Assembly Now – It’s Magnetic / Out on 24s (Kids)
3/5
By: Michael Lewin
Did anyone watch 'No Direction Home'? That Dylan documentary last year. Long. Very long. Get the impression the sixties involved Americans getting high and trying to hunt Dylan down with knives and erect nipples? Yeah, me too.
And, right, did it feel as though the only place that mattered was the Village in New York? The centre of all artistic creation, ever. It just seemed so desperately naïve and annoying, if slightly appealing.
When the artist Bobby Neuwirth talks about it, he describes an art scene that is exceptionally solipsistic and self-sufficient: live by your peers' respect, die by their indifference. Neuwirth himself is an example of this very system, a mediocre jack-of-all-arts journeyman sustained by collaborations with friends like Patti Smith, Dylan and their ilk. Anyway, a dialogue between the Villagers, Neuwirth says, would generally run thus:
BoHo #1: Have you seen X's latest work?
BoHo #2: Oh yes, X. Does he have anything to say?
Rockfeedback finds this a rather pert system by which to judge new bands. When one is deluged by 20 demos a day, for example, you find yourself forming such a subconscious opinion within ten seconds - usually deciding that they have, in fact, never said anything in their trite little lives before repackaging the disc and scribing the legend 'return to sender' on the envelope (often with the addition 'preferably to their mouth, forcibly').
And so to Assembly Now's limited edition debut. Let's be open-minded, shall we? Who are we to decide a band may have nothing to say just because they are a "south London four-piece"...of "guitared"..."indie-popsters"... *cough* blocparty*cough*
Uhhhh-huh. I mean, yeah- it's relentless. Powerful desperation and all that, insistent and building with guitars like a just-jilted lover grasping your arm as you try to leave, tugging you as you walk off with the force panic imbues in the meek, making them utterly, briefly terrifying.
So very, very latter day indiemo - an almost maliciously calculated playing of breathless emotion; craft of the heart, if you will, with all the Borrellisms in tact. It's Roland Shanks all over again, but less dancable. Yeah, they're hardly pedestrian, but in answer to your question, Mr Neuwirth - no, Assembly Now don't have anything to say. But they are rather articulate, nonetheless.
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment