Heliconia: Glad You Were Born
Explosions in Space
December 2006
7.2 out of 10
"This is the debut full length for England's Heliconia. Glad You Were Born is just a great album.
"Why flower it with poetic words like... lush walls of distorted guitars over a water fall of rainbow prisms. Why declare that the album shimmers like a billion diamonds strewn across the sunlit sand.
"Why? It's really simple because this album does all of that, and if you listen, and if you like even a bit of classic shoegaze then you will understand. This is what I have been waiting to hear, a band who embraces the early 90's shoegaze movement and one ups it to a new level.
"I must give one bit of criticism though, it sounds too much like early Catherine Wheel. Wait, that's a good thing!
"My mp3 player will wear out its batteries on this album. Buy it, download it, steal it! Just get it!"
Explosions in SpaceHeliconia: Glad You Were Born
Die Shellsuit
December 2006
8 out of 10
"First time I listened to this album I immediately dismissed is as moangy droney wank, and shuffled it to the bottom of the pile. Oh how wrong I was! I’ve been giving it much more of a chance over the last couple of days, and boy is it a grower! It also seems to be removing my ability to type, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
"The easiest comparison I can think of would be early to mid 90’s stuff like the fantastic Ride, but there’s actually a fair bit more going on here. There’s a very ethereal feel to the music, drifting into almost Explosions in the Sky esque soundscapes from time to time, although without the soaring highs and magnificent crescendos only really achievable with epic ten minute songs. There’s even hints of post rock / metal bands like Isis and the wonderful Second to Last, and stuff like The Charlatans at their prime… It’s a diverse mix to be sure.
"All of the songs have a definite edge to them, with layered melodies and a sense of the sinister pervading even the jauntier, poppy tracks. The slightly raspy vocals contrast nicely with the music, reminding me a bit of the feller from Coldplay but much deeper and with some real character. The production is spot on too, clean and crisp without feeling laboured and clinical. The different elements of each song entwine sublimely, creating a subtly blended whole.
"So yeah, in retrospect my initial feelings on this album were shockingly wrong. It’s great. If you have any taste in music whatsoever, give it a go. And if you enjoy the likes of Ride and Slowdive (and you should) you’ll love it."
Die ShellsuitHeliconia: Glad You Were Born
shotgunreviews.com
Jan 2006
Four stars
"Glad You Were Born is the debut for England's Heliconia, and a welcome one at that. Odds are you haven't yet heard of the London-area trio, but with this release they should be well on their way to grabbing your attention and not letting go. Featuring a dynamic and tasteful mix of neo and classic shoegaze, Heliconia are primed to make a big step into the face of modern music.
"Heliconia display an incredibly full sound (especially for a three-piece), and an impressive feel for dynamics. Check the layered, crashing refrain of album centerpiece Witness for evidence of this. The Verve is an obvious touchstone for the band (perhaps more accurately described "a healthy obsession"), although Heliconia brings a much harder-edged approach to the table.
"Also welcome in the mix is a dash of Sonic Youth, Swervedriver, and classic shoegaze make their way to the mix. Vocalist/guitarist Mike "Moth" Tickner sings like a gravel-voiced combination of Catherine Wheel's Rob Dickinson the Beta Band's Stephen Mason.
"Opener Marina is a perfect introduction, starting out slowly with Neil Vestrini's sturdy bass work, leading into drummer Jon Lamont's frenetic drumming, surrounded by a swirling mélange of guitar effects and walls of distortion. It sounds like a song Autolux would have been proud to record.
"Second track Felt Like Iron could have come straight out of the Verve catalog, which is not at all a bad thing. The thick guitars of Invincible are another highlight. The middle of the album turns more introspective with Girl I Need You, which is quite a departure, featuring tasty piano, samples, and gorgeous female vocals from Heidi.
"Beatdown is a most appropriate closer, featuring the best of the Verve and Catherine Wheel fleshing out the band's own dynamic style in one stunning package.
"Produced by erstwhile Pat Collier (House of Love, Primal Scream) and being released on Isolation Records, "Glad You Were Born" should bring the band some of the attention and respect they so richly deserv."
The Troy Enclosure:
OxfordBands.com
October 2005
"For us red-blooded single males, it is essential to have a CD such as The Troy Enclosure’s Lucky Us EP in the collection.
"The idea is that in the event of a visit from a certain type of impressionable female, having this kind of minimalist, arty instrumental music on the changer can create a wholly erroneous but flattering impression that its owner is ultra-hip, highly sophisticated and perhaps even on speaking terms with one or two Icelandic musical seers.
