I CONCUR have hit something here that really rings clear and true. I keep hearing them on the radio and find that, for once, my own taste is in good company: other people, it seems, like them as much as I do. Their soundscapes plunder guitarish Americana, epic Norse shimmers and English odd-ball songwriting, mashing them all as their own distinctive brew.
"Lucky Jack" is a tune of suspense and imminent danger. The harsh brightness of the echoey guitar intro is a bolt of warning. The muscular, full bodied drum sound develops the menace, and the tightly made song hauls its way towards the slow-building, epic violence of the song's inspration. But all along, like a Yorkshire winter's day, it has glimmers that could burst into sunshine at any moment.
"Build Around Me", on the other side, is a swirl of mist and Penine monomania.
"There is no one else for miles around /set in the heart of rolling moors / plans are drawn to reshape the land".
Tim Hann's voice is urgently pressed. "Just build around me!" is defiant, hopeless and despairing. We hear a myth being turned into a bigger truth. A man of the hills has no option of debate or negotiation: the modern world is going to tear past his lonely farmhouse whatever he does.
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Geology and economic necessity dictated that one M62 carriageway would pass to the North and one to the South of his Stott Hall Farm. There was no standoff, they didn’t want his house - they took his soul instead and left him as isolated as ever, with the monsters pouring past in a never-ending sewer of restless corrosion.
Like "Lucky Jack" the song is no more "about" its inspriation than a cubist lanscape is "about" the view. For I CONCUR, The subtle abstractions from history, place, emotion and fate are integral to a confident whole that is itself. And best enjoyed through the subconscious at very high volume.
It is worth reporting that there are some exceptional remixes of these songs in circulation - by luminaries like NAPOLEON IIIrd and BRACKEN (of HOOD renown).
www.iconcur.co.uk
www.last.fm/artist/inconcur
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