UNIVERS SAFFF SIMON BREED

En cours ...

SIMON breed

UK, Acoustique / Indie / Autre
simonbreed.com/

Membres du groupe:  In http://www.myspace.com/simonbreed, "currently Simon singing and playing guitar, with Sarah Peacock on piano and Tim Bazell on drums. Previous beloved helpers include Rob Ellis (PJ Harvey, Spleen, Charlotte Hatherley) on drums; Giles Narang (of They Came From The Stars I Saw Them) on drums; Andy Zammit (of Bronze Rat and Gemma Ray fame) on drums; John Sullivan - drums, piano, bass; Matthew Wolverine - guitar, keyboards; and the living legend that is Earl Baza on drums and bells.


Influences:  the dirty three, scott walker, leonard cohen, nick cave and the bad seeds, will oldham, catpower, shellac, john cale, flaming lips, charles mingus, johnny cash, mick harvey, einsturzende neubauten, stereolab, the triffids, crime and the city solution, vinegar, parsnips, vin rouge, can, suicide, pulp, rowland s. howard, howard devoto, pavement, smog, robert johnson, ornette coleman, jim o'rourke, sonic youth, the fall, hormones, market forces, echo and the bunnymen, cathal coughlan, julian cope, palace music, tortoise, blondie, tom waits, gas, the country teasers, aphex twin, boards of canada, godspeed you black emperor, gallon drunk, the daily grind, fine cheeses, lambchop, planquez, jazzy jon, eddie cochrane, little richard, john coltrane, curtis mayfield, ivor cutler, captain beefheart, the blue orchids, barbel, eno, velvet underground, jana hunter, adrian borland and the sound,(TO SEE SIMON PERFORM AT THE ADRIAN BORLAND TRIBUTE IN 2006 at the PARADISO, AMSTERDAM, click here and play tracks 02 Via Satellite, 13 I Can't Escape Myself, and 18 Silent Air.)
the surplus, moonshake, the solar fire trio, Sun Ra, coleman hawkins, johnny dowd, jimi hendrix, the stooges, leadbelly, dylan, afghan wigs, beach boys, alex chilton and big star, wire..."

DISCOGRAPHIE:



In, http://playlouder.com" Coming highly recommended by One of Those Blokes From The Bad Seeds and John Peel, Simon Breed's already done well by way of his references. And by midway through track 2, 'I Spy The Spider', there's no doubt that he's an ambitious songwriter, both lyrically and musically.
It's aurally understated, but by no means underwhelming. His deft part-folkish finger picking is backed by sparsely employed second and third instruments, and subtle percussion. It takes a while to sink in. Breed's voice is reminiscent of Cathal Coughlan's less melodramatic moments, but in the relative restraint he exercises he manages to maintain an air of menace throughout, and with it, to cast a subtle spell, a kind of sweet-as-honey paralysis on his listener.

God only knows what the allegory in 'I Spy The Spider' pertains to, but the story itself is arresting: two arachnids so intent on appearing fly-like to one another that they wear masks, eat shit, and tear off their own legs.
A similarly dark and equally substantial track, also a standout, is 'The Golem Vs The Gentle Giant', a version of the old Czech/Jewish tale in which our narrator creates his monster from his own self-disgust and bitterness, and unleashes him onto the world, only to have the creature confound his expectations:
"Then he did something / I did not expect / He slipped into the river / Up to his gummy neck/ Swelling in the water / My black hole of a son / Gone to find his daddy's home / And have some real cool fun!"
Amongst these brooding, introspective, psychoanalytic nightmares are scattered love songs as warming as a pint of Glögg on a winter's morning. 'Devastating Sky', and 'Pinhole in a Blanket' are as convincing and as touching as many of Nick Cave's celebrated ballads. What's more, Simon Breed has an enviable ability to pack so much poetry into his lines, whilst rarely resorting to conventional forms or losing the natural scan of the syllables. I'll allow one more quotation here:
"When a sore thumb of a sun / Points at a bitten fingernail moon / You have to hand it to the infinite mum / For turning the unfathomable / Into something the children can hum."
Really though, it's when Simon's classically dark and masculine singer songwriter self is at even odds with the sentimental crooner inside that he rises above himself and becomes truly great. 'The Scorpion Regrets' is the epitome of this, where he squeezes in screech owls, sycamores, vertigo, vendettas and gash, and still leaves us, at the end of The Smitten King Laments, wanting much, much more."