For Folk's Sake » AVI Buffalo

Live | Avi Buffalo @ Brudenell, Leeds, 14 July

For Folk's Sake — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:23:07 +0000

There can’t be many bands out there so thoroughly dominated by one man as Avi Buffalo. Then again, there can’t be many men like Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg. For a start, he’s called Avigdor-Zahner-Isenberg. He’s very much the lead singer. In fact he’s pretty much the only singer as Avi Buffalo perform at a stuffy, sweltering Brudenell Social Club, with backing vocals almost so sparse as to be non-existent.

He’s also lead guitar, a fact driven home by several bone-crunching solos. When he’s not playing and singing, he’s talking – if you were feeling unkind, you might say babbling, though that would underplay the charm of his monologues. “Have you guys seen the benches outside? All the sitting that’s going on out there,” he says excitedly at one point. Later he completes another triumphant track and declares: “Okey dokey, smokies!” But then charm bordering on nonsense is exactly what you’d expect from a man who can pull off lines like: “You are tiny and your lips are like little pieces of bacon.”

He’s also a de facto sound man, messing around with effects pedals and twiddling with knobs at any tiny juncture he can find. He’s warm, he’s funny, he sings sweetly; he says please and thank you and is gracious to his hosts (his mother must be so proud); he also sings songs called ‘Five Little Sluts’ and ‘Summer Cum’ (his mother must be so proud). So dominant is his presence, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to find he were somehow squeezing the bass out of that guitar and tapping out the percussion with his feet, one-man band style, with the other three members there simply for show. Occasionally they skulk off set, leaving Avigdor all alone in the limelight, where he was anyway. Naturally he shines on his own, but it’s refreshing to note when the others return how deep, how full, how accomplished the sound is. However talented he may be, he can’t do it all on his own.

Watching Avi Buffalo live is a thoroughly beguiling experience, as they glide through an hour-long set, flitting from new to old to new again, with their sunny, Long Beach tunes strung together by semi-formed songs, soundscapes and psychedelic musical interludes.

New tracks like ‘A Place To Be’, ‘You’re Not Honest All The Time’ and ‘Sleeping On The Floor’ suggest they may have a second album in them every bit as impressive as their first. But it’s when they lose themselves in their encore rendition of ‘ Remember Last Time’, an eight-minute monster even on the album but here extended to epic proportions, that you can stand back open-mouthed and revel in the sound of four monstrously talented musicians.

Ali Mason

Singles round-up | Ben Howard, Avi Buffalo & Sam Airey

For Folk's Sake — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 14:14:44 +0000

Ben Howard – The Wolves

The Wolves have been kicking around for well over a year now, but they must be getting hungry (or rather Howard’s fat cat record label Island were) as the mellow summer beach ditty with its fairy tale lyrics has been packaged up as a single. This isn’t the Mountain Goats ‘Up the Wolves’, don’t expect engrossment or danger – but do expect a song a cut above the usual Radio 1 friendly summer surf hits – strong arrangement, weighty lyrics and catchy in a subtle, creeps up on you like a pack of hungry wolves, sort of way.

Avi Buffalo – How Come

If Ben Howard left me yearning for something a bit more difficult, Avi Buffalo quickly have me wishing for his simplicity with their disparate, winding avenues – I don’t know which bit to listen to, or how. But after a few minutes I adjust and
get into it, especially the single’s B-side, ‘Good I’m Wishing’, which has some wonderful, distorted crashing guitar stuff going on. I don’t know why the vocals on all this sound so much sparser and more detached than they did on Avi Buffalo’s last album, hopefully it’s just a phase – but that aside, this is colourful, fun, alt-pop, which sometimes make you work a little bit harder.

Sam Airey – The Blackout

And this review ends, as most plays do, with The Blackout. Lots of imagery about warmth, candles and firewood, all moving at an absolute snail’s, or if you will, a Jose Gonzalez’s, pace. The song is the only one of the week’s singles I can imagine
someone getting out their guitar to play in a corner of a pub – it has that live, breathing, quality to it. Reviewing it as a single seems a bit disingenuous, its too slow and there is too little to it to stand up on its own – it needs a setting, an album or a live venue or a film to soundtrack – but it’s sensitive and lovingly made and, once you adjust to its pace, very good indeed.

Words: Tom Moyser

News | Avi Buffalo on Tour

Helen True — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 15:14:25 +0000

Avi Buffalo have a new single, ‘How Come’, out on Monday 11th June, and in honour of this release, they’ll be gracing the highways and byways of the UK this week, as they embark on a little live tour.

‘How Come’ is the latest offering from these dreamy Californians, spearheaded by Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg. We were fans of the first album (read editor Lynn’s review here) and we’re jolly pleased to be welcoming them back to our fair shores.

