Enduring Spirit

On tour to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their eponymous debut LP, The Raincoats should be assured of its legacy if last night's gig at the Komedia in Brighton was anything to go by. Amongst the expected middle-aged audience was a healthy contingent of young people - and young women in particular - and they seemed to know the words to the songs as well as us oldies. Part of that may be down to the album's enthusiastic endorsement by the late Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love's Hole covering one of their songs; but even that was 25 years ago so I like to think it's more an enduring spirit that has been handed down through punk and riot grrrl and still has currency today.

The Raincoats were born from the west London squatting scene of the late seventies: inspired by The Slits, Gina Birch (bass and vocals) and Ana da Silva (guitar and vocals) started the band having met at Hornsey Art College. After some initial line-up changes, they became an all-female group in 1978 when they were joined by Vicky Aspinall on violin and Palmolive from The Slits on drums. They started from a point of little musical ability but were undeterred: as Gina advised last night, "write some lyrics, put them to a couple of chords - but be inventive." And The Raincoats were: at a time when so many bands were opting for rama-lama punk as a template, they were different and surprising; it was no wonder that disillusioned Pistol John Lydon was an early fan.

Only Ana and Gina from the line-up that recorded The Raincoats were present last night - Anne Wood and Vice Cooler were on violin and drums, respectively - as they played the original LP in its entirety book-ended with outstanding debut single Fairytale in the Supermarket at the start and songs from the Extended Play EP at the end. Still sounding angular and lo-fi but with uplifting harmonies, they worked through the tracks chronologically and it was a joy to hear songs such as Off Duty Trip, The Void and, my particular favourite, the Velvety nag of the discomfiting In Love, with its lyrics of turmoil: "I can't do a thing today/I can't see anyway/I haven't eaten all day." I last saw the band in early 1980 at the Electric Ballroom in Camden and it was such a treat to hear them live again, not in a nostalgic way but as confirmation that in the era of my youth there were people producing such distinctive and life-affirming music.

Charming and disarming in their interactions with the audience, the band were candid about the demands of playing live: Ana revealed the difficulty of getting their cover of The Kinks' Lola right (they did) and Gina, switching to guitar for a couple of songs, confessed that it was hard to sing when playing the bass. It was just this sort of honesty that made The Raincoats so refreshing and opened up the way in music for countless others. The honesty continued to the end of the night when Ana said, "This is the last song, we're not pretending, we have no encore, we have no more songs." And as they took a bow to rapturous applause, they were joined onstage by 'fifth-Beatle' Shirley O'Loughlin, The Raincoats' manager since the start.

Wise Heads

For quite some time now my late night listening has invariably been I Used To Spend So Much Time Alone, the 2017 album by Chastity Belt. Its understated guitar tones and introspective lyrics are perfect for that time of the day when everyone has gone to bed and the house is finally quiet. This year's eponymously titled successor is already set to follow suit as a midnight favourite.

The Seattle four-piece - Julia Shapiro (guitar and lead vocals), Lydia Lund (guitar and vocals), Annie Truscott (bass and vocals) and Gretchen Grimm (drums and vocals) - are actually on their fourth album, the first two being more rooted in the sound of Washington state's Riot Grrrl movement. On stage at Patterns in Brighton last night, coming towards the end of a 19-date European tour, that experience showed as they delivered a brilliant and hypnotic set mainly drawn from this year's release, but with a few diversions back into their third album.

Music magazine Louder Than War called Chastity Belt 'the spiritual granddaughters of the mighty Raincoats' but they have a more accomplished sound than those art-punk legends and on songs such as It Takes Time, Drown and Ann's Jam the harmonised vocals and the delicate guitar interplay between Shapiro and Lund put their sound somewhere between The Sundays and The Durutti Column; and underlining their ability, Shapiro and Grimm swapped roles for Stuck and Apart in the middle of the set.

When 2017's Different Now, probably their breakthrough track, was played towards the end, the crowd sang along to the guitar motif which made Shapiro smile. The song's lyrics are empowering and forward-looking - 'You'll find in time/All the answers that you seek' - but they can also be reflective and, when they sang 'When you were young/Nothing ever turns out like you think' on Elena, wistful; but mostly I was left with the impression that these women have wise heads on young shoulders. They finished the night with Pissed Pants, the new album's final track and the closest they came to rocking out.

Earlier in the evening we were treated to the lo-fi guitar pop of Sad Girls Club, who surprised us with a fun cover of Britney Spears' Toxic. They were followed by Gang, whose half an hour on stage seemed to consist of one song, or it could have been twelve such was the variety of time signatures on offer; they also had a nice line in Monty Python vocals.

What Presence

There can be nothing more uplifting than the presence of a smiling and laughing Edwyn Collins, 14 years on from a life-changing stroke, on stage in Brighton last night as he and his band ran through a spellbinding set of songs that stretched all the way from Orange Juice's debut single to his current solo album. Despite being left with a physical weakness on his right side and asphasia that has slowed his speech, Edwyn has not stopped making music and performing live; and a happy upside to his condition is that his singing voice is as robust and fluent as ever.

Opening with the up-tempo title track from 2010's Losing Sleep, and following with the punky Outside from this year's Badbea, told us that this would be a rousing evening and the sound was excellent from the start. When your band has as its core long-time writing and recording collaborators Carwyn Ellis (bass) and Sean Read (keys/sax) from Colorama and The Rockingbirds, respectively, and is augmented by Andy Hackett (another Rockingbird) and Barrie Cadogan from Little Barrie on guitars, you know you're in safe hands.

