Reader's Wives - Rachel's Apartment

Opening with Lenny Fucking Bruce – a track with elements of The Velvet Underground and the megaphone of Clara V from Vaqueros Paganos. Sharp guitar scythes against the vocal as the band take a sideswipe. Reader’s Wives once again challenge with the calm sartorial attitude that sums up the essence of the songwriting. It would be interesting to get an autobiography from Niall, it would make an intriguing read.

Wasted Youth takes me back to Crass and Christ the Album – I might even try and avoid any more analogies from here. Generous swathes of bass are interspersed with rolling guitar as the lyric demands an exploratory mind. The composition works extremely well as the band express a supressed rage which works on all levels- superb, this now sits on my elongated and personally resonant ‘songs to which I’d like to die’ compilation (I guess it will be a lingering death while I enjoy the music).

Track three Light Up, finds the band in a more generous mood. Yet still the sardonicism shines through, as the lyric sweeps the listener to an enlightened space, whilst the musical accompaniment challenges the whole construct. Once again we find Niall in a diatribe, three tracks in and the album is working well.

You Must Have Been Crazy, perhaps I have become too comfortable to my own ego, but I think this hits the heart of the soul of Niall,  as he takes us through an emotional roller-coaster of a track. An honest and open piece of material. The lyrics and composition, combined with stage persona may play the humour, but here we hit an accent, as we delve deeper in to Rachel’s Apartment.

I sometimes wonder if I play too much of the psychoanalysit when listening to music, but having been a song-writer and vocalist myself, I trust my ears and  instinct. I wrote from my heart and the more I hear and see, I more strongly believe my perspective. This album contains some wrenching excavation and perhaps on a par with the estrangement between Ian Curtis and Deborah, Curtis also had other medical issues. Is Holohan suicidal or just plain angry? I hope to be able to grab some time with him for an in-depth interview away from the stage and the lyrics. Is this a seminal release? Let’s wait for the follow up album. It does however explain the history of Reader’s Wives – anyway back to the album and off the couch.

Laughter/Commute, after 45 minutes listening and thinking over the the first four tracks let’s get busy – Reader’s get soulful as the tempo slows and the music flows over the lyric enabling the track to ease over the ears in a comforting wave, echoed guitars waft the listener gently to a relaxing mediterranean shore.

Isadora Duncan (Ft. Cathal Coughlan) Once again the lyrics of this composition challenge the listener. A spoken piece, which sits perfectly within the album. Duncan was a dancer born in the 19th Century, an open bisexual (‘I’m dancing on the landing if you fuck to it, it’s rock n’ roll… is this an allusion) , who challenged social mores of her era, including at the time a ‘shocking’ exposé of her breast and her communist ideals whilst on tour in the USA. She died of strangulation when her scarf wrapped around the wheel of her car, is that the carpet to which the track references? Cathal Coughlan is renowned for restructuring  compositions with reference to history, politics and the social underbelly.

God With A Brigand is a smart follow up to track 5 as we commence on the vocal which implodes with seried ranks of instrumentation, guitar drowns out the ear drum as the voice disappears.

For followers of Reader’s, we head back to familiar spaces with A sight for Sore Eyes, as the band reworks a lead riven perspective. This has been a well received rock driven track on live performance, which sits a little at odds with the album, but underlines the new direction for the band, which has moved away from the powerful emotional bass, to a resonance which sits a couple  of octaves higher, which perhaps gives Niall a stronger space in which to expose his vocal.

I am shifting along now and already up to track 9, Annabella a smartly produced piece of material. Sharp chalk stripes and hidden lives meet razored drum and muted bass, making a comfortable dance number.

Get Laid, leads us up to the final track. I am convinced this would work well live, with some real energy and demanding of crowd listening.

All of a sudden here is the finale and time to be escorted from Rachel’s Apartment- Serial Monogomay – takes an acoustic turn to the night and a fitting conclusion to a closing door.

