WU LYF - "SUCH A SAD PUPPY DOG"
WU LYF - "Heavy Pop"
WU LYF - "Lucifer Calling (Demo)"
Vagina Wolf - "Nic Cave"
Vagina Wolf - "Scissors for your Hair"
WU LYF - "ALL THE SILLY CATS KEEP TALKING, SPITTING FLOWERS, SPITTING BLOOD"
WU LYF - "SPITTING IT CONCRETE LIKE THE GOLDEN SUN GOD"
WU LYF - "Lung Songs"
Setting aside the band's elusive debut EP, released in a hand-made edition of 14 (and sold for a hilarious £50 each), this is, as far as I can tell, the complete online catalogue of the band known (usually) as WU LYF. I collected it gradually. The most recent track, a collage called "Lung Songs", was revealed in late March.
They are from Manchester. They boast many members. The band-name is an acronym. It stands for World Unite/Lucifer Youth Foundation. It is also a reference to the Wu-Tang Clan; WU LYF have been known to call themselves the TU-WANG GANG. Other monikers include Wu Lf Wu Lf, Wu Def, WE BROS, and Vagina Wolf (possibly a separate, earlier band).
At this stage, WU LYF consist mostly of mystique. Their website is a beautiful, bewildering Tumblr site, with mysterious icons, photographic pastiche, fragments of sloganeering poetry. Their MySpace page is the most useless I have ever seen. But these are not mere bumblers. If nothing else, the £50 demo should tell you something. They have a Facebook group. Their manager - or, as they put it, "war god" - is Warren Bramley, sterling-minted creative director of the Four23 ad agency. Most of WU LYF's concerts take place at An Outlet, the venue owned by Four23.
Furthermore, WU LYF's mystery is gorgeous, evocative, haunting. Though photos reveal they are just a band, the group's imagery and writings make the rest of us, faraway, imagine more. It's part Crowley, part Eliot, part Thom Yorke. References to Godspeed You! Black Emperor's skinny fists, visual nods to rebellion and apocalypse. Any suits wanna come? WU LYF asked in a recent concert announcement. Some wild cats in clean clothes? wanna make-see some hype? fuck you, this aint for you, this is for kids, kids who have the courage to remain kids, not peddle their ass for the dreams of mountains peak. me and my boy tommy gun been sharpening our fists, come get cut up.
"Even in this overlit environment [WU LYF] are proving difficult to decipher, to get a fix on, which makes us very happy indeed," Paul Lester wrote for the Guardian. "They're baffling. ... There is a sense here of quasi-spiritual fervour, of revolutionary intent, of myths being made. Meanwhile, the idiosyncratic deployment or disfigurement of language and semantics continues with their list of song titles. ... Tantalising as hell."
Secrets are very cool, right now. Hidden scenes are burning untraceable CD-Rs, loosing 7"s. Basement collectives are making cassette-tapes, resistant to ripping. Partly it's nostalgia, sure - chillwave's analogue fetish, our dreams of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pyjamas. But we also took for granted that we could google any band, download any song. WU LYF, and others, wish to prove that you can hide. By hiding, in time, they wish to become famous.
It's WU LYF's branding that makes us hear their music as bewildering "heavy pop", and not just in terms of Wolf Parade, early Gomez and mash-ups. (Some of their tracks are good, others not.) But this branding does more than mask the band's influences. It also helps us listen. The best way to discover something is with heart wide open, like the door to a wardrobe. To be alert, curious, seeking. Context can dull this appetite. We see a band at a show - we know their deal. We buy an album after reading a review - we understand what we will be hearing. There is no helping the fact that we engage with art in a negotiated way.
With WU LYF, what we bring to the music is the excitement of not-knowing. All signs point to treasure. We want this to be a treasure. We put on our headphones and pan for gold.