The set quickly dipped back into Edwyn's Orange Juice past with a sublime version of What Presence?! from the band's final LP and there were further treats from that era: that trio of Postcard Records singles from 1980 - Falling and Laughing, Blue Boy and Simply Thrilled Honey - as well as I Guess I'm Just A Little Too Sensitive, the glorious Rip It Up and In A Nutshell from 1982's classic LP, You Can't Hide Your Love Forever. But it was another track from that album that reminded me how tender and sophisticated Edwyn's Orange Juice songs were. Intuition Told Me Part 1 may only be a minute long but it's lyrics - "smiled lopsidedly, decidedly awkward, he asked her" - can melt your heart in that time.

Between the songs from the Orange Juice days and half a dozen tracks from the classy new album - particularly It's All About You and I Guess We Were Young - there were other gems: In Your Eyes, from Losing Sleep, which saw Edwyn's son William come on stage to sing The Drums' Jonathan Pierce's part; early solo single, the rocking Don't Shilly Shally; the poignant recuperation song, Home Again; and, of course, A Girl Like You, which was introduced playfully and with good humour by Edwyn, as every song throughout a wonderful evening had been.

Style and Substance

Without wanting to pigeonhole bands according to their geography - as I have done before - I felt that watching Melbourne's The Stroppies at the Hope and Ruin in Brighton last night they are bound to repeat the sort of success that other musicians from that Australian city are currently experiencing here. With their lo-fi pop melodies wedded to a tight slacker (there's an oxymoron for you) guitar sound, they were a joy to behold and struck up an easy rapport with the audience right from the start.

Rory Heane's skittering drums signalled the opening of Nothing At All from this year's album, Whoosh! and the majority of the new LP formed the set that followed. Dually fronted by bassist Claudia Serfaty and guitarist Angus Lord, their twin vocals are understated and fit perfectly with the choppy rhythms and Adam Hewitt's sparkling lead guitar. Serfaty's basslines are the key to their best songs, particularly on Present Tense and the outstanding My Style, My Substance; and where Lord's 60s garage keyboards feature, such as on Go Ahead, one of a clutch of songs from 2017's eponymous debut album, the songs are lifted to another level.

The band looked as though they were really enjoying themselves and finished all too quickly with Cellophane Car, a long-form Velvets/Modern Lovers epic that has a hint of Subway Sect's Farfisa-tinged Ambition about it. Despite calls for an encore, Lord pleaded that they had no more songs they could play; it struck me that the next number I hear from them will not be played in such an intimate venue.

The promoters, Love Thy Neighbour, had put together a great line-up and earlier we were treated to impressive and powerful trio, Hanya, and the kitsch and quirky Porridge Radio off-shoot, SUEP.

Yin and Yang

Driving westwards on Monday evening, I was listening to Quiet Signs, the third album by American folk singer Jessica Pratt. With the rising silhouette of the landscape ahead of me, defined by a line of burnished ochre left in the sky by the setting sun, I could have been forgiven for thinking I was approaching the Mohave Mountains and Pratt's home state of California beyond; but I wasn't: I was passing the Sussex Downs on my way to Brighton to see Pratt play her first gig there since 2015.

Pratt is keen to not be pigeonholed as a traditional folk singer in the mould of Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell and it is true that her claustrophobic songs and affected vocal style have more in common with modern gothic folk artists, such as Marissa Nadler and Aldous Harding; but there is something about the intensity and purity of her songs that harks back to another age. With only Matthew McDermott on a Korg to accompany her voice and acoustic chords, the audience was silently spellbound throughout a set of sparse sounds that selected tracks from all three of her albums. Standouts for me were As The World Turns, from her latest album, and Opening Night, a hypnotic piano movement with wordless vocals, named after the 1977 John Cassavetes film that inspired it.

Support at the Brighthelm Centre - a modern church that I had only previously been in for a trade union meeting but never a gig - could not have been more different. Provided by Saul Adamczewski of Fat White Family, The Moonlandingz and Insecure Men, it was the yang to Pratt's yin. Adamczewski said more between songs than the former's 'thank yous' and even berated us with a Casio dance tune "to liven you stiffs up". In a humorous set - "it's good to be with you in the house of Our Lord" - of acoustic songs augmented by fellow-Fat White Alex White's saxophone, Adamczewski referenced demons of the twentieth century ranging from Goebbels to Gazza via Charles Manson (I might have been a bit unfair on Paul Gascoigne, there). The song Sweet Agony was introduced as being about Paul Sykes, a legendary Wakefield hardman. This gave me a start: taken from the title of his 1988 autobiographical novel, I'll wager that I was the only other person, in a roomful of people come to hear Pratt's quiet meditations, to have read Sykes' Arthur Koestler Literary Award-winning tale of boxing, robbery and battles with the prison authorities. Truly, an evening of joyful contrasts.

Geography

Without any deliberation behind it, I have been listening to a lot of Australian music this year: excellent albums from The Stroppies, Courtney Barnett, The Goon Sax and Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have all been on heavy rotation round our house. However, I only made the geographical connection between them when I was limbering up this week to go and see the latter band play live in Brighton. If we still had a proper music press I would have already realised as a handy label would have been applied (New South Wave, Ozchester, other suggestions on a postcard, please) and the bands would have been lumped into a high-profile movement.

That said, there is a refreshing rediscovery of a naïve and positive guitar sound that links all of them together and seeing Rolling Blackouts at Concorde 2, with their four guitarists and three vocalists, made me realise that I have not seen a band as energetic this year: hardworking and superbly-named drummer, Marcel Tussie, and bassist, Joe Russo, drive the rhythm along relentlessly, the duelling guitars of Russo's brother Tom, Fran Keaney and Joe White chime above and, with all three taking vocal turns, the pace is relentless.

This year's debut album, Hope Downs, has been very well received in this country and it made up the bulk of the set with Talking Straight, Exclusive Grave and Mainland being the picks. But it was two songs from 2016's seven-track Talk Tight EP that were the standouts for me. The infectiousness of Wither With You disguises a lyric of despair - "Trying to make our dreams come true/And I wonder what's the use/When you're pointing at that noose" - but was still an early highlight and the evening closed with Wide Eyes, my favourite for its reverb and treated vocal that put me in mind of The Jesus and Mary Chain. However, it was another band from the 80s that I was reminded of most - albeit a faster version - Brisbane's The Go-Betweens. Maybe there is something in geography after all.

Wistful Joy

Of all the current music I subject my kids to in the car, the group that the three of them are most enthusiastic about is Teleman. When I asked them why, they struggled to articulate their appeal at first; but then my daughter said it was the lead singer's voice and my oldest said he found their songs uplifting. The middle one grunted something unintelligible from behind a curtain of hair and we moved on.

It was an unfair question because it was one I had no concrete answer to myself; since I had first seen Teleman at the Green Man festival a few years ago, I had played their music a lot but, because some friends expressed ambivalence, I sometimes asked myself what it was I liked about them without ever coming to a conclusion. However, seeing them live again in Brighton this week provided me with some answers: the simplicity of the music - Pete Cattermoul and Hiro Amamiya's bouncing rhythms, Jonny Sanders' vintage synths, his brother's selective guitar - combined with clear but obscure lyrics delivered with Tom Sanders' yearning vocal, creates a naïve sound somewhere between the Velvet Underground's more playful moments and Kraftwerk's poppiest songs.

Perhaps it is this naivety that explains the youthful appeal. I took my eldest with me to Concorde 2 for his first proper indoor gig and when we bumped into a friend he commented that the venue seemed to be half-full of youngsters with a parent. He was exaggerating but, when I looked around, I realised he had a point. Teleman have got that teenagers-not-too-embarrassed-to-go-to-a-gig-with-their-parents market sown up.

With their third album - Family of Aliens - just released, the pick of the new songs were showcased. Cactus, Twisted Heart and Song For a Seagull, the latter obviously going down well in Brighton, all seemed immediately familiar but there was also room for favourites from the previous album, Brilliant Sanity. Tangerine and Fall In Time featured early on in the set and it was closed with the much called-for, Dusseldorf - "Düsseldorf looms in the cold grey light/I love everyone that I meet tonight."

The two encore tracks were both from the debut album, Breakfast. The delightful Christina ("Christina so good/She makes me go across town") perfectly demonstrated Teleman's gift for wistful joy and Not In Control, a hidden track on the album, shows off their ability to move effortlessly into the territory of motorik.

So I left the gig having realised that there is a lot more to Teleman than a sense of innocence and whimsy. Their songs make me think of the city: they are artful - the covers of all three albums are beautiful examples of geometric graphic design - and European and metropolitan and, to the ears of someone whose escape to the country has been soured by the Great British Brexit, that is balm to salve a wound right now. My son had a good time, too.

Stand-Up Guy

You are always guaranteed an entertaining time when you go to see Pictish Trail and last night's Melting Vinyl gig at the Rialto Theatre in Brighton was no exception. A bloody good job, too, as it was sub-zero temperatures outside and by the time I got to the venue I was so cold I was desperately in need of some winter cheer.

Main man Johnny Lynch was on good form, regaling us with stories of drug-addled audiences in Hartlepool, near death experiences in Machynlleth (I will refrain from writing how he pronounced it) and eco glitter from Bristol (the latter made from unicorns' tears, natch). In fact, despite coming from the far-flung Isle of Eigg, there is a real sense of rootedness in the whole country that comes from the band's relentless touring of these islands.

There was a smaller group of musicians for this tour - "I'm just wringing the final drops from the last album" - with Lynch assisted by Suse Bear on bass and keyboards and John B McKenna (AKA Monoganon - who was also the support act and inexplicably started his set wearing a terrible wig and ended it wearing a rather fetching cloak-cum-habit) on guitar. And it was not just the band that was stripped down: there were some beautifully spare arrangements of Lionhead, Easy With Either and Dead Connection from last year's Future Echoes album, and earlier songs from the Pictish Trail repertoire of folktronica.

Despite some provocative audience comments about the nature of familial relationships on the Isle of Eigg, Johnny Lynch (almost) refused to be dragged down to our level and maintained his dignity and humour throughout. I laughed like a drain at his between-songs repartee and the only other performer I have seen who comes close to being such a laugh is James Yorkston. Those Fence Collective guys: what are they like? They should be doing stand-up.

Punk Rock Party

As soon as I got into The Haunt in Brighton, last night, there was something in the air. It wasn’t just the smell of sweat and damp in this cramped venue, there was an atmosphere, a buzz about the place. Whatever it was, it felt like a proper gig even before any band had come on stage. Despite it being early – to accommodate a 10pm finish - the audience seemed pretty boozed and there was a high proportion of ne’er do wells with a glint in their eye. When the music started, Welsh support band Seazoo were on and off in the blink of an eye but they made a joyful racket which cranked up the mood even more. We had no time to catch breath before they were very swiftly followed by the very lovely The Lovely Eggs. Perhaps the early finish was stoking the crowd: everything was condensed - we had to get our thrills while we could.