"Not that you would listen to it much on your tod. Great God, no. This is difficult, mostly tuneless stuff, and there is no discernible purpose to it other than the creation of atmosphere.
"The opening Footnote is exemplary: a babble of German voices at the start and end, with the main section a carefully crafted mix of heavy beats and synth chords. Vaguely groovy as the track is, its pretentiousness becomes irritating - you’d expect the marmot-wielding nihilists in the Coens’ The Big Lebowski to listen to material like this when they’re off duty.
"Next up, Dreamless seems equally rarefied. The basic idea here is the first few chords of Stairway To Heaven, over which a succession of bleeps, bloops, plinks and plonks act as punctuation marks. The song also features some anguished vocals from main-man Brandon Toy, doing his best Kid A-era Thom Yorke impression, but the over-reliance on that three-chord trick make it a hard listen.
"Much better is When Nothing Comes Along, another downbeat number, drawing heavily again on Kid A for inspiration. The vocals are higher in the mix than the previous track and hold an equal place with more driving beats and cleverly messed-up piano lines, creating an exquisitely icy drinking song for the electronic age. Dinah, Show Us Yer Leg it ain’t, but the overall sound, enriched by some hopelessly bleak banjo chords is wonderfully beautiful: one can almost imagine a bitter Arctic gale blowing up outside.
The closing track Lucky Us is another strong effort. Toy’s vocals are absent here and the interest is maintained mostly by subtly delayed acoustic chords and more electronic shimmerings from something that once may have been a piano. The whole is like watching a cloud on a summer’s day: something recognisable forms instantaneously (a swan, a map of Scotland, or the profile of Dr David Owen) - your interest is diverted for a moment and it’s gone.
The Troy Enclosure do not make easily likeable music, but they are capable of arresting imagery in both the music and even their cover art. Before a note was heard, I was entranced by the haunting cover (by Melissa Jeacock), a partly abstract, partly realistic depiction of a little bird held in a ghostly hand, surrounded by what looks like a collage of thumbprints. Baffling but beautiful - a decent summation of the Troy Enclosure at their best."
Heliconia:
Various Artists: Never Lose That Feeling
soundsxp.com
September 2005
"If you’re under the age of 30 you can probably stop reading now. The nostalgically-titled Never Lose That Feeling is a shoegazing compilation. See, I told you that you should’ve stopped. London club/label AC30 (coincidence in the name? I think not!) asked a number of contemporary shoegaze bands to cover their favourite track from the original heyday of 1988-1993 and no less than 61 said yes. It is indeed the scene that *really* likes to celebrate itself.
"Luckily they’ve picked just 16 tracks for this first volume and, bloody hell, it’s a pretty great selection, ranging in styles from the most clichéd sonic cathedrals to the quietest church hall. Andrew Kenny from American Analogue Set opens proceedings with the latter, courtesy of a stripped bare strum through Spiritualized’s Angel Sigh, where the guitar is turned right down to 1 rather than up to 11 by the end.
"Swervedriver, after whose song the record is named, are covered twice, with Airiel and The Feeling Good Conspiracy providing surprisingly crisp, clear versions of Blowin’ Cool and Son Of Mustang Ford respectively. Trouble Everyday make Slowdive infinitely more interesting by making When The Sun Hits sound like when the Magnetic Fields hit a large rotating fan, whilst Douglas Heart sound a bit too much like Slowdive on a slightly uninspired amble through Alison.
"The other band to get the two track tribute are Curve, whose Coast Is Clear is made to directly resemble Radiohead by Danish band Windermere. Holland’s caps lock-phobic audiotransparent then provide a gorgeous acoustic guitar and violin-based Americana lilt that sends you scurrying to your record collection to confirm that it really is the same Frozen.
"Some tracks both benefit and suffer from being slavishly in love with their originals. Amusement Parks On Fire did themselves no favours when taking on the daddy of the genre in My Bloody Valentine’s You Made Me Realise but emerge with begrudging credit, and Hinterland give a suitably reverent and pretty, though slightly pointless, facsimile of Lush’s For Love. Heliconia imitate the roaring guitars of Ride’s Drive Blind almost perfectly but offer a vocal that’s just far enough away from Mark Gardener to avoid falling into the same trap.
"With further fine moments including Televise and Plumbline’s takes on Ultra Vivid Scene and Catherine Wheel, there’s much to genuinely whet your appetite for a further three volumes in the series. If the rest of the bands involved never lose this feeling, then it really will be something worth celebrating indeed."