Nicolas Jaar - "Time For Us". Nico has grown up. Do you remember Nico? Now he makes music likes this, for vast & eerie nightclubs, and he comes to Montreal to play festivals. But when I say he has "grown up", I do not mean to condescend. My point is not that time has passed, nor that Nicolas has finally shed his childish skin. No, "Time For Us" suggests that Nicolas Jaar has experienced long months, slow seasons, the kinds of days and nights that taught us the little we know about being adults. The nights you go home with silvers in your pocket, a shake in your skull, and cannot tell if you are happy or sad. What reason in the world do you have to be sad? The beat's still in your veins. And yet.
[website/buy]
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The Well Montreal, a new local promoter, is holding one of their first events, one week tomorrow. The "bring-your-own-blanket gig will feature intimate, acoustic sets by Sean Nicholas Savage, Braids' INDEINSOCI (whatever that means), the Crown Vandals, and the Pop Winds' Devon Welsh.
[Painting is Government Bureau, 1956 , George Tooker]
Laura Marling - "Alpha Shallows". "I should have left when M did. I don't know why I didn't. That's not true. I stayed because it was easier. I knew the cupboards, the doorways. I could write there. The day they announced the change, I was finishing the third chapter. It had been the easiest chapter. On the news they said they were changing everything, changing the way things worked, changing it so we were not paid on sunny days. We would only be paid if it rained. It didn't seem so bad. It seemed different. We all wanted difference. So on clear days we'd be poor; on rainy days, we'd be rich. I didn't think it'd matter. I worked in my room. I squinted at the sun. I watched the streets fill with people, praying for storms. I wrote you letters. I wrote, I hope we all drown." [buy]
Clogs - "Last Song". "Last Song" does not sound like a last song. "Last Song" is too slow. (The lastest songs come fast.) Rather, this is a song that sounds like it's trying to postpone an ending. The National's Matt Berninger decelerates with every syllable he sings. Momentum dissipates with every phrase, every pause. Perhaps he can bring the song to a dead stop. Perhaps he can keep it from quite ending. [buy]
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Elsewhere: A dawny, simple video for one of my favourite songs of last year, Cains & Abels' "My Life Is Easy".
[photo source]
Robyn - "Fembot". I cannot deny Robyn. There is cherry in her voice, in the flick and fling of her phrases. I hate this "fembot" conceit - the robot metaphors, the mecha-pop rehash of Robyn's "Robot Boy" &c. But I simply cannot deny Robyn, the cherry in her voice, that flick and fling. Pop music doesn't always ask permission. [from one of Robyn's three (!) upcoming albums / website]
Richard McGraw - "Hurting Heart". A song that only starts making its case at 0:41, when McGraw shows there's more to him than his frown. (He opens by declaring that he could never write a hit: this is not the best way to win my confidence.) But the thing I discover, finally, is that he has written a small & perfect chorus, with words like a bead on a string, matching and good. He sings it so well, especially at its quiet moments: steely, grassy, leathery, shades of Win Butler and Mike Feuerstack and ok creakier old dudes too. The production, by Fulton Lights' Andrew Spencer Goldman, is light but revitalising, sending new sprouts through these old chords. This is a great little tune. [buy Burying the Dead - and a quick word on the "limited edition" packaging... It's one of the most elaborate indie album packages I've seen. Signed and numbered, artwork in metallic copper by Kevin Prouls, temporary tattoos, a little magnifying "lyric enlarger". So handsome. Elsewhere on the album, covers of Leonard Cohen and Billy Joel. Listen at MySpace.]
(image by Christoph Niemann)
12:13 AM on Mar 22, 2010.
Cains & Abels - "Run Run Run (demo)".
You found a payphone. The quarter was already in your hand. You pushed inside and the payphone's door swung back and hit you square between the shoulder-blades. The asphalt was lit up like a football pitch. You slipped your coin into the machine and dialed, and the receiver's cord lay braided at your chest. The ringing was the sound a gentle animal makes. You closed your eyes and listened. A click crackled down the line. A voice crackled down the line. It said: "Hello?"
Your eyes were still closed. "It's me," you said. You found you were smiling.