And thrill us The Lovely Eggs did. The harder edge that has always been in the Eggs’ music seems to be more to the fore, now. Songs like Goofin’ Around and The Magic Onion, from 2015’s This Is Our Nowhere, display a Sonic Youth influence on Holly’s guitar sound. These are longer songs and new material such as current single, I Shouldn’t Have Said That, and tracks from next year’s new album seem to be in the same vein. The sound was exhilarating, with David’s pounding driving it along under Holly’s fuzzbox guitar. Whether new songs or old favourites like Fuck It, the crowd were lapping them up and I could feel the floor bouncing under my feet.

Holly added to the atmosphere with a bit of audience manipulation: relegating the front row arm-folders further back, she brought forward the people who were partying the most; the atmosphere got even wilder. But the longer the set went on, the more Holly was struggling with her voice on the penultimate date of the tour. Despite this, when the set finished, they came back for an encore. Yes, an encore - their first in three years. The Lovely Eggs have long been opposed to fake encores, the kind where the songs are already on the set list and the band crouch at the side of the stage like “cavemen doing a shit” before going back on a few moments later. But last night in Brighton there was a real, spontaneous singalong encore of Don’t Look At Me to end the punk rock party.

Something Special

Facing a three-way clash on the Saturday afternoon at the recent End of the Road festival, I used Luke Rhinehart's The Dice Man method of making a choice and ended up seeing all of Bill Ryder-Jones, most of Nadine Shah but none of DUDS. I bitterly regretted missing out on the Mancunian band, whose 2016 EPs, Unfit For Work and Wet Reduction, I had heard on Marc Riley's show. However, on returning from the festival I found out they were playing in Brighton in a mere few weeks, so all was not lost.

That date rolled around last night and I went off to the Green Door Store expecting to hear the quirky guitars and skittering post-punk rhythms of their previous output. I was not disappointed: there was clear evidence in their sound of angular bands like early XTC and Scritti Politti; but what I was not expecting was how dynamic their stage performance would be and how their music seems to have moved on in the past 12 months. To begin with, they have expanded from a band of four to a seven-piece, incorporating vocals, two guitars, bass, drums, percussion, trumpet and cornet; also, they massed on the tiny stage all dressed in identical dark grey short sleeve shirts and trousers, making them seem like a gang and creating an imposing presence; and the sheer ferocity of the playing took the breath away.

With the expansion of the band, DUDS' sound has developed into a full-on dissonant No Wave experience. Incredibly tight, the bass, drums and percussion were a rhythmic assault and the discordant guitars and blasting brass gave no let-up: with no song longer than a couple of minutes, their brief and relentless - and encoreless set - left the audience exhausted and in no doubt they had witnessed something special.

They finished with No Remark, the opening track of their just-released album, Of A Nature Or Degree (12 tracks, 23 minutes). I picked up a copy at the merch stall afterwards and, chatting to the band, it came as no surprise that their music is characterised by short bursts of rhythmical energy when they cited The Contortions, Blurt and Wire as influences.

Of A Nature Or Degree is out now on Castle Face Records.

Into the Blue

Stephen Black, otherwise known as Sweet Baboo, tells a very complicated tale of the opening number of his set at the Prince Albert pub: it was originally called Wild Imagination and was the title track of the new album; but Moshi Moshi hated it so much they wanted it left off. So Sweet Baboo retitled another song Wild Imagination, but he is playing the original on tour just to spite the record company. I can’t remember the new title of the original song but it was about trying to persuade Black’s three-year-old son to leave the house more and embrace the outdoors. Are you following this?

This deadpan comic explanation is typical of Black’s between-songs ramblings as he tells us about the space bongo - “people have been going wild for the space bongo” - played by multi-instrumentalist Rob Jones and how the band have slimmed down from a six-piece to three since their last tour. To compensate, he says, they have crammed the stage with equipment; as well as the keyboards and guitars Black and Jones have, there is another Jones - Paul - surrounded by more keyboards than Kraftwerk had between them at the Brighton Centre last week. When things go wrong - as they do a few times - it is all dealt with with good-natured forebearence and a lightning quick catchphrase, "ten years in the biz".

There are some excellent tracks played from Wild Imagination that show the sophistication of the arrangements, the simplicity of the sentiments expressed and the emotion of Stephen Black’s voice. The beautiful Swallows, with its plaintive refrain of “Oh, won’t you come back to me?”, is contrasted with the funk of Pink Rainbow; and songs such as Wild Imagination (the newly titled one) and Badminton capture the bittersweet essence of the Sweet Baboo sound from the previous two albums.

There is a trio of songs from those albums: the glorious Swimming Wild and If I Died from 2013's Ships and the sublime Walking in the Rain from The Boombox Ballads, the track that first caught my ear when I saw Sweet Baboo at the Green Man festival in 2015. However, the stand-out song last night was Clear Blue Skies from the new album. Formless and abstract, it rolls along, swelling and falling, with shimmering and mournful guitars underpinning a lyric of hope and sorrow: "let's rise/ into clear blue skies/ far from home/ clear clear blue/ let's not worry about tomorrow".

Great Grandaddy

Jason Lytle seems a little grumpy: the leader of Californian alt-rock band Grandaddy isn't making much eye contact and he dismisses the audience's early attempts to engage him between songs with a curt, "we've got to get to know each other first." And standing behind his keyboard, which acts as a barrier squarely set centre stage and front, you would be forgiven for sensing an air of detachment; at one point he squats down and, still playing his guitar, completely disappears from view for a couple of minutes.

