, exhausted by life, issue likeminded lyrics.




The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Simple And Sure

It's make your mind up time. Showcasing neither the fuzzbombs of their debut or the sonic bluster of its follow-up POBPAH's third album Days of Abandon, out April 21st, is previewed by big melodic pop shapes and a production that takes them a step nearer wipe-clean classicism. Twenty years ago coming on like this they'd have been Jellyfish. Or Airhead. World Party, possibly.




Plantagenet 3 & A Little Orchestra - Canute (The Irresistible Surf)

Plantagenet 3 are a slowcore spaghetti western instrumental outfit we first wrote about in autumn 2010; A Little Orchestra are the indiepop string section of choice whose work with Haiku Salut, Darren Hayman and Model Village we variously highlighted on here last year. This new 7" out this time next month brings the two together to appropriately dark twangingly cinematic effect.

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