If you’d like to catch up with team Buffalo, they’ll be at the following locations this week, with support from Admiral Fallow:

11-Jul Bristol, Thekla
12-Jul London, Scala
13-Jul Nottingham, Bodega Social Club
14-Jul Leeds, Brudenell Social Club

They’ll also be popping up at Latitude on the 15th, so if you’re lucky enough to have a ticket to that particular weekend of cultural indulgence, you can catch them there, too.

Remember this, from last year? It’s pretty glorious:

Singles round-up: Lissie, Avi Buffalo, Dreamend

For Folk's Sake — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 17:12:47 +0000

Lissie – Cuckoo
Bouncy, accessible country-pop about driving around in a truck in small-town America, being totally wild, rebellious and free. “Let’s go driving, ‘cause there’s nowhere to go!” Yeah! It all sounds really fun, and really bad for the environment, but this is an ode to the joys of monster trucks and youthful hedonism, folk-lovers and tree-huggers. We’ll just have to live with that. It’s also about the timelessness of young relationships: “You and me, well we were never growing old”. Musically, it’s a bit chirpy for me, but if you love Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and the hits of Shania Twain, this song is there for the liking.

Dreamend – My Old Brittle Bones
The vocals remind me of nothing so much as Greenday, but the musical arrangements around them feel homespun and largely acoustic. The result is a hybrid of teenage pop-punk sensibilities and lush folkiness that left my reactions a bit displaced. At heart, the premise of the song is slight and a little repetitive – “I wait and I wait and I wait for you…/And you wait and you wait and you wait for me…” – but there’s a lot to enjoy here, especially the drum-beating, hand-clapping and tuned percussion like a peal of church bells, and I only wish that the lyrics were as satisfying and well-woven as the sounds around them.

Avi Buffalo – Truth Sets In
Fizzy, dreamy, psychedelic folk-pop that swirls and swirls, then suddenly surprises towards the end with a cleaner, darker guitar sound coming in. There’s a strand of disaffection there, alongside the whimsy (“Witches speak in my head all day/Witchcraft seems to unload and say/You don’t love me anymore”), like a harp with one black string among the gold ones; the vocals sound at once innocent and pained by their own innocence. Of all three singles in this review, this was the most playful and complex. I listened to the rest of their album. It’s good. Hats off, Avi Buffalo, this is delicious.

Words: Becky Varley-Winter

Festival: Green Man

For Folk's Sake — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 15:24:18 +0000

The ladies of First Aid Kit

The Green Man promised magic and he didn’t disappoint.

Once again the organisers pulled off the spectacular trick of attracting the friendliest festival crowd to the most laid-back festival there is, while enticing some of the weirdest and most wonderful bands out there to perform.

Manchester krautrockers Plank get the party started in fine style over in the Far Out tent, while heirs to Hefner’s geek-pop throne, Wave Pictures, are the first of many great acts to grace the main stage.
Travel disruption sees Mountain Man miss their main-stage slot; they are replaced by the idiosyncratic but weirdly compelling songs of Sweet Baboo (check his track ‘Who Would Have Thought’ for evidence) and the wonderful Caitlin Rose, who looks a little nervous on the big stage but plays her heart out. When Mountain Man do eventually take to the intimate Green Man Pub stage, their intricate harmonies impress but are perhaps not quite as mind-blowing as hoped for.

The Majestic Ms. Marling.

That particular honour goes first to Steve Mason, who delivers a confident set that includes classic Beta Band and King Biscuit Time tracks (‘Dry the Rain’ and ‘No Style’ respectively). The fans are thrilled and the newcomers are impressed. Fuck Buttons follow and they drop an immense set of looping and building multi-textured behemoths as only they can.

Where to go from there? An Horse are playing their hearts out at the GM Pub, while Doves are plodding and pounding through their back catalogue in a vaguely stirring way. Time for bed.

Come Saturday, the sun has come out (as have a sea of blankets and festival chairs) and normality is restored. Welsh warhorses El Goodo kick things off on the main stage, wearing their Super Furry influences proudly on their ragtag sleeves, and Race Horses also represent the home nation proudly with their Gorky-esque indie-pop.

Over in the Far Out, the absurdly young Egyptian Hip Hop kids impress with their gothy rock, Voice of the Seven Thunders feel slightly anonymous in comparison, and Summer Camp arrive like a summer breeze with their pre-meditated, almost sycophantic ode to 80s pop, but are fantastic with it.

Elizabeth Sankey of Summer Camp

Avi Buffalo show enough potential to suggest good things may yet come from them, while These New Puritans are just a bit miserable and, well, puritanical to really go down well in these idyllic environs. Wild Beasts, on the other hand, hoot their way through a polished, brilliant set that has the tent howling for more. Over on the main stage, things are getting weird with Wayne Coyne’s lazer-jazz-hands – his band the Flaming Lips are predictably epic as ever. But the real freakiness is going on elsewhere, with Neon Indian‘s set-of-the-weekend for the 100 or so people there to witness it. “Like a discofied version of Chk Chk Chk….” they are one of the discoveries of the weekend, month, year even. But the night is not over yet. There’s still time to squeeze in a bit of Metronomy before bed. These guys really have developed into the finished article, the perfect party band – absolutely immense! Honourable mentions too for the lovely First Aid Kit, who are just great, and the quietly impressive Scottish folkie Rachel Sermanni.