If you want to find more about the band take a moment to check out the previous articles on Readers’ Wives. Once I have a link to the album release it will be posted, alternatively keep in touch via our newsletter to keep up to date with the best indie music from around the globe.

London Irish Showcase

Three bands took to the stage, first up Kyle John Suckling, followed by A Plastic Rose with the night rounded off by Reader’s Wives.

To be fair to the other bands, I had come down to Kilburn to catch up with the guys from Reader’s Wives and spent much of my time talking to Disko, we both share a nicotine addiction, which meant not really being in the venue too much.

But I did catch the sounds emanating from Kyle John Suckling, but didn’t get a chance to catch up with him. The acoustic guitar and soul searching lyric were well received in the venue it would be good to get to hear more.

Kyle John Suckling

A Plastic Rose, I did get a chance to catch a few of their songs and even meet up with them afterwards briefly, are on the verge of releasing a single. They gave me a copy to listen to and I enjoyed the one track CD, Kids Don’t Behave Like This to the extent that I played it continually through to a good way up the Barnet Bypass from Kilburn High Road, thats quite a few times in non-geographic terms. I’ll be getting a review of these guys from Belfast up soon.

A Plastic Rose

Reader’s Wives, well I could say the set was great and I enjoyed the music, but you know I am going to write that anyway, so what else did I find out?

Reader's Wives live @ Peter Parker’s Rock & Roll Club by Daniel D'Souza

They dragged themselves out of bed for an early morning flight to London and with Chris heading off to Berlin after the show and Doug and Niall heading back on the 06:00 flight back to Dublin you wouldn’t have had any idea as they took to the stage. Since I saw them late last year, they have become an even tighter outfit and even more natural on stage, making them a superb act to see live. I’m pleased to say I wasn’t the only one singing along to Sexually Attracted to Myself last night, as Niall insisted we all get involved, if only they had given out hand mirrors as we arrived…

In a nice touch, and these really are welcoming guys, it isn’t just a PR stunt, Niall had created a brief reprise to mark the death of Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse), this personal moment wasn’t extravagant and seemed perfectly in tune with the evening.

The ten piece set was played to a mainly new audience, who immediately took to the humour and output from the guys.

Chris continues to confound as the lead guitarist, who manages to appear to play two distinct roles at once, both lead and supporting rhythm to Nialls rhythm guitar. Doug managed to find some space in the set, to unleash his powerful drumming ability. Disko sprang to life on stage as the heavy bass rumbled throughout the evening.

With two songs to go, the audience were ushered closer to the stage, upon which Reader’s Wives in the seemingly innocent step of ‘now we’ll go acoustic’ immediately racked up the tempo and the final song You Must Have Been Crazy was met with demands for an encore.

It was a great round up to the whole evening and when they come back to London in May, it would be a good move to get to see them.

With their soon to be released EP, Victor’s Mother, Juliet marking the transition of the band from Nialls previous material, their album, which is taking shape and due out for release late summer, it should be a good year for the band. An old contact from Disko, Ger McDonnell, is engineering the release, I am looking forward to hearing what they have come up with.

Having been moved out of their old home in Dublin, Disko is moving to London and Chris is now dividing his time between Germany and Ireland. I didn’t check if Doug and Niall have a new home, but they did have on clean shirts, so I guess all is well. I expect as a result the Reader’s Wives trail will quickly start to extend over a broader base, than the home town of Dublin and the odd sojourn to London.

I had the delight of watching a couple of video interviews after the gig and those Balcony.tv clips really are as they seem. On the interview couch it is easy to see why these guys get on so well, making life for an interviewer a little complex to say the least. I hope the two interviews they carried out get released, it was particularly unsettling for the second interview team, from SeeSound to find JackO from Krakatoa take Chris’s place and answer the final interview question.

By comparison, my life is a breeze, I just turn up, have a few cigarettes and watch some great bands, then get home to recapture what I saw.

More information on Jay’s London Irish Showcase events

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