Cars came and went, as you spoke. Headlights passed over in long arcs. A man and his dog loped across the tarmac. The man seemed weary. You changed your telephone hand, closed your eyes, tried to hear every burred detail of the voice in the wire.
When the conversation had ended, you replaced the receiver. You took the sapphire from the coin return. You pushed back past the phone-booth's swinging doors and into the open air. It was warm. The stars would soon come out. You loped across the tarmac. The sapphire was still in your hand. You got to your Toyota and dropped into the front seat. You leaned your head back and remembered things. You wiped your eyes with your sleeve and reached over to the glove-box, punched it open, threw that sapphire in there with the others. There were many sapphires. [buy previous albums/cains & abels on a short tour now: chicago, bloomington, akron, pittsburgh, philadelphia, brooklyn]
(image source unknown)
12:57 PM on Mar 18, 2010.
photos by David Chancellor
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra - "I Built Myself A Metal Bird". At a certain point you say "Enough." Watch: A sky clouds. A river freezes. A bough breaks. A black cat dreams of the night it will be skinned. A mother hears her child scream. Enough! Dayeynu! But these events are not limited by their observer's will. Devastation will not relent. Death is inert. Beat 'em or join 'em.
Sibylle Baier - "Let Us Know". Or you can reside in other places, for a long time or a little. Take this chipped glass; take this worn sweater; take this lamp. A million miles away, there is starlight; a thousand miles deep, there are fish. Rest a while. Listen to the tiniest.
[buy Silver Mt Zion's Kollaps Tradixionales - I suggest the beautiful 2x10". / vast touring / music video for this song, apparently SMZ's "first-ever" video, directed by Peepers' Seth W. Owen. It's a beautiful video, showing the warm real human life that is at the heart of SMZ's music, like sap in trees. // See also, terribly, Jem Cohen's video of Vic Chesnutt. Go softly.]
[the first Sibylle Baier song in 35 years was made available in the spring of 2008. I am still waiting for more. / buy Colour Green]
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This week in Montreal:
There's an extraordinary all-day (10am-midnight) concert event at Cagibi on Tuesday, as les Mardis Spaghetti stage an anniversary celebration of adventurous music. Full line-up here.
Nadia Moss, among my favourite Montreal artist, opens a new show at Galerie Push on Thursday. (more images)
Grab Mushpot's Future Magic mix CD via Said the Gramophone while you still can.
12:46 AM on Mar 15, 2010.
Maison Neuve - "Demo (Piste 1)". Andrew found that when he cupped his hand and then hit his right ear, hard, he could see colours. He showed L. She gave him such a look. "I know I know but try," he said. She stared at him for a long moment. She had hair as golden as witchhazel. She cupped her hand and hit her left ear, hard.
"Huh," she said.
They sat side by side, socking themselves, in splendour.
[MySpace / more to buy - pick up the Limes' lovely album while you're there]
Family Trees - "Dream Dream". A song in leaf-greens, cherry reds, gauzy shades of baby-blue. An Archie comic bleaching in the sun.
[Family Trees is the solo project by Hologram's Ryan Trott / download his album at MySpace]
---
(photo source)
11:14 AM on Mar 11, 2010.
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about said the gramophone
This is a daily sampler of really good songs. All tracks are posted out of love. Please go out and buy the records.
To hear a song in your browser, click the  and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'
All songs are removed within a few weeks of posting.
Said the Gramophone launched in March 2003, and added songs in November of that year. It was one of the world's first mp3blogs.
If you would like to say hello, find out our mailing addresses or invite us to shows, please get in touch:
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Please don't send us emails with tons of huge attachments; if emailing a bunch of mp3s etc, send us a link to download them. We are not interested in streaming widgets like soundcloud: Said the Gramophone posts are always accompanied by MP3s.
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"And I shall watch the ferry-boats / and they'll get high on a bluer ocean / against tomorrow's sky / and I will never grow so old again."
about the authors
Sean Michaels is the founder of Said the Gramophone. He is a writer, critic and author of the theremin novel Us Conductors. Follow him on Twitter or reach him by email here. Click here to browse his posts.