No matter; the music was outstanding at Concorde 2 in Brighton last night: the band's sound was full and rich and the selection of songs stretched from their debut album, Under the Western Freeway, to this year's Last Place. But it was two of the albums in between - The Sophtware Slump and Sumday - that provided tracks greeted most ecstatically by the crowd. Openers Hewlett's Daughter and The Crystal Lake prompted instant singalongs and, after an interlude of new material, He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot enthused those there for trademark Grandaddy songs of grandiose emotional sweep, and Now It's On had the crowd bouncing along to its anthemic chug.

The new album, their first since the band split in 2006 before reforming again in 2012 to play some live dates, picks up where the band left off. Some reviews have levelled this as a criticism but I think the new material is excellent. Four of the stand-out tracks - The Way We Won't, Evermore, I Don't Wanna Live Here Anymore and The Boat is in The Barn - were aired last night. The latter, a heartbreaking tale of lost love - "getting rid of all of me is what I figured, delete deleting everything that had occurred, that's when I backed away and headed out without a word" - was one of two encores and the other, reflecting the twenty-year spread of material, was 1997's Summer Here Kids.

With a back projection of slow-filmed natural and industrial landscapes rolling throughout the set, it was a visual as well as sonic treat. And as the set wore on and Lytle's mood improved, it was clear that problems off-stage had been the cause. Whether it was the early curfew - he bemoaned the fact that Concorde 2 turns into "some sort of disco fuckfest" when the band have finished - or that something had been "fucked up", was not clear; but whatever it was, he was keen to reassure us that we "had been great." As had they.

Understated

On stage at the Green Door Store in Brighton last night, everything about Nadia Reid’s set was intimate and understated: she asked for the stage lights to be dimmed an inch, for the monitors to be turned down a little and for the audience to shuffle a step nearer the stage to let the rest of the sold-out crowd in at the back of this tiny venue. And then there was the most intimate thing of all: Reid’s voice. Crystal clear and unaffected, she sings with a beauty and a purity that renders her folk/country songs tender and emotional without recourse to histrionics.

I was alerted to this young singer/songwriter’s debut album, Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs, early last year when it was given a glowing review in Mojo magazine. It was only when it failed to figure in 2016 ‘best of’ lists that I discovered that it had been released the previous year; further digging revealed that it actually came out in 2014 in her home country of New Zealand. That she had made such an assured and mature debut at the ridiculously young age of 23 was further evidence of her prodigious talent. Added to this, her admission that she took seven years to write the songs for the album meant that her debut was the sound of her whole adult life: small wonder it is such a considered and confident album.

With Reid on acoustic guitar and Sam Taylor accompanying her on electric guitar, they replicated the haunting Appalachian sound of the album superbly: Holy Low was dedicated to a baby in the audience (yes, a tiny baby) who was born to the sound of Reid’s songs and the sublime Ruby (“Where did my love go? He was the sailor of my ship”) was played at the audience’s request. Even though they were performing as a duo – it is financially prohibitive to bring the whole band over from New Zealand, Taylor told us when we chatted to him after the gig – rockier tracks, such as Reaching Through, were given full rein. The title track from the new album, Preservation, was an indication that the new songs are just as ethereal and, with her material attracting a lot of airplay on 6 Music, she may not be able to remain understated for much longer.

Preservation is released on Basin Rock on 3rd March.

Hooks and Harmonies

Most great bands’ creativity depends on either one or two people: there are those that are beholden to a single song-writing visionary, such as The Jam’s Paul Weller, and there are those that are fortunate enough to have a writing partnership. These are either genuinely collaborative, such as Strummer and Jones, or a convenient handle for separate writers such as Lennon and McCartney. What is unusual is to have three equally strong but distinct songsmiths; when it comes to Teenage Fanclub this is precisely the case.

The Bellshill band’s albums have always seen the writing duties shared amongst their trio of guitarist/vocalists Norman Blake, Gerry Love and Raymond McGinley and this year’s superb album, Here, is no exception with a very exact and democratic four tracks apiece. Despite this demarcation of composition, Teenage Fanclub have always achieved a unity of sound and this was ably demonstrated at Concorde 2 in Brighton on Thursday night with crowd-pleasing numbers such as Verisimilitude, Ain’t That Enough and Sparky’s Dream from their mid-nineties salad days.

The gig was not an exercise in nostalgia, however, as half of the songs from Here featured in the set and showed that the Fannies’ fabulous grasp of melodies, hooks and harmonies is as strong as ever. There was the shimmering pop of Love’s Thin Air and the well-crafted sentimentality of Blake’s I’m In Love, which featured some gorgeously effortless lead guitar playing from McGinley. And, although I overheard one punter afterwards describe the new material as “more morose”, I think “mature” was the word he was grasping for. On McGinley’s Hold On, it is experience and reflection that shines through: “think of the ones you love and what they want and what they need...hold on to you life, to your dreams.” If this is the voice of middle-age talking, then Teenage Fanclub are talking to me.

The Long Goodbye

When the Brooklyn-based band Augustines announced recently that they were splitting up after six years together, my reaction was one of regret and gratitude. Regret that a band who have produced three great albums of poignant and impassioned rock music would no longer be around, but gratitude for the fact that I had a ticket for the sold-out first date of their farewell British tour in Brighton on Sunday night.

Already renowned for their intense live performances, in these circumstances, it was always going to be an emotional evening. At the start, lead singer and guitarist Billy McCarthy seems in danger of being overwhelmed by the occasion as his powerful voice hits the soulful and fitting peaks of The Avenue - "I wanna try somewhere new/ Where open land meets the sky/ And I can feel new" - but he is soon into his genial stride between songs. We are treated to wisecracks about bacon sandwiches and the band opening a bakery - "crumpets and trumpets" - and multiple thanks for the audience's support over the years.

