English rhythm & noir band Alberteen are back with a new single, Unknown Entity. Originally released on their Lowenva album, they added a few extra's, including a blink-and-you'll-miss-it theremin solo. "In this democracy of tears the jackals loose their fears" rings even more true than it was in 2021. The video uses footage from Joseph Cornell's experimental short film The Midnight Party
HCTF review of Lowenva.
English rhythm & noir band Alberteen are not exactly prolific - busy jobs like running a circus or being professor teaching English Literature really puts a dent in band practice opportunities. Creating art is a thing that can be put on the backburner to evolve slowly and fired up properly when their agenda's allow it to buckle down and press "rec".
The new double A-side single Dark Matter b/w The Day Is A Gift. Both songs were part of a bunch of demos they made during the sessions in London for their Lowenva album in 2020. Like wine the tracks needed some time to come to fruition. Dark Matter brushes shoulders with shimmering post-punk and New Wave, with singer Phil Shaw channeling his inner Nick Cave and Ade Berry's percolating bass keeping it together. The short keyboards coda is a forewarning of what they have in store for The Day Is A Gift, a foray into Roxy Music's early art rock phase. These tracks are likely to be included on their fifth studio album that should be ready to go sometime next year.
English rhythm & noir band Alberteen have changed their sound a bit on their new album Lowenva - a Cornish word that can be translated as "House of Happiness", and also the name of the home in which one of the band members was born. They were first and foremost a guitar band, but they branched out and added clarinets, saxophones, and even a theremin. John Rose, Phil Shaw and Ade Berry recorded it as a three-piece, in and out of lockdowns using the technology that was developed for Soho's legendary Trident Studios.
Lyrically it is a grab bag of subjects, loosely held together by a sense of loss and unease. The English landscape (Against Nature), its buildings (Station Hotel), endangered fish (The Greenland Shark), melancholy (Baby, You’ve Served Your Time) - they cover a lot of ground within half an hour. It feels like the band is searching for something solid and sturdy to cling on to. Failing that they decided to put anxiety first, a fitting choice in these weird and troubling times, making Lowenva an album that is unsettling and melancholic lyrically, wrapped in dark but comforting rock music.
English rhythm & noir band Alberteen will release their new album Lowenva on February 12. John Rose, Phil Shaw and Ade Berry recorded it as a three-piece, in and out of lockdowns using the technology that was developed for Soho's legendary Trident Studios. Expect less rock guitar. Clarinets, saxophones and even a theremin will feature prominently.
English rhythm & noir band Alberteen have just released their new song Baby You’ve Served Your Time, a track that is likely to included on the album they are currently working on, Mercury 13. Melancholy reigns supreme n this slow song - the influence of the lockdown shining through.
English rhythm & noir band Alberteen have just announced that they will be playing their first 2020 show in London on April 26 as part of Fresh On The Net. Some of the new songs from the album they are currently working on, Mercury 13, will make it into the setlist. More details and tickets info soon.
Alberteen play the first show of 2020 for BBC6 Fresh On the Net Live in London, Sunday April 26. One day festival with 20 bands and artists and all free. We’ll be playing a selection of tracks from Metal Book and Miss World plus new songs from our forthcoming album Mercury 13. Details to follow soon
English rhythm & noir quintet Alberteen have posted a warts and all recording of the Rolling Stones classic Miss You, a throwback to their start as a band:
Recorded live in one take last year for an unbroadcast BBC4 music programme following a last minute invitation, this is a very raw version of the Stones disco classic, as reinterpreted by Alberteen. We make no apologies for the quality. One day we might even record it.
English rhythm & noir band Alberteen have just announced that they will be playing their first gig in quite some time on July 21 as part of Fresh On The Net in London. More details and tickets info soon.
English rhythm & noir band Alberteen are bound to enter the studio to record their new full-length, the follow-up of their excellent Miss World album. Safe for a few singles and remixes things have been pretty quiet since 2015.
Their new double A-side Hardly b/w The Son's Room (Comma Period remix) offers a few pointers of what to expect. The previously unreleased Hardly is dark and melancholic, a piano driven avant-pop ballad wrapped in electronics courtesy of Parisian DJ Comma Period who handled the production. On the flip is his radically reinvented remix of The Son's Room (the original was shared in 2018).
"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way". Some comfort from a playlist while the UK is struggling to make sense of the whole Brexit fuck up. Whatever happens, the music remains. In alphabetical order: Alberteen, Fairport Convention, Led Zeppelin, Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, Robert Wyatt, Small Faces, The Kinks, The Smiths, The Zombies.
