Warpaint At The Albert Hall, Manchester And A Half Hour Mix

The Albert Hall has become Manchester's best gig venue in recent years. Holding 1800 people in a second floor former Wesleyan Chapel (Grade 2 listed), hidden and forgotten about for forty years, it's now the perfect venue for bands- the stained glass windows above the balcony are stunning, especially at that ideal time in the spring and summer when the sun sets just as bands take the stage and the natural light and stage light play against each other. The stage is compact with the old organ pipes visible behind it. It's big on atmosphere and intimate feeling and can conjure up some real magic.

Warpaint played there on Thursday night, a band I've been meaning to see live for years and for some reason never managed until now. They're touring to promote a new album, Radiate Like This, a record I've not really heard in full yet but one which has a poppier, lighter tone than some of their previous albums. The four members arrive on stage just after 9pm and play a mixture of songs from the new album along with older ones- they kick off with Stars from 2009 mini- album debut Exquisite Corpse and follow it with new one Champion. The rhythm section of bassist Jenny Lee and drummer Stella are locked in, the sound is great, guitars clear and bright over the post- punk/ dubby rhythms. The bass is pleasingly loud, felt as well as heard. Jenny often moves to the centre of the stage when starting a song, face to face with guitarist/ singer Emily, eyes locked into each others. Seven songs in they play Love Is To Die, the moment when everything really takes off, slow burning and intense, the song's heavy churn and sweet harmonies really hitting the mark. A little later the four of them come to the front of stage and sing Melting a capella (except for some delicate finger picked guitar from Emily), a sweet moment of calm. Stevie from the new album and Bees follow and then New Song from 2016's Heads Up, a powerful, filled out version of the song, with Emily dancing at the mic, and then they finish with one of their best songs, Disco// Very, a tense, dark and menacing, going off like a slow firework. 'I make room for everyone', Emily sings, 'I make room for everyone/ I... need... to... take... a break!' 

The encore gives us Elephants, the song that was the stand out on their debut, thumping drums, squealing guitars, propulsive bassline and threats to 'break your heart'. Beetles, equally old, is next before the final song, a slighter and more delicate song from the new album, Send Nudes. The very mixed age crowd- everyone from sixteen year girls to sixty year old men with thirty- somethings well represented- are happy, everyone's had a good time and Warpaint seem genuinely excited by the reception they received. They're a powerful live band, the songs bursting to life on stage, the four women equally adept at atmospherics, dreamy, stoned Californian post- punk with Mamas and Papas vocals, and hypnotic 21st century dance- rock too. 

Today's half hour mix is a Warpaint compilation with a Jennylee solo song thrown in (Never from her 2015 album Right On!). There's a lovely cosmic Richard Norris remix of Disco// Very, the version of Undertow from the re- released version of The Fool (from last year's Record Store Day, the Weatherall mixes of the album that were shelved at the time of the album's original release), No Way Out- a standalone 7" single in 2016 and one of their best songs for me and three of their killer songs- Elephants, Keep It Healthy and Love Is To Die, all played at the Albert Hall on Thursday night. 

Thirty Minutes Of Warpaint

• Disco// Very (Time And Space Machine Remix)
• No Way Out (Redux)
• Undertow (Andrew Weatherall Mix )
• Elephants
• Never
• Love Is To Die
• Keep It Healthy

The Fool

The new Andrew Weatherall mixes of Warpaint's The Fool came out yesterday, double vinyl edition for Record Shop Day. The album originally came out in 2010 with two songs mixed by Andrew, the fabulous, slinky gloom of Undertow and Baby. Weatherall and Nina Walsh worked with the LA fourpiece, recording the songs in the studio and Andrew then mixed them and sequenced them. This wasn't a Screamadelica or Morning Dove White production job. The rest of Andrew's mixes for the remaining seven songs weren't used, the band for some reason going with different mixes and a different running order to the one he put together. Let's be honest- a new version of this album appearing eleven years later with all of Andrew's mixes, in the order he envisaged and a song that was left off back in 2010, a year after he died, can't help but feel a little exploitative. The band and label have every right to release whichever mixes they want to of course. If the mixes were worth releasing then Warpaint and Rough Trade should have gone with them first time round.  If they weren't, then it does feel a little money grabbing to release them now. Having said that, I popped in to Piccadilly Records at midday, no RSD queue and bought a copy. I like Warpaint, I have done since before The Fool came out, and didn't buy that album on vinyl at the time so buying this with Weatherall's connection balanced out feeling exploited  somewhat. 