Midway through the set McCarthy and multi-instrumentalist lynchpin Eric Sanderson are joined onstage by their friend Tom Zovich from their previous band, Pela. Drummer Rob Allen gives way to Zovich and they rattle through Waiting on the Stairs and Trouble With River Cities, songs from the old days. The reunion is clearly an affecting moment.

The presence of a trumpeter adds an extra dimension to the trio's sound in the same way that brass complements the live sound of The National and British Sea Power. But it is the huge soundscapes they create that make me think that Augustines deserve to be the biggest stadium band in the world. Not that I would wish that on them, as it's a largely perjorative term in my book; much better to see this band in a small, sweaty venue like Concorde 2.

There are so many anthems in the band's repetoire that there is little breathing space from the relentless passionate pace: Are We Alive? and When Things Fall Apart from the most recent album, Philadelphia and Chapel Song from their debut as We Are Augustines, Rise Ye Sunken Ships. But it is 2014's eponymous album that provides the majority of the arms-aloft singalongs: Now You Are Free, Nothing To Lose But Your Head and Walkabout have the audience bellowing in unison. It is a long goodbye as audience and band seem reluctant to be parted but the set eventually concludes - after an incredible two and a half hours - with the trio of Weary Eyes, Landmine and Cruel City. Even then, the audience stay in place singing the final song after the band have left the stage. They will be missed.

Beautiful Truth

Every once in a while in music, something comes along that makes you want to shout about it to the world. You become a bore to your friends and family as you take every opportunity to shoehorn it into the conversation, no matter how tenuous it may be. I find it happens less and less as time passes but that thrill of listening to a new album, connecting with it instantly and knowing that - as a whole - it is a work of staggering brilliance, never diminishes despite its infrequency.

Such a thing happened to me a few months ago: hearing a Bill Ryder-Jones track on an end-of-year music magazine compilation CD, I went straight out and bought the album, West Kirby County Primary, that it came from. From first play, I fell in love with the contrast between the tender delicacy of its whispered ballads and the scuzzy lo-fi of its slacker rock. Then I started to mention it. To everyone. And that was when I knew how good Bill Ryder-Jones is - because they all came back just as evangelical about his music as me.

Later, I found out that I had missed seeing Ryder-Jones live by minutes at last summer's Green Man festival in Wales: arriving at the main stage on the first afternoon to await Sweet Baboo, I was unaware that he had just left the stage; I could have been smitten much sooner. So when last night's gig at Brighton's Green Door Store was announced before Christmas, I snapped up some tickets.

Ryder-Jones is modest and unassuming from the start: he thanks us for coming out on a night when there is football on the televison and apologises for not being good at "banter" between songs. We don't care. The songs are so breathtaking live: he has the audience spellbound with the hushed fragility of album-opener, Tell Me You Don't Love Me Watching, and gives us an early treat with the glorious druggy fug of Catherine and Huskisson, one of the album's stand-out tracks.

The set is not all drawn from the current album, though. There is a new number and a quintet of songs, including the beautifully evocative The Lemon Trees #3, from A Bad Wind Blows In My Heart, Ryder-Jones' previous album which is currently on heavy rotation at my house. Wild Swans, with its restrained Northern Soul tempo and recurring refrain of "don't tell me that it's over", is particularly moving.

Halfway through the set, Bill's band - fellow Wirral natives, By The Sea - leave the stage and he performs By Morning I and, as the focus once again becomes West Kirby County Primary, Put It Down Before You Break It accompanied only by his guitar. The latter song feels as though it will fragment under the weight of its own emotion as he sings, "And now I'm throwing up/ Because the things I'm thinking/ Are things I'd like to keep from sinking in." "I'm alright, y'know," he reassures us between songs but the writing is so raw and confessional that we feel for him.

When the band return, there is a run of oustanding songs - Two To Birkenhead, Wild Roses, Daniel, Satellites - to close the set; Ryder-Jones dedicates Daniel to his brother and, from the lyrical content, it is hard not to be fearful of the tragedy it contains: "Like some unopened birthday card I keep you boxed with my unwanted memories/ Daniel belongs to the ocean." And as it moves from bereavement to depression, the narrative switches to a convenient objective voice: "If you take the pills you might not get so ill/ Let's make it easy for you Bill."

The lyrics are personal and heartbreaking and, as he sings on Wild Roses, Ryder-Jones is adept at "turning stories into beautiful truth." A founder member of The Coral in his mid-teens and having left the band ten years later, Ryder-Jones has had his share of difficulties with drink, drugs and a troubled state of mind. But he has no illusions about the romance of music: in a recent interview he declared, "You've already fucking lost if you're involved in it [music]. Artists aren't happy. People who love music aren't happy." I just hope that such a tender soul manages to not snag on the sharp edges of this jagged world.

Fruit Punch

In a week that started badly for those of us that value artists and performers who exemplify difference, experimentation and innovation, I needed confirmation that, despite the fall of its brightest star, music can still produce mavericks who go against the grain of dull, formulaic and accepted trends. On Tuesday night, at a sold out Teen Creeps promoted gig in Brighton, I got exactly that.

Kiran Leonard is a 20-year-old musician from Saddleworth and his performance to a packed audience in the room upstairs at the Price Albert was like a sock on the jaw. Currently on a tour of modest venues ahead of the release in March of his new album, Grapefruit, Leonard and his three-piece band sound like everything and nothing you have ever heard before: one moment there is tender ambience, the next splenetic bursts of prog-punk; another moment there is virtuoso guitar playing, the next vocals of howled anguish. And on opening song, Pink Fruit, all of this is present in one magnificent 16-minute magnum opus.

