Six.By Seven split on eve of fifth album.

hmm: i'm merely mildly sad. i loved the first two albums but haven't really paid much attention to them since then.

someone might be able to confirm this, but i believe th enew album shares some tracks with Left Luggage...

it sucks that they have split, but it was very much on the cards. the way they've lost members over their history, the next record would've been Olley solo anyway.

That would be fantastic - it's a title I've come across several times but never heard.

i'm assuming your gmail position is out of choice? if you want an account, there are thousands of us in a position to supply! i've got [click] 50 invites ... you can't give them away fast enough.

Ugh! I saw them live last November and they were atrocious. Lumpen, arrogant, plodding and graceless, their set reached it's nadir at the very end when Chris Olley threw his guitar down, took of his leather jacket, and began to whip his instrument with it.

A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon a streamed video of a 6x7 live show ... they were excellent, and from the looks of it, best experienced live. Explosive was the best word for it. Like Mogwai, their records are very good but that sort of volume and intensity is best heard live.

I've still not checked out Twelve, but I've just bought a Macbook and a stack of CDs so spending is somewhat arrested for the rest of the month. Could anyone gmail or YSI me some songs privately? sickmouthy@gmail.NOSPAM

Wanking in the shower is wrong I feel, and not just from an energy conservation standpoint.

(xpost)

x-post - Louis I could tell you some amazing secrets about Taoist pressure points and 90-second, ejaculate-less orgasms, but I wont.

You mentally picture yrself wanking whilst you wank?

I ought to have said 'delay ejaculation' rather than 'prolong ejaculation', shouldn't I?

Oh, and Patrick, you've just reminded me of Charlie Brooker's greatest moment, where he describes Sezer from Big Brother as 'the sort of person who masturbates to videos of himself masturbating'!

I should hope not.

i had a friend who claimed he used to wank in front of the mirror as he wasn't turned on by anyone else.

he was a great lad. totally lost touch with him. a quick google reveals someone with his name, in a similar locale, is now a bishop. hmm.

their lineup constantly shifted, the sound was never as viciously, intricately gorgeous again, and they did lose a little fire too.

did anyone ever hear their version of greg lake's 'I believe in father christmas'? I heard it once, remember it being ace, and haven't been able to find it since. I think it was for a one-off Xfm charity album or something.

It was other parts of your body that needed the circulation cut off.

'Bochum', 'Untitled' and 'There's A Ghost' are also brilliant, and once I get over the 'I Am The Resurrection' drumbeat rip-off, Catch The Rain will be up there too. Doubtless the album as a whole will grow on me over the next few days, and I'll be one happy chappy!

FOR FUCK'S SAKE, The Enemy's new single COMPLETELY rips off Six By Seven's 'All I Really Want From You Is Love', and somehow cocks it up. AWFUL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgdktPr95u0

Oh I like The Enemy, well their last single anyway.

That Enemy track is a bit nowt-nor-summat, I must admit.

The Enemy's new single COMPLETELY rips off Six By Seven's 'All I Really Want From You Is Love',

There is a comment box on the Youtube clip page, Louis!

Hey guys, guess what I've just ordered?

...

That's right, I've just ordered the NEW AND FULLY OPERATIONAL DEATH STAR SIX BY SEVEN ALBUM!!!

I'm SO psyched.

Whatwhatwhat?

http://www.sixbyseven.co.uk/

I was just as surprised as you are. First impressions (on the basis of the website forum and the new track on myspace) are very, very good. Should be in the post within a week...I'll try and give it a review! You should probably handle Stylus duties as and when.

P.S. Just got their 'reject' album 'Left Luggage...' and it's got a few absolute stormers on board!

I absolutely loved The Things We Make when it first came out, but then they sort of got overtaken by lots of other stuff that came out roundabout that time, and then they just fell off my radar. Are all theor other albums worth getting? I had no idea they'd released so many.

The second one and 04 are my favourites, I'd say, and then Artists Poets Thieves thingamabob.

this sounds like good news.

Scik Mouthy more or less OTM; the first album is very good, but a bit underproduced. I'd perhaps have APCT as the second-best after The Closer You Get, narrowly beating 04. Their newer sound is absolutely electrifying; a sort of hi-tech drone-scuzz-techno-rock that packs more dynamism and thrust into its propulsion than almost anything else you could care to mention.

