'Films Without Plotlines' is the final single from South London trio's 'FAKE NOSTALGIA' record. Backed by three previously unreleased tracks pulled from a session at Silvermere Sound Recording Studio and two alternative versions of FAKE NOSTALGIA highlights.
Key Tracks: Films Without Plotlines / This Means Everything, This Don't Mean a Thing (Alternative Version)
Recent Press:
Various Small Flames - https://varioussmallflames.co.uk/2019/03/07/tempertwig-comfort-blanket-everything-can-be-derailed
Beautiful Freaks - http://beautifulfreaks.co.uk/features/2019/03/premiere-tempertwig-this-means-everything-this-dont-mean-a-thing
The Devil has the Best Tuna - https://besttuna.blogspot.com/2019/03/Tempertwig.html
---
About Tempertwig and The Parker Brothers:
Nosferatu D2 were a band who in their own way really mattered to people. Though only ever the cultist of cult band in even in the most DIY circles, the dup with the ragged sound, beautiful lyrics and silly pun name became influential to a few and were the reason for the birth of labels,bands, friendships and even relationships.
The Croydon duo of brothers Ben (Vocals/Guitar) and Adam Parker (Drums) were in some ways over before they'd even begun but in their brief lifespan created wild sounds, a cacophonous, barbed and jagged noise. Furious and frantic, their sound was once described as "some kind of alchemy, not to be repeated" (Drowned in Sound), they had a distilled focus, that perhaps only siblings could achieve.
Ben Parkers' unpredictable guitar work was simultaneously cacophonous and minimalistic, playing loud and distorted without once touching an effects pedal. Thrashing wildly to provide an opening for Adam's mesmerising metallic drums, they poured out a lo-fi sonic cycle of conflict, rage and resolution.
As unique as the duo's musical chemistry was, Ben's lyrics were just as important. Words emerged rapid fire as he screamed and muttered his way through a stream of conscious mix of tragedy, heartbreak, fear, regret, pop culture and dead icons. He once remarked that he couldn't play these songs anymore as he wasn't just angry enough. This attitude let them know that it was over immediately after their biggest show supporting Los Campesinos! and Sky Larkin. They stepped off the stage, shelved their recently finished debut album and that was that.
Eventually a London fan formed the Audio Antihero label in 2009 specifically to be a home to their first and only album We're Gonna Walk Around This City With Our Headphones On To Block Out The Noise. The album won praise at The Line of Best Fit, DIY Mag, The Skinny, Drowned in Sound as well as finding vocal fans with groups like Los Campesinos! and Johnny Foreigner. The unlikely story of their lost debut album would even became an unlikely radio story for BBC 6 Music, Public Radio International's The World and others.
After years of being lost amongst CDR's and hard drives, Audio Antihero and newly formed DIY Label Randy Sadage are releasing "FAKE NOSTALGIA: An Anthology of Broken Stuff" an album's worth of unreleased material froma trio called Tempertwig, featuring pre-Nosferatu D2 Ben and Adam Parker and bassist Dan Debono.
These collected Tempertwig songs are a time capsule of an uncelebrated town in gloomy South London. A patchwork mix of higher and lower fidelity recordings, accompanied by the handful of photos that still exist, rescued from the memory cards of 2 megapixel early digital cameras.
Tempertwig existed between 1999 and 2002, playing only a couple of dozen shows before drifting off into the night. But their slow burning, scene defying angular indie rock exists in streams of consciousness and is filled with intensity and misanthropic energy. "Bratpack Film Philosophy" and "Apricot" show the origins of the themes of nostalgia, pop culture and feeling stunted and trapped which would later permeate Ben Parker's writing. On "Supersad" he turns himself into a museum exhibit as tourists laugh at his accent and he laments what he could have been. "Everything Can Be Derailed" and "The Opener" explore some of the sonic anger that would later be swallowed whole in Nosferatu D2 songs like "Broken Tamagotchi" and "Springsteen." "Comfort Blanket" might be the clearest illustration of Parker's psyche as he murmurs"Why is the bedroom so cold, etc etc"simultaneously clutching the meaning of Joy Division's most famous song and dismissing it as a tedious reference as he self-consciously considers the cold rooms he too is now forced to share.
With a sound rounded out by effect pedals anda full rhythm section, where Nosferatu D2 snapped, Tempertwig would groove. Ben's delivery here is more of a croon than the yelp it would become. While the lyrical dexterity and razor-sharp wit was already present,FAKE NOSTALGIAis a scrapbook of ideas from a band whose self-defeatist energy made them so captivating but also helped ensure their commercial endeavours were quickly curtailed. But just as Nosferatu D2 and Superman Revenge Squad came to mean a lot to a few people, Tempertwig may still carve out their own niche and find their way into a few hearts.