As I said before, this isn't a Weatherall production job, this isn't Andrew and Nina being given the master tapes and carte blanche to do what they want with them. This isn't an early version of Weatherall and Walsh's Woodleigh Research Facility either. This is very much Warpaint sounding like Warpaint sound- post punk influences, dub basslines, stoned vocals, harmonies, West Coast USA via West London in 1978, shadowy, gliding songs, submerged sections and sudden bursts of sunlight. Majesty stands out in this mix, the rumble of the bass and drums to the fore and the spindly guitar notes on top with lots of space between the instruments. Baby, the same as the first release, is all acoustic despair and ennui, Nina's fingerprints visible. After a slow fade in/ intro, Composure lifts off as the bass and drums lock in and surge forward in the mix, the bass low and growly, the guitar notes dancing on top and the push- pull dynamics of the song very alive. The ending and sudden fade out is lovely too. there are lots of little touches, voices fading out at the end of songs, switches being flicked, that you notice when listening closely. Lissie's Heart Murmur (and I thought twice about even mentioning this song and its title given the horrific scenes at the Denmark- Finland match at the Euros yesterday) is dark and wallows in itself, piano spiralling over the rhythm section and a wash of reverb. When you know it's Andrew at the desk you can hear it- I'm not sure if I didn't I would say' yep, that's Andrew's touch' but I guess that's the heart of this release- he mixed it, he didn't produce it. Set Your Arms Down is the one for me after a couple of listens. In Andrew's version he placed it at the album's end (rather than the start as it was in the 2010 edition). The song is a propulsive album closer, building in intensity, those post- punk drums and bass driving the song on. People often compare Warpaint to The Slits and on this song, you can hear it, if The Slits had been from 21st century Los Angeles not 70s London- angular guitars blended into the sound, rattling snares, the throb of post- punk dub but a wider, bigger sound than The Slits had. Set Your Arms Down builds to a spectacular finish and then drops out, a few more seconds of sound and fades out, a good way to finish. Throughout this mix of The Fool the guitars are more post punk, less jangly- the previously unreleased Jubille has some choppy 1979 style guitars- and Andrew's mix places the bass and drums front and centre over a wash of reverb and atmospherics. 

Jubilee (Demo Version)

Baby

What have we learned? It's early days and I haven't lived with it yet but the album sounds very good- it would do with Weatherall mixing it wouldn't it? Do I want gold vinyl? No, I don't (and the pressing doesn't seem brilliant either, a lot of crackle on side C, something that is a recurring issue with coloured vinyl). Is it overpriced? Yes it is- I paid less than thirty quid but some of the online retailers are asking for closer to forty which is nonsense. Is it a lost classic? No, I don't think so. Is it the version I'll listen to from now on? Yes, it is. 

Now I've Got You In The Undertow

Record Shop/ Store (delete according to taste) Day for 2021 is in June by which point the people behind it hope that record shops will still be open and people will be able to queue up from the early hours to bag limited edition, coloured vinyl re- issues of records their parents dumped in charity shops two decades ago. One announcement which did prick my interest is the release of Warpaint's 2010 album The Fool in the form of the mix Andrew Weatherall did of the songs- only two of his mixes made the final album but this release promises to be the whole record as he mixed it. At the time someone (the band apparently) took the view that Weatherall's mixes of the songs weren't right for release and most of them were shelved. The Fool is a good album and hearing Andrew's mixes is definitely of interest- not that I intend to queue up outside Piccadilly Records at some stupidly early hour to get one so I suppose I'll take my chances later in the day. 