FYI, I now have both Peveril Hotel records, and I actually think that 'Bring Down The Government' off Left Luggage might be their best song or something, even ahead of 'Oh! Dear' or 'My Life Is An Accident' or 'Sometimes I Feel Like' or 'All I Really Want From You Is Love'. It's that awesome, and it really should have been a single. Hopefully the new album will have a few contenders as well, though!

Club Sandwich is also pretty good, but they rip-off NIN's 'The Day The World Went Away' not once but twice, which is fairly heinous.

I've ordered the new Twelve, btw. It's Olley's self-avowed attempt to revive Krautrock for a newer era of hi-tech equipment. The tracks I've heard on Myspace are stunning; this might well end up one of my albums of the year.

Now listening to new Six By Seven. Pretty good so far!

has anyone else heard the 'fuck me usa' album that one of these guys was involved in? it's supposed to be some suicide-a-like thing and i suppose it fits that description to some extent but it's also shite

seems it's chris olley and james flower

HAS SOUTHALL CLAIMED ANOTHER VICTIM???

http://www.sixbyseven.co.uk/symptoms/
Please note: to keep the dynamic of this record, we have not compressed the final mix. This means that your CD will probably be a bit quieter than most other cd’s. We think that too much of the dynamic is sacrificed in order to push the volume up on most CD’s nowadays and leave it up to you to just turn the volume up on your system. We are not in competition with anyone else on the jukebox.When it goes from quiet to loud, we really want you to feel the difference, like you would at a gig!

FYI, I've played it about 5 times through now and it sounds awesome.

Haha! I'm gonna have to investigate this now, aren't I? They did some very interesting things on 04 with mega over-compression, actually.

I'd imagine you're talking about 04's status as a euphoric pop record, distinct from 6x7's other albums by dint of its absolute adherence to drone-techno grooves. It's a great sound they got then, the drums flattened out until barely recognisable, the vocals pushed back into the mix, and the guitars smoothed out to provide a noisy sheen over the top. This album uses drones as well, but the context is more 'rock' than 'pop', far more open-ended and unpredictable. Think of it as combining the instrumentation of 04 with the post-rock aesthetic explored elsewhere.

Where did you get it from?

Online: http://www.sixbyseven.co.uk/albums.html

This is very good.

The CD player I use at work at the moment is a Sony dual-drive recorder unit, and as such has a visual equaliser for when you're recording. After playing this, I'm now playing Artists Cannibals Poets Thieves, and it's noticably pinned to the fucking roof an awful lot. Which explains why I listened to to it intensely for a month two years ago and then put it away.

Interestingly I've just got to my favourite track, Starla Paris Rescued Me, and it's not as rammed as the preceeding songs.

ACPT is one of the better 6x7 records IMO, and the opening track achieves its wonderful, energising effect precisely because it's so unrelentingly noisy (see: Primal Scream, Accelerator). I'll admit that you can't listen to the album too much before it becomes overwhelming, mind.

I just received a second copy of the new one, instead of the Twelve record. Bloody distribution company. :(

P.S. Left Luggage At The Peveril Hotel might be my new favourite 6x7 record. Great tunes, great experimentation, and, ridiculously, superb flow for a collection of would-be cast-offs. I don't even mind that it has three closing tracks, one of which is a (superb) homage to Pink Floyd. All it needs is to lose its version of 'Ready For You Now' (which is both unnecessary and overlong), and it'll be killer.

Now I have that Twelve record, one of only 500 copies in existence. :-D

Update when I've digested all the Krauty goodness.

Has Lou1s J@gger heard 'Get A Real Tatoo'?

no he hasn't, but he will have done if they play it tonight. SO PSYCHED

MY EARS

unwise to stand at front without plugs when one of britain's louder acts is playing

awesome experience, mind

I was told they're obnoxiously loud, but when I saw them they were playing at what I would call a reasonable volume.

Well, they had the full 5-piece line-up back for this one, with two guitarists, a coffee-table-sized pedal layout, and a couple of immense Marshall stacks. Mostly early stuff was played to a partisan audience; the soft-loud nuances were summarily sacrificed in favour of loud-crushingly loud ones. Olley ripped off his shirt at the end and threw his guitar at the drummer, at the climax of a feedback-ridden speedy-up Krautrock jam. Everything, even songs I'd previously dismissed as a bit flat, came to life. It was wicked.

Olley ripped off his shirt at the end

I'm afraid to say I laughed at this

The thing about CO's stage antics (stumbling around as if drunk, lying down, wearing stupid shades, generally being loutish) is that they're clearly an act, a commentary on the dissolute self-loathing self-abasing rock'n'roll lifestyle that this affable, domestic, eloquent musician sort of feels he OUGHT to partake of, but can't. His inter-song chat is assured and witty; he has an actor's command of the stage, and things like this read like affectionate pastiche rather than a genuine lack of control. It's what live rock should be: a show, a piece of musical theatre.

