Coming of Age

Mystery Jets - Twentyone (679, 2008)

I can’t exactly claim to be ahead of the game here and I’m not really sure why it’s taken me a full three months to notice that the Mystery Jets have a new album out. Of all the eagerly hyped British indie bands of recent years, Mystery Jets have struck me as one of the more credible and genuinely exciting. It was something of a shame that by the time their debut album ‘Making Dens’ finally emerged, most people seemed to have forgotten about them, and they ended up somewhat underrated. The riotous drum and chant riot of ‘Zoo Time’ seemed like a somewhat distant memory.

That album’s stylistic diversity, particularly its tendency towards meandering psychedelic folk has been shrewdly abandoned here in favour of a set of crisp, articulate pop songs set in the full flourish of youth. That title is no cheap joke – these are the songs of more successful youthful exploration and abandon – the kind that comes with the benefit of added experience and confidence. There’s even a hint of cynicism on the biting ‘Half in Love with Elisabeth’. It’s all a little bit whimsical, but also touching and endearing.

This album is helmed by hipster Trash DJ and remixer-du-jour Erol Elkan, but his presence is felt much more strongly here than on the new Long Blondes album. What sets the Mystery Jets apart from many of their less ambitious contemporaries is that their conventional instruments are always being used in engaging ways. The guitar lines are spiky and sprightly, the basslines provide counterpoint as well as foundation, the drums are taut and driving and the occasional interjection of synths adds both colour and warmth.

There’s a notable influence of 80s alternative pop here – felt much more keenly than on their debut. I actually attempt to use the word ‘alternative’ advisedly here, as other reviews have unfairly accused the band of declaring a love for Wet, Wet, Wet and Roxette. I don’t quite here that. It’s always a little bit reductive to search for reference points, but the way in which the vocals manage to both yelp and carry idiosyncratic melodies reminds me greatly of Andy Partridge’s songs for XTC. The rhythmic invention of the guitar lines reminds me of Orange Juice circa ‘Rip it Up’.The Police also seem to have been mentioned a lot in reviews of this record, and their influence is audible not just in Blaine’s vocals, but also in the frequent use of muted guitar strings. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the contemporary group I’m most reminded of when listening to ‘Twentyone’ is the similarly underrated Hot Hot Heat. There’s a straightforward immediacy and exuberance in most of these songs.

Much of the appeal of ‘Twentyone’ lies in its ability to take individual experiences and render them universal and believable. There are songs about one night stands, secret girlfriends (the ambiguous ‘MJ’, with its plea to ‘don’t tell anyone what we’ve got going on’), relationships heading nowhere fast, emotional confusion, lust and love. There are lyrics that capture relationship experience with pithy wisdom (‘I don’t want to be a ball and chain, it’s just that I’m afraid of change’, ‘he’s half in love with Elisabeth and half in love with you’, ‘the penny dropped even before I clocked just where your hands had been/It’s like you’d done your hair for somebody else, scared that you might have been seen’). All are delivered in a matter-of-fact, pleasingly non-judgmental way. For those of us on the wrong side of 25, it’s a sweetly nostalgic experience – for the band’s peers, it will no doubt capture their lives as they are living them, with lucidity and compassion.

There’s no doubt that the album benefits from two absolutely knockout pop songs. First, there’s ‘Young Love’, detailing the desperate consequences of a one-night stand with insight, candour and affection. It’s every bit as infectious and irresistible as pop music should be. It also features a guest appearance from Laura Marling. As a singer-songwriter, I wonder whether Marling really has the longevity of the great writers with whom she is all too frequently compared, and I actually sympathise with her for the weight of all the pressure on her at such a young age. I fear she won’t be talked about so much five years from now – but it’s great to hear her in an entirely different context, her understated delivery sounding far more of a strength than a limitation here. Then there’s ‘Two Doors Down’, a love song that is admittedly somewhat twee, but also remarkably good natured and affectionate. It tells a story of falling in love with a neighbour – ‘I hear her playing the drums late at night/The neighbours complain but that’s the kinda girl I like’. Most of the band’s legion of enthuasists would probably relate to the attraction!

Luckily, they are not the only gems here and most of the record is anything but filler. There’s the rampant, searching opener ‘Hideaway’, where the role of Alkan is perhaps most clearly audible in its synth bass lines and manipulated drums. ‘MJ’ is terrific, although the repetition of the refrain ‘Don’t tell anyone’ can’t help but remind me of Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘Lost Art of Keeping a Secret’, even if the two songs are hardly that close musically. ‘Flakes’ is a swooning ballad touched with genuine drama. Only the grating carousel waltz of ‘Umbrellahand’ really jars – it’s an unsuccessful experiment and distraction from the main flavour of the album that would have been better left in the studio vaults.

‘Twentyone’ seems remarkably natural, assured, unpretentious and confident. It also has a real sense of fun and humour to match its smart, hipster production values. It should elevate them to a much bigger audience – much to its credit, it’s a Pop album with a Capital P.

New Harmony

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Lie Down In The Light (Domino, 2008)

There’s a satisfying irony in the observation that Will Oldham is at once a great contrarian and also one of the most consistent and dependable songwriters currently at work. A lot of adjectives one might not usually associate with Oldham have been deployed in the service of ‘Lie Down In The Light’ – various reviewers have described it as enjoyable, delicate, delightful – even charming for heaven’s sake! If Oldham frequently seems keen on antagonising his admirers, what better way to do it than for the old misanthrope to turn on the charm!

There’s an element of truth in this, even if it only paints an incomplete picture. ‘Lie Down In The Light’ is a soft and ruminative record, perhaps appearing slight on first listen. It’s also Oldham’s most richly arranged record, and perhaps his most musically conventional, certainly closest in spirit to ‘Greatest Palace Music’, where he reworked some of the highlights of his back catalogue in deceptively jaunty styles.

‘Lie Down In The Light’ is also a good deal less ragged than anything else in the Oldham back catalogue. It is frequently very pretty, characterised by the keyboard textures of Lambchop’s Tony Crow, some subtly effective percussion, and the occasional but wonderfully unexpected flourishes of string and woodwind instruments. Dennis Solee’s Clarinet adds a wistful finish to the marvellous ‘For Every Field There’s A Mole’, and the opening ‘Easy Does It’ has an Appalachian lightness of touch aided by pedal steel and fiddle. Oldham’s voice is, for the most part, much smoother and less unhinged than it was on his earliest records.

Thematically, it might be possible to argue that ‘Lie Down In The Light’ is more compassionate, sensitive and humane than the stereotyped view of Oldham as a dark, possibly brutal wilderness poet. The lovely, engaging ‘Where Is The Puzzle’ seems like a straightforward love song, with Oldham claiming that ‘bliss comes with a conclusion’ and that ‘I want only to sing you’. His counselling to ‘keep your loved ones near’ also seems to suggest a kinder spirit at work. However, look beyond that line and, even in the same song (the sepia-tinted ‘Other’s Gain’ – is the apostrophe positioned on the wrong side of the s there?), there’s a more arcane and detached wisdom at play (‘if you want to keep ahead, keep eye on other’s gain’).

A big part in the process of the softening of Oldham’s rougher edges has been his recent tendency to employ female vocalists to provide some sort of harmonic and thematic counterpoint. This is particularly interesting given that his songs have traditionally been defiantly masculine in tone and approach. It’s almost as if he’s self-consciously heralding this approach when he confidently pronounces ‘New harmony on an awesome scale’ on ‘Missing One’. Ashley Webber, part of the extended family of musicians associated with Black Mountain, may be the most effective of these guest vocalists to date. Her voice is more versatile than that of Dawn McCarthy, Oldham’s foil on his previous full-length ‘The Letting Go’. ‘Lie Down In The Light’ is both more approachable and more multi-faceted than that album.

Webber’s vocal on ‘So Everyone’ helps elevate it into one of the best songs Oldham has penned since ‘I See A Darkness’. The song is characteristically mysterious, with a chorus that seems to call for a most explicit public declaration of love. Once again, it demonstrates Oldham’s capacity to make the unsubtle strikingly beautiful, rather than unthinkingly provocative.

If there is a unifying concept behind ‘Lie Down In The Light’, it seems that Oldham is probing at the psychology of physical intimacy, with a particular emphasis on dependency. The concluding ‘I’ll Be Glad’, with its gospel-tinged vocal chorus, is perhaps the most striking example of this, with Oldham pledging to follow wherever his lover leads him.

I’m not sure whether it’s apposite or misleading that ‘Lie Down In The Light’ is bookended by its two lightest, jauntiest tracks. Perhaps this conceals a greater level of mystery beneath the surface, or perhaps it rightly underlines the playfulness at the core of Oldham’s recent work. Either way, ‘Lie Down In The Light’ is a beautiful record that gradually unfolds with every listen, revealing further layers of intricacy and intrigue.

In League With The Devil

The Notwist - The Devil, You + Me (City Slang, 2008)

I'm really quite perplexed by the lack of attention afforded this release by the UK music press. This is the first album from The Notwist in nearly six years, and it follows the excellent 'Neon Golden', a record that saw the group make great strides in their musical and stylistic development. Perhaps the lack of column inches in the UK is a sign of just how much the UK market tends to ignore European acts, especially at a time when so much superb music is coming from Europe and Scandinavia.

Given Markus Acher's subsequent collaborations with Doseone in 13 and God and Subtle, it comes as something of a surprise that 'The Devil, You + Me' sounds, at least on first listen, like a more conventional record than its predecessor. The stream-of-consciousness surrealism that characterised those projects is completely absent here, on a graceful and considered album arguably more interested in sound than language.

The greater emphasis on melodic directness might well disappoint more adventurous listeners. However, the group have not entirely abandoned atmosphere for this record and their arrangements remain as fascinating and mesmerising as ever. The interventions of electronics are generally subtle (save for 'Where In This World', which could easily be an offcut from 'Neon Golden') and much of the music comes with delicate shadings and a restrained percussiveness.

The vocals are consistently relaxed and understated but the more accessible melodies and harmonies help imbue the music with warmth. The Notwist sound like a much less robotic band here, even if they are content not to push too many musical boundaries. This is a slow-building collection which, given time, draws the listener into its rather intricate and spellbinding web. Some of the percussion sounds are redolent of the more recent excursions of Einsturzende Neubaten, as they have abandoned abrasive anger in favour of something more emotionally complex. Whilst The Devil is a constant presence here, not just in the album's title, this is not however a nasty or evil sounding record - instead it seems to be hinting at the human agency of the devil, and is such the group's most human record to date.