I've a lot of time for Warpaint. Their first mini- album Exquisite Corpse from 2007 was a blast with the brilliant song Elephants at its centre. 2010's The Fool was led by the single Undertow, a swooning, submerged, moody song that sounds like dusk in California (to someone who's never been there), with all that sea one way and all that land the other (to borrow an image from Kerouac).

Undertow 

The 2014 follow up, a self titled album, was by far their best for me, the slightly stoned vocal harmonies, rolling grooves, PiL basslines and psychedelic/ post punk guitar lines all coming together perfectly on songs like Love Is To Die, Disco// Very and Biggy. Love Is To Die has an urgency and darkness to go with the dreaminess, Jenny Lee's basslines and Stella's drums locked in tight, and the vocals floating on top, slightly behind the beat. 

Love Is To Die

I'm So Tired

Events are moving very fast at the moment- the government is reactive, constantly running to catch up with the virus. The announcement about schools yesterday means we'll all be at home from after school tomorrow. I don't feel any elation about this, there's no real joy in having time out of work under these circumstances. I feel some relief- it's been difficult coping at school this week as staffing numbers have fallen and those of us in school have been more and more stretched. Staff and children feeling anxious with an impact on the behaviour of some. Not an easy situation to manage.

Record Shop Day 2020 has been put back from April to June, another casualty of the Coronavirus. One of the announcements I was interested in from the initial lists was this single from Jennylee, Warpaint's bassist- a cover of Fugazi's 1999 song, a piano ballad from a band who played hardcore US punk. 'I'm so tired the sheep are counting me' Ian MacKaye sings before checking out with a bleak final line. Jennylee doubles the length of the song, picking out the melody on the bass and the two voices, hers and another, entwine around each other.



Back in January Warpaint sneaked a new song out on the soundtrack to a film called The Turning. The Brakes seems to be evidence that Warpaint are still a going concern and harks back to the sound of their early records, sparse and brittle but with that liquid, rolling groove and slightly stoned vocals they do so well.

The Brakes

Jennylee sang on a song on Trentemoller's album last year, a very mid- 80s synth pop homage, Depeche Mode and New Order via Copenhagen and L.A. in the 21st century. I hadn't heard this until I heard the RSD cover (or the soundtrack song) so I got three new Warpaint related songs in one go. Which is nice, as that man on The Fast Show used to say.

Undertow//Whiteout

Last month Warpaint played a gig in Los Angeles to celebrate their fifteenth anniversary, news that I was pleased to hear. The interviews that surrounded their 2016 album Heads Up made it look like the group's future was a bit iffy, that tensions in the band plus various members making solo records might lead them to call it a day. In 2015 they'd released a double A-sided single No Way Out/I'll Start Believing, two songs that are among their best, and there was talk about releasing a slew of singles as they recorded them instead of a full album. When they regrouped the four members spent quite a bit of time contributing to sessions individually, which never seems to bode well for a band. The sessions resulted eventually in Heads Up, an album with synths to go with the guitars, faster bpms and a much poppier lead single in New Song. They supported Depeche Mode in the USA during 2017 and then Harry Styles on some dates in Asia in May 2018 but other than that they've been fairly quiet.

I'm pleased they're still together. The three albums they've made since 2010 (plus the 2007 mini album Exquisite Corpse) are Bagging Area favourites. Their sound- post-punk/dub influenced bass, psyche-rock guitars and gently stoned California harmonies- is great, modern dream pop with dancey rhythms. Their best album is 2014's self titled one, a record packed full of good songs and hooks- Biggy, Keep It Healthy, Disco//Very and Love Is To Die. Instead of that though here are two songs form the records that came before and after it, which I've been rediscovering this week.

Undertow was the lead single from 2011's The Fool, a slinky, low slung groove, gliding along the West Coast.

Undertow

Whiteout opened Heads Up, a slightly busier affair, with a killer bassline and staccato guitars.