Louis, speaking as someone who knows, you give the man WAY too much credit there. But I really shouldn't be on this thread, I'll just get picked on by grown men again.

*hides*

No, go on! Does he behave like a massive twat offstage as well or something?

We have some kind of truce these days. I'm not bringing this stuff back up. I know coming on a thread to mysteriously allude to something and then refusing to spill the beans is annoying, but I actually do regret posting anything here at all.

I too shall drift away, stick the new 6x7 album on again, and tell myself that all is well in the world...

Still, tho, the implication that CO has been responsible for fights and bitterness is fairly ;_; given that I've just come away really really impressed by his band's live show. (I actually had a chat with the (restored) Sam Hampton, and he was genuinely nice, down to earth, and willing to chat about waveforms, mastering, other bands, drumstick guitar and whatnot.)

Did Emily used to use the NME chatroom about 9 years ago, and love The Telescopes?

emily has a history of going all psycho on messageboards, judging people harshly, and being hysterical: Haircut - yes or no?

Sounds like it could be her, aye.

link?

Links don't exist to ancient chatrooms, dude. I was listening to the new album, looked up the thread, saw her comments, and was reminded of someone who used to irritate me.

The album itself is in the running for my personal top 5, which is some achievement given the year we've had. That said, I think it'll probably wind up at 6 or 7. "Liberation" has REALLY grown on me since we last discussed it.

CELESTE!

;_;

:D

hey n1ck d'ya get my email

When? Don't think so.

For context... Many years ago, when first at university, I used to use NME's primordial chatroom from time to time, and there was another particularly obnoxious user who went by the nom-de-plume "Celeste", who was from Nottingham, and who FUCKING HATED Six.By Seven because they'd "sold out" or some shit on their debut album by having songs that were anything other than ten-minute drones. She was mad for The Telescopes and referred a lot to the fact that she knew Chris Olley and took every opportunity to tell him he was a sell-out wanker for going 'rock', or something.

Wonder if 'Leave Me Alone' was written for her? ;-)

sent the email btw

Louis, can you hook me up with nice chunky 256 or 320 AACs of the pick of the Peveril tracks? sick mouthy at gmail dot com. I'll chuck a couple of b sides at you in return.

Debut album is the best, Symptoms second, Closer third, then 04. Debut album is awesome. Get A Real Tattoo peak of their output, though. Astonishing.

Oh god yeah, I need to hear that song again

"I'm gonna chase you around / THEEEEE AAAAAAIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRR"

The sinisterness in Olley's voice as he very, very calmly intones "one it starts / it just wont stop" and then ALL FUCKING HELLFIRE gets unleashed. Wow.

*goes to Spotify*

I have all their albums! They're probably the only band to have released over 5 albums whose every album I own a CD copy of!

As for your request...not sure of the bitrate tbh. I'll send one, tell me if it passes muster.

My favourite B-side as things stand = probably either "Stoned In Hawaii" or "Requiem For An Oilspill Seagull"

Ah man, where the hell did I hear "Get A Real Tattoo"? It's not on Spotify. That's the one I'd like to be sent, tbh :D

louis it's easy to rip a cd to a high bitrate

If I were to rank their albums, INCLUDING Peveril ones:

1) Closer
2) 04
3) Symptoms
4) Peveril Luggage
5) Artists
6) Things
7) Peveril Sandwich
8) Way

Top 6 are all VERY close to each other...consistent brilliance imo

I'll have to send Tattoo tomorrow from work.

Also, gotta pour one out for these guys...they split, probably for good, this Jan. More "glad they got it together to release Symptoms" than sad about this tho tbh.

cool stuff Nick

furthermore, I also totally disown any nasty comments I may have made in emil.y's direction upthread...we're tight these days innit, and i was being a fool

altho we'll never quite see eye-to-eye about this band :D

gmail doesn't like attachments

sendspace, dude.

What's the lowdown so far? Decent enough quality?

Also tyvm etc etc

They're AACs, which is cool, but they're only 120kbps; you can set higher via preferences > import settings.

Get A Real Tattoo on the way; I actually got up and fetched the CD.

