Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
PRINT IS DEAD-GOOD, 6 Nov 2006
Inspired by the camaraderie of the DIY punk, post-punk and hardcore scenes that have gone before, the 'guest starring' culture of hip hop and musical cross-referencing spirit of the 70s (when the likes of Fripp, Eno, Pop, Bowie et al would crop up on each others records), Print Is Dead Vol 1 is a collaborative and conceptual work featuring contributions from members of some of the finest young guitar bands around.
At the centre of it are acclaimed forward-thinking Newcastle five-piece YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO, who conceived the album in the wake of their acclaimed major label releases All Roads To Fault (mini album 2004) and Ignoto (debut album, 2005) and executed it with precision. The roll-call of guest is a Whos Who of all that is right with the contemporary British musical underbelly from fellow reigning Geordie triumvirate of Futureheads, Maximo Park and Field Music, through million-sellers Bloc Party and Top 5 residents The Automatic, to emerging solo talents such as Tom Vek, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. and Lethal Bizzle.
We were sitting around one night and thought, we have this great space for making music lets use it says frontman Paul Mullen. Within the band our influences are ridiculously wide- from Regina Spektor to Mastodon - so we sent out an e-mail to some bands wed made friends with on our travels inviting them to take part and it just snowballed from there. I think even Brian May and Brian Wilson were approached.
The concept was a relatively simple one: YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO invited their favourite kindred spirits in to write and record a song in a single day in the bands studio-cum-space. The end result after each session being what you hear on the album. Wed pick our guests up at the train station and go back to the studio and form a band, says Mullen, of the recording process. Wed play around with ideas off the top of our head, then have some food and booze and discuss it. Then in the evening wed record and mix, limiting ourselves to do each song in about fourteen hours. That way you avoid being too precious about the fine details and it becomes a true collaborative effort.
It makes for a diverse, fluid and colourful collection, thats unashamedly and wilfully difficult to pigeon-hole. Though painting from the same palette, the artists produce greatly differing results. On the one hand Futureheads Ross Millard offers the stop-start, folk-infused post-punk shanty I Remember The Summer Isles, on the other Lethal Bizzle brings the sound of LDN grime into play with a meditation on happy slapping, knife-happy culture on Ordinary Day (sample line: Yo Blair, yo Cameron, you dougnuts / Wake up and open your eyes, man). And somewhere in between lie the minimalist, rhythmic kabuki-esque instrumental offered by Maximo Parks Lukas Wooller, or the almost dub-like Tiny Vessels of Get Capes Sam Duckworth.
As a snapshot of a time (2005/2006) and a non-geographical specific place (inventive UK alt-rock), few records could better Print Is Dead Vol. 1 in terms of broadness and creativity.
Print Is Dead was recorded in between sessions for YOURCODENAMEIS:MILOS forthcoming second album and a recent memorable trip to play shows in New Delhi, India. Everything was written, recorded and mixed at their own studio under the arches of Byker Bridge and affectionately-named Like A Cat, Like A Fox (after the original title for their debut album). The studio is part of the Ouseburn gorge which runs down to the River Tyne in the East End of Newcastle, a thriving musical area thats also home to popular venue/rehearsal space The Cluny, galleries, studios and a number of other rising local bands such as Kubichek!, The Motorettes, The Sound Explosion etc.
Slowly but surely then YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO are crystallising a scene based more around a mentality of spontaneity and creativity than a locale or fashion. Here is the first instalment. They will release their second full studio album early 2007, have set up their own General Recordings imprint through V2 and already begun work on more recordings for Print Is Dead Volume II, aswell as a number of Eno-inspired ambient works which may one day be released.
YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO are: Paul Mullen (vocals/guitar), Justin Lockey (guitar), Adam Hiles (guitar), Ross Harley (bass) and Shaun Abbott (drums).
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
compelling and fresh sounding, 13 Nov 2006
What an excellent album! An amazing use of talent. check out Tom vek - Roots/branches
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The variety is incredible, 4 Jun 2007
As a relatively newly exposed fan of The Geordie Outfit YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO, i was willing to shell out on the whole back catalogue of the band's repetoire and see what they have produced and from this, what they possibly have to offer.
After fetching their studio albums 'Ignoto' and the fresh 'They Came From The Sun' I was a little intigued as to what the result would be if an already brilliant band were to collaborate with other big names. The results are devastatingly varied and catchy tunes, with a great variety in mood and tempo.
Tracks of interest:
'The trapeze artist' - shows the conjoin almost creating immense power akin to a deftones record! Brilliant, would never have expected that from the automatic.
'Greetings' - i can see this being a brilliant summer tune to listen to whilst lying on the grass
The rest of the album just illustrates how this could be the most value for money record available. I Give it 4.5 really just because i believe in the new approved internet collaboration tracks or 'mash up' type melting pots that only produce cutting edge and productive improvement. This is the way music should progress. I want more!
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~ YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO
~ Yourcodenameis:Milo
~ Reuben
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