Name: Man-size - PJ Harvey by Morning Maniacs in I ♡ PJ
Duration: 3 min
Description: live

I ♡ PJ

Taken from the album "Stars Are Our Home."
Out now on Slumberland Records (US) and Sonic Cathedral (UK)

Order the digital download from iTunes: http://smarturl.it/bhb-itunes
Order the LP/CD: http://smarturl.it/bhb-album

more info: www.blackheartedbrother.com
Black Hearted Brother Official Facebook: www.facebook.com/blackheartedbrother

It was Alfred Bester, if I recall correctly, who called 'the stars my destination', in his brilliant novel of the same name from 1956. Long considered a libertarian science fiction classic, it's also notable for featuring one of the very first accounts of synaesthesia in English-language fiction. This might be drawing a particularly long bow, but the title of Black Hearted Brother's debut, "Stars Are Our Home", immediately brought Bester's book to mind – and there's definitely something of the synaesthesic experience about this album, overflowing with enraptured, glowing textures, flaring white light like magnesium, in consort with brilliant red-blue waves of psychedelia.

Of course, the first thing that might crane your head towards "Stars Are Our Home" is the group's membership: Neil Halstead, the éminence grise behind Slowdive and Mojave 3; Mark Van Hoen, an original member of Seefeel, subsequently working solo and as Locust; and Nick Holton, the main mover behind Holton's Opulent Oog, and member of Coley Park, who have released albums on Halstead's Shady Lane label. They had previously converged on Halstead's 2001 solo album, "Sleeping On Roads," though Van Hoen also co-produced Mojave 3's "Out Of Tune" (1998), "Excuses For Travelers" (2000) and "Spoon & Rafter" (2003), while Holton took up production duties for Halstead's "Palindrome Hunches" (2012). Van Hoen and Halstead go back much further still, to 1992, when they were in Seefeel and Slowdive respectively: 'Mark taught Neil much that was electronic and ambient music.'

You could hear that education bearing fruit with Slowdive's late-period masterpiece, 1995's "Pygmalion." In some ways, "Stars Are Our Home" echoes that album's experimental process, if not the outcome, as Black Hearted Brother are a very different, distinctive beast, often indulging in what Halstead, self-deprecatingly, describes as 'a lot of very long and indulgent space rawk.' And indeed, that space-rock drive is writ loud and clear on the album's opening title track, an instrumental bliss-out that navigates through ocean-tides of FX-drenched guitar. But there's a lot more to it: 'The idea was to just make a record that was in some ways "unedited",' Halstead continues. 'To not worry about a particular sound or style, but to just go with the flow. We all make quite focused records individually so, as Mark says, it's our "guilty pleasures" album.' That seems about right, except with "Stars Are Our Home," the outcome is no guilt, all pleasure.

'Neil and Nick had, I think, started a few months before they asked me to join the party,' Van Hoen recalls. 'I think they had a few songs on the go, and needed an extra hand to add a few funny noises and generally add to the chaos – or maybe bring some order to the chaos.' Van Hoen has picked up on the dialectical nature of "Stars Are Our Home" here, its "order" and its "chaos": it's a rich, compelling album full of unexpected twists and turns, at times overloading the sensorium with so much material you're drenched in noise, but it'll just as quickly flip back on itself and drift through a glazed-eye, agrarian moment of acoustic melancholy (see the start of "Time In The Machine", which, as if to prove my point, takes less than a minute to build into a clangorous, droning monster).