OK, henceforth I'll import on a higher setting. Also, woohoo, yer a star etc. :D

Get A Real tattoo, people; long since deleted, and not on iTunes or anywhere I don't think - http://www.sendspace.com/file/0h0w5h

psyched...i'm not even sure i've heard this...i was probably thinking of something else

blimey that downloaded in less than 2 seconds. I thought something was wrong and redownloaded it and it did it again. I checked and the file is fine. When did sendspace get so fast? It usually limps along.
Thanks Nick.

I own the 1st 2 cds but never bought any of the others. Where should I start?

skip the third, get them in order after that

i think i d/l the 3rd at the time and it put me off checking the later stuff (see Therapy? , Suede and SFA for further examples)

(not their 3rd albums)

Let's all listen to GART right now.

Am doing so. There is an awesomely ominous keyboard hum.

3rd 6x7 album is kind of pants. Bits of 2nd, 4th, and 5th are way over-produced / compressed, although occasionally to quite astonishing (if headache-inducing) effect. Last album = amazingly textured grooves and drones. Debut = drones, arcs, rocking, rhythms, and pop in perfect alignment.

5:40 = apocalypse

That's why dynamic range compression sucks, kids. Radiohead never suddenly consumed the world like that.

3rd album is basically ONLY worth it for the opening track and "All My New Best Friends" and precisely diddly-squat else. They pretty much reinvented their sound for 04, which was a strikingly original album and an incalculable improvement. Quality control has been excellent since then, with (big) variations on the 04 model being largely prevalent. Last record is one of the all-time great post-reformation records. It's stunning and when I heard it I was completely blown away.

also :D @ GART

Wow yeah, that explosion is up there with "My Life Is An Accident" or "Sometimes I Feel Like..."

er i think some of these songs you've sent me are password protected :-/

well, only the caribou one, i can live without that i guess (unless you give me the password :P)

"up in flames" is awesome btw

anyway, cheers, all aboard, and it's probably time I sent you some more low-sound-quality 6x7 goodies tbh

This Hull Bloke. Who the fuck?

Ian Ashbee?

thanks for my new username

i didn't think GART was that hard to get? i have all the singles up to the fourth album, if there's any b-sides anyone is missing

The version of the For You EP on iTunes is the one with I'm Wide Open on the b-side, rather than GART, likewise 7 Digital, and second-hand copies of the physical CD don't turn up that often I don't think, at least in the UK; hence GART is in danger of becoming a bit of a lost classic, it seems.

I'd be very grateful of any b-sides you cared to zip together, dude. Doubt I have anything you'd want in return, though.

Hey - while you wait for all that to be sorted, why not expound on your Peveril faves thus far?

uploading now, will post link when i wake up

awesome, cheers

There was a live version of GART on an NME cd around the time I started uni (maybe for Sound City 98 or something?), but I've never heard the original, due to never finding the cd that had it. I think I even wrote to Mantra/Beggars mail order trying to get hold of it. Thanks for uploading it, Nick.

Gave up on them just before the 4th album came out, mainly 'cos I got the hump with them. Long story: I had abeautifulshape as my AIM name, and AOL login, and then presumably when they left Beggars they had to get a new website and email and stuff so they picked beautifulshape, which would've been bad enough if I'd only got the occasional misspelt address, but Chris or someone put MY email address on the website, and then asked for everyone's top 10 6x7 songs for some spurious reason, which then got sent to me, and because I actually really liked 6x7, instead of deleting them all I'd forward them to the proper address, and reply to the sender saying what had happened. Who knew they had so many fans. At the time I was driving vans for 11hours a day, so I'd come home and find a few dozen emails that weren't even my business to be dealing with. I got a bit annoyed, and emailed Chris O and begged him to sort it out, and that I was 'hoping' (nudge nudge) to see them at the Garage soon, thinking I might maybe get a free ticket for you know, running their mailing list for a fortnight, but nothing. I went to the gig anyway, with about 20 other people, and they played a load of underwhelming new stuff, and then Candlelight, as a 3-piece with all the bass on DAT or whatever. I kind of lost interest after that.

Still love the first album, top 10 of all time for me.

sorry for the rant!

The Peveril stuff so far I like quite a bit; it seems quite stripped down and krauty, but still with some pop chops, and hence closer to the first album, which I just think is awesome. Government head & shoulders best in terms of tune. Wallflower very cool.

lolol that is seriously unfortunate.....the only time I saw them was I think their final ever London gig, where they performed as a 5-piece and sounded glorious, playing predominantly first-album material. I was actually slightly disappointed by the setlist; I'd hoped it would cover their discography much more evenly. Like I say, though, they sounded fucking huge. A shame that the 04 material didn't sound especially great...the album's monstrous.

