Case Sensitive

tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l (4AD)

It seems as if everyone has been talking about this second album from Merrill Garbus - to the extent that it's almost tempting to veer into stubborn hype avoidance mode and simply ignore it. This would be a massive mistake though, for this album is every bit as wonderful and inventive as Garbus'type-setting is infuriating.

Garbus' solo debut Bird-Brains (OK, I can't be bothered with the upper and lower cases now) gradually worked its way to cult status, its extremely erratic recording quality failing to detract from Garbus' anything-goes approach. If anything, the frequently maxed out distortion added to the record's immense charms.

whokill is a different beast, however. It's more carefully edited, and its relatively concise running time definitely works in its favour. Also, it sees Garbus entering a professional recording studio for the first time, polishing her craft while retaining the essence of her maverick, scattershot style (The backing vocals on Gangsta are as harsh and biting as anything on Bird-Brains). In addition to whatever imaginative, creative merit this album undoubtedly has - the first impression of Garbus' ingenious work is that it is tremendous fun.

Garbus' approach is both brutally direct and wondrously wayward. Sometimes it feels as if she is throwing absolutely everything at the wall - whokill has avant garde saxophone freak-outs, Nigerian hi life style guitars and thunderous lo-fi drums. What holds it together is the element that reigns triumphantly over the melee - Garbus' jagged, unconventional voice. It's hard to find parallels for Garbus' style, but it seems to be influenced as much by hip-hop and dancehall toasting as by soul and more traditional forms of soundcraft. It is likely to be as polarising as the strange, intervalic daring of Dave Longstreth or the saccharine swoop of Joanna Newsom. For me, Garbus' versatility alone makes her an important vocal talent - she can be overpowering at one moment, the next expressing stark, naked vulnerability. When Riotriot stops and she belts out 'there is a freedom in violence I don't understand' with all the force in her lungs, it is genuinely disturbing, and yet somehow also strangely euphoric.

For all its sonic onslaught, whokill also has moments of disarming tenderness. Powa begins with strummed guitars and Garbus' fragile falsetto, before moving into more gutsy territory (Garbus' warped take on classic rock perhaps). Wooly Wooly Gong is more delicate still - a beautiful, haunting moment amidst some turbulent surroundings. These juxtapositions are always handled with thought and are carefully constructed. Garbus is clearly constantly alive to the possibilities of sound and timbre.

This is an important record - one that really establishes Garbus as a major female talent to watch alongside the likes of Bjork and Kate Bush. She is a true idiosyncratic individual, fully deserving of the hype and attention.

Back To The Future

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today (4AD, 2010)

Ariel Pink is a name many will be familiar with thanks to his series of home-recorded solo releases on Animal Collective's Paw Tracks label. These recordings have had an influence wildly at odds with their scale and ambition, informing critics as much as musicians (spurious categories such as hypnagogig pop seem to link back to Pink). In spite of this wide-ranging impact, Pink is making 'Before Today', his first album made with a full band, a clean slate. It's the first time he has recorded with the explicit intention of releasing the results to a sizeable audience. As such, it's predictably a cleaner, more carefully orchestrated affair than his previous work, although it retains much of the lo-fi, ramshackle charm that has gained him considerable support and acclaim. It successfully both defines and improves his distinctive aesthetic.

Much of this aesthetic involves making a case for the much derided radio music with which Pink may have grown up - the likes of Hall & Oates, Foreigner, Christopher Cross, Todd Rundgren and 10cc. The two most obvious examples of this here are 'Round and Round' and 'Can't Hear My Eyes'. Both have that soft touch drum sound and the enveloping synth pads characteristic of the early-80s (before stadium rock and the Power Station sound took over). The latter has a quite ludicrous slinky saxophone solo. These tracks don't sound like direct facsimiles of that era though. Pink takes something of the slick smoothness and syrupy melodic sensibility and refashions it for his own, more ambiguous purposes. Whilst Pink's melodies are straightforwardly infectious (whether consciously or not, the exuberant chorus of 'Round and Round' owes a debt to Deacon Blue's 'Fergus Sings The Blues'), the music is more confusing and ghostly. This is not just a nostalgia trip - but rather something a little more radical. It's a remodelling of the past.

