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Friday, 5 February 2010

Jesus H Foxx

From OTBT-TV: The barmy and brilliant Jesus H Foxx first ran into each other in 2007, as a four-piece. While the current count of band members now sits at an unwieldy seven, they've somehow tamed the early ramshackle sound into a glorious racket that manages to stay true to their original scruffbag roots but with added pop goodness. High time we got them in for a session, then.

We meet them all in the reading room at Edinburgh's Bowery, a small room off the basement of what used to be Lady Glenorchy's Parish Church. Lady Glenorchy herself was the daughter of wealthy parents, who married one of 18th century Scotland's wealthiest landowners. After he died, the good Lady went about spannering the inheritance, not on hats, but on chapels, ones that were designed to allow preaching by, and education for, those who could not be accommodated in existing parish church buildings. She built loads, including this one, which originally had a school in it. Given the oddball directions and many layers to the Jesus H Foxx way of doing stuff, we figured that felt about right.

'Matter' closes out both the EP and their live shows, but we ended up with it second here. Very different in tone from much of the rest of their set, it's almost hymnal in parts, with the bare minimum of instrumentation suddenly joined by soaring voices and swooping harmonies.

For the final track, we moved outside to The Pleasance, for the view of Arthur's Seat and for a jumpy, grinning version of 'I'm Half The Man You Were'. The band's love of American acts shines through, and few of their songs sound so like early Pavement as this one. It's not a criticism - after all, if you're going to sound like any band, Pavement is hardly a poor choice, plus it's a very difficult trick to pull off. It lopes along with chirrupping guitars, slacker vocals and moments of pure pop glory - a fine way to round off the day.
 

OTBT #7.2: Jesus H Foxx - "Matter" from Off The Beaten Tracks on Vimeo.


OTBT #7.3: Jesus H Foxx - "I'm Half The Man You Were" from Off The Beaten Tracks on Vimeo.

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