Labels: Jonson Family
Review by: Andy Malcolm
This is an interesting little comp here, on double vinyl. Don’t get many of those. Problem is, can a 2*7″ ever live up to the legacy of the Eucalyptus double 7″ comp? Unlikely.
Anyways! This is a bunch of bands all playing songs that clock in around 2 minutes. Hence the title. Clever eh! Some stuff is good, some less so. The goods include Grover, who play an instrumental piece to kick things off. It’s ambient and airy, though it finishes too soon. Obviously if it had been longer, they would have been disqualified. Oh well. Following them is Hirameka Hi-Fi sounding again completely different to how I am used to them sounding. This is weird vocalled stuff, new-wave crossed with the Lapse. Intriguing. I didn’t enjoy Left Hand who do something vaguely post-punky. Not my thing really. Perturbazione finish the first side with a bouncy indie-pop number that I found really catchy and nice. Safe as houses it is, but fine by me.
Reigns give us another instrumental to start side B, this one is guitar based, vaguely like Ariel M and all that. Not bad. Jet Johnson then have a go at something, more instrumentalism, kinda Chicago-ey to my ears. Nice. The Oedipus step up with a brooding instrumental post-rock number, these guys were under-rated in their time, good band. Short Wave TV play an irritating acoustic track to round off the side.
Aqua Vista Versus the Surf Creatures start side C. I have seen this band 4 times somehow. I can normally take about 10 minutes of their surf stuff, then I get bored. So 2 minutes of it is just fine. Last time I saw them play, I overheard a band member say to someone audience that they had started plagiarising old surf bands more and more. I highly doubt many people will notice. Econoline are up after Aqua Vista and they play something completely different to what they usually do. It is really cool, Ian shouts a lot, it is post punk and sounds a bit like Mission of Burma. Nice one. A band called Southall Riot sound more like the Lightning Seeds than a bunch of hoolies fighting you with glass. Reynolds finish things up and they are sounding very different to when I last heard them, they play a track which is a loud rock song and piles on the distortion. And finally we have side D. Billie Mahonie offer more instrumental stuff to start us off, very moody and post-rock. Solid. Cove follow up with some angular and shouty stuff. Distorted and messy, it’s qutie decent, vaguely even like Embassy in an odd way. Stanton hit us with some rawk and roll, and then Stef Giaccone plays a nice acoustic solo effort to round things off.
And there you have it – a varied and worthy comp of stuff.