Also, they played "IOU Love" which has to be up there in the worst 3 songs they've ever written (and they didn't even write it!)...still forgiven.

Another thing is that I'm listening to Symptoms right now and for all 04's brilliance, this is actually in danger of leapfrogging it into 2nd place. It's that good. I haven't listened to it in a while and it sounds just flaming magnificent. Even the supposed 'weaker tracks' like World Army are titanic.

Government is one of the great lost 21st-century love songs. Should have been massive. Wallflower is just uh kickass.

Who wrote IOU Love?

Was that the Luminaire gig? I should've gone to that, wasn't Sam playing with them as well? It's a shame, because everytime I'd seen them before that had been amazing, Chris O looking like he wanted to tear down the entire venue in disgust at the fact they weren't anywhere bigger (this is like the Hop & Grape in Manc), but in the Garage everyone just seemed so apathetic and bored. I'll have to track down the stuff I've not heard.

The Church wrote IOU Love and called it "Under The Milky Way"...it was one of their biggest hits. And their version's way better.

It was indeed the Luminaire gig. I had a chat with Sam beforehand and he was very nice. Almost too nice, considering the bad-boy pissed-off psycho-rockstar persona Mr Olley seems to like adopting for live shows. Definitely off-message! :D

They played hard, 'twas a game attempt to lift the roof! One of the louder bands I've heard. They rock with exceeding might. Yeah, you should have been there. Coz now they's dead'n'gone.

"Ten Places To Die" was probably the highlight, although the one song they played off the new album, "Enemy", sounded about 2x as vengefully righteous as it does on record, and the rhythmic change-up near the end damn near threw me in the air.

"Brilliantly Cute" was another one that jumped out at me....WAY better live than on record imo.

6x7 b-sides:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/jkek6i
http://www.sendspace.com/file/p9v2da

big thumbs up to that man

Kinda weird how this thread was revived (and the discussion turned to b-sides) after I grabbed the "New Year" CD-single out of a bargain bin over the weekend ...

Awesome; cheers dude!

Recent b-sides that I've heard, fwiw, extend pretty much only to ambient-ish instrumentals - fucking 11 of them on the Bochum single (so it counted as an album for chart purposes, I suppose).

Thanks to Jim, this is my new little b-sides collection; 12 tracks over 55 minutes and as good as any album by them, I'd wager.

I'm Wide Open 5:12 Six.By Seven For You
This 4:04 Six.By Seven 88-92-96
Spiegelei Und Brot 2:59 Six.By Seven All My New Best Friends
Requiem for an Oil Spill Seagull 5:54 Six.By Seven So Close
100 Thousand and 80 3:36 Six.By Seven Ocean Clouds
Cool TV Suit 4:34 Six.By Seven Two And A Half Days In Love With You
Your Town 3:28 Six.By Seven 88-92-96
Stoned In Hawaii 5:23 Six.By Seven New Year
Young Man's Stride 2:58 Six.By Seven Candlelight
Get A Real Tattoo 7:09 Six.By Seven For You
Always Waiting For... 6:23 Six.By Seven Two And A Half Days In Love With You
Sleep 2:53 Six.By Seven New Year

Spiegelei Und Brot is fucking wicked. Largely because it's in German.

Oh yeah, and rocks like a bitch in a caveman's house.

"I'll Take My Chances" is an almost complete rip of another song, riff, chorus, melody, everything, but I can't quite place it. It's driving me mad.

A Talking Heads song. Off Fear of Music.

Memories Can Wait! It's a total rip of that.

Listening quickly to GART last night, I remembered that I really love their snare drum sound.

Opener: All I Really Want From You Is Love >>> Eat Junk Become Junk >>> So Close >>> Nations >>> Around >>> Untitled >>> A Beautiful Shape >>> Intro & Theme Tune (which is still ace, if a NIN rip...god this lot could do opening tracks)
Closer: You Know I Feel Alright Now >>> 100 And Something Foxhall Road >>> Wallflower >>> Bad Man >>> War Nations >>> Comedown >>> Hours >>> Don't Let It Bring You Down

I cannot overstate just how well ACPT begins and ends. They're almost perfect. Penultimate track's a stunner too.

Recording again, I gather.

Seeing them tonight! :D

Catch you all there! :D :D

SIX.BYSEVENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Standing In The Light is the stormer off the new album and boy does it storm. Scik, get on it ffs.