Not all songs are sprawling epics, however. Oakland Highball, he tells us, is short with fast lyrics so he explains what the song is about. His explanation is longer than the song, which is delivered at breakneck speed. It is a wonder that the band manage to keep up with Leonard at times as he writhes and spirals around his left-handed guitar, leading the irregular time signatures and disjointed rhythms. Indeed, the stage is set as a duelling ground with Leonard stage left, side-on to the audience, facing the band who are stage right looking back at him.

If Kiran Leonard is a wunderkind, he is an unassuming one. Before he took the stage, I saw him slip into the room in his parka and rucksack and move through the audience unnoticed. And from the stage he praises support band, Let's Eat Grandma. He hails the Norwich duo as the "best band in the world"and cheerfully admits to enjoying being upstaged by support acts. The young pair are similarly unafraid to sit outside of convention but, on last night's showing, it would be hard for anyone to upstage the originality and energy of Kiran Leonard.

Soul Music

I bought my tickets to see Sleaford Mods months before their gig in Brighton on Friday night: I was so excited and intrigued to see the Nottingham band whose most recent two albums I had been endlessly playing since I started to hear about them last year. Words seem to experience a rare inadequacy when it comes to describing their music but I’ll give it a go: sparse, frantic punk/hip-hop beats overlaid with splenetic, socially observant, potty-mouthed lyrics delivered in a rapid-fire East Midlands accent. Vocalist Jason Williamson has produced half a dozen albums since he became disillusioned with guitar music in 2007, the last three – Wank, Austerity Dogs and Divide and Exit - with sampler/musician Andrew Fearn. And at Concorde 2, their stripped-down sound is reflected in their stage set-up: laptop on a flight case; mike and stand.

When they take the stage and launch into their set, the atmosphere is electric and the pace relentless. For each song, Fearn presses ‘go’ on the laptop and then stands back swaying to the rhythm, swigging a beer and grinning as Williamson sprays machine-gun lyrics at the audience. And what lyrics: to say that Jason Williamson thinks modern life is rubbish, and that everyone and everything is a target, is an understatement; he writes from his own experiences, disappointments and frustrations. This on middle management: “middle men/the metropolis of discontent and broken dreams/red and orange lights and old men”; and on the acceptance of dead-end work, “I got a job/I rot away in the aisles of the Co-op, mate, no prob”. But it is not just the more prosaic aspects of life that Williamson rages against. There is more pointedly political social commentary: “Cameron’s hairdresser got an MBE/ I said to my wife you better shoot me/It’s all gone wrong”. If the self-importance of jumped-up jobsworths make daily life a trial, the managers at the top are just as self-serving.

Most of the set is taken from the last two albums but there are a few tracks from new album, Key Markets. After one, Bronx In A Six, that ends in a stream of profanities, Williamson observes, “a bit intense that, not much of a party tune, not like this one”, before launching into Tiswas. And it strikes me at that point, coming in the middle of a run of stand-out tracks – A Little Ditty, McFlurry, Fizzy, Tied Up In Nottz – how uplifting these songs can be. The audience is certainly lifted: there is a lot of singing along and a frantic moshpit down the front. At one point, Williamson berates someone in the audience for swearing; “just because we swear don’t mean you have to; this is our job”. When Williamson jokingly mistakes which city they are in, it’s a sign of how hard they work at this job: they have been gigging non-stop for pretty much a year now. When the final number, Tweet Tweet Tweet, opens with, “I get a shaky start to Tuesday/sweat stains on bus windows/I don't want to ruin my coat/But that’s just the way it goes”, it is a reminder of the banality of the nine to five daily grind.

Sleaford Mods’ music is innate, visceral, it comes from the gut, the heart, the soul and it is tremendous. And occasionally, you get a glimpse of Williamson’s belting, soulful voice from his days in more traditional bands. But this is now; it’s like Picasso doing all those orthodox figurative drawings and then saying, “hold on; this is how I see people and the world” (I am conscious that I have just referenced Picasso and I am in danger of disappearing down the rabbit hole or up my own…). Nothing can prepare you for how good these blokes are: I had read recommendations, listened to the albums, watched footage. But seeing them live is altogether different; they are breath-taking. There is something perversely pure about their sound and performance. There is nobody like Sleaford Mods. No comparisons suffice but, if pushed, I would say it is like Crass smashing into Kraftwerk on an A road between Derby and Detroit.

Inevitably, Sleaford Mods have their critics but for any detractors there are many more admirers. Anyway, I would rather take Iggy Pop’s word than Noel Gallagher’s. Sleaford Mods remind you what music can be like when you’re young (oh, the irony: the pair are in their early forties), when you have original ideas, when everything doesn’t get bent to fit someone else’s template, someone else’s formula, someone else’s set of rules. Fuck that.

Key Markets, Sleaford Mods' new album, is released on 10th July.

Drinking and Disaster

When John Bramwell introduces two songs in a row as being about “drinking…and disaster” it raises a big laugh from the audience at Concorde 2 in Brighton on Friday night; but it occurs to me that it would be the perfect title for the next I Am Kloot album. Drinking is important in the Kloot world - either in songs, on stage or off it - but there is nothing disastrous about it from the point of view of those of us who appreciate the brilliance of this band.