There's a creeping menace to much of this music (particularly on the superb and sinister 'Hands On Us') that suggests the initial perception of convention might be misplaced. Even the most elemental tracks here ('Boneless' is a good example) are intelligently designed, building and developing, sometimes in a determinedly linear way characteristic of the group's signature style.

It's rare to find a group exercising quite so much care and control. This is subtle and involving music, full of nooks and crannies in which to hide. Of course, there's nothing wrong with having a good tune too, and as the Devil is believed to have the best of them, it seems somewhat appropriate that this such a breezy, light and melodic work.

Universal Language

Nico Muhly - Mothertongue (Bedroom Community, 2008)

At last, versatility and the search for connections between musical forms are becoming laudable qualities in contemporary composers. Nico Muhly is an infuriatingly young protege of minimalists such as Reich, Riley and Glass but might well be better known for his collaborative work with the likes of Bjork, Will Oldham and Antony Hegarty. 'Mothertongue' is the second recorded work in his own name, and one of the most effective examples of modern composition melding electronic and acoustic elements.

The unifying factor between these stylistically diverse pieces is the sound of the human voice and its power as a tool of communication. The title suite abandons conventional language entirely, instead manipulating samples of voices, layering them in rich textures and pitting them against a resonant combination of strings, piano and deep electronic bass notes. It's a compelling work, harking back to Gyorgy Ligeti's nonsense vocal works, albeit in a more contemplative and less theatrical way. There's a meditative, almost spiritual quality to this combination of languid music and fluttering, busy vocal lines.

It's likely that there will still be some purists who resent the use of electronic recording techniques to manipulate the human voice - but why shouldn't new composers at least try to offer something new? It's entirely reasonable that contemporary music should strive to juxtapose unusual instruments, and also make use of modern sounds and effects. There's always the danger of gimmickry, but Muhly's touch is sensitive and assured, and he has used his studio tools as an aid to the composing process, adding to the overall effect. My only reservation is that the bulk of the rhythmic invention in these pieces comes from the voices and the electronics, and the instrumentation is too frequently left to a textural or accompanying role.

The rest of the album is devoted to an audacious deconstruction of folk music, celebrating the rich and powerful language of ballads and folk song. Muhly's much praised label mate Sam Amidon proves surprisingly adept in this context, delivering a murder ballad with admirable candour and expression. There's an appropriate level of detachment in Muhly's music too - such that the folk songs seem almost amoral, and slightly chilling as a result.

Language and cultural theory are clearly of paramount importance to Muhly. He is every bit as capable and nuanced a writer as he is a composer, as his articles for The Guardian and New York Times demonstrate. He also writes a stimulating and provocative blog. With his impressive melding of chamber music, popular folk and modern electronica, he may be opening the doors for a new generation of innovative composers, open-minded to the many possibilities music still has to offer.

Class Act

James Hunter - The Hard Way (Universal Classics, 2008)

I often wonder why some retrogressive facsimiles of classic pop music irritate me whilst some hold me captive with their charms. Unsung British guitarist and singer James Hunter’s brand of Rhythm and Blues classicism undoubtedly falls into the latter category. Perhaps it’s just that Hunter seems to inhabit his chosen idiom so effortlessly and without even the slightest hint of self-consciousness.

Whilst ‘The Hard Way’, again recorded by Liam Watson at Toe Rag Studios, doesn’t exactly do much to develop his already entertaining canon, it’s a welcome serving of more-of-the-same. This is a similar template to that sleekly modernised by Mark Ronson for Amy Winehouse – but Hunter being a suave but unassuming character, is far less likely to shift millions of units and become tiresome tabloid fodder. He also feels no need for any contemporary context, instead playing the music as straight but as spiritedly as possible.

If there has been a progression between ‘People Gonna Talk’ and this set, it lies in the greater variety of material, and in the even more refined arrangements. Whilst the previous album was dominated by its steely horn sections and spiky guitars, here sedate backing vocals and even tuned percussion create a more delicate, lush texture, particularly on the sophisticated and subtle ‘Tell Her’ and the memorable title track.

This doesn’t prevent Hunter from getting into that old-fashioned dancehall jive vibe he replicates so expertly though. The blistering ‘Do Me No Favours’, with its dusty, swinging beat and searing guitar solo, ably demonstrates his nuanced understanding of this music, as well as his righteous enthusiasm for it. Such qualities are demonstrated many times on ‘The Hard Way’ – particularly on ‘Jacqueline’ and ‘Believe Me Baby’, the latter ushered in by some splendid boogie-tinged piano.

As the previous album suggested, Hunter is at his best when he combines the offbeat emphasis of reggae and ska with his more soulful streak. The wonderful, bittersweet ‘Carina’, all melancholy string arrangement and delicate melody, is one of the real gems of this set (naming songs after girls remains a predominant preoccupation, and the exuberant and celebratory ‘Jacqueline’ provides a neat counterpoint to the uncertainty and wistfulness of ‘Carina’). Similarly, ‘Class Act’ consummately combines a ska lilt with a light blues shuffle.

Hunter’s main strength remains his voice, which is consistently understated, wisely emphasising phrasing over power. Watson and Hunter have allowed more imperfections to creep through this time though – Hunter’s voice is frequently grittier and more vulnerable here than we’ve come to expect. Perhaps this is due to the tyranny and rapidity of Watson’s recording methods – on this occasion it’s very much to the record’s benefit though. Whilst the band is precision perfect, Hunter sounds more spontaneous and raw, allowing real feeling to seep in, and undermining any sense that his music might be chiefly formulaic and inauthentic. Who could resist such a straightforwardly enjoyable album?

The Day That Never Comes

The Shortwave Set - Replica Sun Machine (Wall of Sound, 2008)

A degree of credit must go to The Shortwave Set for their audacity and ambition. Whilst many seemed to admire the junkyard pop of their debut album The Debt Collection (myself included), it seemed completely out of step with the more tedious trends of British pop music, and was thus roundly ignored by the record buying public. The group have since negotiated themselves a new record deal and somehow employed the services of such reputable luminaries as Danger Mouse, John Cale and Van Dyke Parks. One might be forgiven for predicting some dreamy neo-psychedelia expertly fusing old and new sounds.

This isn’t too far from the truth of course, although ‘Replica Sun Machine’ lacks the spontaneity and immediacy of ‘The Debt Collection’. Occasionally, the pace feels a little leaden, and the seamless interweaving of the tracks makes the complete record into some kind of unified song cycle (unless, like me, you’ve downloaded the record from iTunes and the tracks are all broken up). Much like his contribution to the last Sparklehorse album, towards which I was completely indifferent, I’m not sure how much Danger Mouse really brings to the table here, save for a muffled drum sound and some broadly hypnotic ambience. Strip away the effects, Van Dyke Parks arrangements and enveloping melodies and we’re often left with too many plodding and rather conventional backbeats.

Perhaps this doesn’t really matter though, given that it’s precisely the sounds and orchestrations that generate the interest here. For what was supposed to be a low budget risk, the completed product sounds reassuringly expensive. The string parts are rarely foregrounded, but rather creep slowly and uneasily from the rich tapestry beneath them. The result is a strange juxtaposition of the comforting and the sinister.

For a collection that emphasises the surreal and dreamlike possibilities of music, there’s a real grounding in fear and suspense here that helps ‘Replica Sun Machine’ stand out. ‘House of Lies’ might represent a compelling attack on corrupt government, whilst ‘Replica’ hints at armageddon and nuclear apocalypse. The work is also founded on a healthy degree of playfulness and irreverence that suggests the band don’t take themselves too seriously. ‘Now ‘Til 69’ begins by riffing on Gene Vincent but suddenly veers off on a surprisingly abstract tangent.

Whilst those leaping to hail ‘Replica Sun Machine’ as a masterpiece are undoubtedly lapsing into hyperbole, it’s notable that its creators have managed to so radically reshape themselves. It almost sounds like a different band from the more sample-preoccupied group that crafted ‘The Debt Collection’. Also, given time and attention, it’s a fascinating album detailing the potential pitfalls of wrong turns, and there are times when its lush and evocative moods really work wonders.

An American Dream

Bill Frisell - History, Mystery (Nonesuch, 2008)

The American guitarist and composer Bill Frisell continues to divide opinion. There are still some elitists who snobbishly deride what they see as his diluted version of jazz. I remain an ardent admirer of his work for the same reasons some people are suspicious of him – particularly his incorporation of an American folk tradition into an otherwise improvisatory idiom (and his attendant knowledge of the development of popular music) and his preference for lyricism and textural variation over virtuosic flourishes. Indeed, the two words of the title pretty much encapsulate the essence of his oeuvre.

After a few listens, I’m coming to the opinion that the 2CD ‘History, Mystery’ might be my favourite work he has produced to date, and that is praise indeed. Leading a strings, horn and rhythm octet, the work seems to summarise many of his musical concerns within one neat 90 minute suite. Drawn from studio work and live performance, it also has that blissful combination of orchestration and spontaneity that characterises his best work.

Much of it is original material – commissioned for a couple of collaborative projects with the worlds of art and radio – but there are also some choice covers that demonstrate Frisell’s mastery of interpretation. His reading of Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ is richly nuanced and, in its own way, as haunting and moving as the original. The version of Boubacar Traore’s ‘Baba Drame’ is cleverly reworked to hint at the intersection between African music and the American folk tradition. The inclusion of a Thelonious Monk piece ought to remind sceptics of Frisell’s jazz grounding too.

It is all neatly woven together by some delicate and inquisitive arranging from Frisell, with the main pieces interspersed with concise but impressionistic mood pieces. Themes are introduced, reprised, reshaped and developed. There’s a sense of Frisell dealing in colour as much as sound, and much of ‘History, Mystery’ seems appropriately sepia-stained. It is all immensely subtle, with strings and brass adding low-key shading, often implying more than stating Frisell’s memorable themes. Even the relatively gritty ‘Struggle’ sounds commendably restrained. This relatively large ensemble rejects the temptation towards excess and the playing is always graceful and refined. This is the work of mature and experienced musicians, well-versed in sensitivity and meaning.

Some will no doubt mourn the relative lack of searing improvisation here. Soloing is restricted to a minimum, and where there is space for exposition, it is much more about expressive tone than audacious musical linguistics. Frisell himself arguably gets the best of it, although Greg Tardy certainly explores spiritedly on tenor sax when invited. The music is not radical if the word ‘radical’ implies dissonance or abstraction – but it is innovative through combining such varying concerns so comfortably. It’s also simultaneously sensuous and precise, which is a great achievement in itself. There’s a smouldering feel to much of this slow-tempo music – and it is a substantial and inspired work.

