Both a strength and a weakness of the network of bands in Glasgow is its incestuous nature. The entire family tree is no doubt fantastically obscure and many dimensional, with individuals often featuring in many bands at once or drifting in and out of them over time. This of course makes keeping any sort of track of bands and members almost impossible for the listener. But this camaraderie surely pays dividends when the chips are down, and it's heartening to see a scene in action where collaboration seems more common than competition, most of the time at least. And, somewhere on the edge of this dizzying, intriguing and remarkably complicated world are John Knox Sex Club - at once connected via other bands and allegiances, and somehow very much separate from what's happening. They have a minimal online presence, which musically speaking nowadays is akin to becoming a cave-dwelling hermit. But behind this deceptively quiet, almost reluctant exterior is a raging storm of noise and tension. Having stabilised around a six-piece line up, "Raise Ravens" is the second substantive release for a band which reputedly never intended to record anything at all.
If anything truly deserves the much overused 'epic' tag it is surely the opening 'Kiss The Dirt'. Just shy of a portentous thirteen minutes long, this starts out as an almost gentle, lyrical sweep across an urban landscape of tower blocks and abandoned houses, but becomes almost evangelical rather like the John Knox Sex Club live experience. A pseudo-religious refrain of "all that is lost will be found" tops a mesmerizingly repetitive shard of violin, ending in a thunderous explosion of bass, guitar and drums. Sean Cumming desperately howling his oaths to the very end with a repeated, humbling "I'll kiss the dirt beneath your feet". From the outset then, this is awe-inspiring and almost uncomfortably moving music. In comparison, "Above Us The Waves" is a gentle piece with the violin carrying a soaring, life-affirming melody. But even here there is a hint of darkness with a shudder of delay-laden distorted guitar beneath the impassioned vocals. Lyrically too, the close-observation gives away a morbid and dark undertone - dead wasps, the smell of fresh earth - Cumming weaves claustrophobic tales which are highly suggestive and unsettling but never graphic.
Emer Tumilty's strangely sorrowful violin ushers in "Sweet Sing The Rails Go Leave, Go Leave" with the gentlest of guitar lines in the background, reverberating and chiming. A beautiful, well placed instrumental which provides a sense of release and sanctuary. But still dark tinged and sorrowful. Initially "The Neighbours" is driven by Cummings melodic vocal lead, a domestic drama delivered via forensic observations: "her mother disappeared into tiny worlds of figurines". The chorus is a swell of voices, including a higher register female voice which provide a counterpoint to Cummings insistent exhortations. Detailing a private world of obsession, there is a sense of a desperate clinging to the past and implied violence. A duet of sinuous guitar and whooping violin drives the song onwards, weirdly, incongruously upbeat, to its crashing nightmarish climax, before a quiet sad coda makes the implicit explicit and we are left with fear and tension. Interesting in its obscure origins "Katie Cruel" is a gentle, almost delicately delivered traditional song. A strangely unspecific tale of regret which doesn't really reveal much about the predicament of the eponymous heroine, the song's origins are buried somewhere in Scotland and filtered though a transatlantic crossing somewhere around the time of the American Civil War. Utterly beautiful violin work is again the star of the show, winding an appealingly melancholy tune around the lament of the vocal. Finally, "The Thaw" comes on like Codeine or Slint, all pensive post-hardcore minor chords and taut Albini-style tinder dry drums. Dueling guitar and violin melodies shift the song in more chaotic directions with Cumming speaking the lyric in disturbingly calm, measured tones over his own singing. A squall of noise reflects the confusing intensity of the blizzard, before gentle plucked violin notes drip into a quiet, tensely melodic passage with a desperate imploring reminder that "the grass grows beneath the ice and snow" delivered over spirals of noise and shrilling strings.
Reading back, I suspect my ramblings are barely adequate to convey quite how this music works. Somehow John Knox Sex Club combine a firm grasp of tradition with the confidence to twist it to their own ends, rather than slavishly repeating things. Allied to a quietly powerful rhythm section which anchors the wayward violin and burst of searing guitar, the result is a record full of pent-up tension and menacing quiet passages which contain the threat of unexploded devices. When this energy is released the maelstrom is compelling and beautiful. However reluctant John Knox Sex Club feel about self-promotion, there is absolutely no way that something this powerful and darkly lyrical should remain unsung.
You can buy "Raise Ravens" from Bandcamp as a digital download. An extra pound gets you a beautifully packaged CD in a gatefold sleeve, printed and hand-assembled by the band themselves in addition to the download.
John Knox Sex Club - The Neighbours
Lost::MikeGTN
I've had a home on the web for more years than I care to remember, and a few kind souls persuade me it's worth persisting with keeping it updated. This current incarnation of the site is centred around the blog posts which began back in 1999 as 'the daylog' and continued through my travels and tribulations during the following years.
I don't get out and about nearly as much these days, but I do try to record significant events and trips for posterity. You may also have arrived here by following the trail to my former music blog Songs Heard On Fast Trains. That content is preserved here too.