"Melancholic, tired anger...classic Parker brothers, the vulnerable honesty balanced with an unceasing self-consciousness, the cost of trying to communicate candidly in a culture that Mark Fisher labels 'capitalist realism'—where everything has long since been used up and commodified, and nothing new can emerge. "Why is the bedroom so cold etc. etc.?"" - Various Small Flames
"It's a cliché to say that the Parkers were ahead of their time – but it's certaintly true that the songs on FAKE NOSTALGIA are as relevant now as when they were recorded almost twenty years ago." - Beautiful Freaks
"It starts off all laid back and gentle, like Aztec Camera trying their hand at acoustic math rock and then it explodes in a crescendo of guitars like a gang of manic shoegazers decided to attempt a coup half way through. It's simply stunning and sounds like the future even though it's over 15 years old." - The Devil Has the Best Tuna
"Jarvis Cocker fronting Dinosaur Jr." - Steve Lamacq (BBC)
"It's like Arab Strap meets "The Power of Failing" - Ian Cohen (Pitchfork / Stereogum / Spin / Noisey)
"beautiful bus queue Heartache; the overheard one sided phone conversation of a bleeding heart soundtracked by the sort of angular guitar riffs that John Robb is so fond of mentioning; a London boy lost in the underground clubs of New York hoping to catch the sideways glances of the pretty and cool. Skinny fit Sonic Youth t-shirts and early Pavement vinyl jostle with the Wedding Present at their darkest best." - Monolith Cocktail
"Back then and now, Ben's writing always struck me as introspective, but dying to bleed out; the refrain to hide the sleeping pills speaks to such a private restlessness, and yet here we are in the bedroom, kicking awake too on an early night in." - This Is Not a Drill
"Parker sings "Fake nostalgia makes me sick" but I can't feign nostalgia for something I never knew existed. Instead I'll just revel in something new and exciting. In an overproduced world Fake Nostalgia sounds naïve, rebellious, and compellingly authentic." - Musos' Guide
"It may have been written almost twenty years ago, yet listening to this collection, Tempertwig feel like they were not a band who ever really tried to fit in, as such they sound as fresh and intriguing now as they ever did." - For the Rabbits
"will review" - Dave Beech (Louder than War)
Key Tracks: Films Without Plotlines / This Means Everything, This Don't Mean a Thing (Alternative Version)
Recent Press:
Various Small Flames - https://varioussmallflames.co.uk/2019/03/07/tempertwig-comfort-blanket-everything-can-be-derailed
Beautiful Freaks - http://beautifulfreaks.co.uk/features/2019/03/premiere-tempertwig-this-means-everything-this-dont-mean-a-thing
The Devil has the Best Tuna - https://besttuna.blogspot.com/2019/03/Tempertwig.html
---
About Tempertwig and The Parker Brothers:
Nosferatu D2 were a band who in their own way really mattered to people. Though only ever the cultist of cult band in even in the most DIY circles, the dup with the ragged sound, beautiful lyrics and silly pun name became influential to a few and were the reason for the birth of labels,bands, friendships and even relationships.
The Croydon duo of brothers Ben (Vocals/Guitar) and Adam Parker (Drums) were in some ways over before they'd even begun but in their brief lifespan created wild sounds, a cacophonous, barbed and jagged noise. Furious and frantic, their sound was once described as "some kind of alchemy, not to be repeated" (Drowned in Sound), they had a distilled focus, that perhaps only siblings could achieve.
Ben Parkers' unpredictable guitar work was simultaneously cacophonous and minimalistic, playing loud and distorted without once touching an effects pedal. Thrashing wildly to provide an opening for Adam's mesmerising metallic drums, they poured out a lo-fi sonic cycle of conflict, rage and resolution.
As unique as the duo's musical chemistry was, Ben's lyrics were just as important. Words emerged rapid fire as he screamed and muttered his way through a stream of conscious mix of tragedy, heartbreak, fear, regret, pop culture and dead icons. He once remarked that he couldn't play these songs anymore as he wasn't just angry enough. This attitude let them know that it was over immediately after their biggest show supporting Los Campesinos! and Sky Larkin. They stepped off the stage, shelved their recently finished debut album and that was that.