Gig Diary

Much of the past couple of weeks has been passed in various sweaty gig venues, indulging in a real plethora of quality live performances. Time constraints inevitably prevent me from writing in huge levels of detail about all of these events, but a few cursory words should give an impression of just what an excellent spring season it is turning out to be for live music in London.

First up were Oriole at The Vortex, with guitarist and bandleader Jonny Phillips on a flying visit from his new home in Spain. Jonny must now be familiar with oppressive heat, but little can compare with the grimy, airless environment of The Vortex on a hot day. It’s a wonderful venue run by real music enthusiasts but not the most comfortable of places to play in unexpectedly hot weather. With regular saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock unavailable, Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear maestro Pete Wareham gamely filled in, and it was particularly intriguing to hear him adopting a more melodic role. The gig perhaps lacked that finely attuned and effortless alchemy between Laubrock and Cellist Ben Davis which is a highlight of the group’s recordings, but this was more than compensated for by some expressive soloing and sympathetic rendering of the melodies from Wareham. If not always totally in command of all his cues, he had certainly grasped the fluid, flowing character of Phillips’ compositions.

Phillips is an excellent bandleader and composer, often taking a restrained role in his own group, creating the textures and space necessary to bring out the best in his musicians. Drummer Sebastian Rochford and percussionist Adriano Adewale work brilliantly together throughout, both listening intently and drawing a great textural and dynamic variety from their instruments. The overall music is sensual, emotional and extremely accessible, without losing its spontaneous and improvisatory core. It evokes the heat, dust and spirit of parts of the world much of the audience will never have visited.

Every bit as exuberant and entertaining as their excellent debut album suggests, Vampire Weekend put in a spirited performance at the Electric Ballroom. Given their relative lack of material, it seemed likely that the show would be over before it had really got going, but the inclusion of some intriguing work-in-progress material (which further amplifies the Afrobeat influence on the group) and the odd b-side showed some generosity towards the audience. Whilst the band don’t really veer far from the structure and sound of the recorded versions of their songs, their energy and dynamism is transparent. What really emerges from seeing Vampire Weekend live is just how far they manage to push their skeletal set-up – the interplay between drums and bass is magnificently taut, and Ezra Koenig is a peculiar frontman, a mixture of superior, unfashionable intellect and self-mocking charm. He articulates his unusual, incisive Ivy League lyrics with a rare precision.

Then came two excellent gigs promoted by All Tomorrow’s Parties, an organisation that has now expanded its brief well beyond its annual festivals. It’s particularly exciting to observe the success of this business, proving my repeated-ad-nauseum view that there is always a gap in the market in London (and indeed the rest of the UK), for promoters who know what they’re doing. Rather than attempt to squeeze several acts on to the same bill, curtailing set times and ending up with a line-up that makes little sense, they wisely focus on two or three acts.

Last Wednesday, they gifted us with the intriguing and genuinely left-field combination of Battles, Dirty Projectors and the charmingly-monikered Fuck Buttons. One notable oddity was the choice of recorded music between the acts. What might one expect to hear at such a gig? A selection of asymmetrical post-rock and improvised jazz? Frightening dub reggae? A collection of inspired Afrobeat such as the recent African Scream Contest album? Certainly not what we actually got at any rate, which appeared to be a compilation of the worst of long-forgotten pop-dance idiots Apollo 4-40.

Fuck Buttons were scheduled surprisingly early, and we arrived a few minutes into their set, which basically replicated their enjoyable Street Horsssing album, about which I’ve not yet managed to blog. Some people dislike this group on the basis that they are something of a half-hearted noise project – the noise they make is almost always tempered by an almost saccharine focus on pretty sounds and harmonies beneath the melee. This is not something I object to particularly, as it means the band’s sound is impressively layered and engaging. There’s also an emphasis on rhythm that serves them well, and I enjoyed them most when they experimented with percussion sounds. It’s often hard to see exactly what they’re doing of course, although the obvious showpiece is the use of some sort of Fisher Price toy microphone and amplifier to create nastily distorted vocal sounds. They repeat the same tricks a little too often though, and I felt they stayed onstage long enough to outstay their welcome a little.

I’ve probably written enough about Dirty Projectors now, so it’s enough to state that they were, as ever, volatile and meticulously orchestrated in equal measure. It’s still a notable limitation that sound engineers find it so difficult to keep Dave Longstreth’s voice audible, perhaps due to his frequent and tetchy variation in timbre and volume. At its best though, the combination of his peculiar wail with the dulcet tones of the pretty females who flank him is both technically impressive and charming. They remain one of the most inventive and exciting bands on the planet right now.

I’ve been meaning to see Battles for ages, particularly following Tom Armitage’s extraordinary enthusiasm for one of their London shows last year. I’m pleased to report that he was right – this is firm evidence against the notion that the group are part of a genre of cold, robotic instrumentalists. Their performance was so enervating that I could hardly resist the temptation to dance with vigour, and I ended up leaving the Astoria with a dodgy back as a result. My companion at the gig accurately remarked on a side of the group which is slightly twee – the strong emphasis on pitch-shifted vocals and playful whistling, which tempers any claim they have to be genuinely avant-garde. Perhaps it’s best to see Battles as a daring pop group, then – the crowd’s eruption and movement during the ever-brilliant ‘Atlas’ certainly attests to this. It’s hard to see other chiefly instrumental rock groups provoking this kind of collective joy. Even the polyrhythmic intricacies of ‘Race: In’ somehow sound natural and unforced.

It also helps that they are a tremendous visual spectacle. The drummer compensates for only having one crash cymbal by having it positioned so high that he virtually has to stand up in order to use it. That he does this frequently comes as little surprise. Guitarist and keyboardist Tyundai Braxton is perhaps the biggest presence in the band, a riot of frizzy hair and carried by a propulsive, relentless physical energy that leaves his shirt translucent with sweat by the end of the third track.

The other ATP-promoted gig turned out to be a very different affair, featuring as it did one of the most subdued and restrained voices in contemporary songwriting, Sam Beam AKA Iron and Wine. The current hype surrounding the support act, the magnificent Bon Iver, threatened to undermine the impact of Beam’s headline performance and, despite my admiration for this full-band version of Iron and Wine, I left the venue feeling that this might genuinely have transpired.

I had wondered how Justin Vernon would replicate the quite extraordinary intimacy of his much lauded ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ album on stage. Wisely, he doesn’t really try, instead amplifying the album’s moments of great intensity and visceral sadness. His voice is a much bolder instrument than its layered, manipulated counterpart on record, the falsetto savage and cutting, its deeper timbre also having greater presence. Performing with a drummer and another electric guitarist, who deals chiefly in strafes and effects that aid the texture and atmosphere more than the harmony. All three musicians onstage sing in carefully arranged harmony lines. Vernon has assembled a skeletal band somehow capable of great depth and elemental power, without the presence of a bassist or keyboardist. There are unexpected bursts of cluttered noise, moments of plangent, melancholy beauty and the cumulative effect is both rapturous and devastating. Believe what you read about these haunting, poetic songs – Vernon is every bit as convincing a performer as he is writer and arranger.

I’ve seen Sam Beam in various contexts – as a completely solo performer at The Spitz last year, in collaboration with Calexico and in a duo with his sister Sarah. For this tour, he has assembled a gigantic band, eight musicians strong, who somehow sound more restrained than a jazz piano trio. It’s a gig remarkable for its calmness and subtlety. Sometimes the tranquil reveries this group concoct are mesmerising, but there are times when they seem too intricate for this audience – almost oppressive in their musicality. In an all-seated, more intimate theatre venue, this would have worked an absolute treat – but the mostly standing crowd at the Forum understandably become restless in the lengthy periods of dreamy, neo-psychedelic beauty.

Still, for those who pay Beam the respect he so clearly deserves, there is much to enjoy as well as admire. Paul Niehaus’ lap steel guitar is a dependably beautiful, emotive presence, whilst the rhythm section is delicately groovy in a way one might not associate with Beam. There’s a mastery of control at work here – whilst everyone in the band is supremely musical, there’s no trace of indulgent or circuitous virtuosity. Instead, there’s a greater emphasis on space and silence, a sign of Beam’s real musical maturity.

One could never describe Iron and Wine as an attacking or gritty act, but the group’s sound on record is slightly dirtier, and closer to the blues. This version of the group intensifies the African, Jamaican and South American influences that pepper ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ and many of that album’s snappier songs are rearranged in defiantly swampy, sizzling half-time interpretations. This means that the pace rarely gets above a gentle trot, and this perhaps accounts for the consistent murmuring in the audience. Luckily, the set list is an interesting pick from across Beam’s career so far, opening with a slow but insistent ‘Passing Afternoon’ and incorporating tracks from Beam’s EPs as well as his albums. Sadly, though, there’s nothing from the Calexico collaboration. I would have valued the chance to hear his waltz version of ‘A History of Lovers’ (memorably performed at The Spitz gig) with the finesse of this excellent band.

I maintain that Beam is one of the best songwriters at work at the moment – perhaps yet to produce a truly classic album, but certainly the writer of some truly remarkable songs. If there’s a problem with the band set-up, it’s that his distinctive and richly allusive language tends to become obscured. Still, he saves ‘The Trapeze Swinger’, his greatest achievement as a writer thus far, for the encore, ditching the band and delivering the song as intensely and movingly as if he’d just completed it moments before coming back on stage. I suspect a large portion of the audience would have preferred the whole gig to have been pitched like this, but if Beam continues to challenge his admirers in such unexpected and impressive ways, they may yet chose to follow him.

Grammofonic!

Skyphone – Avellaneda (Rune Grammofon, 2008)
Scorch Trio – Brolt! (Rune Grammofon, 2008)
Box – Studio 1 (Rune Grammofon, 2008)

Since its inception ten years ago, the Norwegian label Rune Grammofon has released some of the world’s most intriguing and significant contemporary music. From maverick improvising collective Supersilent and their splinter projects to the beauteous tranquillity of Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, there’s a range of unusual and fascinating sounds emerging from this geographical hotbed of innovation.

The Danish trio Skyphone have named their second album after Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, a pseudonym for a Spanish writer said to have penned a sequel to Don Quixote. It’s highly appropriate then that their music, although frequently quiet and sedate, seems infused with so much mystery and adventure. ‘Avellaneda’ is one of those records that somehow manages to be both minimal and intricate, such is the detailed tapestry of these arrangements. The music is consistently evocative, wistful and haunting, and easily transports to the listener to an environment at once thrilling and reflective.

It’s no longer particularly original or unique to attempt an assimilation of acoustic and electronic elements, but Skyphone have such a natural understanding of the timbre of the instruments and sounds they deploy. As a result, their synthesis is consummate and enthralling. Sometimes they sound playful or expressive, but the overall atmosphere is abstract and enjoyably puzzling. There’s a feathery, almost weightless character to this beguiling and charming music.

