Former bIG*fLAME singer and bassist Alan Brown returns with his long term solo project The Great Leap Forward, releasing a powerful and trademark new album ‘Revolt Against An Age Of Plenty’.

Vigorous, scintillating and life-affirming, this 13-song album sees Brown reach a milestone birthday, as explored in 'Can You Kanreki?’ - the Japanese concept of second childhood and re-birth. Then there are the trademark political and social vignettes, such as the title song of the album 'Revolt Against An Age Of Plenty' – railing against mass consumerism and media control; the wistful 'dEBRA 2021' (a re-working of the bIG*fLAME classic 'Debra'); and the ascerbic 'It's A Wonderful Lie' – a scathing attack on the lack of openness, honesty and humility of our political leaders.

Brown featured on the legendary and influential C86 NME cassette as singer and bassist with Manchester agit-post-punk trio bIG*fLAME, and recorded nine John Peel sessions for BBC Radio One in the 1980’s with bIG*fLAME (4), The Great Leap Forward (2), A Witness (2) and Inca Babies (1).

Formed by Brown following the disbandment of bIG*fLAME in 1986, The Great Leap Forward is essentially a solo project in which Brown writes all songs and lyrics, and plays / programs all instruments on recordings.

The style and sound is more melodic and accessible than bIG*fLAME, but still with overtly political lyrics and a socialist / humanist ethos: incisive political and social commentary layered over sharp yet melodic guitar pop – and with a touch of electro and humour thrown in for good measure…
Stuart Maconie, writing for NME, summed up the band's sound: "First there's the jagged guitar melodics, sweet but never tacky. Then there's the ferocious rhythmic drive. But best of all there's the stylish and witty use of found voices...snatches and snippets of speech and propaganda that are integral to the songs."

Little wonder that as with McCarthy, The Great Leap Forward were loved by a young James Dean Bradfield.

Brown writes- “This album is the culmination of four year's writing, and it has a much more varied approach than previous releases. Whereas previously I've concentrated on a political approach, this album takes a wider view of the world. Of course I still provide the trademark political and social vignettes - how could I not - such as the title song of the album 'Revolt Against An Age Of Plenty' – named after a collection of works by the English writer Jack Common in which I rail against mass consumerism and media control; the wistful 'dEBRA 2021' (a re-working of the bIG*fLAME classic 'Debra'); and the ascerbic 'It's A Wonderful Lie' – with what I think is a scathing attack on the lack of openness, honesty and humility of our political leaders.

TRACK LISTING

1) Songs To Die For
2) Things That Make Me Happy
3) Revolt Against An Age Of Plenty
4) Losing Faith In The Wall
5) Giving Back Is Good For You
6) DEBRA 2021
7) Words On Fire
8) Can You Kanreki?
9) A Life More Ordinary
10) It’s A Wonderful Life
11) My World Is Not My Own Anymore
12) When Our Kingdom Comes 1
13) Songs To Die To Reprise

Having now been recording and gigging for longer than their original 1980s incarnation, The Wolfhounds continue to hone the blade of their sound to outclass their whippersnapper competitors on Electric Music.

From the desperate narrator of the opening anthem ‘Can’t See The Light’, unable to see an end to his descent into darkness to the sad urban reminiscences of the rural immigrant in ‘Song Of The Afghan Shopkeeper’ and the unwilling draftee in ‘Pointless Killing’, to the powerlessness of people tossed around on the waves of history and progress in ‘Like Driftwood’ – Wolfhounds ask where our emotional and actual lives are heading, as the world seemingly freefalls into barbarism. With the dreaded feeling that ‘Lightning’s Going To Strike Again’, we lack even the appealing soundtrack to the catastrophe of the past described in ‘… and Electric Music’, and the band ask will ‘The Roaches’ once more rule the world (if they ever stopped)? Is the solution to ‘Stand Apart’ from the chaotic crowd or admit, cynically, that ‘We Don’t Believe Anything’ and roll with the movements of the masses?