It turns that Metal Book wasn't the debut album by rock noir band Alberteen. The actual debut was called It Felt Like Forever, which was deleted after some legal trouble. But now it returns as a digital only release. From the band's Facebook:
n 2008 the three original members of Alberteen got together for the first time at Stay Free Studios in Leicester and recorded the sprawling 15 track debut album It Felt Like Forever. Released at the time on CD and briefly on digital, it was soon deleted due to some legal wranglings. This Friday - 10 years on - the album is re-released digitally on all platforms. It's a melodic and ambitious album, very much the sum of historic influences, but we are still fond of it, and it pointed the way to what would be our 'real' debut Metal Book four years later. You can buy and stream it from Friday.
English rhythm & noir band Alberteen will release their new double A-side single Hey Joe! b/w Post-Human on April 28th. Hey Joe! is about Leicester playwright Joe Orton and has nothing in common with the likewise named song that was made famous by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Pushed forward by a lazy bass line and tinkling keyboards, they indulge in smart lyrics i.e. namechecking John Lahr's biography Prick Up Your Ears in the chorus. The track has a Sixties psychedelic pop feel with sound effects that bring back to mind another icon from that era, producer Joe Meek.
Post-Human nods to the sound of the Eighties, with slightly muffled vocals. The extended freewheeling coda could have been even longer, had it been designated for a 12" single release. It'a a slice of danceable post-punk thanks to co-producer Angus Wallace (Spiritualized, The Prodigy, The Fall).
The Son's Room, a new song by English rhythm & noir band Alberteen popped up briefly on YouTube in January, but as of today it's officially available through all the usual streaming services. It's their first track without any guitars, going, mainly for analog synths:
This is our first single in two years and it’s been liberating to put down the guitars and embrace analogue synths, flutes, clarinets and samples. We recorded it with Angus Wallace in a valley at Far Heath Studios, home to so much psychedelia, avant garde pop and experimental noise. We feel it rubbed off on us in some small way.This is our first single in two years and it’s been liberating to put down the guitars and embrace analogue synths, flutes, clarinets and samples. We recorded it with Angus Wallace in a valley at Far Heath Studios, home to so much psychedelia, avant garde pop and experimental noise. We feel it rubbed off on us in some small way”
It's been awhile since English rhythm & noir band Alberteen released something fresh and exciting. After the A French Connection EP in early 2016 - a collection of previously released songs and remixes - the band members were apparently caught up in their day jobs, like teaching English at Leicester University or running a circus.
English rhythm & noir band Alberteen have assembled a bunch of album tracks, singles and remixes for their new album A French Connection. French DJ Comma Period applied his signature sauce of Euro dance to Hidden and A French Connection, adding crackling noises and bringing the lead guitar and the vocals to center stage, with the latter track sounding like an updated outtake of a soundtrack for a late Sixties spy movie. Collectors wil appreciate the inclusion All You Need to Make a Movie (A Girl & a Gun Cornershop Mix), the final track of the Singhles Club, six songs released through Ample Play, the label run by Cornershop main man Tjinder Singh & Ben Ayres.
Longtime followers of the band will already own both their albums Metal Book and Miss World, so A French Connection, A Girl and a Gun and Infant Nation main function is to serve as reference for the reworked songs. The album's title track is also released as a single again, with an instrumental version as the B-side - it would have been nice when they had added that one to this grab bag of tracks.
London rhythm & noir band Alberteen will revisit a couple of tracks from their back catalog on the new album A French Connection. Parisian DJ Comma Period has worked his magic on two tracks: Hidden and A French Connection.
The band themselves have shared a new recording of A French Connection, originally released on their Miss World album - top pick on HCTF's best of 2015 list.
2015 was a rather good year for music. HCTF lists the 20 albums that will be in regular rotation for many years to come.
Today: final countdown from number 5 to 1. Go here for 10-6 | 15-11 | 20-16.
5 The Leonids: Satellite Broadcast Kill
Exquisite orchestral pop meets jazz. The sky is the limit on a genre-crossing concept album of sorts.
{...} an album in the true sense of the word. Each song has its own flow and texture, but all of them contribute to the overall sound and feel: jazzy pop with uncanny ear for harmonic detail. Whether they are taking a bow to the Eighties synths (The Common World) or use a bass clarinet as the lead instrument (Under The Leonids), it all fits like a jigsaw that is complicated and straightforward at the same time. The title track is a superb throwback to the heyday of UK orchestral pop. Adele will be fucking jealous.
4 Johnny Dowd: That's Your Wife on the Back of My Horse
The world most prolific trashcan Americana singer goes fiercely DIY, with an old drum machine, guitar and scary sounding pre-programmed keyboards.
Dowd is a troubadour in his own right, a Tom Waits-alike raconteur who won't back down, telling the world that "it sucks to get old" in Poor, but Proud. No problem if you cry for lost youth (Teardrops), but keep your guard up. He still might still steal your wife in the end.
