In my youth, the free time I spent, my simple pleasures, weren’t really ever that simple. To buy every vinyl release on Factory records, (if anyone has Quando Quango 12inches and early Durutti Column albums do contact me though….) watch every Jean-Claude Van-Damme movie (like I said, I was young) and to visit every professional and semi-professional football club in the country. After a match I had driven to Berwick for (from West Yorkshire) was called off 20 minutes before kick-off, it nearly put me off. But the Tuesday night in sub-zero January I made a 150 mile round trip to Prescott Cables v (I could be wrong about this) Chadderton and it rained constantly throughout the match and my hands went numb, that was it. I know what your thinking, what was the score (you were, right? no?) the answer is I forget, and yes I had never heard of them either until that lunch hour looking for somewhere I hadn’t been, in the microscopic ‘other fixtures’ sections about three pages from the back in most Daily Papers. Three things struck me. Why, who would care if I did it, and if I wanted to do it, it would probably take about 83 years of constant travelling, most of it to stand with about 27 other people in the freezing cold.
I endeavored to set myself easier simple pleasures, with much more emphasis on the simple. After all, we don’t live forever and Prescott Cables seemed as good a place as any for it to officially end. Nowadays of course, my simple pleasures are indeed more simple. a glass of beer in front of match of the day will do for a start. It must be a sign of ageing.
We’ve written about Dark Horses before. They’ve got a new video out, fr a track called Alone. Its your usual everyday story of black PVC gloves being sported by a bass player, a semi-naked woman running through a tunnel of large pictures suspended from the roof, all shot in black and white. In truth, it’s a slightly dark and skewed view of fear, erotica and claustrophobia. The track also follows the same route. The sparsity of it all, just the vocal, drum sounds and a solitary keyboard note gives it this feeling of, well, loneliness. Its moodiness carries on although the track builds up with more bass (good job after investing in those gloves) and keys becoming more prominent in the choruses. The whole thing builds to this sort of organised mess, a mass of sound and noise that is terribly exciting, and well, maybe just a little frightening, And erotic. And claustrophobic.
The single comes from their Richard Fearless produced debut album ‘Black Music’ at the end of last year on Last Gang Records.The band are heading off on tour next week with fellow Brighton residents Kins. The tour, in conjunction with Artrocker and Club The Mammoth, is free entry – dates are below. The band themselves say this about the video. There is only one real antidote to the anguish engendered in humanity by it’s awareness of death: Erotic joy. And Match of the Day. [Warning: I MAY have just added that last bit myself] Anyone pass me a beer.
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