Marc Riley - 01/09/2009

Marc Riley, with a box of CDs and the Victorian English Gentlemen's Club live in session. Plus Cowboy Rob Hughes and his Americana Tunes, and classic session tracks from Wreckless Eric, the Flaming Lips, the Drowning Craze and Girls at Our Best.The Victorian English Gentlemens Club met at art school in Cardiff in 2004. They used to be a trio but are now a quartet. Their second album 'Love On An Oilrig' is released in September.Victorian English Gentlemens Club are guitars basses drums thoraxes lungs & spleens. They will be releasing their glorious 2nd album on 14th Sep 2009. The band are Adam Taylor (gtr/vox), louise mason (bass/bv), Steph Jones (gtr/bv) and Dan Lazenby. (drums). Since the release of their first album, The Victorian English Gentlemens Club toured for too long, then locked themselves away. They wrote 100 songs, disposed of 78 humanely, and have now laid out the remaining dozen on a 3" silver platter, for your dirty soul to revel in.Their previous opus was based on a severe lack of musical understanding. Their eponymous debut saw them groping their instruments like over-anxious teenagers, fast, furious and lots of fun. Their second is full of confidence and somewhat brutally, demands your respect.'Love On An Oil Rig' takes triple distortion, the most obscure of harmonies and refracts them through the prism of pop. Where the first record wore its influences on its sleeve, this one stands alone. The stripped down primal ideas are defined and sharp, retaining their well-developed Art school sensibilities of the absurd, the outrageous and the other. Since the recording, a new drummer and fourth club member has been recruited to enhance the ferocity of their sound, taking the noise to the next level with offset guitars, shouts and wails.The first album dealt with foetal burials, plastic windows and banning gin in 1840. The second features parrots, the primitiveness of modern life and sexual yearning on long distance lorry drives. It's hard not be intrigued by the titles alone: 'Love on An Oil Rig', 'Women Versus Children', and 'Periscope Envy'.This is the sound of the purest voices, guitars, basses, drums, circular saws, churches, hands, boots, thoraxes and lungs, juxtaposed to an awkward perfection. The band do not and will not use keyboards, synthesisers or system three acrylic.In the last two years they have performed in three forests, two churches and one circus. They still live in Cardiff. They collectively enjoy: effects pedals, Sonic Youth, bells, taxidermy seagulls, yellow mackintoshes, distortion, bonsai, black gaffer tape, bone and ivory dominoes and Wire.