By way of contrast, Scorch Trio are almost outrageous in their fiery abandon. Guitarist Raoul Bjorkenheim delivers what are more like abrasive outbursts than phrases, whilst the rhythm section play with real urgency and conviction. On their third album ‘Brolt’, there’s a real willingness to take risks and a tendency towards unrestrained explosions of invention. There are hints at the classic fury of the fusion movement – particularly the influence of John McLaughlin from the Lifetime records, or even the more aggressive, muscular side of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. There’s also a noticeable streak of blues even in Bjorkenheim’s more extreme flights of fancy that suggests the influence of Jimi Hendrix or Alvin Lee.

But such comparisons risk rendering Scorch Trio more conventional than they actually are. This is frenetic, wild, fussy and busy music. Frequently, such adjectives might be dismissive but interest is sustained by the unpredictable use of space. The length of Bjorkenheim’s broken flurries is never consistent, and the splurging, sprawling racket of the drumming presents a calamitous but riveting backdrop. The result represents something of an expurgation, or a catharsis. The commitment and virtuosity just manages to stay on the right side of exhausting, with the band every bit as thrilling as they are technically impressive. They are permanently placed on the precipice of danger.

Bjorkenheim appears again as part of Box, a Rune Grammofon supergroup co-ordinated by film-maker Philip Mullarky. Like Scorch Trio, this is rampant, tireless exposition, crossing a wide range of genres and dismantling preconceived rules and regulations with commendable vigour. The presence of Supersilent’s Starle Storlokken makes Box a less sinewy and more slippery prospect however, although still fearsome in their virtuosity. The increased emphasis on electronic textures and effects prompts greater attention to detail in mood as much as expression. Following Supersilent’s predilection for refusing to title their pieces, these improvisations are Untitled and numbered out of sequence, with predictable contrariness.

This might be the most challenging but also the most captivating of these recent Rune Grammofon releases. There’s an underlying sensuousness at work that makes it more emotionally complex than the righteous anger of Scorch Trio or the blissful calm of Skyphone. Even though the initial 6 of the 17 minutes of Untitled 9 (somehow the whole piece seems to rattle by with alarming rapidity) are taken at a blistering pace, with a propulsive alchemy between bass and drums, there’s a more delicate rumble at the heart of the rough and tumble playing that suggests not just insecurity, but also perhaps frustrated desire. It’s indicative of the possibility of music to provoke complex feelings and sensations without resorting to language. When the rhythmic urgency gives way to meticulously crafted textures, again, it’s the sensuality of the music that seems striking. Perhaps unexpectedly, it may be the frantic and dexterous syncopation of Morten Agren’s drumming that makes the most eager and effective contribution to this effect.

The remaining pieces are more concise, with the band showing a notable ability for economy and precision. Untitled 11 sounds like an erratic machine, occasionally generating anomalies with radical, dysfunctional glee. Whilst these central tracks are notably off-kilter and jolting, they seem somehow a little more subdued than the album’s opening assault. The final, eight minute exposition provides more evidence of the group’s considerable technical muscle. Recorded in two days without any edits or overdubs, Studio 1 represents one of the best examples of electronic improvisation of recent years, frequently far-reaching and never tentative, it’s rapid and spontaneous, but also has an exploratory instinct at its core.

Cardiac Arrest

Spiritualized - Songs in A&E (Spaceman, 2008)

Somewhere, somehow, Jason Spaceman lost his spacesuit. After all the justified acclaim that greeted ‘Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space’, he became lost in self-consciousness, one of the gravest afflictions for a musician and composer. Either through trying to meet the expectations of others, or by analysing his own motivations too intensely, he became bogged down by preconceived ideas of how his music should sound. ‘Let It Come Down’ had its moments, but its vaunting and grandiose ambitions could only ultimately be thwarted. At its worst, it dipped more than a big toe into schmaltz and sentimentality. ‘Amazing Grace’ was a bigger mis-step though - a guileless reaction to its predecessors that sounded simplistic and uninspired, drawing too transparently from its influences and adding little of its own.

The signs for ‘Songs in A&E’ looked better. The title is crucial – a dry piece of wordplay juxtaposing Pierce’s recent period of near-fatal illness with his tendency to concentrate on a narrow harmonic range (once an intriguing part of the Spiritualized dynamic, now looking increasingly like a substantial limitation). It suddenly seemed as if he might once again be both instinctive and inspired. These songs were all written before that illness though and, in retrospect, last year’s Acoustic Mainlines tour gave a pretty strong hint of what to expect. This is very much another step on Pierce’s route to redefining himself as a classic songwriter and arranger – perhaps in the mould of a Burt Bacharach, a Brian Wilson or a Jack Nitzsche.

As a result, there’s little of the early Spiritualized’s eerie, mesmerising ambience – and even less of their mid-period noise fetish. In fact, the bulk of ‘Songs in A&E’ sounds tepid – even its grandest songs sounding closer to Embrace or Richard Ashcroft than to the genuinely stirring delights of ‘Ladies and Gentlemen…’. ‘Songs in A&E’ lacks the dramatic impact of that album’s orchestrations, or its articulate expression of emotions. It also lacks the unique otherworldliness of ‘Lazer Guided Melodies’ or ‘Pure Phase’.

Spiritualized songs used to be about creating an enveloping and haunting sound, pregnant with mystery and emotion. Think back to ‘I Think I’m in Love’, ‘You Know It’s True’, ‘Angel Sigh’ or ‘Let It Flow’. The songs here are often centred on blandly strummed acoustic guitar, a focal point that makes Pierce’s limitations as a musician considerably more transparent. Listen to the two chords of ‘Baby I’m a Fool’, and it suddenly becomes clear how little in the way of harmonic or melodic interest Pierce can conjure. It’s only when the brass and strings come in at the end and we at last get some textural variation that the song becomes in any way exciting. Even then, there’s a cloying sense of déjà vu that reveals how Pierce has failed to progress beyond his over-familiar musical concerns here. ‘Baby I’m A Fool’ could easily have appeared, in rawer, less polished form, on one of the early Spacemen 3 albums. Perhaps this is simply further evidence that this line-up of Spiritualized simply doesn’t have the feral brilliance of the group that dazzled the Royal Albert Hall ten years ago and who were unceremoniously dumped for such achievements.

A much bigger problem is posed by Pierce’s voice though. I’ve defended his singing in the past, but even I have to concede that he’s drifted too far into the realms of the nasal whine here. Authenticity needn’t be important – but the child-like (yes, child-like is the right choice of words – ‘Don’t Hold Me Close’ intentionally sounds like a child’s lullaby), grating tone of his voice renders the songs both unconvincing and irritating, a problem not helped by his increasingly repetitive linguistic tropes.

Yet again, he’s talking about ‘a hurricane inside my veins’ or wanting to get higher, or proclaiming ‘heaven it ain’t easy, you know I’ve got the scars to show I’m here’. Even a cursory look at the song titles shows that his insistence on reducing songs to the age-old drugs/religion parallel is seriously wearing thin now. There’s ‘Soul on Fire’, ‘I Gotta Fire’ and, more bizarrely, ‘Sitting on Fire’. Sitting on Fire?!?! - Jason – if you need to remove some troublesome hair, there are cleaner and safer methods! None of these songs actually come close to capturing the intensity their titles require. If you’re going to write in language dominated by fire and fever, you need to sound, at the very least, fiery. On the rhythmically and melodically monotonous ‘I Gotta Fire’, Pierce merely sounds like he’s in need of a good laxative.

The best of the gospel-tinged ballads that dominate the album is ‘Death Take Your Fiddle’, which uncomfortably samples the noise of a respirator, and comes closest to capturing a peculiar mood – perched on the precipice between life and death perhaps, and slightly redolent of Johnny Cash. Even this is marred by Pierce’s voice though, pinched as it is into a weedy whine. Didn’t his voice once sound distant and vulnerable, as if overwhelmed by the musical cacophonies and orchestral swells he concocted around himself? Now foregrounded, it merely sounds untutored and, worse, uncharismatic. One critic memorably described listening to Spiritualized’s great single ‘Feel So Sad’ as being akin to ‘bathing in a vat of acid’. It would be difficult to liken anything here to such a surreal experience.

There are some further plus points, particularly among the more upbeat moments, some of which at least attempt to push the group into new territory. It’s a small mercy that there isn’t yet another deliberate rewrite of ‘Electricity’ here. ‘You Lie You Cheat’ makes more effective use of Pierce’s snarling voice by pitting it against harsh distortion and a rolling 6/8 rhythm. It has propulsive energy and righteous anger. Better still is ‘Yeah Yeah’, with its insistent Bo Diddley-esque washboard groove. Pushed gleefully onwards by handclaps and tremolo guitar, it’s one of the few moments here that sounds both joyful and exciting and it demonstrates what Pierce could have achieved with ‘Amazing Grace’ had he been a little less didactic.

Elsewhere, the numbered ‘harmony’ interludes that break up the album are minimal and touching. I’m not sure of the provenance of these tracks, but I suspect they may be part of the soundtrack Pierce composed for Harmony Korine’s film ‘Mr. Lonely’ (hopefully a more knowledgeable reader might fill me in or correct me here). They are tender, sweet and quietly majestic – and I wonder whether it might not have been more interesting and unexpected for Pierce to base an entire album on this aesthetic, rather than falling back on age old clichés once more. If the language has been exhausted, why not focus on the music?

The chief problem with ‘Songs in A&E’ is that it has little feeling or substance beneath the surface. The bulk of it feels affected – it has little in the way of edge or passion and as a result ends up sounding contrived, conceited and really rather boring. It seems to be based on a somewhat false, misguided sense of soulfulness that emphasises ideals of extreme emotions over instinctive gestures or expressions. The best of the Spacemen 3 recordings and the first three Spiritualized albums ought to be enough to secure Pierce’s reputation, but he’s doing plenty to undermine his right to a place in the pantheon here.

This may well get glowing reviews elsewhere in the music press but, honestly, if critics came to this album without Pierce’s history or backstory (particularly his recent experience), would they be in any way impressed by its sheer lack of originality? That Pierce’s vast musical knowledge goes well beyond the traditional songwriters’ canon – incorporating Krautrock, free improvisation, electronica and contemporary composition – cannot in any way be gleaned from listening to ‘Songs in A&E’. Even if we accept that his aims have shifted from a broad interest in sound and musical exploration to simply being accepted as a great songwriter, he’ll need to at least write some more great songs in order to achieve such recognition. This is another one for the growing stockpile of 2008 disappointments. In comparison with the fearlessness and brutal honesty of Portishead’s ‘Third’ it sounds predictable and limp. If Pierce was once floating in space, he now sounds earthbound and dangerously exhausted. That respirator is needed to recharge him in more ways than one.

