Club stars

Bright Star Records tested the water for establishing a regular club night in the autumn, with a couple of special Friday night presentations upstairs in Belfast’s Morrisons. The first night saw the debut of London’s floor-shaking Blow-Up DJs in the city, but the Desert Hearts/David Kitt follow-up was the tasty double-bill that, with much justification, attracted most attention.

Desert Hearts have just finished mixing their debut album for Tugboat and for the last few weeks have been playing one or two low-key gigs around town. Trying to get coherent information out of them is, at the best of times, a blood-stone kind of transaction – Charlie’s critical opinion of his own tunes rarely strays beyond “well, they’re not that shit” – but, at the moment, there is a twinkle in their eyes when they talk about their new record that would suggest they’re quietly confident in what they are about to unleash. Charlie even claims they’ve gone disco on ‘DSR’.

No sign of glitter-balls tonight, though. In fact the trio’s performance suggests that not only do they want

to hang the DJ – they wouldn’t mind having him drawn and quartered just

to make sure. Live, they’ve always

been difficult to second-guess. Sometimes they’re stellar and delicately brittle. On other occasions they’re all about sculpting noise – contrarily burying their songs in big caves of feedback.

Here, though, despite an absolutely furious battering, the tunes are standing proud and refusing to hide. The trio tear through a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ short set that, to be honest, provides few clues in regard to how the LP is eventually going to turn out. But the attitude is back.

And it is weird seeing David Kitt

here. It shouldn’t be – his first full album is, you have to remember, a week or so away from release – by rights he shouldn’t be slogging away

at venues this size, battling with apathy and the sound of pissed conversations.

But Kittser is benefiting from some heavy momentum at the moment – features in the Sunday Times, full-page ads in Uncut – so, it wouldn’t be a surprise to find him playing one of the bigger joints that lie within five minute walking distance. Two lines into ‘Step Outside In The Morning Light’, though, and we’re counting our blessings. Intimate? It’s like sharing an oxygen tent with someone singing your favourite song.

And while the club takes its obligatorily Northern summer break, everyone at Bright Star will be getting ready for the release of The Reindeer Section’s ‘Y’All Get Scared Now, Ya Hear’ – the first record from Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody and his assorted Scottish indie chums.

A full review is probably best left until closer to its shop-day. Best just to say that after a hesitant start, the record opens up gloriously to reveal itself as a more than worthy companion piece to ‘When The Party’s Over…’ Closer in spirit to the quieter, more plaintive moments on the recent Snow Patrol record than the alt-country rumours that surrounded its recording, ‘Y’All Get Scared’ is actually a varied, late night treat.

Gary’s tunes (especially ‘Billed As Single’) are almost uniformly excellent, but it’s worth pointing out that on ‘Nightfall’, Aidan Moffat of Arab

Strap sounds like he’s camped out by

a fire at sundown, somewhere on a housing scheme in Govan, polishing his spurs and listening to draft-pack coyotes. Now, surely that’s a scene worth recreating when the club surfaces next. Keep your eyes peeled, ya hear.