On some days the planets are perfect
Predestined to render
A perfect fit*

So, this blog fetches up at the venue about five minutes before the band take the stage. It's The Gramaphone, yet another shiny modish eat-and-drink option in Spitalfields; more precisely the nice little music room downstairs. The eye-shaped performance area - floor-level blond wood 'stage' and curving concrete back wall - is a nicely defined, 'focussing' space, not over-big but comfortably holding the quartet before us methodically setting up their bewildering array of pedals. Putting the mic stand into the front rank of the audience was the final adjustment - tonight it would be redundant, there would be no singing. For this was the return to London, after four years, of Johnathon Ford. Of Unwed Sailor. Of ecstatic, pulverising post-rock glory. About 50 people were there to witness it - wherever else they were, whatever else they were doing, the other 8 million or so Londoners were quite simply in the WRONG PLACE. Come what may, reallyrather's show of the year...

This blog's enjoyment of Unwed's debut full-length The faithful anchor has not dimmed over the five years since its release; alone, tonight's show-ending double whammy from that record, Last goodbyes and Riddle of the stars, was worth twice the admission. With the amps cranked up to eleven and the knobs ripped off it's further kudos to the venue that the sound was so balanced. This is instrumental rock devoid of flatuent bombast and other commonly attendant bollocks. Power, texture and above all melody is what Unwed Sailor deal in. It's gloriously controlled incandescence; the focus, structure, momentum are never lost. Flanked in this configuration by intricate, chiming dual electric guitars (Aaron Hamby, Bryce Chambers) and backed by John Momberg's fantastically spare, bone-hard drumming, Johnathon Ford is in all senses Unwed's central figure. Constantly dipping and whirling, the group feeds off his uber-musical bass thrumming as he drives them on to ecstatic heights. Utterly thrilling, unlike...

...most of The white ox, Unwed Sailor's newest studio release from which, sad to say, pretty much all of the qualities listed above are entirely absent. A strangely bloodless affair, this blog can't honestly suggest that you check it out. But reallyrather frankly insists that you own The faithful anchor [buy] .. and watch this space for, hopefully, more UK action next Spring...
[Unwed Sailor][on MySpace]

So, follow that Yndi Halda. To be fair these Kentish instrumental upstarts are generally going for the slow-burn emotional swell rather than US's muscular propulsion and this blog anticipates their EP launch show at Water Rats Nov 17 with some relish...
[Yndi Halda][on Myspace#

Roughly twelve minutes before arriving at The Gramaphone reallyrather had been applauding My Sad Captains [go] over at the Dublin Castle in Camden. Scooterpower! Sadly wrenched away after just two songs (Never miss a trick and All hat..), they sounded as great as ever and not in the least cowed by the reception given to preceding act Loney, dear. Ticking most of the right indie/folk/pop boxes - Swedish, Arcade Fire, tuneful yelling, etc - its not hard to see why Subpop have taken the plunge. Stripped right down, as they occasionally were, to mainman Emil Svanängen and his acoustic, Loney,dear is pretty nondescript but their collective head of steam fair grabs the attention. As does, let's be honest here, keyboard/vocalist Malin Stahlberg [grrr!], beautifully indulgent and polite to some English guy jabbering on about..other Swedish bands...

...past and present, bands like *Laurel Music. Alas now immersed in their separate projects, songwriter Tobias Isaksson [Irene] and singer Malin Dahlberg [We are soldiers we have guns] were behind one of the great unknown country-pop records of recent times. Gorgeous, mild-mannered, pretty perspicacity is strewn all over This night and the next (2004), as is Gunnar Frick's lapsteel; more excellently still, most songs clock in at an average two minutes. Trust me, you need some unassuming, heartfelt Swedish folk-twang in your life [info/buy] .. come back Laurel Music, that night in Brixton seems too long ago...

And UK indie Stereo Test Kit Records will also be your source for Boy Omega's new mini-album The grey rainbow. 'It's my best work so far,' reckons Martin Gustafsson (the Boy) and this blog isn't about to argue. Having seemed to get a few things out of his system across the diffuse soundscape of The black tango here its all song and its all good. Of course, you'll want TBT for greatness like Fetch, boy, fetch and Explode but The grey rainbow hits a new level of consistency.
This is emotional folky pop recorded at home and employing programmed percussion and frequently manipulated vocals. It's mostly all Martin and his I'm-gonna-kill-myself-you-see-if-I-don't vocal but variously the gang is still all here. Notably, of course, violinist Karin Wiberg particularly when From us to eternity and The isle starburst into life and on Control's stirring string refrain amidst tinkling bells. For the most part it's achingly melodic, gorgeously pained heartbreak stuff typified by Divebomb and A heart is a heart

It's time to let go
Time to fuck things up

I'm gonna smoke my little throat out if I have to

but as with tightly-sprung opener Burn this flag it all manages to twinkle as it sears. And certainly around these parts that's a winning combination [go]...

And if you like The grey rainbow you'll likely find What everyone keeps telling me [hear], still the only clue we've got as to what the next from Wheat promises, as subtly affecting as reallyrather does...