So, there's a whole lot going on in these grooves, and plenty of it's unexpected, or from unexpected sources. The trio plays fast and loose with what listeners might consider their pre-ordained 'roles'. 'Primarily the songs themselves were started either by Nick or Neil individually,' Van Hoen explains, 'but then edited, developed and generally messed around with and rendered almost unlistenable by either myself or the others. The roles were not always clear cut. Sometimes Nick would be playing keyboards and synths, and myself guitars.' Lyrics on the record feel like another texture, another layer: sometimes they're invocatory chants, sometimes Halstead's and Holton's voices are ghosted by electronic manipulation, as on "Oh Crust". Often there's more going on than at first glance, and an index of the album's lyrical concerns runs to 'romance, sci-fi, places to go on holiday, real UFO abduction, the duality in the meaning of words, lament for the loss of psychedelic freedoms by the masses…'

"Stars Are Our Home" is brave and beautiful, mysterious and resonant. Its experimental edges never forget the importance of the pop moment; the best way to bring people around to your way of hearing is to seduce their ears, and there's seduction plenty here, pure pop like "Take Heart", the Other Green World of "I'm Back", the closing driftwork that is "Look Out Here They Come". A real head-wrecker of an album. And what does the future hold? The trio speaks as one: 'Black Hearted Brother will grow and mature into something very sophisticated in the coming years. A kind of comedic-space-rock-dancehall outfit to define a zeitgeist for the 22nd century, if you like.' Ha, yeah – amen, brothers!

Black Hearted Brother - My Baby Just Sailed Away

The Letter

Put the pen
to the paper.
Press the envelope 
with my scent.
Can't you see
in my handwriting, 
the curve of my ‘G’, 
the longing?

Who is left
that writes these days? 
You and me,
we'll be different. 
Take the cap
off your pen,
wet the envelope. 
Lick it and lick it.

It turns me on
to imagine
your blue eyes
on my words.
Your beautiful pen -
take the cap off, 
and give me a sign. 
I'll come running.

The Letter

Buy on iTunes

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea

Good Fortune

A Perfect Day Elise

He got lucky one time
hitting with the girl in room 509.
She turned her back on him, facing the frame 
said, Listen Joe, don't you come here again.

White sun scattered all over the sea.
He could think of nothing but her name Elise. 
God is the sweat running down his back.
The water soaked her blonde hair black.

It’s a perfect day Elise.

He got burned by the sun.
His face so pale and his hands so worn. 
Let himself in room 509,
said a prayer pulled the trigger and cried,

It's a perfect day Elise.


Is This Desire?

A Perfect Day Elise

50 Ft Queenie

Hey!
I'm one BIG QUEEN! 
No one can stop me. 
Red light, red green, 
sat back, I’m watching. 
I’m number one 
second to no one.
No sweat, I’m clean, 
nothing can touch me.

Tell you my name 
F.U.C.K!
50 ft Queenie! 
Force 10 hurricane. 
Biggest woman,
I could have 10 sons! 
10 gods, 10 queens, 
10 ft and rising!

Hey! I’m the king o’ the world! 
You hear my song?
Come on, measure me -
I'm twenty inches long!

Glory, glory,
lay it all on me,
50 ft Queenie,
50 and rising.
U bend ova 
Casanova.
No sweat, I’m clean 
nothin’ can touch me!


Rid Of Me

50ft Queenie

Sheela-Na-Gig

I've been trying to show you over and over; 
look at these my child-bearing hips. 
Look at these my ruby, red ruby lips.
Look at these, my work strong arms and 
you've got to see my bottle full of charm.
I lay it all at your feet, 
you turn around and say back to me,

Sheela-na-gig. Sheela-na-gig. 
You exhibitionist!

I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair. 
[Just like the first time, said you didn't care]. 
Wash that man right out of my hair.
[Heard it before, no more].
Wash that man right out of my hair. 
[Turn the corner, another one there]. 
Wash that man right out of my hair. 
[Heard it before].

He said,
Sheela-na-gig. Sheela-na-gig. 
You exhibitionist!
Put money in your idle hole.

Gonna wash that man right out of my hair. 
[Just like the first time, said you didn't care]. 
Wash that man right out of my hair.
[Heard it before, no more].
Take my hips to a man who cares. 
[Turn the corner, another one there]. 
Take my hips to a man who cares.
[Heard it before].

He said,
Sheela-na-gig. Sheela-na-gig. 
You exhibitionist!
Put money in your idle hole.