In Praise of Overstatement

The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of Understatement

Regular readers might be shocked to realise that I’m beginning to wonder if my indifference to the Arctic Monkeys might have been a trifle unfair. It’s been a conjecture of mine that if that group are the most original and inventive prospect British music has to offer, modern British music must be in a very big rut. But listening to ‘The Age of Understatement’, a collaboration between the Monkeys’ Alex Turner and Miles Kane of The Rascals (an even less interesting Britrock group), I begin to see some of the much lauded sophistication in Turner’s writing. The wiry surf guitars and bravado drumming that characterise the Monkeys are nowhere to be found here though. Instead we have a highly polished and also no doubt very sincere homage to the lavish orchestrations of 1960s pop music – particularly referencing the early albums of Scott Walker. The nimble and light marching drumming is provided, somewhat surprisingly, by James Ford, producer of Klaxons and one half of Simian Mobile Disco. The superb arrangements, less surprisingly, come from the quill of the increasingly ubiquitous Owen Pallett.

Whilst this is ostensibly a collaborative project, it’s difficult not to see Turner as the dominant creative force, even if that might be doing Kane something of a disservice. The pair frequently sing in unison, and whilst Kane’s voice sometimes distinguishes itself through a more pronounced rasp, the phrasing and language are characteristic of Turner’s wit and wisdom. It is also his exaggerated Sheffield snarl that rings through much more memorably. These songs contain familiar dissections of the malevolence of various femmes fatales, all set to an appropriately cinematic musical backdrop.

Some of the tracks are taken at a rollicking gallop. The title track and ‘Only The Truth’ are impassioned and enervating blasts of thickly arranged drama. There’s also genuine guile and candour in these songs as well, so much so that they don’t sound out of place next to the more reflective moments such as ‘The Chamber’ and ‘My Mistakes Were Made For You’. The latter may well be the best piece of music Turner has yet been involved with, a real kitchen sink epic of tremendous charm. This is not least down to its central lyric – ‘innocence and arrogance entwined….in the filthiest of minds’, a quite superb juxtaposition of words. Similarly, the brilliant ‘Calm Like You’ rides in on the most compelling of opening lines: ‘I can remember when your city still smelt exciting/Burglary and fireworks, the skies were all alight.’ This sounds more interesting to my ears than the Monkeys’ tendency to imbue the mundane with poetry.

Whilst Walker’s interpretations of Jacques Brel might be the clearest reference point, there are also hints of the endearing combination of grandiosity and vulnerability found in the work of Bill Fay. Of contemporary acts, this most closely resembles the best work of Mick and John Head with Shack and The Strands.

Kane and Turner seem completely unafraid of extravagant gestures here. Perhaps the novelty value therefore comes from hearing Turner attempt something approaching camp. Perhaps one of the limiting factors in the appeal of the Arctic Monkeys for me is that they play everything so completely straight in all senses, and there’s rarely any concession to playfulness in spite of their obvious insight and humour. A lot of the material here will challenge the more boorish element of the Monkeys fanbase. The theatricality of these more translucent but no less incisive lyrics set against the spaghetti western twang of the music is exciting in itself.

If The Last Shadow Puppets serve as a gateway for young audiences to investigate some of their reference points in more detail – Scott Walker, early David Bowie, the work of David Axelrod both with the Electric Prunes and as a composer in his own right, this can only be a good thing. Yet there’s plenty of intrinsic value to be found within the record itself – Turner perhaps blunting his razor sharp observational wit with something warm and endearing.

Rule of Three

Portishead - Third (Island, 2008)

I’ve resisted the urge to write a knee-jerk reaction to Portishead’s first studio album in eleven years. The lengthy gestation period itself demands that this record be given a considered response as does the fact that the music contained within it is dense and occasionally overwhelming. Whilst this is recognisably the same group of musicians that crafted ‘Dummy’ back in 1994, it’s a tenser, tauter, even more claustrophobic version of that group. What is new here is a palpable urgency and danger. ‘Third’ is dominated by a sense that the world around us is unfathomable and difficult with Beth Gibbons’ voice, less mannered here than on her collaboration with Paul Webb, frequently sounding vulnerable and lost, sometimes overwhelmed by the sinister and fearful contexts into which it is placed.

‘Third’ is therefore not the most immediate or transparently melodic of collections . Beth Gibbons often plays more of a textural or embellishing role, with little to resemble her full-bodied performances on tracks like ‘All Mine’ or ‘Glory Box’. Yet even the most elusive and wispy of songs here (the fragile ‘Hunter’ or the nightmarish ‘Machine Gun’) are grimly compelling and hypnotic. Somehow the sound is paradoxically both more organic and also more rigorous, occasionally even robotic. There’s a strong influence from German music – particularly Kraftwerk, Neu! and Harmonia that distances this record from its predecessors. There was little chance of enveloping, slowly unfolding masterpieces such as ‘The Rip’ or ‘We Carry On’ appearing on ‘Dummy’. That album had a more soulful lilt that mitigated the fear and anguish and had the corollary of lending it to many dinner parties and coffee tables across the land.

‘Third’ is a much more challenging listen. Some of its sounds are jarring and unnerving, and the prevailing atmosphere is one of extreme discomfort. The generally faster pace suggests desperation and a strong impulse to flee and escape. The clanging guitars, mesmerising and insistent keyboard patterns and attacking drums create a sinister and menacing mood throughout. Even the more familiar-sounding tracks here (the downtempo ‘Plastic’ and ‘Hunter’) benefit from having those trademark sounds removed – there are no samples of vinyl crackle anywhere on ‘Third’. In addition, the stop-start structure of the pieces and increasing emphasis on texture and dynamics add unpredictability and tension. Barrow and Utley thoroughly explore the possibilities of minimalism and repetition here too – the synthesised drums on ‘Machine Gun’ are so bold and overpowering as to become nasty and abrasive.

There are so many devilish and outlandish tactics at work here – the way the drums on ‘Machine Gun’ never change, but are made to increasingly resemble an auditory vision of hell; the way it takes two full minutes before we even hear Beth Gibbons’ voice on ‘Silence’; the way a number of the songs end suddenly with absolutely no warning. Whilst the group seem to have tried very hard to be confrontational and uncompromising, the results never sound artificial or forced.

Yet amidst all this terror and horror, there are small moments of safety and beauty – the beautiful ‘Deep Water’, hinting back at an Appalachian folk tradition that Gibbons hinted at on her own album, but that has never previously featured in Portishead’s music. There’s also the exquisite introduction to ‘Small’, which is vaporous and haunting. Even that breaks unexpectedly into a stark and relentless attack of analogue keyboards, marching drums and industrial guitar sounds. Perhaps this is the point at which the group most successfully encapsulate a sense of discord and defeat.

I sympathise to some extent with Simon Reynolds’ internal debate regarding Beth Gibbons’ quality as a lyricist. Taken in isolation, her words could sound dangerously adolescent and cloying, sometimes verging on a parody of psychological torment. Yet the musical environment in which they swim tentatively makes it clear that the dislocation and vulnerability expressed here is convincing in spite of this. She writes in mercilessly concise phrases that seem like she is taking clumsy lunges for the necessary words to express her grief and confusion. Perhaps the fact that she doesn’t quite get there is actually an intrinsic part of this record’s power. It also helps that she has found a more individual and natural way of singing on her album – rarely does it feel that she is merely trying to impersonate her mentors here, the one significant problem that threatened to undermine the ‘Out of Season’ album.

‘Third’ is by no means an easy listen. For a mainstream comeback album, it is remarkable for its willingness to veer into genuine extremes. It is the microcosm of a world gone wrong, with priorities all askew, an articulation of human vulnerability amidst numerous pressures. It’s unpleasant for sure, but it’s also majestic, imperious and worryingly truthful.

Fast Food

Elvis Costello - Momofuku (Lost Highway, 2008)

At first glance, ‘Momofuku’ looks like one of those back-to-basics rock records everyone keeps hectoring Elvis Costello to make. Apparently named after Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant noodles, it is obviously in thrall to the swiftness, unpredictability and excitement of rock and roll’s first gasp – something the contemporary music industry is at last beginning to recapture. Costello is clearly game enough to join in, releasing this album with little or no fanfare or promotion, initially on vinyl and digital download, thus catering to both the technologically open-minded and the luddites among his audience.

Recorded in just a week with Jason Lader at Sun City Studios, it has a stripped back, occasionally raw sound; its drum foundations a solid but muffled thud, its guitars choppy and sometimes brutal. Even Costello’s voice, an instrument that has matured and developed into something powerful, versatile and effective over the years, occasionally assumes the rough, excoriating quality of sandpaper. Overall, there’s a sense of most of these tracks being ‘one take wonders’ with all the little imperfections left not just in place, but as a characteristic feature of the approach and the mood.

The album is most immediate in its first half, and for a while it looks like being Costello’s most immediate and accessible set in some time. Much of this quality comes from a newfound emphasis on backing vocals. ‘No Hiding Place’ might begin with defiantly basic pounding, but it unfolds into something more complex and intricate. Its melody is both elusive and exciting, twisting and turning in unexpected directions, underpinned by luscious harmonies and some delightful slide guitar playing. ‘American Gangster Time’ is almost extravagantly dirty, reviving that familiar Steve Nieve organ sound and some very muddy distorted guitars. ‘Turpentine’ is simply gorgeous, bolstered by some delightfully subtle backing vocals from Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis, deep, primal drumming and a rich, full bodied guitar sound.

These tracks also come armed with a number of almost over-familiar Costello couplets: ‘Baby that’s rich/You’re nothin’ but a snitch’, ‘That’s all that it will ever be/Just an accident of chemistry’ or ‘I’d rather go blind for speaking my mind’ stand out as good examples. This, coupled with their musical immediacy, will no doubt endear them to admirers of Costello’s earlier work, but to focus on this is to miss some of the less transparent qualities concealed behind the riveting rancour.

Delve beneath the surface and the sophistication that has characterised a number of his recent works still emerges as the driving factor. ‘Momofuku’, mercifully in this writer’s view, is not merely an attempt to rewrite ‘This Year’s Model’. There are delicate, fluttering, jazzy concoctions (‘Mr. Feathers’), as well as hints at the more soulful turn his writing took with ‘The Delivery Man’ and the collaboration with Allen Toussaint (‘Flutter and Wow’). ‘Harry Worth’ is superb, its minimal arrangement masking a remarkably detailed and sophisticated piece of writing, built from a disarmingly delicate Latin rhythm. It again benefits from uncharacteristic and unexpected vocal parts and also features some of the album’s most memorable and evocative lyrics (‘it’s not very far from tears to mirth….she’ll never know just what Harry was worth’).