Pink's role models are not all stereotypically unfashionable. 'Before Today' ends with 'Revolution's A Lie', which features a moody, pulsating bassline that hints at Joy Division or The Cure, two bands whose influence has never really diminished in spite of the risk of cliched miserabilism. Again, Pink makes it all much more warped and otherworldly though. This sounds like a hallucination or a nightmare, rather than any very real personal suffering. At the other end, the album is ushered in with the alluring 'Hot Body Rub', which seems to mesh 2-Tone saxophones with a mechanistic rhythm reminiscent of Neu!. Pink's new wave fascinations continue to emerge throughout - on the frazzled 'Little Wig' and the propulsive 'Bright Lit Blue Skies' particularly.

Pink has an offbeat sense of humour that results in faintly ludicrous song titles such as 'Beverley Kills' and 'Butt-House Blondies'. This also takes him into more surreal territory, such as on 'Menopause Man'. This is a rather peculiar swampy ballad that, perhaps questionably, conflates gender confusion with sexuality ('rape me, castrate me, make me gay').

Pink has little fear of the unusual, the bizarre or the frankly daft, both lyrically and musically. This means that 'Before Today' could be either a collection of elaborately constructed jokes - or it could be a brave work of near-genius. The way the absurd dual fuzz guitars of 'L'estat' slip into a lopsided swing groove would be nonsensical in almost anyone else's hands, but Pink and his band make it sound not just planned but somehow appropriate. Context is everything here of course. It's the way Pink transforms his reference points into something strange, hypnotic and utterly irresistible that makes him convincing.

Alone Together

New Pornographers - Together (Matador)
Kathryn Calder - Are You My Mother? (File Under: Music)

The fifth album from Canadian supergroup New Pornographers appears to have been rather casually dismissed by British rock critics. Perhaps it's simply because it's easy to take a band for granted once they've got five albums into their career. It could be because their previous album, 2007's 'Challengers', with its heavy-handed orchestrations, was a little plodding and overwraught. It's worth stepping back and taking stock though. Did anyone seriously expect that the New Pornographers, a band who hardly ever all appear on one stage at the same time, would manage to produce five albums?

After 'Challengers', 'Together' is quite simply a breath of fresh air. The crisp, crunchy opener 'Moves' provides a timely reminder of just how distinctive and sophisticated a pop songwriter AC Newman is. The album contains some of their most infectious and irresistible songs to date. 'Valkyrie in the Roller Disco' is every bit as glorious as its title - shimmering, shiny and wonderfully slow-building. It may be their finest song. 'Up In The Dark' is pounding power-pop. 'Your Hands (Together)' is a colossal tease - leaving us primed for a full on rock shuffle beat that never arrives. Dan Bejar contributes the delightful jangle of 'Silver Jenny Dollar' and 'If You Can't See My Mirrors'. The sound throughout is colossal - cymbals seem to crash from all directions, the guitars chime beautifully.

'Together' eschews the self-importance that occasionally marred 'Challengers'. It seems that the band have rediscovered their characteristic effervescence. As a consequence, it makes for joyful listening. It's certainly sugary - the New Pornographers remain a band best consumed in small doses. Within itself, this is another fine record with a big, bold sound.

Even better though is the debut solo album from Kathryn Calder, a member both of The New Pornographers and the chronically underrated Immaculate Machine. Calder has done a great job in the New Pornographers in taking over vocal duties in Neko Case's absence at live shows, although her voice is identifiable for being more understated and less imposing than Case's. Whilst 'Are You My Mother?' occasionally traverses similar power-pop terrain to that claimed by her other bands, it's very much an individual, very personal work. It also benefits from a broader dynamic range and greater stylistic diversity. Calder is as comfortable singing a tender piano ballad as she is quixotic, unpredictable indie-pop songs such as 'Slip Away'.

The album was recorded in Calder's childhood home and was thematically informed by the two years Calder spent caring for her terminally ill mother. It can't have been an easy experience to make this music - which is why it's all the more impressive that 'Are You My Mother' is in essence such a life-affirming record. It contains songs of loss and grief ('Arrow', 'Down The River'), but it is also stoical, mature and ultimately hopeful. The lush, determined rush of 'Castor and Pollux' might be the best example of this.