He said,
Wash your breasts, I don't want to be unclean.
He said,
Please take those dirty pillows away from me.


Sheela-Na-Gig

Man-size - PJ Harvey

Comanche

Robert Belfour - My Baby's Gone

The Velvet Underground - All Tomorrow's Parties (Falkodelica Dreamy Extended)

Perl Wolfe - Lead Vocals/Piano/Vibraphone , Dalia G. Shusterman - Drums/Vocals, Elisheva Maister - Cello, Dana Pestun - Violin, Howard Feibusch - Guitars, Myles Heff - Bass

Recorded at Strange Weather in Brooklyn, NY
Engineered by Marc Alan Goodman
Mixed by Bryce Goggin of Trout Recording
Mastered by Fred Kevorkian
Produced by Howard Feibusch and Bulletproof Stockings
Music and Lyrics by Perl Wolfe & Dalia G. Shusterman

LYRICS
Don't dance near the ledge 
They told me 
Might not make it back in tact 
But curiosity's got the best of me

Accelerate 
Lose control 
Keep runnin' like you got no soul

Used to believe I had to spoil all fortune 
Why wait around for your heart to get broken 
Pushed it over the edge 
Nearly every time
 
Uh huh
Sabatoge 
Blowin' up your grand facade 
Thirstin' for the truth in a bleak mirage 
Turn that noise off 
Turn the music up

Took me for a ride 
I know better now 
Give up this artificial way 
Go out and face the crowd 
I made up my mind, dear 
I've got my mind clear 
I've got my mind clear 
I've got my 
Mind clear

Please mind your step 
Tread lightly 
Tiptoe round the shadows 
Like you fear the dark 
You're braver than that 
Just start

Deliberate 
Break the mold 
From the crown you make it gold

Used to believe that every joy ends in sorrow 
Can't hang around on the hopes of tomorrow 
Pushed it over 
Pushed it over the edge

Uh huh
Sabatoge 
Blowin' up your grand facade 
Thirstin' for the truth in a bleak mirage 
Turn that noise off 
Turn the music up

Took me for a ride 
I know better now 
Give up this artificial way 
Go out and face the crowd 
I made up my mind, dear 
I've got my mind clear 
I've got my mind clear 
I've got my 
Mind clear

This is the moment 
Here in this moment 
I feel freedom light up my veins and I 
Look back on all of the shame that I 
I brought upon myself while 
Everyone else was 
Waltzing the streets 
I was too busy getting me

Mind Clear

"2. Contamination: A Tribute To David Bowie" (2006).

Arcade Fire - Five Years (Live) [David Bowie cover]

Fingerlings 3

A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left

hardly wait (pj harvey)

He's a Keeper of the Fire

He's a Keeper of the Fire - Subsonics

***Winner of The Quietus' Tomorrow's Cult Star Today award at BBC 6 Music Blog Awards***

"Fat White Family are sick. I don't mean this like, they're well sick la, like some scouse teenager would have said eight years ago. I mean, they're seriously not well... they're also slightly brilliant" - The Quietus

"Brilliant macabre lullaby- sung over a shonky casio metronome, full of nasty asides about druggy co-dependence" - Single Of The Week, Drowned In Sound

"We've made no secret of our deep love for the gap toothed hoodlums of Fat White Family" - SupaJam



Fat White Family will be releasing their much anticipated debut album Champagne Holocaust on 1st April through Trashmouth Records. The album will be available on digital download and limited addition vinyl. 

Fat White Family, a band who've crawled out from the crevices of Peckham and Brixton to find  gourmet burger bars, designer prams and soulless gastropubs taking over the town. Faced with the yuppie invasion their sole purpose is to cause havoc and deliver something real...

Despite the inevitable incidents of chaos, blood, nudity and weirdness that seem to have plagued/fuelled this first year of their mission, they are still the band that everyone in London wants  to see. 

For more info, photos or interview requests please contact Danny on 07973665997 or danny@allteeth.co.uk

Man-size - PJ Harvey

Morning Maniacs

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