Whiteout

Love Leaks

Theresa Wayman is the latest member of Warpaint to make a break for it and release some solo stuff outside the band, under the name TT. This song came out a month ago, a long, dark and sinuous song that has bags of atmosphere but not at the expense of the tune. Album to follow.

So Good

I watched the Warpaint gig from 6 Music's Glasgow festival on the iPlayer last week and then went back to last year's Heads Up album which underwhelmed me at the time. I'm a big fan of the group, the dance-rock grooves, the post-punk bass, Californian harmonies and fluid guitars, but Heads Up just seemed to wash over me without making much of an impact. I've got a bit more out of it now. This song, So Good, has a funky disco drumbeat, locked in bass from Jenny Lee and the vaguest of choruses. The instrumental part towards the end where the keys play off against the rest is a joy.

So Good

Diamond

Another post cobbled together under difficult technological circumstances (a new definition of blogging modernism after Kit Lambert's description of mod as clean living under difficult circumstances for you there). This is Mike D, Beastie Boy, remixing Warpaint. The new Warpaint album is pretty good but I don't feel like it's got under my skin yet in the way the previous ones did. For his remix Mike D slows it right down, strips away the instruments, lets the vocals carry the melody and adds a Kangol hatful of 80s hip hop influences. Whatchuwaitinfor? Ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out.

I finish work today for a week off and it cannot come soon enough. 

New Song

Ahead of a new album (Heads Up) in Setember warpaint have released a new song called New Song. On first listen I was a little disappointed- it seemed a bit lightweight, their languid, rolling grooves replaced by something much poppier (not that I'm against poppier). However it's really grown on me, especially since picking it up on 7" where on a proper stereo rather than computer speakers the bass has room and the rhythm hits the spot.

I Can't Find My Way

Warpaint haven't released much recently. Last year saw No Way Out come out digitally, the redux version, a full on seven minute excusion and an extra song I'll Start Believing. No Way Out combines their signature sounds in one glorious package- the slightly stoned Californian multi-tracked vocals, the PiL bassline, the sparse, fluid guitars and the thumping drums. You'll want to buy the full length version if you haven't got it. As an added bonus they look alright too.

No Way Out (Redux)

Never

Jenny Lee Lindberg, Warpaint's cool as fuck bassist, has a solo album coming out (under the name jennylee, all lower case). This song is the attention grabber to get you interested. Dominated by one of her trademark slinky basslines it's got guitars that point towards The Cure, skittering drums and an overall feel of the early 80s- what the record companies called New Wave. More labels for you- dark underbelly of LA, post-punk, early goth. I've got to say, I like it.

Hi

It's all been pretty quiet on the Warpaint front this year despite the internet trailer for No Way Out back in March. This remix of Hi by Equal was posted recently and strips the swirling guitar, bass and drums out and instead adds some low key electronics to the mix, coming up very mellow and very nice for a Sunday morning.



We're going away for a couple of nights so they won't be anything here until Tuesday/Wednesday. See you all later.

No Way Out

Warpaint returned with a new song last month although it isn't properly out for a while yet. No Way Out (Redux) opens with some dreamy harmonies, picked guitars and a ton of reverb. When the bass and drums kick in at one minute twenty-something it really takes off, tougher and upfront, but still with that just-woken-up wooziness feeling they do so well. The vocals continue to build and interlock and the rhythm keeps on spiraling, round and round. Hypnotic. There's a live version that is seven minutes plus so I'm hoping the full release with have that one on it because this is much too short.

Good video- nothing wrong with just watching a 12" record revolving is there?

Major Tom's A Junkie

No astronaut picture today but the space theme continues in the song- and I thought a picture of Warpaint's foxy bassist Jenny Lee Lindbergh might make a good start to Thursday. Ashes To Ashes was David Bowie's 1980 smash, complete with those lines harking back to Space Oddity and Major Tom floating off in his tincan/opiate haze. Warpaint covered it for a compilation album and did a magnificent, dreamy job.