Emma Healey writes poems and essays in Toronto. She joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. This is her website and email her here.
Jeff Miller is a Montreal-based writer and zinemaker. He is the author of Ghost Pine: All Stories True and a bunch of other stories. He joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. Say hello on Twitter or email.
Mitz Takahashi is originally from Osaka, Japan who now lives and works as a furniture designer/maker in Montreal. English is not his first language so please forgive his glamour grammar mistakes. He is trying. He joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. Reach him by email here.
Site design and header typography by Neale McDavitt-Van Fleet. The header graphic is randomized: this one is by Keith Andrew Shore.
PAST AUTHORS
Dan Beirne wrote regularly for Said the Gramophone from August 2004 to December 2014. He is an actor and writer living in Toronto. Any claim he makes about his life on here is probably untrue. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.
Jordan Himelfarb wrote for Said the Gramophone from November 2004 to March 2012. He lives in Toronto. He is an opinion editor at the Toronto Star. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.
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wait, so this isn't an april fools?
correct
ooooooh I'm in love again, please find more tracks
That's mostly really great stuff. Thanks.
Scratch that. That's a selection of some really great stuff mixed with some pretty uninteresting stuff. But the great stuff is great.
that was utter garbage. boring, unoriginal, gimmicky, unmusical. like the british prep school version of the american band SALEM.
there's another song called concrete gold out there too
OH YOU GOT NO CLU NO CLU
STAY BACK SUITS WE READY
you make me laugh with all them links
u don't have a clu
YOUR A LOST LITTLE KITTY KAT
YU DONT EVAN KNO WHITE BOY, WU LYF IS THA HOLY FARTHER AND NEXT LEVEL OF GNARLOID.
TOTAL SPLIFF DREAM LOVE FOREVER BITCHES
the band seem to be fighting against 'style over substance' or 'a band image' with their whole internet gimmick, making music not spectacle, but as a result they've done the exact opposite - they've become all about the image and spectacle, talking in shitty limericks and the like.
yet the band probably laugh it off
http://outroversion.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/wu-lyfnme/
Previous poster was right, it's just a gimmick. Take that away and what's left? Well, we'll see won't we.
the band have made an image for themselves in a truly original way...they can gather fans that actually care about the music, come and see them and then decide whether or not they like the music...gigs are cheap...i think it's a little too elaborate a plan to be called a gimmick...and they arent the only band to talk in lymerics and use poetry and art as a major part of their image...i dont get that comment about shitty lymerics.
WU LYF aren't a gimmick. i seen them. they aint trying to hide anything, they just genuinely don't seem to care for the superficial game allot of other the other bands are so desperately trying to get on. By not saying anything all the sad kids on blogs have hyped up a mystery pretense, people seem to forget that all the hype that surrounds this band has been created by some sad bloggers and journalists, all WU LYF have done is create some interesting music and imagery. and kept their mouth shut
the good thing is that despite all the emphasis on imagery and stuff.. theres actually really good music behind it
A bunch of guys trying to be smarter than they are. The singer told me himself he doesn't really listen to music. Shiiiiit he must be cool?!
Shame because Heavy Pop is a great song.
they're a bunch of total arseholes
i've never met such a pretentious, private school mummy's boy as the lead singer...absolute contrived bull shit. He lives in his own colon. the fact that people actually seem to believe that they don't want any attention is absolute idiocy...
Whether they are arseholes or not or whether they care what people think about them doesn't really matter to me. Most of their music is really really good.
the reason you "never met such pretentious private school mommys boys" is because you blatantly have never met them.
None of the MP3 links above work anymore, but I've found a rar file with all of them in it:
http://www.mediafire.com/?9gu8pl9cv330c77
The Robman
That link is dead, I've been looking for these songs for a while now. can you please re-upload them, or direct me to where I can find them.