Pilote
- title
Antenna
- label
Certificate Eighteen Records
- format
- CD
Pilote is a fellow from Brighton England named Stuart Cullen. He plays "bedroom electronica" like ISAN and Plone, but he avoids being a johnny come lately in an already saturated market craftily. The ten songs on this disc fill up sixty three minutes with pieces that show imagination more than technique, and are constructed using art more than technology. The opening song "Turtle" is based on 2 samples. One is a parrot imitating a man whistling, and the other is a guy calling "C'mere Turtle" to some wandering pet. The 3rd song is based on the spoken snippet "The microphone is picking this all up" captured through a field microphone and clipped to various effect throughout the song. Not all in Pilote's pallette is so digestable though. One piece, "Message from the Bigman" has this street lingoed baddie cursing up a storm into someones answering machine trying to get them to pick up the phone. Mostly though, there are good long pieces that are fun to listen to: they're upbeat, filled with rough edges and aural sharp turns.
---Carl, Nov.23 1999
Beatglider are a band from Leicester (Pronounced 'Lester'), the hometown of Prolapse, The Freed Unit, John Sims, Dalmatian Rex And The Eigentones, and many other bands. Beatglider were the band that Prolapse's spiritual leader 'Turk' chose to work with to launch his own record label, 'Tube Bar'. The label is named after the establishment owned by one Louis "Red" Deutsch, the victim of hilarious prank calls on a now widely istributed recording from the early '70s. (See Bart Simpson's prank calls to Moe's for a point of reference.) Beatglider have a aggressively slack artsy sound that most likens them to the 'Northampton' bands like early Dinosaur or their side project Gobblehoof. For those of you reading far from Cambridge MA, USA(Where I'm writing from), Northampton is a college town in Western Massachusetts (U Mass Amherst is there). It's relative seclusion (over 2 hours from Boston) has led to it having a strong local scene of art, culture, and bands. The record store Main Street Records was a center (might still be, I don't know) through which many like minded people could meet while buying from their great selection of vinyl and discs. I've never been to Beatgliders hometown of Leicester, but I know it too is a college town, and I'll bet that it is very similiar to Northampton, as Beatgliders sound is similiar to what I've come to think of as the Northampton sound. Beatglider have two other singles on Tube Bar, "Not For You" (see the January 12 1999 Gull Buy), and "Premonition Dragon" (see the June 1 1999 Gull Buy). There is a slightly different version of Premonition Dragon on the CD, otherwise none of the songs from the singles are on the full length. WZBC has both 7"s in our library. There are some really great songs on this disc. "Talk Of The South" sounds like The Flaming Lips, but better! "Kings Of The Wild Frontier" sounds like Pavement, but better! "Leaving" has a soft great start which builds throughout the song to an intense end with nice guitar work. "Beatglider" is their 9 minute ling signature song. It ends really noisy, but the path to the end is beautiful and full. For more in-depth information on Red and Tube Bar 
We last heard from the RexRecords label in the October 5th Gull Buy where the 7" by The Avalanches was added. That single was my favorite song for that week. Now we have another band I've never heard of or seen mention of anywhere that have a 10" on RexRecords. There are 4 songs on offer here. Instrumentation is somewhat traditional (guitar, bass, drums, vocals, touch of keys). The title song of the 10" ("The Curse") has a Beatles feel to it that is very pleasant, not at all the type of Beatle interpretation favored by the Elephant 6 bands. The following song on the A-side ("Old Rope") continues and refines the sound. It is a percussive sound behind the vocals, as if the conga player for Santanas first 2 records, or Sam Gopal were on these lads minds. On the B-side, the first song ("Look Around You") strongly recalls the Byrds song "Wasn't Born to Follow" from the Easy Rider soundtrack. They are influenced by the best, as that Byrds song is truly 10/10, with it's great vocal line and phase shifter guitar break. The final song on this 10" ("French Tart") is a cool shuffle of a song with a breathed instead of belted out vocal and a feel like Lou Reed singing for a mellower prime-era Electric Sound Of Joy.
Broadcast's first release in 2 years sees them change their sound and label. Gone is the Stereolab feel. Now things have gotten much more sparse, and the sound of the A-side is more like ISAN with female vocals. The B-side is more sinister, like recent Faust in their mellower moods. I think that this incarnation of the band suits them well, and that they will find success if they put out more material in this style with this strength.
Teach Me Tiger are a side project of Godzuki (Godzuki's Crispy Fachini), though the number of TMT releases of late make it seem that they are the replacement to Godzuki, who haven't released anything in the time TMT have released three singles: 2 on Motorway Records (this single, and one seen in the May 25th Gull Buy) , and 1 on Fantastic Records, seen in the November 2nd Gull Buy). On this 7", the A-side is a grower, and the B-side is a meandering mess that gets lost chasing its own tail. This single reminds me on the beloved project of the amazing cartoonist Ron Rege Jr., Trollin Withdrawal. This past summer Ron moved from Cambridge MA to San Francisco CA. He's back now for a month - each year he works on the Wang Center's Boston Ballet presentation of Nutcracker, as the stage manager for the children. Anyway, Trollin Withdrawal used to play with the relative speed of some of the components of the songs, such as speeding up the vocals slightly. On the song I love from this single ("How Can I Stop Loving You? Pt. 2"), his vocals are slowed down slightly in the beginning tweaking it into something not unlike the karioke vocals in David Lynch's Blue Velvet. Somehow it all works though, just as Trollin Withdrawal made it work on their three 7"s (Email Ron at rregejr@hotmail.com). The song progresses into a cut up of the instrumental portions, like a fine bedroom electronica dub slice, then ends as a straight pop song with piano, slide guitar, & female vocal. I like this song lots.
We now supplement the excellent new domestically released full length with the import 7" from it, with it's two non-LP B-sides. The first B-side is a silly cartoonish romp of a song. On the Johnny Cash song, Euro Childs sings in a mock Cash timbre, the tune and lyrics humorous but reverent of the man.