On the harsher tracks in the album’s second half, ‘Stella Hurt’ and ‘Go Away’, there’s a slight sense that Costello might have been absorbing the work of Jeff Tweedy and Wilco. The former evaporates into a haze of Nels Cline-esque guitar strafing before ending abruptly, whilst the latter has some of the bold classicism Wilco captured on ‘Being There’. Costello frequently alludes to modern artists but I’m not aware of any mutual backslapping between him and Tweedy. This might therefore be a completely inaccurate comparison, but it’s audible even if unconscious.

However, the predominant pace here is actually slow, sometimes almost lethargic, particularly towards the album’s conclusion. Given time to work its magic, this context actually suits Costello’s voice well, as he extends and protracts his phrasing. Once an angry young man trying to squeeze in as many words as possible, he now sounds more reflective, but no less righteous. Those who consider ‘This Year’s Model’ to be Costello’s untouchable masterpiece may be surprised and even disconcerted to hear him singing a song such as ‘My Three Sons’ (‘see what I’ve become/the humbled father of my three sons’), a dissection of parenthood that stays on just the right side of the fine line between touching and sentimental.

Much derided for taking numerous left-turns often unfairly dismissed as genre pastiches, what Costello has actually achieved in the latter part of his career is to find more variety and texture in his language and his voice through experimentation in new contexts. Here, he is at turns angry and bitter but also sometimes charming and mysterious (I still need to sink my teeth into the verbose and unusual ‘Pardon Me Madam, My Name is Eve’). ‘Momofuku’ lacks the tricksy production flourishes of ‘When I Was Cruel’ and isn’t quite as consistently engaging as ‘The Delivery Man’. But as a quick snapshot of Costello’s artistry in action, it provides further evidence of his unwillingness to stand still, and suggests he is still building an increasingly effective synthesis of his wide and diverse influences.

Short Form!

Fleet Foxes – Sun Giant EP (Sub Pop/Bella Union)
Brethren of the Free Spirit – All Things Are From Him, Through Him and In Him (Audiomer)
Animal Collective – Water Curses (Domino)
Four Tet – Ringer (Domino)

The EP format seems to be enjoying a serious resurgence at the moment. While a debate rages about the merits of downloading individual tracks as opposed to purchasing entire albums, the mood seems ripe for something that offers a convenient balance between the two.

Seattle’s Fleet Foxes are one of those bands to have benefited mightily from exposure at the SXSW Festival earlier this year – their performance set in motion a blitz of blogging and unrestrained hyperbole that will no doubt make some suspicious of their merits. It’s inevitable that, much like kindred spirits Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes will be compared with My Morning Jacket. Not only are they a scarily hairy bunch but their lead vocalist is yet another identikit Jim James (incidentally, James is doing a pretty good job of disguising his more familiar tones on My Morning Jacket’s ‘Evil Urges’ album, perhaps an attempt to escape all his imitators). This comparison is a bit unfair on the band though – they lack the more aggressive, Southern rock angle of MMJ, instead focussing on a ritualistic form of American folk music, resplendent with joyous vocal harmonies and rustic acoustic guitars.

The melodies and arrangements on ‘Sun Giant’ are rich and rewarding. They are audacious enough to the EP with an acapella harmony track that has an enticing and haunting impact. Whilst there’s a transparent connection with a classic rock lineage here (the harmonies remind me most of Crosby, Stills and Nash), the music also has a delicacy and elegance that removes it from cliché or hokiness. There’s the way the fluidity of the guitar lines on ‘English House’ contrasts with the insistent pounding of its chorus, although, with intuitive care, the band don’t allow the song to slip into bombast. Perhaps best of all is the stealthy and ambitious ‘Mykonokos’, which veers from a charming and melodic opening section into something more mysterious and potent. The closing ‘Innocent Son’ is a tender and melancholy lament imbued with a powerful sense of vulnerability.

The one slightly irritating element is the group’s lyrics. Much like Yeasayer, they are a little too preoccupied with finding the sacred within nature and, as a result, there’s a little too much babble about the sun rising, rivers and nature worshipping. If you’re prepared to yield yourself to this quasi-pagan celebration though, it’s a deeply fulfilling listen, and at least these themes are accompanied by a genuine sense of awe present as much within the music as within the lyrics. It certainly all bodes well for their debut album, due later in the year.

Continuing on a ritualistic folk music trajectory, Brethren of the Free Spirit is the latest project from the outrageously gifted guitarist James Blackshaw. Blackshaw’s last solo album, ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’, was one of my favourite albums of last year, and having just discovered his previous record ‘O True Believers’, it seems he’s capable of even better, always harnessing his virtuosic playing to an abundant theme or mood.

Here, he joins forces with Jozsef Van Wissem, a similarly dexterous exponent of the Dutch lute to produce a short cycle of minimal and precise duets. It’s remarkably beautiful music, impressive at least as much for its stately sound as for the technical qualities of the musicians involved. It’s both repetitious and elaborate, gradually drawing feeling from its seemingly restricting system and method.

The first two pieces are long and extrapolated, whilst the shorter concluding pieces, whilst less intense, are more easily digested. It’s less bright, less florid and more challenging than Blackshaw’s solo work, which has a magisterial beauty, but the interplay between the two musicians is instinctive and magical. It’s also difficult to resist a project named after a medieval heresy which argued that the route to God was through having lots and lots of sex.

Perhaps it was simply the extravagant praise gifted to Panda Bear’s ‘Person Pitch’ album but there seems to have been something of a backlash against Animal Collective in recent months. Perhaps their ‘Strawberry Jam’ album proved too saccharine for those who preferred the band in more esoteric, confrontational mode – but I actually think the band have improved considerably as they’ve matured and become less abrasive. This peculiar, warped brand of pop music that they are currently purveying is certainly whimsical but it’s also generous and satisfying.

The band have already proved themselves masters of the EP format, particularly on their outstanding ‘Prospect Hummer’, an illuminating collaboration with formerly lost folk singer Vashti Bunyan that successfully joined the dots between a traditional musical canon and the group’s adventurous experimentalism. ‘Water Curses’ may well be their best release to date, capturing their heady, synaesthetic juxtaposition of sweetness and menace with a newfound fluency and ease.

The lead track is the most familiar – a close relation of ‘Peacebone’ or ‘Who Could Win A Rabbit?’ as one of those Animal Collective tunes bristling with unstoppable urgency. It’s buoyed on by an almost chaotic temperament, with strings of peculiar imagery bundled together and a bed of clattering, primitive drums. It’s marvellous of course, but not particularly unexpected.

The remaining three tracks on the EP take the group to yet more unconventional places. They are airy and spacious, with very minimal rhythm and plenty of near-silences. In the manner of the group’s best work, they combine a deftly melodic framework with disorientating and sinister sound effects and background noise. The vocals are frequently arranged in staggered bursts, invoking call and response mantras or chanting. This music is anything but earthy – it has a genuine psychedelic tinge to it, evoking as it does bright colours and heightened awareness. ‘Street Flash’ sounds comforting on the surface but almost concealed beneath the smooth texture are profoundly disconcerting elements – voices, screams – all largely incomprehensible and subtly terrifying.

Kieren Hebden has been trying very hard to distance himself from the ‘folktronica’ tag he unwittingly acquired, first through his peculiar collaboration with free jazz drummer Steve Reid, and now through this new set of relentless, energising techno. It’s his first release under the Four Tet moniker in three years and anyone expecting more of the same will certainly be surprised. The title track reminds me of Underworld at their very best, but mercifully stripped of the sometimes grating excesses of Karl Hyde’s vocals. It’s the most minimal of Hebden’s work to date, missing his preoccupations with confrontational rhythm or striking sound. Yet the sudden burst of drums at the end ties it back to Hebden’s familiar rhythmic preoccupations, and its sheer stubbornness is fascinating.

‘Ringer’ is perhaps the first Four Tet track made genuinely for dancing, rather than for more cerebral occasions, founded as it is on the more conventional layering and crescendos of club music. It seems perhaps closer to the form of dance music currently favoured by European producers – I can hear hints of Isolee or The Field in its entrancing textures. This all harks back to Kraftwerk of course, and Hebden seems to have taken from that group similar elements to those absorbed by the Swedish group The Knife on their excellent ‘Silent Shout’ album, particularly on the closing ‘Wing Body Wing’, where Hebden eventually, after plenty of teasing, finally allows us a glimpse of the polyrhythmic wizardy on which he made his name. Words like pastoral or rustic, familiar descriptions of Hebden’s music in the past, simply won’t suffice here. This is much more architectural and constructed music – extremely rigorous but equally propulsive.

‘Ribbons’ is prettier, although the handclaps, offbeat hi hats and gentle electronic interventions betray the influence of Chicago house or primitive techno. The warm sounds and appealing harmony provide some connection with Hebden’s earlier work, particularly the encircling friendliness of ‘Rounds’. The intense and claustrophobic droning of ‘Swimmer’ might be too much for some listeners, but beneath the Boards of Canada-esque surface lies a wealth of intriguing, unusual and occasionally abrasive sounds. This is not Hebden’s warmest or most welcoming work, but it does have the guilt free collective energy and abandon captured by the best dance music and it’s good to hear him branching out in less characteristic directions.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Jamie Lidell – Jim
Sam Sparro – Sam Sparro

A lot of people are going to react violently against this album. Jamie Lidell’s previous album, the outstanding ‘Multiply’, retained some vestiges of his history with electronic music - very slight hints remained of the glitchy short attention span of ‘Muddlin’ Gear’, or the propulsive club rhythms of his work with Supercollider. ‘Jim’, however, rejects this past completely, cementing Lidell’s reinvention as a modern day soul singer. Synths and cut-up beats are replaced with gospel infused piano lines, backup singers and the fundamental, inexhaustible template of a live rhythm section. It might simply be because Lidell is a white man from Cambridge (now living in Berlin), or perhaps there are more complex reasons, but many will no doubt bemoan this album’s lack of authenticity. Has Lidell sweated and suffered enough to earn the right to sing this music, music which he most certainly doesn’t own? Perhaps there is some element of post-Joss Stone, post-Amy Winehouse calculation going on here, odd as this might seem from an artist on the Warp label. Either way, Jools Holland will no doubt love this.

