Junkbox Jury #7
So to recap for those who don’t know what we’re up to with Junkbox Jury: We find interesting-looking CDs in bargain bins and rescue them from junkbox oblivion. The rules are, it must cost no more than £1 and the artists must be unfamiliar. Then it’s over to you to evaluate: A load of tosh? A lost masterpiece? Pleasant enough, but nothing to write home about? What do you think?
Today’s post sees the firts tryout of this new polling widget for Wordpress, so you can just vote for your favourite tune without having to leave a comment if you don’t feel like it.
First up today is The Apex Theory. This is a track from their album Topsy-Turvey, which I paid 50p for at Music & Video Exchange in Soho. You can find out more about the band on Wikipedia and hear more on their MySpace page, or, if you like it, I see the album is going for 1p (yes, a single penny) on Amazon Marketplace. They have apparently now changed their name to “Mt. Helium”.
The Apex Theory - Aisle Always
Next up is a group called Darling with a track off their album Initiation. This was also 50p from Music & Video Exchange, but I see this was a bargain. The album sells for as much as $63 in France for some reason. No, wait, I spoke too soon - you can pick it up for a penny on Amazon Marketplace too. Apart from that, I couldn’t find much else about them online.
Darling - Swoon
And finally, a group called The Mountaineers and a track from their eponymous EP. Also 50p, from the same place. Like ‘Darling’ they suffer from a too generic band name, making it hard to find out information about them. After some perseverence, I found out on Wikipedia that they’re from Wales (I seem to be finding quite a lot of Welsh music in bargain bins!!). However, their Junbox stocks are rising, because their EP goes on Amazon Marketplace for £1.79 - more than three times the Junkbox price. Listen to more on their MySpace Page.
The Mountaineers - Camped Out
And so it’s over to you, the Junkbox Jury…
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| 5 September, 2008, 12:33 pm |
The Mountaineers were about to be the next big thing about 5 years ago… Or that’s what it looked like in Liverpool anyway, they were playing gigs at the city’s ‘carling academy’ before I left, I thought they were a bit overpriced so I didn’t go.
| 5 September, 2008, 6:40 pm |
Oh yes I remember Mountaineers being mentioned as one of the big hits of the annual industry beanfeast “In The City” one year. Mind you, so was Tom Vek around the same time, so shows what that amounts to. I don’t think I ever heard them though, but this song’s really great. A clear win for me.
Apex Theory would make a great Mogwai type post-rock instrumental but is utterly ruined by the over-earnest vocal; in fact Darling are ruined by over-earnest vocal style too, which is a shame as she has a really lovely voice if it weren’t for all the “emoting”.
| 5 September, 2008, 8:25 pm |
in fact Darling are ruined by over-earnest vocal style too, which is a shame as she has a really lovely voice if it weren’t for all the “emoting”.
I like it when females with lovely voices ‘emote’. Especially when nice harmonies are involved. I blame the Mothra Twins from my childhood movie-watching memories. I dig chicks singing in harmony with each other or even themselves (Karen Carpenter). 
| 5 September, 2008, 9:29 pm |
Difficult choice this week. All well produced. I’ll have to go with The Mountaineers too. There’s a little more to sink your teeth in to.
| 6 September, 2008, 10:19 am |
I put “emoting” in quotes for a reason: the Darling singer does a whole set of tics - hiccups, gasps, sudden breathiness - that have become clumsy sort of shorthand for emotion in singers, especially female singers, these days. I think Cranberries and Corrs were the real culprits in creating this identikit form of expression and it’s spread around the world - just about the only popular singer I can think of who carries it off without just being annoying or subsuming her personality to these conventions is Shakira.
On the whole, if a voice is good, emotion should come through subtlety, not through hiccupping. You bring up Karen Carpenter - and for me she was the absolute apex of expressing emotion without all these tics… she could make understatement devastating. It’s like the principle a muso of my acquaintance explained - “playing very slow is harder than playing very fast”. Equally, for singers, singing in a pure tone is harder than singing with a lot of ornamentation.
| 6 September, 2008, 12:10 pm |
The Apex Theory one is dreadful - I hate puns, so the title got my back up before I even started playing it. I can’t stand his horrible constipated voice and there’s some outrageous fretwankery going on.
Darling sound like Slowdive but not as good. I really liked the beginning, it got me all nostalgic but then I found the chorus tremendously annoying. And they can fuck off with their glockenspiel.
Mountaineers - I think they would like to be the Beta Band.
| 6 September, 2008, 2:30 pm |
Ooops. That was Natasha, my wife. I’m guessing it puts my name to posts if I’m still logged into HP admin.
| 19 September, 2008, 6:39 pm |
I once found 2 Chris Houston tapes for 1 canadian dollar each in a Toronto shop and they are just fucking great. He has the humor of a JCooper Clarke, but the cowboy punk music is better. Surfing on Heroin is one of his songs. He is or was a cult figure in Canada, but nobody I know here in Germany has ever heard of him
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