Ashes To Ashes

You Call Glastonbury Glasto...

...You'd like to go there someday
When they've put up the gun towers
To keep the hippies away.

So said Half Man Half Biscuit's Nigel Blackwell and judging by the bits I've seen on the telly this weekend it looks like it's happened. Most of the footage made Glastonbury look like a gap year training camp.

I saw a couple of highlights along with some shockers (Metallica- how much could you stand? I managed 93 seconds). I think the girls won.

M.I.A. resplendent in gold and with a whole forward line of rappers and singers blowing it up on Friday night. That sample from Straight To Hell and those gunshots and cash registers clanging out over rural Somerset are hard to beat.



Edit: This video, uploaded by the BBC onto their own Youtube channel, has now been removed by themselves. Apparently someone was wearing a t-shirt with a political slogan they don't like. No to censorship, yeah? Last night there was still 20 minutes worth of her set at their own website- confusing huh? Paper Planes starts around  13 minutes in.

The day after Warpaint brought their dreamy, bass led groove to the fields. Their album is sounding good again after a month or two away from it. You have to stop looking for the songs and let their sound wash over you.



Goldfrapp, strobe-lit and black clad, a sexy electro-glam stomp.




I also watched Blondie doing Atomic at some point while reading the paper on Saturday morning. I am sorry to report it was dreadful.

Direct from the beeb...

Warpainted

Some blogs do  an April Fools post with something outrageous (see The Vinyl Villain's attempt to persuade us all last year that Paul Young's No Parlez was a much overlooked lp) or a little joke (one blog once claimed to have posted a rare Joy Division song found at a car boot sale but the download turned out to be Kylie's I Should Be So Lucky). No such going ons here. I couldn't think of anything funny.

This new Richard Norris remix of Warpaint's Disco//Very is somewhat trippy and phased and very nice indeed. Fittingly it has both time and space in abundance. I hope it's coming out on vinyl.

Mix

I did a mix for a new website called Cooking Up A Quiet Storm. There are a whole bunch of top notch mixes there, some by people familiar to these pages and the blogs over on the right hand side of your computer screen. If you like mine, or anyone else's, there are two things you could do- leave a comment there, and maybe also volunteer to do a mix yourself. I'm sure Mark would appreciate it.

My mix looks like this...

My Bloody Valentine - Don't Ask Why/Warpaint - Love Is To Die/Public Service Broadcasting - Everest/Big Audio Dynamite - V Thirteen/Toy - Dead and Gone (Andrew Weatherall Remix)/Brian Eno - Another Green World (The Blue Realm mix)/The Orb v Lisa Stansfield - Time To Make You Mine/The Asphodells - Beglammered/Kolsh- Der Alte/Glass Candy - Warm In The Winter

Brody

Brody Dalle is one of those punk girls our mothers used to warn us about- fags, tattoos, black eyeliner, bad attitude. Which only made them more attractive. She was in LA punks The Distillers and then the more alt-rock Spinnerette; both have engine revving guitars and a massive drum sound, her big husky voice and Joan Jett looks. If my LA punk gossip knowledge is correct she was married to Rancid's Tim Armstrong and is now married to Queen Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme. Brody has a solo album coming out- there is a song below to listen to (with Shirley Manson and Emily from Warpaint on backing vox). I quite like it in a regressive shoutalong kind of way.

Warpaint

The new Warpaint album is out today. I'll have to wait until payday for a physical copy- January is a long month and there isn't any cash for vinyl at the moment. The internet will provide in the meantime. The reviews I've read this weekend have been a bit 'yes, but...' about this album but I've been looking forward to it since Love Is To Die came out online last year. The performance of that song (above) is a bit special.

Biggy

Warpaint seem to be gearing up for January's best release. This new song has appeared on Soundcloud and is easily the equal of Love Is To Die (which popped up a month or two ago). This has all the constituent Warpaint parts and is a dream. I'm not going to describe it- listen for yourself.