>Twinkranes and Discrete Molecules Of Simultaneity

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“Unless a person passes through some Great Experience, that person’s life will have been for naught. Such an experience doesn’t have to be explosive or murderous… often a quiet life of loneliness can be its own Great Experience.” – Douglas Coupland, Girlfriend in a Coma

This rule is applicable to bands too. There are legions of bands who were good enough to make it, but for one reason or another, didn’t. I wonder if they still consider their experience a Great one? Or whether the lack of fame and money fundamentally stunted their trip?

These thoughts will cross Twinkranes‘ mind at some point too. Will Twinkranes‘ experience be Great? Who knows? But their music is far enough outside of normality to rank it as an interesting one. Their music is psychedelic in the truest, most right sense, and songs split, suddenly, with swathes of noise that crawl and slither.

When lyrics do appear – as in The Market Of The Bizarre – they jar gracefully against the sounds, shimmering and scooting like mercury above the music: alien, seductive, there for a reason you can’t quite place.

Twinkranes – The Market Of The Bizarre (Sample)

Twinkranes’ music also brought Keith Tyson’s Bubble Chambers: 2 Discrete Molecules of Simultaneity to mind. Dual universes, chance happenings, the random nature of life. Twinkrane touch on these mind-boggling topics, clever, quiet and calm. Great Experiences for all.

>Today’s New Band – My Tiger My Timing PLUS! "I wanna be a d-o-o-o-g"

When I was in my mid-teens, oily of skin and squeaky of voice, I listened to The Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album twice a day, every day for about a year. How did this frightening set of circumstances come about?

Well, a young world-view, musical or otherwise, was mainly to blame. This meant that some bands of that time (Pavement et al) were a lot lower on the radar than they should have been, and bands from the near past (Joy Division and friends) may as well have been, to my teenage ears, my grandparent’s very choicest of 78″ acetate discs.

At that age you seem to get – no, actually, actively, subconsciously want to get – amorously attached to one band. Teens want a band that means something to them and them alone, regardless of how many copies of their favourite album have been sold, and so listen religiously, looking for and finding extra meaning that fair weather fans have missed.

I migrated from The Stone Roses after a while. Actually, I can pinpoint the moment of the shattering realisation that they weren’t that good after all to the day when my six-year old sister asked me why, on the first track, ‘the man is singing, “I wanna be a dog”?’

Clinging onto one band is not a bad thing per se, but it does legitimise the careers of awful bands who scraped the bottom of the rock barrel a long time ago. There is a reason why Ocean Colour Scene are still touring.

This is also the reason why listening to Today’s New Band, My Tiger My Timing, is the right thing to do. They’re a band that have found how to be arty and not jarring – one of rock’s holy grails. Thus, the least we can do is point our ears in their direction.

This Is Not The Fire quickly unfolds into one of the jerkiest, warmest pop songs of its unusual ilk this side of Born Under Punches by Talking Heads. It rambles freely in its self-imposed sonic limitations, eager to seek out every cranny of possibility. Conversation Starter, full of gentle punches of pulsating sounds, steely guitar shimmers and careful chanting, dreams of shiny space-pop and aims high enough to get there.

My Tiger My Timing are an example of a band Doing The Right Thing. Not only are they NEW! in spirit and sound, but have delicacy, urgency and the desire to make sounds that you haven’t quite heard before. Ace! Listen here!

>Today’s New Band – Large Number PLUS! MATHS DOOM!

>Here’s an opening line you don’t often read in music articles: Statisticians, please skip a few paragraphs right now, because you’ll already know this bit. For the rest of us whose uselessness with numbers is in direct relation to the length of the angry queue that forms as we struggle with a handful of coins to pay for the newspaper, read on.

So here’s a statistical fact – if you are in a room with 22 other people, there’s more than a 50% likelihood that two of them share the same birthday. No, I don’t really understand either. For a detailed explanation, complete with the kind of equations that makes my throat tighten and eyes boggle involuntarily, look here and weep at your pathetic grasp on the workings of the universe.

If this is the type of information that makes you suddenly realise how hopelessly equipped we are as humans to absorb our true unimportance in relation to life, the universe and everything, I apologise. But just think about how many times you’ve been in exactly that situation for a second. Then think about how many opportunities for big, fun, joint birthday parties you’ve missed.

This all leads me to conclude three things. Firstly, the Maths geeks you mocked at school already know this and so have been having a lot of carefully plotted fun that you’ve missed out on. Secondly, if you don’t understand this theory, it means that when the Great Nerd Revolution takes place, mouth-breathers like you and me will be first against the wall. Thirdly, this revolution will destroy the music that we love, because Maths + Rock = DOES NOT COMPUTE.

Or does it? Today’s New Band, Large Number, might be a sign that the Rise of Mathematical Aggression is already here. Large Number‘s songs might have been made by decoding the human genome, converting the code into one monstrously huge numerical sequence, and then letting a computer turn that number into sounds. But probably not. Large Number is actually a very talented woman called Ann, but I like the idea of computer-human hybrid auto-sound-production more.

Song Shy English Hitler is a warping, shimmering, electro-bizarro-creep, with a well-placed volley of verbal insults over the fabulously cranky sounds. It hops all over the place, the beat humming at different frequencies with crazed abandon, suddenly speeding up or slowing down on a whim. Hockenheim In The Rain, big and splashy, grunts and whistles with furious momentum, and keeps stepping up gears lazily until the pace is both languid and frantic.

Large Number: where we all began to realise our awful, algorithmic fate. Listen here!