Sunday starts in sardonic style, with the deadpan Steve Adams showing off his new band, Singing Adams (“A big hand for Melinda on the drums. She’s a horrible person but a great drummer”). The lyrics are great and the sing-along moments are rather lovely too. And if the band thing doesn’t work out, Steve has a sure fire future in stand-up comedy. Things go from sunny to surreal with the arrival of Darwin Deez, who pull a big crowd, possibly due to their camp-as-Christmas dance routines rather than the music. Nowt wrong with that, mind. By contrast, Alasdair Roberts sits at the other end of the music spectrum, with his serious, traditional folk songs culled from as far afield as New Zealand and 9th century Persia. The final tune, an epic for all the people in the crowd on anti-depressents, is about as eccentric as it gets though.

Stuart Staples - Mr. Tindersticks

Field Music, Laura Marling and folk boy-band Mumford & Sons all come and go with impressive, if perfunctory sets, leaving the crowd in the capable hands of the swoonsome but slightly world-weary Tindersticks. The bubble and squeak of Joanna Newsom soothes a massive main-stage crowd as night falls and the rain returns with a vengeance. But there’s one more surprise in store for people down the GM pub – Silver Columns are the most baffling, nuts act of the whole weekend. Comprising folkie stalwarts Adem and Pictish Trail, the Silver Columns are early 90s rave, Erasure and c.2007 handbag house all rolled into one. You get the feeling the whole project is a bit of a joke, but there’s no denying it’s a pretty good one.

A weird way to end the festival perhaps but this is Green Man where, as they say, you should always expect the unexpected…

Words and pictures: Joe Downie

Album: Avi Buffalo – Avi Buffalo

Lynn Roberts — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:03:21 +0000

Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg, or Avi Buffalo to his friends, has brought together his group of young musicians from Long Beach, California, at the tender age of just 18 and they really have created a summer album with a twist.

The cheery major chords of the acoustic guitar are matched up with fresh, clean electric parts and handclaps aplenty. On bop-along tracks like ‘One Last’ there’s even a little honky tonk piano to get you in the Californian sunshine mood.

But this is an album of two halves. When the drums hold back, the minor chords come to play and each offering becomes far more contemplative, atmospheric and threatening. Standout ballad ‘Jessica’ is a perfect example.

The contrast in style is particularly stark when the musical variation is coupled with the distinctive vocals. There’s a brilliant underlying tension in both Avi’s strained and trembling lead, and the gentle female harmonies.

In upbeat tunes like ‘Summer Cum’ it has the chilled surfer feel that The Thrills used to achieve a few years back. In haunting numbers like ‘Where’s Your Dirty Mind’, bleak lyrics such as “All this time to die/I don’t want to die” ring out all too poignantly.

The writing is simple, but anthemic and perfect for a day on the road. ‘What’s in it for?’ has a building finale, with rapidly multiplying vocal parts becoming increasingly excitable. Real sing-along stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not perfect, and there a couple of songs lacking structure and far too minimalist, that are eminently skippable, like ‘Coaxed’ and ‘Can’t I Know?’.

But where the formula works to its maximum potential, the results are special. ‘Remember Last Time’ starts down a well-trodden upbeat path, laid down by the likes of The Shins years ago. Wait though, after a couple of minutes, there is an almost progressive period of reflection, in which Avi tells us “I’ve never written a love song”. As if he’s had a sudden change of heart, cue the drums letting loose, and the reverb and gain being cranked up for a frantic finish to this seven-minute winner.

It’s indicative of a really successful first attempt from the US youngsters, which is a worthy addition to your holiday collection.

Words: Simon Morgan

[Hundred Bands] 2: AVI Buffalo

Lynn Roberts — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:31:25 +0000

AVI Buffalo is Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg. An 18 year old singer songwriter from Long Beach California who describes himself on his myspace as an alternative/southern rock.

Their music has the same sunshiney tinny sheen as the polyphonic spree. It sounds like California sunshine, or what I’ve seen of it from a university life spent watching the OC, anyway.

Their track ‘What’s in it for’ (which is a bit wall-of-noise-y for me personally – but I’ve delicate ears) has a full sound, good tune and is available to buy on a prettily designed vinyl from their website.

Five other tracks are available to download. My favourite from their MySpace, though, ‘Where’s Your Dirty Mind’ — a lovely lilting boy/girl duet — isn’t, and there’s no info saying when it will be.

AVI Buffalo have signed to Sub Pop and got some PR representation in the UK, so we can expect records and shows from them soon hopefully, just got to wait for the band members to finish school.

For Folk's Sake » AVI Buffalo

Live | Avi Buffalo @ Brudenell, Leeds, 14 July

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