1877

This lot aren't actually from Oxfordshire, but sod that, Aylesbury's close enough and we do rather like them. Last time round they sounded like Sonic Youth trying to eviscerate Joy Division, and they've moved on to even darker things since on this evidence. 'I Am An Antagonist' sounds like it should be a Stephen Fry pastiche of The Sex Pistols, but is more like the sombre electro clatter of early New Order, all machine beats and moodiness, with a sparkle of Explosions In The Sky-like guitar to leaven proceedings. No light at the end of the tunnel on 'Narcolepsy', however, with all the sober atmospherics of early-80s 4AD bands like Dead Can Dance and Clan of Xymox. It's relentlessly morose of course, but since that appears to be the whole point, we're going to sit here in the dark and damn well enjoy it. - Nightshift Magazine

1877: "I Am An Antagonist" (Dead Pilot Records)
RELEASED? Out now.
SOUNDS LIKE? Sharp, but gloomy soundslabs shifted on dark matter guitar sparkles. It could be a happy, lo-tech, lo-finance accident or impure fucking genius, but the backward mixing of the drone vox sounds fantastic, all the melody being smashed, bashed and ground to dust by solid blocks of guitar clatter. You'd say krautrock, but even the Germans haven't mastered this kind of sonic cruelty. The flip is frankly catchy in comparison, "Narcolepsy" setting fire to all bedding with a twin core of shuddering scream guitar and Dr Who throbbery. This is great, we really hate the cynical, two line reviews that boringly adequate albums spawn, we want this kind of shit, turn it up, turn it up, turn it up!
IS IT ANY GOOD? That's a big fat 'yes'.
WHERE IS IT? www.deadpilotrecords.co.uk
- Unpeeled - www.unpeeled.net

When Edison premiered the phonograph – the first machine to record sound – in 1877, he could have little handle over its revolutionising effect. Some 150 years later Edison’s precious invention has been prostituted just about every way possible – from the distorted squall of noise-guitars to the fluorescent, saccharine bleep of 2-bit electronica. Everyone’s had a go. But few bands out there seem to have much of a grasp on how take the chewed up results of fifty years of phonographic experimentation and create something genuinely cohesive.
This is where 1877 steps in. Pulsing with pneumatics and the ghost of Ian Curtis in 'Narcolepsy', or schizophrenically melodic in 'Conversations In A Cheap Room', 1877 is sonically shot with a thousand bites of musical nostalgia that coalesce in dark corners, in pools of thick aural gloom.
There’s enough of everything here – slices of synth and strange robotic whizzing alongside the fuzz of filthy distortion and clean, reverberating riffs – to remind us that we’ve been spat out the other side of the history of the phonograph, that what remains is to put the shards of what we’ve learned into place to reflect the post-phonographic whole, and deflect the comedown of a million sonic misadventures. Not many bands have the genuine vision for such a task. 1877 is one of the few that do. - Hazel Sheffield
- Supersweet Magazine

I’m picking up a definite shift towards post punk artists like Kraftwerk, New Order and the like at the moment. And 1877 are one of the better bands to emerge from this gene pool. The electronic drums and snapping snare are pinned tight back and allow the phasing synths and streams of guitar to eddy around the deliberately low mixed vocals. It’s Depeche Mode picking a fight with Trent Reznor. It’s very dark. It’s very mesmeric. It’s very good. - www.tastyfanzine.org.uk

Serious, strong stuff on 1877’s debut release. Antagonist begins with electronic percussion and keyboards before the guitars come in backing submerged Curtis inflected vocals. Cold and powerfully arranged the instruments mesh and splinter menacingly.
B side Narcolepsy is, if possible, even more intense. Guitar and Bass drive relentlessly reminding the reviewer of Sumner and Hook on Interzone. True to its title, the track carries a bleak Burroughsian menace which has gone unheard in music for far too long.
Chris Stanley in The-Mag wrote, “They carry a genuine menace and intensity”. I can only, totally, wholeheartedly agree. Excellent!
- The New Roxette