Eventually a London fan formed the Audio Antihero label in 2009 specifically to be a home to their first and only album We're Gonna Walk Around This City With Our Headphones On To Block Out The Noise. The album won praise at The Line of Best Fit, DIY Mag, The Skinny, Drowned in Sound as well as finding vocal fans with groups like Los Campesinos! and Johnny Foreigner. The unlikely story of their lost debut album would even became an unlikely radio story for BBC 6 Music, Public Radio International's The World and others.
After years of being lost amongst CDR's and hard drives, Audio Antihero and newly formed DIY Label Randy Sadage are releasing "FAKE NOSTALGIA: An Anthology of Broken Stuff" an album's worth of unreleased material froma trio called Tempertwig, featuring pre-Nosferatu D2 Ben and Adam Parker and bassist Dan Debono.
These collected Tempertwig songs are a time capsule of an uncelebrated town in gloomy South London. A patchwork mix of higher and lower fidelity recordings, accompanied by the handful of photos that still exist, rescued from the memory cards of 2 megapixel early digital cameras.
Tempertwig existed between 1999 and 2002, playing only a couple of dozen shows before drifting off into the night. But their slow burning, scene defying angular indie rock exists in streams of consciousness and is filled with intensity and misanthropic energy. "Bratpack Film Philosophy" and "Apricot" show the origins of the themes of nostalgia, pop culture and feeling stunted and trapped which would later permeate Ben Parker's writing. On "Supersad" he turns himself into a museum exhibit as tourists laugh at his accent and he laments what he could have been. "Everything Can Be Derailed" and "The Opener" explore some of the sonic anger that would later be swallowed whole in Nosferatu D2 songs like "Broken Tamagotchi" and "Springsteen." "Comfort Blanket" might be the clearest illustration of Parker's psyche as he murmurs"Why is the bedroom so cold, etc etc"simultaneously clutching the meaning of Joy Division's most famous song and dismissing it as a tedious reference as he self-consciously considers the cold rooms he too is now forced to share.
With a sound rounded out by effect pedals anda full rhythm section, where Nosferatu D2 snapped, Tempertwig would groove. Ben's delivery here is more of a croon than the yelp it would become. While the lyrical dexterity and razor-sharp wit was already present,FAKE NOSTALGIAis a scrapbook of ideas from a band whose self-defeatist energy made them so captivating but also helped ensure their commercial endeavours were quickly curtailed. But just as Nosferatu D2 and Superman Revenge Squad came to mean a lot to a few people, Tempertwig may still carve out their own niche and find their way into a few hearts.
"Melancholic, tired anger...classic Parker brothers, the vulnerable honesty balanced with an unceasing self-consciousness, the cost of trying to communicate candidly in a culture that Mark Fisher labels 'capitalist realism'—where everything has long since been used up and commodified, and nothing new can emerge. "Why is the bedroom so cold etc. etc.?"" - Various Small Flames
"It's a cliché to say that the Parkers were ahead of their time – but it's certaintly true that the songs on FAKE NOSTALGIA are as relevant now as when they were recorded almost twenty years ago." - Beautiful Freaks
"It starts off all laid back and gentle, like Aztec Camera trying their hand at acoustic math rock and then it explodes in a crescendo of guitars like a gang of manic shoegazers decided to attempt a coup half way through. It's simply stunning and sounds like the future even though it's over 15 years old." - The Devil Has the Best Tuna
"Jarvis Cocker fronting Dinosaur Jr." - Steve Lamacq (BBC)
"It's like Arab Strap meets "The Power of Failing" - Ian Cohen (Pitchfork / Stereogum / Spin / Noisey)
"beautiful bus queue Heartache; the overheard one sided phone conversation of a bleeding heart soundtracked by the sort of angular guitar riffs that John Robb is so fond of mentioning; a London boy lost in the underground clubs of New York hoping to catch the sideways glances of the pretty and cool. Skinny fit Sonic Youth t-shirts and early Pavement vinyl jostle with the Wedding Present at their darkest best." - Monolith Cocktail
"Back then and now, Ben's writing always struck me as introspective, but dying to bleed out; the refrain to hide the sleeping pills speaks to such a private restlessness, and yet here we are in the bedroom, kicking awake too on an early night in." - This Is Not a Drill
"Parker sings "Fake nostalgia makes me sick" but I can't feign nostalgia for something I never knew existed. Instead I'll just revel in something new and exciting. In an overproduced world Fake Nostalgia sounds naïve, rebellious, and compellingly authentic." - Musos' Guide
"It may have been written almost twenty years ago, yet listening to this collection, Tempertwig feel like they were not a band who ever really tried to fit in, as such they sound as fresh and intriguing now as they ever did." - For the Rabbits
"will review" - Dave Beech (Louder than War)
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