3 The Sideshow Tragedy: Capital
Recipe for loud bluesy garage rock: take two guys and let them play resonator guitar and drums. Add vocals. Press play.
(...) a melting pot of gnarly, spicy tunes telling stories about gun fights, trying to keep a composure, funerals, highway men and love affairs from Hell.
Singleton and Harrell have an instant rapport, sounding like they are one guy with four arms and four legs. with the "don't-fuck-with-me" vocals as an added bonus. The Sideshow Tragedy have thrown down a slab of abrasive songs that will induce foot tapping, air guitar and drums.
2 The Aristocrats: Tres Caballeros
Prog jazz fusion metal rock virtuosos having fun with their chops. Tons of notes, tons of licks and tons of ideas. Relentless touring has turned them into formidable live act and studio masters.
During their live concerts they spice things up with squealing noises made by a plastic pig and chicken, but after given it some serious thought the pig didn't' make an appearance on the aptly titled Govan showcase Pig’s Day Off - the DVD extra includes Pig’s Day On and it isn't as good; they choose wisely. Beller goes Morricone in his composition Smuggler’s Corridor, with Govan laying down flawless Latin runs and Beller leading a small choir going "Ähaa-Ahaa-Ahaa", a dead ringer for audience participation.
1 Alberteen: Miss World
The London rhythm & noir band take a look at life and English history, with a an album honoring "listen, learn, read on".
Alberteen is well aware that there are two sides of the coin in life, a concept that comes to the fore in We Are The Mods (youthful hope for a brighter future) and We Are The Last (sadder but wiser).
Miss World is an album for adults and smart kids. With Mike Bennett (The Fall, Ian Brown) once again the producer's seat, they have come up with a timeless post-punk album filled with a wealth of cultural references that never get in the way of enjoying the music as such.
London rhythm & noir band Alberteen have a hometown show coming up. They will perform @ Earl Haig Hall on November 12, with support acts Little Sparta and That Hillbilly Palace. A rare opportunity to experience the tracks of their latest album Miss World.
HCTF review of Miss World.
Rhythm & noir band Alberteen take another shot at the charts with the double A-side single We Are The Mods b/w King's Evil, a twofer punch about two famous incidents in recent English history: the riots at Margate in the early Sixties and the demonstrators attacking the car carrying Prince Charles to the Royal Variety Show in 2010. A fine post-punk single proving that sensible lyrics can be inserted into a wealth of riffs and books.
We Are The Mods b/w King's Evil will be released as digital single on Rhythm & Noir records. Release date: July 6.
HCTF review of Miss World.
English rhythm & noir band Alberteen took their time to come up with a follow-up for their 2012 album Metal Book, but it's been worth the wait. Miss World is a journey through the back roads of Southern England, paying visits to forgotten villages and nuclear facilities.
With a professor of English Literature on vocals and a playwright on bass, the lyrics are far more intellectual that most of their post-punk competitors. Greek mythology, modernism, physics, poetry and history have found their way into overall melancholy of the songs.
Miss World is an album that can be savoured on different levels. There is a thin line between dreams and reality, madness and sanity. The band themselves call it a trip from Folkestone (the city that hosted the first Miss World pageant in 1908) to London, where they dream of the highrises of Canary Wharf being demolished by Godzilla and Mothra (Princess Noise).
A French Connection, capturing the lure of a love affair in Paris kicks off the album, with more than a hint to Lenoard Cohen's First We Take Manhattan making it clear that it isn't to last. The Au Pairs' inspired jagged rhythms in King's Evil sound like the running feet of the demonstrators attacking the car carrying Prince Charles to the Royal Variety Show in 2010.
The slow Prospect is the soft-spoken tale of the shut down of the nuclear power plant in Dungeness that prevented another Fukushima disaster. It is by no means as angry as London Calling, but far more scary in the end. Alberteen is well aware that there are two sides of the coin in life, a concept that comes to the fore in We Are The Mods (youthful hope for a brighter future) and We Are The Last (sadder but wiser).
Miss World is an album for adults and smart kids. With Mike Bennett (The Fall, Ian Brown) once again the producer's seat, they have come up with a timeless post-punk album filled with a wealth of cultural references that never get in the way of enjoying the music as such.
Alberteen:
Ade Berry: bass, acoustic guitar, keyboards, piano
John Rose: acoustic guitar, electric guitar, vocals, keyboards, piano, melodica
Phil Shaw: vocals
Gareth Warden: drums, percussion
Julia Knight and Kathryn Stephens-Berry: backing vocals
Miss World will be released (vinyl/cd/digital) on Rhythm & Noir records. Release date: May 25th.
Tracks:HCTF review of Metal Book.