Frankly though, who seriously cares? Lidell openly admits he hasn’t tried to conceal any of his influences, and that ‘Jim’ is simply a reflection of the music he loves. Whether authentic or market driven product, ‘Jim’ reveals Lidell as a singer with charisma and passion and a genuine understanding of the necessary ingredients of soul music. Furthermore, he’s not striving to be too sophisticated here – most of the songs here are gritty, groovy, impassioned and entertaining. Even when the lyrics are essaying pain and frustration, there’s a fundamentally uplifting quality to the music, neatly summarised in ‘A Little Bit of Feelgood’, with its precision tight playing and its simple but attacking guitar line.

The result is that the energy and stamina of these songs is simply irresistible. Only a very churlish person could resist the toe-tapping thump of ‘Wait For Me’, or the honey-coated gospel vibe of ‘Another Day’. There’s a propulsive, appropriately stormy urgency to ‘Hurricane’ and a driving energy to ‘Figured Me Out’. Whilst undoubtedly derivative, the attention to detail on these songs is staggering. Listen to the arrangement of the backing vocals on ‘Wait for Me’, the horn chart for ‘A Little Bit of Feelgood’ or the glockenspiel and handclaps of ‘Out of My System’ for just a hint of how meticulously Lidell has recreated the ‘organic’ sound of classic Stax and Atlantic soul records here.

Lidell’s greater sophistication is also highlighted by the ballads. ‘All I Wanna Do’ is gorgeous, Lidell’s voice restrained and controlled, accompanied by surprisingly bucolic acoustic guitar pickings and high pitch keyboard parts. It’s when the dense backing vocals join in that the song is really lifted to another level though, somehow reminiscent of Rufus Wainwright when his opulence is best serviced to the demands of a song. Perhaps even better is the closing ‘Rope of Sound’, uncharacteristically elusive and mysterious.

There is a lingering sense of pointlessness here though. Just what has Lidell achieved by so carefully revisiting his founding influences, when Mark Ronson is already doing such a shrewd job of updating the soul template? He has succeeded in making a vigorous and enjoyable album, but one steadfast in its refusal to break any boundaries or take music to any new places. Clearly this was never part of Lidell’s gameplan here, but there’s enough evidence both in his voice and in the arrangements to suggest he has the potential to innovate as much as recreate. Maybe he is abrogating that responsibility in favour of something more comfortable and less challenging. He can clearly make records like this in his sleep.

Perhaps it is also disappointing that Lidell has not yet found a way of capturing the maverick innovation of his live shows on disc. There’s little hint of his gleeful sampling of himself or his construction of entire songs simply from manipulating the sounds of the human voice. Instead, he has favoured the sound of a real live band for this project. Similarly, there’s also a slight sense of disposability with this music when set against the tracks that have obviously influenced it – I frequently find myself enjoying the display of knowledge and enthusiasm, but completely ignoring the lyrics – to the extent that the songs have not really burrowed their way into my mind.

If there is a calculated mind at work behind ‘Jim’, it has been trumped and spectacularly undermined by the surprise success of Sam Sparro. Sparro looks more than a little ridiculous – and it’s difficult to know if this smooth, brilliantly executed electropop is intended as sincere art or merely intricate pastiche. The hilarious video to ‘Cottonmouth’ possibly suggests the latter, but like other irreverent songwriters (the likes of Stephin Merritt and Neil Hannon spring to mind), Sparro has written a collection of songs that stand strong enough on their own merits to withstand such accusations. Perhaps ‘Black and Gold’ has climbed close to the top of the charts simply because its bouncy groove and insistent melody are irresistible.

Sparro is neither as studied nor as dynamic a singer as Lidell. Instead, his voice has a richness and smoothness that makes it ideal for the accessible pop music he has crafted here. This is not to deny his manifest talent though – entirely self-written and produced, there is plenty of evidence on ‘Sam Sparro’ to suggest there is a knowledgeable and well trained musician at work here. The slap bass extravaganza of ‘21st Century Life’ reveals the heavy influence of Prince, but there’s also the sense that Sparro has absorbed the more polished end of 80s pop, from new romantics to the tail end of the disco boom (here the rhythm guitar on the slick ‘Hot Mess’). ‘Sick’ sounds like Erasure might have sounded if they had been fronted by Luther Vandross rather than Andy Bell. It might be absurdly cheesy, but I can’t resist the splurges of synth extravagance on ‘Cottonmouth’ or the chant of ‘I need some H2O! Down my throat!’ at the song’s conclusion.

Unfortunately, Sparro’s lyrics rarely match the saccharine confection of his melodies and arrangements – they are sometimes glib and frequently formulaic. There are platitudes in abundance too (‘everything you do will end up coming right back round again’, ‘it’s a sick world, but I’m your medicine’ etc) and plenty of rather pious celebration of the joys of music and its healing power.

I’m not sure all this cyclical repackaging of music already successfully realised decades ago is really necessary, or even particularly desirable. It arguably amounts to a tacit admission that pop music has fewer and fewer avenues left to explore, which is essentially a defeatist position. I’m also much more positive about artists that are at least drawing links between superficially divergent forms of contemporary music. The nagging sense that it might all reduce down to knowing irony doesn’t exactly help either. There’s no denying that this is an entertaining listen, with genuine broad appeal. At the very least, I’ll take it over the vast amounts of underachieving indie that it seems increasingly difficult to avoid (The Courteeners, The Kooks, The Wombats, The Pigeon Detectives etc).

Raise Your Own Flag

Bjork - Hammersmith Apollo, 14th April 2008

Bjork’s Volta tour finally arrives in London with discussion focussing more on the singer’s recent political controversies than on her music (she dedicated the full throttle dance track ‘Declare Independence’ to Tibet whilst performing in China). These shows will no doubt refocus attention on her core achievement – a unique juxtaposition of musical artistry, audacious performance and colourful, provocative image. The Volta set-up may be her most interesting to date – focussed as much on pageantry and an unashamed celebration of physicality as on rich emotion. The stage is decorated with dazzling heraldry and her bizarre costume, topped off with brilliantly preposterous exploding puffball headgear, may turn out to be as iconic in its own way as the infamous swan dress.

The Volta touring band is one of her most intriguing musical constructions too. It’s a world away from the intimate combination of quietly rustling electronics and Zeena Parkins’ harp that characterised ‘Vespertine’, but every bit as effective. Whereas that music delved deep into intimate, private territory, this is explosive, obtrusive and violently dramatic. The brilliant all-female Icelandic horn section add a full, sometimes extravagant timbre and help completely reinvent some of the older material aired tonight. Chris Corsano’s unconventional, sometimes barely audible drumming is frequently more textural than rhythmic and the peculiar touch-pad synthesisers, of which Bjork’s band appear to be leading pioneers, continue to provide mind-boggling visual as well as musical entertainment. Perhaps most surprising of all is the appearance on stage of a harpsichord, as far as I can recall only deployed on one song.

She focuses on the most primal, rhythmic material from ‘Volta’, mostly ignoring its more mysterious subtleties. This proves to be wise, as this selection of fresh material works very well in combination with reimagined choices from ‘Medulla’ and ‘Homogenic’. This creates a show with something approaching a narrative arc - it not only coheres but also has a strong sense of progression and development from start to finish. ‘Earth Intruders’ is a predictable opener, but its energy and chanting neatly summarise the physicality of this performance. It’s also the perfect introduction to her individualistic vocal style – often crossing bar lines and veering away from predictable phrasings. During the succeeding ‘Hunter’, giant streams explode behind her, leaving a trail that follows her as she marches across the stage. Even when delivering ballads, Bjork is a compelling physical presence on stage, hand movements following the templates dictated by her beatmasters, or gesturing the chord changes carried by her horn section. Although she avoids speaking too much, there’s a real sense of just how much Bjork enjoys performing.

Some special guests also help elevate this performance well beyond the ordinary. The fantastic Malian Kora player Toumani Diabate joins her for an eloquent rendition of ‘Hope’, proving himself every bit as virtuosic and dexterous as his reputation suggests. I found myself captivated by the alchemical connection between Diabate’s rapid flurries and the echoing cymbal pattering from Corsano. It’s a genuine privilege to witness this master exponent of such a unique and demanding instrument. There’s also an appearance from a towering, peculiarly dressed Antony Hegarty, who delivers a surprisingly subtle take on the circling, hypnotising ‘Dull Flame of Desire’, a remarkably unconventional duet. It starts with complete separation and gradually, intricately meshes together, as if two completely individual love stories are slowly intertwining. Both singers restrain their more intrusive tendencies, and the performance is powerful and moving as a result.

One of Bjork’s major concerns throughout her solo career has been constructing an elaborate synthesis of acoustic and electronic elements, whether through string arrangements, the manipulated vocal percussion of ‘Medulla’ or now the incorporation of a horn section. This allows her to perform versions of older material where the mood and feel of the songs are radically altered. The horns make an incisive, almost jarring impact on ‘The Pleasure Is All Mine’ and ‘Who Is It’, but earlier material undergoes a more subtle transformation. ‘Joga’ sounds richer and more melancholy with horns, ‘Unravel’ more devastating and desperate. The beautiful, haunting encore of ‘Anchor Song’, performed with only the horns for accompaniment, is another highlight, all the more so for being a less predictable song selection.

My only small niggle with this show is that it yet again focuses squarely on singles from ‘Post’ and ‘Homogenic’. The only concession to ‘Debut’ is the wonderful ‘Anchor Song’, but how appropriate and special it would have been to hear that wonderful celebration of sex that is ‘Big Time Sensuality’, rearranged to incorporate the horn section. Perhaps the ‘Vespertine’ material is simply too gentle and vulnerable for this setting, but I missed its paradoxical icy warmth and emotional insight.

The set ends at a real extreme – the end of ‘Hyperballad’ bursting into an excoriating blitz of harsh, pounding beats, and segueing into ‘Pluto’, one of her least accessible but most exciting songs. This intense, aggressive spirit is then revisited in the encore, Bjork ending her theatrical performance with ‘Declare Independence’. She avoids any particular dedication this time of course, but whilst the song sounds superficial on the surface, its message is universal, and is as good a way as any to sum up Bjork’s audacity and individuality. She had an image and presence that is entirely her own – and the exhortation to ‘raise your own flag’ could mean pretty much anything – nationalist celebration, gay anthem or simply a call to abandon concerns and submit to that most fundamental of rhythms – the four to the floor pulse. It’s hardly her most sophisticated work (certainly when compared with the brilliant asymmetrical military rhythms and stark dissonance of ‘Vertebrae by Vertebrae’), but it’s somehow an appropriate way to sign off – a joyous celebration of humanity.

To Z or not to Z - That is the Question...

