Prosaics: searching for exciting sounds

Questioning, forwarding, searching for beauty, looking out for the perfect chord…? When did, what is supposed to be an art form, become a cynical business? Alongside this week’s heavy list of releases - Britney Spears, Westlife, Wet Wet Wet, Shania Twain, Seal, Blue compilations - we learn that the glorious list of London musicals based on the songbooks by famous pop artisans, such as ABBA, Queen and Rod Stewart, is now due to be joined by The Smiths’ stage production!?

Furthermore, the musical heritage has been enriched beyond measure by the Radio 1’s Chris Moyles having not only a Number One download single to his name - he now also has a world record. Chris, along with his band, Mouldy Lookin' Stain, have earned themselves a Guinness World Record for their single 'Dogs Don't Kill People (Wabbitz Do)'*, which has become the biggest selling download single in a week in the UK.

Where did it all go so banal? We live in a world of hype. Every week, it seems, a new band of achingly hip New York bandaleros roll into town on a cloud of hyperbole but little or no real substance. [Like we haven’t got the home grown ones, eh?] What majority likes is catchy, easy-on-the-ear, ocular-appealing, inoffensive, sing-along choons…

Face the music: masses of us dodge the new, the brave, the informative in favour of showbiz. Rebellion, the ever-proud concept of the past, has been prostituted for the commercial sake, for posturing, for celebrity status. Even the avant-garde lot have mellowed out and started to look after their bank balances. But, as Andy Warhol decreed decades back - “Art is what you can get away with.”

With educational values sinking rapidly, the exams being dumbed down to create poorer spirits that are less demanding, it is not surprising that masses are consuming indiscriminately. Entertainment, eh? Hype-merchants with ad-blitzing, promotions jamming media, the politics of persuasion via mass communications. The hit-to-be by Destiny’s Child sounds like the trio of femmes is singing “Let us lower our breasts” but we must have misheard it. Polished, packaged, fleshing out the sexual fantasies… Yeah, we love it too!

Or, cannabis gets decriminalised but conkers are banned as dangerous!? Yeah, several of my friends overdosed on conker-split!? What world we have created… Politicians are two-way miked for prompting during a live debate?! Are they actors for conglomerates? Did Ronald Reagan start a new trend? [At least he was a B-actor; G-Dub could hardly secure a cameo in the world history if it were a movie.]

What do bands like Prosaics - with their debut EP ‘Aghast Agape’’s title expressing their true feelings - can expect in such a realm? Probably the same fate that befalls artists of Nick Cave, Devendra Banhart and Tim Bowness kind - admiration of minority, the ones who can hear pass the din of baloney. These five songs are equal mixture of dissonance and melody, propulsive rhythms and tight arrangements, firing guitars and booming basses...

The three boys, Andy Comer, Joshua Zucker and William Kuehn, hail from NYC - not natives but still sharply dressed - and make music we like to believe is what intelligent pop used to be in the hand of bands like Talking Heads, Television, Magazine: punky but not just raw energy, minimal and wall-of-soundy, sonic booming and brimming with ideas. ‘Teeth’ bites rockingly with ‘Failure’ following with the similarly paced passion, while ‘Now The Shadow of the Column’ is a freer, rousing, a mini-epic.

‘Crowling’ gets darker, dirtier and goes for a lobotomy which almost successfully completes with ‘Tenants’ certifying that there ain’t no fluke here. This trio is ready to rock your world and are due for a Euro-visit before the year’s over with the debut album expected by mid-2005. This EP, although far from enough, will do very nicely.

8/10
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*The tune, released two weeks ago, is the Radio 1 breakfast show's spoof of Goldie Lookin Chains 'Guns Don't Kill People (Rappers Do)', and went straight in the official download chart, knocking off U2's 'Vertigo'.