Featuring the glowing sleeve notes of comedian Stewart Lee, and a new expanded line-up including electric violin and bassoon (from Scritti Politti’s Rhodri Marsden), and peppered with the barbed lyrics and stinging guitar of David Lance Callahan and the home-made hybrid stringed instruments of guitarist Andy Golding, Wolfhounds have never sounded more alive, energetic and contemporary.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Part post-punk, part rock and with a healthy dose of electronic influence chucked in there too, the Wolfhounds soar effortlessly between swooning, instrumental soundscapes and driven fist-pumping groove. Top stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1) Can’t See The Light
2) Like Driftwood
3) Song Of The Afghan Shopkeeper (after Ben Judah)
4) Lightning’s Going To Strike Again
5) ..and Electric Music
6) The Roaches
7) Pointless Killing
8) Stand Apart
9) We Don’t Believe Anything

“One of music’s most perfect and unheralded rock outfits” – Magnet Magazine John Andrew Fredrick has written and released seventeen the black watch albums of sparkling, literate, jangly-distorted indie rock since the LA band’s inception in 1988 (as well as four works of comedic literary fiction and one book on the early films of Wes Anderson). For this record Fredrick had the idea of letting producer-friends Scott Campbell, Rob Campanella (producer for The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Beachwood Sparks, Dead Meadow) and Andy Creighton be his band and record the album. “I have had, I think, too much control, musically speaking, in the past.’ Fredrick says, “And the thought of experimenting this way was really thrilling.” The result was far from a failure, in fact this approach may have yielded TBW’s best album in years.

"The Creation band Alan McGee never signed!"--Stereoembers “Should’ve become a household name a long time ago” – USA Today "Bright but with dark undercurrents, brainy but not pretentious, the music here on the new album from The Black Watch is proof that some Americans have a knack for this sort of thing. Full of big and bold music, The Gospel According to John is a record of luminous beauty in spots."--A Pessimist is Never Disappointed “Sounds like the holy union of Guided By Voices, The Wedding Present and any number of New Zealand pop heroes. In other words, it sounds truly indie: immediate, honest and just-enough lovingly rough” – Buzzbands L.A.

TRACK LISTING

1) Julie 2
2) Crying All The Time
3) Brilliant Failures
4) Twisted Thinking
5) Red Dwarf Star
6) The
Personal Statement
7) Mind You Now
8) Hodophobia
9) One Hundred Million Times Around The Sun
10) Anywhere/ Everywhere
11) Julie
12) What I Think
13) Technology

Originally formed as teenagers in 1984, The Wolfhounds released four critically acclaimed LPs and numerous singles, appeared on the NME’s influential C86 cassette, extensively toured the UK and continental Europe, finally disbanding in 1990. The band reformed in 2006 at the request of St Etienne’s Bob Stanley to celebrate 20 years since the release of C86, and inflicted a severe guitar noisefest on an unsuspecting indiepop crowd at London’s ICA. Since 2012 they have been recording and releasing new material.

At the peak of media attention over the new bands promoted by the C86 cassette, The Wolfhounds recorded three four-song sessions for the BBC’s legendary late-night John Peel Show between March 1986 and January 1987, capturing all the excitement and youthful exuberance of a band just catching the public imagination. With an energy born of sweaty, rammed gigs in the function rooms of London pubs and a willful experimentation nurtured in suburban bedrooms and garages away from watchful eyes, The Wolfhounds blasted their raw live sound straight to tape with little in the way of overdubs or the more considered studio polish of their excellent albums.

Every song from these sessions is now gathered together on Hands In The Till, making a surprisingly coherent whole despite the heady disorganized thrust of the times and a couple of line-up changes in the meantime. More wiry and angular than most of their C86 peers, The Wolfhounds had more in common with The Fall than The Byrds, and "Hands In The Till" shows them at their caustic best.

The Wolfhounds are now (hyper-)active again, releasing two full-length LPs in recent years and performing at several popfests (including Berlin and New York) and Stewart Lee’s All Tomorrow’s Parties, as well as regular club dates of their own. The band continue to be more relevant than ever, grabbing their home country’s woes by the horns on the recent double LP, "Untied Kingdom or How to Come to Terms with your Culture" (which featured guest musicians from such bands as PJ Harvey, Gallon Drunk, Scritti Politti and Evans The Death), Hands In The Till is sure to illuminate such an expansive modern work’s precocious teenage beginnings, as well as providing the band’s contemporary listeners a nostalgic buzz – forever, a real all-ages show!

TRACK LISTING

1) The Anti-Midas Touch
2) Hand In The Till
3) Me
4) Whale On The Beach
5) Boy Racer RM1
6) Disgusted E7
7) Rule Of Thumb
8) Sandy
9) Happy Shopper
10) Non-specific Song
11) The William Randolph Hearse
12) Son Of Nothing