It's unfathomable to me why the shockwaves following Michael Eavis' announcement that Jay-Z would be the Saturday night headliner at this year's Glastonbury Festival are still rolling around the internet like a bad smell. The only reservations I might have about Eavis' programming here is that it has come at least five, maybe even ten years too late. Jay-Z has been the most respected, challenging and innovative of American hip hop artists, and his prolific work rate puts most guitar groups to shame. Some of us may not relate to the lifestyle his music promotes but his wordplay has always been second-to-none and his performance should be invigorating and exciting. The problem is that he may by this stage be past his best.

The innate conservatism of some festival-goers has occasionally bordered on racism. It's fine not to appreciate hip hop, but to claim that Glastonbury is all about 'guitar bands' is not only inaccurate, but implies a certain supremacy lies in big British rock bands who mostly happen to also be white. Previous Glastonbury festivals have featured Basement Jaxx (with a wonderful cast of black vocalists and South American dancers), Orbital (one of the most famous Glastonbury headline sets, with nary a guitar in sight), Michael Franti (whom I was lucky enough to interview and record in 2004), Al Green and Toots and The Maytals (actually the most hotly anticipated act amongst festival-goers I canvassed for Radio Avalon in 2004). I would certainly rather stand in a muddy field watching Jay-Z than either of the other two headliners - Kings of Leon, a band whose live performances have tended to be sluggish and demotivated (certainly disappointing when playing second fiddle to Oasis in 2004) or The Verve, a band whose grandiose pretentions have surely now been revealed as exactly that - mere pretentions. Who exactly is Noel Gallagher to claim that Jay-Z is 'not right' for Glastonbury?

Having said that, I've not even attempted to buy a ticket and neither, it appears, have many others so far. So - why did Glastonbury not sell out in three minutes as it has done in the past? First of all, few seem to have recognised that this might actually be a good thing, particularly for festival-goers themselves. Why, after all, is it always so desirable for an event to sell out as soon as tickets have been put on sale? The registration process is certainly a pain, but if it has reduced demand, it has made it easier for those genuinely wanting to go to obtain a ticket. It has also helped tickets to be distributed fairly, virtually elimianting the role of ticket touts. If there are further factors involved, broadening choice and rising prices would certainly seem to be the main ones. Smaller, more specialist festivals are now not just surviving, but positively thriving, offering a more intimate and comfortable experience (particularly ATP, which even dares to offer accommodation). It seems a long time since the Phoenix Festival was mercilessly squeezed out of operation. Other festivals offer similar or better services at comparable prices - and Glastonbury is now beginning to look like a substantial expense for many people. For sure, it's in a wonderful setting - but one does not need to go to such a place every single year.

The corollary of this is that the mainstream festivals seem to concentrate relentlessly on the same artists - Jay-Z is doing Glastonbury and Wireless, The Verve and Kings of Leon are everywhere, and the Killers are the main act at Reading, having headlined Glastonbury only last year. Examining the finer detail suggests that choice is more limited than one might suspect - and still people moan that there is no sign of Radiohead or Oasis.

It's a very English analysis to cite the weather as a possible factor - regular Glastonbury-goers are probably a little more stoical about bad weather though. It's certainly stubborn of Eavis to insist on scheduling the festival for the last weekend in June, when it consistently rains pretty much every year. He could reconsider this, but if he's happy to deal with the carnage 180,000 people churning up farmland mud creates, then he can make his own bed and lie in it.

Similarly, perhaps he has to accept that some of the 'younger' audience he was attempting to court by booking Jay-Z are actually depressingly closed-minded about music. Hopefully, Glastonbury will have lost some of the regular whingers and gained some new converts. Next year Eavis should have more courage in backing innovators and not fall back on traditional pantomime horses such as The Verve. This year's line-up ultimately looks like a botched compromise.

Back To My Youth

The B-52s – Funplex
Was (Not Was) – Boo!

What on earth is going on here? Two of the most memorable singles of my childhood years were ‘Walk The Dinosaur’ by Was (Not Was) and ‘Love Shack’ by the B-52s. Not much has been heard of either band since the early nineties. I remember Simon Mayo hammering the latter to death on his Radio 1 breakfast show, thus guaranteeing it would be played pretty much every morning for a month during the short journey from home to my primary school. Some 18 years after this song was released, and 15 years since their last album, The B-52s have returned once more, this time styled in black and white rather than dayglo bright colours.

Other than that, as plenty of critics have stupidly bemoaned, not that much has changed. Even at quite an advanced age, they are still ‘pleasure seekers’, ‘lookin’ for some action’ and promoting a guilt-free philosophy of unrestrained hedonism. Well, good for them! Keith Strickland remains a superb rhythm guitarist and much of the band’s appeal still rests on the contrast between Fred Schneider’s high camp goofball interjections (‘there’s a rest stop – let’s hit the G Spot!’ etc) and the infectious melodies and harmonies carried by a now reunited Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson. This is all lightweight fluff of course – but who could resist such a tempting manifesto? When they promise to ‘take this party to the White House lawn’ at the album’s conclusion, I can’t help suspecting this least political of groups could still teach the Bush administration a thing or two.

It’s also unfair to suggest there have been no developments. Producer Steve Osborne has cautiously but effectively modernised their sound. Perhaps the most notable factor in this is the way the group have incorporated some ideas from bands they themselves once influenced. The emphasis on straightforward four to the floor disco backbeats is redolent of CSS or LCD Soundsystem, both of whom took on board much of the basic energy of early B-52s material. It’s interesting then that the CSS remix of the title track does not actually sound all that far removed from the album version. It’s both surprising and endearing to hear how suddenly fashionable a track like ‘Eyes Wide Open’ now sounds – with its precise hi-hat rhythm, scratchy, muted guitars and exuberant cowbells. Hearing Pierson and Wilson bellow ‘I don’t wanna crash! I don’t wanna rehash the past!’, it would be easy to be fooled into thinking this was something new, when really all it represents is an excellent band remembering what made them great in the first place.

It’s therefore worth recognising that ‘Funplex’, whilst unashamedly one-dimensional, is a good deal more consistent than either ‘Cosmic Thing’ or ‘Good Stuff’. Both those albums had great moments but sometimes veered into inconsequentiality with meandering melodies. By contrast, pretty much every track here is outrageously enjoyable, and at the very least pleasantly hummable. These are pop songs of course – it’s silly and ultimately banal, but for three or four minutes, it completely elevates the spirits in a way that no other form of music can. Even the band’s attempts at sounding more sophisticated somehow work in spite of themselves. ‘Juliet of the Spirits’ is more pristine, but also sugary and mesmerising.

Personally, I can’t resist Fred Schneider’s ‘spandex, spiral vortex’ on ‘Love in the Year 3000’ or the sheer energy and excitement of tracks like ‘Hot Corner’ or ‘Pump’. I certainly can’t resist the bizarre moment in the middle of ‘Deviant Ingredient’ when ‘the sensualists’ arrive (by pink helicopter, how else?), and Fred Schneider suddenly announces, without even a hint of shame: ‘I am now an eroticist - a fully eroticised being!’

Those critics who have found this album embarrassing have maybe just forgotten how to have fun. This is an album pretty much all about dancing and sex. Dancing and sex should be fun – and this music is as straightforwardly and uncomplicatedly pleasurable as it gets. Plus, I could hardly enjoy the full implications of all this in the car on the way to primary school, could I? Now that I can, it’s great to have them back.

In many ways, The B-52s and Was (Not Was) shared similar career trajectories. Both bands started out at the vanguard of alternative fashion – The B-52s uniting new wave and gay disco, Don and David Was emerging as pioneering producers and droll lyricists as part of the Ze records mutant disco staple. Both bands gradually embraced slicker production techniques, and expanded their popularity and radio-friendly credentials as a result. Yet, there were always oddities. Even as ‘Walk The Dinosaur’ and the quite brilliant ‘Spy In The House of Love’ stormed the pop charts, their parent album ‘What Up Dog?’ contained moments of real strangeness - songs like ‘Shadow and Jimmy’, co-written with Elvis Costello and one of the saddest, most melancholy stories imaginable, set to a Cajun lilt, and ‘Hello Dad, I’m in Jail’, a snarling, sardonic one minute rant that sounded positively avant garde. Importantly, both groups proved as adept at being hit factories as they were at being original and innovative.

‘Boo!’ is Don and David Was’ first new studio album since 1990’s ‘Are You Okay?’ (on which they felt better than James Brown and cavorted with Kim Basinger), but it retains all of their weird and wonderful qualities, as well as a cast of familiar faces and some stellar supporting musicians. The grizzly voiced Sweet Pea Atkinson remains the perfect mouthpiece for Don and David’s peculiar song-stories, whilst the group effortlessly craft the kind of bristling, precision-perfect funk that has long been subordinated to robotic R&B. It’s refreshing to be reminded of how energising and exciting this music can be when handled well.

The opening ‘Semi-Interesting Week’ is an awesome summation of this group’s off-the-wall qualities, a verbose story that begins with Sweet Pea enjoying some action with some patriotic twins from Washington DC, continues with him dismembering someone who insults him as ‘a dirty Jew’ (‘I assured him I had showered that very morning…’) and ends with aliens invading Hollywood. It’s a brilliant curtain-raiser and its maverick spirit is further developed with the irresistibly groovy ‘Forget Everything’ and ‘Mr. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’, apparently co-written with Bob Dylan. This fact isn’t as surprising as many seem to think, given that a number of these songs apparently date back to the early nineties and Dylan hired Don Was as producer for ‘Under The Red Sky’, his first studio album of that decade. All these tracks are elevated by some superb horn charts, and a seemingly unstoppable party vibe.

Elsewhere, the surreal elements become stronger, and the music gets murkier. ‘Needletooth’ is a disorientating close relation to ‘Hello Dad…’, David once more sounding like a total lunatic, whilst Kris Kristofferson sounds similarly unhinged (or at least a lot like Mark Lanegan) on the unsettling, blackly comic closer ‘Green Pills In The Drawer’. ‘Big Black Hole’ neatly combines the group’s interests – a notably dour song set to an urgent rhythm.

Don and David even pull off the album’s cheesiest moments. ‘It’s a Miracle’ is sweet, honey-laden soul benefiting from some sublime guitar playing, whilst first single ‘Crazy Water’ is a completely satisfying refashioning of a New Orleans stomp. It’s fascinating that in today’s climate, such well-crafted and sophisticated pop music can now seem thoroughly unfashionable and a genuine alternative to mainstream chart music, which now incorporates as much unambitious ‘indie’ tedium as it does mass-produced manufactured dross. Here are two of the best albums of the year so far, all the more impressive because they both sound as if they are hardly even trying.