The opening lines of To The Brink are a dark joy: “Do you fancy a drink?/I know a place called the brink/Do you want to go there?” And despite running the risk of getting too serious, the lyrics stand up to close analysis: “They’ve got no rule of thumb/So on the counter I strum/With my fingers”. The rhyme and consonance of “thumb” and “strum” is purely poetic, and the close proximity of “thumb” and “fingers” is sublime. He further evokes the experience of the solitary drinker in the crowd with the lines, “I would like to stay with you/But I leave alone”; and when he repeats the refrain, but exchanges “stay” and “leave”, the effect is heart-breaking. It is for this reason that I Am Kloot are more highly rated by their peers than music consumers: Pete Doherty has said that Bramwell is one of the most talented songwriters in the country and Guy Garvey has proclaimed the band to be the most underrated in Britain.

The last time I saw I am Kloot in Brighton, they had just released their sixth studio album, Let It All In, and the songs on the night were largely taken from that and, previous album, Sky at Night. But Friday night’s set was drawn from all six studio albums and even included 1999’s debut single, To You, and This House Is Haunted, from the John Peel Sessions LP. Bramwell tells a Peelesque personal anecdote about having to pull over to the side of the road in his car because he was so overcome by the song he was listening to – which was, of course, his own This House Is Haunted. If this sounds egotistical, it is not; Bramwell‘s self-deprecating humour about his own immodesty is charming.

The first part of the set, with Bramwell on electric guitar, displays the rockier side of the band: Cuckoo and Life In A Day, from their eponymously-titled second album, are followed by the title track from the follow-up, Gods and Monsters. But then electric is swapped for acoustic and, after the customary solo spot to allow for no-longer-sedentary bassist Pete Jobson and drummer Andy Hargreaves to have a fag break, we are in to middle-period I Am Kloot with Someone Like You and Ferris Wheels from the Play Moolah Rouge album. Ferris Wheels strikes me as the consummate Kloot song, with all their favourite motifs present: shooting stars, satellites, stars at night and, of course, the sky.

When I last saw the band live, they were augmented to a six-piece; but tonight it is just the core trio and the audience are called upon to help with some of the arrangements. We are rubbish at being accordions earlier in the set but by the time the evening is nearing its close, we are great at being trumpets on Northern Skies. And when they encore with Twist - possibly my favourite - and Proof, we are fully committed to shared vocal duties.

'Hold Back the Night: I Am Kloot Live', has just been released on Walk Tall Recordings.

The Changing Landscape

Look at the political map of south-east England, outside of London, and it is a sea of blue. There have been times when there were splodges of other colours, but currently you would have to squint to pick out the tiny dots where there is anything other than Conservative representation in the House of Commons. Of the eight constituencies in East Sussex, five are currently held by the Tories but, in an outcome that will probably mirror our fractured national electoral picture, this is set to change in two weeks' time.

There are two constituencies that cover large, mainly rural areas – Wealden and Bexhill & Battle –and these are typical Tory territory. They have returned Conservative MPs since the dawn of time and that is unlikely to change this year. The odious UKIP polled well in these areas in local and European elections last year but, with large majorities, the Tories should see off any challenge even if UKIP make a sizeable dent in their vote. The Liberal Democrats came second in both seats last time but may see the rise in popularity of the Greens in these areas translate into votes at their expense.

Two of those tiny dots on the map are yellow and represent the neighbouring seats of Lewes and Eastbourne. Lewes was won narrowly by Liberal Democrat Norman Baker in 1997, ending a long line of Tory MPs, and he has held it since with a reasonable majority. Baker is a popular MP locally and has always benefitted from a massive anti-Tory tactical vote; but the radical spirit of many Lewesians view his participation as a minister in the Tory-led coalition government as heresy; the Green Party is hoping to capitalise.

Eastbourne became a Liberal Democrat seat more recently. In 2010, Stephen Lloyd defeated the Tory incumbent by a majority of over 3,000 in a constituency the Conservatives are desperate to win back next month. When there was a major fire on Eastbourne pier last summer, Cameron and Osbourne were helicoptered in the next day with a bag of cash for refurbishment.

Of the four urban seats in East Sussex – three in Brighton and Hove, one for Hastings & Rye – all bar one are currently held by the Tories. Caroline Lucas is the only Green dot on the political map: she represents Brighton Pavilion with a slim majority but may feel some fallout from the unpopularity – transport policies, 2013’s bin strike – of the Green-run city council. I have always been impressed by Lucas: she has been the only MP to appear at local teachers’ strike rallies and has spoken eloquently and passionately against the Tories’ ideological assault on comprehensive education. All four of these constituencies are held with majorities of under 2,000 and are in the top 30 of Labour’s target seats.

With an excellent local candidate in Sarah Owen, opinion polls suggest that Labour will take Hastings and win two of the three Brighton seats: Lucas will survive but the Conservatives will lose Brighton Kemptown and Hove. Hove is something of a bellwether seat: since 1979, whichever party has won there has formed the government. In 1997, on hearing that Labour had taken Hove, Tony Blair became convinced that the Tories had finally been defeated.

Current polling also suggests that Lewes and Eastbourne will re-elect their current MPs and, if this is correct, come 7th May, East Sussex will have one of the most politically diverse landscapes in the south-east: 3 Labour MPs, 2 Conservative, 2 Liberal Democrat and 1 Green.

This may still not represent everyone: speaking recently of his “emotional attachment to a Labour Party that no longer exists”, the writer Irvine Welsh reminded me of my own dilemma. The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), an alliance launched by the late Bob Crow, most reflect my views but are fielding a candidate in only one East Sussex seat and that is, sadly, not where I live. Thanks to Nick Clegg not holding out for a referendum on proportional representation as his thirty pieces of silver, my vote in one of those large rural constituencies will be irrelevant. But I still don’t know whether to follow my emotional attachment or support those who most resemble what Labour used to be, the only anti-austerity party I can vote for: The Green Party.