The Troy Enclosure:
Nightshift
July 2005
"Must be doomy, atmospheric electro theme month. The Troy Enclosure - the work of someone called Brandon Toy - is another dark, ambient oddity, again with a strangely lopsided, out-of-focus feel, like something trying to communicate through a badly-tuned radio.
"The vibe is pretty languid for the most part, mumbled vocals and sparse acoustic guitars overlaying discreet synth hums on some tracks though Brandon creeps into more song-based territory with Dreamless, a mournful, measured snippet of Jeff Buckley-inspired folk-pop.
"The strength here is the way Brandon uses simple, uncluttered textures, and the spaces between the instruments, to weave fine threads of sound together neatly.
"The piercing electro noise on the final track, Footnote, is the only thing to puncture the atmosphere.
"While the likes of Royksopp do such things in a more accomplished style, this is a promising start."
Romakid:
Centre and Periphery
Barcode
7.8/10
March 2004
"Debut EP from Roma Kid, the work of Michael Tickner from Heliconia – a band that are supposedly preparing to work with new found master of the downtempo, Ulrich Schnauss. You can certainly see where the two paths might cross on Centre And Periphery, which combines brooding electronica with guitar-flecked storyboards.
"The gloomy Consume opens, complete with haunting, but melodic synths and overlapping female vocal samples. It also has a very slight ethnic slant. The guitar twang of the following Moukoko sits pleasantly amidst an environment of reversed samples and comatose bass tones.
"The slide guitar on Desert Base glides across a variety of break beats, but it’s a little one dimensional and bland in truth, although this well compensated for by the following ‘Polit Skyla’, the best track on offer, which has a delicious downtempo groove and some flirtatiously off-key chords and melodies; an excellent track.
"Two remixes close, Consume, remixed by Akkadian, brings the bass guitar more to the fore, but keeps proceedings consistent with further warm, ambient drones, whilst the EP closes on the futuristic Aphex-style warbles of Desert Base, remixed by Hink.
"A very impressive debut EP, and well worth a peek."
7.8/10
Heliconia:
Tracks for Girl I Need You
Organart
Demo of the week
March 2003
"First Heliconia song, Girl I need You, is beautiful, it's stunning, the kind of musical treat that just stops you in your tracks and takes your breath away - it's very simple, glowing, very, very restrained and almost ambient.
"Restrained delicate boy/girl harmonies, a slowly unwinding song that gently builds to a caressing crescendo - you just need to stand there arms wide open, eyes shut like you’re right on the edge of a cliff and just let it soaring beauty take you.
"Can they keep it up and follow that first track? Shapes In The Dark does so much more than keep it up, in another time and another place this would have been classic shoegazing Chapterhouse/ Slowdive/ Black Tape For A Blue Girlstimulation - Heliconia are adding something of their own though.
"The band say this is just a rough recording, could they ever repeat this "rough" perfection in a "proper" studio?
"Walking Without Moving is equally as beautiful with its haunting chiming guitars, its glowing and breathless vocal lines give way to a soaring sound.
"This is one of the most beautiful things we've heard in a long, long time; it glows; it leaves you glowing; it's enriching.
"The delicate crackly opening of Reprise is almost too beautiful in it's textural simplicity and it's Pink Floyd/Cocteau Twins warmth.
"Sometimes you just throw an unexpected demo on, no idea who or what it is and you get everything you could possibly want. Thank you Heliconia, this is Organ fuel."
Moth:
Moth EP
Record Collector
December 2001
"This is the sort of music that would accompany Wish You Were Here if Judith Chalmers took holidays in Bosnia or Afghanistan.
"That isn't meant to be a dig — there's plenty on offer here to stimulate the ears, from the clumping Yellow 6 sub-bass beats to the simple prog guitars.
"However, on the whole it comes across as an experiment rather than a finished product."
Icer:
Astrid Calls
Record Collector
Single of the Month
October 1998
"The sweet melancholy of singer Katharine Tustain could so easily have been wasted on some indie rent-a-hit.
"Instead, she rides those distorted waltz-beat samples like Boudicea charging across the Wash to see off those maurauding Norsemen.
"In a just world Mark and Lard would get to hear this and make it their single of the week."
Icer:
Astrid Calls
Here Be Monsters
March 1999
"Something a bit different here! They take a nice noisy, blarey groove and drip cool melancholic, girly vocals all over it — the result being rather enjoyable!!
"Smartly followed by a smoother jobbie, Icer are very slightly Curve but much more themselves."
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