With little in the way of recording technology, the help of a few friends (including members of Ladyhawke, Frog Eyes and New Pornographers), and some household items recycled as percussion instruments, Calder has made a rich, powerful sounding album. Her songwriting is offbeat, melodic and sophisticated. She pays careful attention to instrumentation - the mandolin on 'Follow Me Into The Hills' elevates the song. The ragged percussion gives 'If You Only Knew' an energy and collective spirit. Her melodies flow gracefully in elegant phrases, and her calm, sometimes soothing voice conveys insight. 'Are You My Mother?' is a tremendously accomplished debut that suggests that, with the help of a little publicity, Calder could eclipse the achievements of her colleagues.

Second Album Fail

Yeasayer – Odd Blood (Mute)

Yeasayer’s debut album ‘All Hour Cymbals’ seemed precariously balanced on a knife-edge between two extremes – hippy idealist psychedelia on one side and over-egged 80s pop on the other. It succeeded in walking a tightrope between the two due to its graceful melodies and the group’s instrumental prowess and skills in arranging. Its follow-up ‘Odd Blood’ certainly favours the band’s 80s preoccupations, frequently resembling Tears for Fears or Duran Duran.

It starts auspiciously with a total red herring. ‘The Children’ is an uncomfortable and sinister concoction dominated by creepy vocal effects, eerie sounds and a slow pace that serves to bewitch and hypnotise rather than soothe the listener. Its sheer weirdness suggests that ‘Odd Blood’ might live up to its title.

What follows mostly favours bright, infectious choruses that border on irritating. The musical backdrop largely consists of tribal-sounding tom toms and swathes of synth pads that do little to enhance or support these rather thin and lightweight songs. Occasionally, there is superimposed faux-sophistication that feels forced and lacks depth. The frequent comparisons with Animal Collective are understandable, but the similarities are all superficial. ‘Odd Blood’ doesn’t invoke anything as startling as the joyful synaesthesia of ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’.

This sonic consistency perhaps shouldn’t be all that surprising. ‘2080’, one of the most popular songs on ‘All Hour Cymbals’ worked in spite of its strong resemblance to ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’. Sometimes they pull off a similar trick here. Despite its litany of lyrical clichés, ‘Ambling Alp’ still manages to be maddeningly irresistible. This is at least in part because the band imposes an entirely unexpected and highly imaginative middle section, complete with bizarre saxophones and deviating from the song’s otherwise predictable and formulaic structure.

The biggest problem with ‘Odd Blood’ is the switch of focus away from the arrangements and on to Chris Keating’s slight, reedy vocals, particularly grating when he adopts an untutored falsetto. ‘I Remember’ is another song of love, loss and memory to add to the substantial canon, but the bland and dated backing makes it difficult to experience any emotional impact. Peter Gabriel might be a reference point for this and the preceding ‘Madder Red’, but Gabriel’s songs have always had so much more depth and honesty. Most of the songs on ‘Odd Blood’ seem tricksy and contrived.

‘O.N.E.’ and ‘Love Me Girl’ make up the album’s quirky, upbeat centre. It’s difficult to resist unfavourable comparisons with Hot Chip here. There are a number of musical similarities – not least the 80s influences and single line synth riffs. But there’s nothing affecting or emotionally nuanced here. Regardless of the lyrical context, the insistent but limited melodies offer little hint of longing, melancholy, regret, excitement or discovery. ‘Love Me Girl’ particularly emerges as something of an incoherent mess of pick and mix influences (Prince, Depeche Mode, A-Ha, Duran Duran and much more besides).

In the album’s less focused second half, there are teasing hints of what might have been. The asymmetrical ‘Strange Reunions’, with its offbeat handclaps, devious melodic lines and psychedelic influences is initially beguiling, but it fades out abruptly, seeming like an interrupted journey. Nevertheless, it’s the one point where the group sound relaxed, not trying too hard to be accessible or clever. The saxophones are back to entertaining effect on ‘Mondegreen’, a nimble update of the Motown Stomp severely let down by some silly lyrics (‘everybody’s talking about me and my baby making love ‘til the morning light’ – are we really?).

However elaborately produced ‘All Hour Cymbals’ may have been, it was still believably the work of a band. On ‘Odd Blood’, Yeasayer appear to have stifled any sense of interaction or musicality in favour of a self-regarding, artificial sheen. It’s worth remembering that if the band really are hinting at the artful electro-pop of Talk Talk, then those records sound more durable and satisfying now than ‘Odd Blood’ does. This is a record that is trying desperately to impress, but ends up deeply irritating. It’s a real disappointment from a band that appeared to have considerable potential.

Fun with Fangs

Vampire Weekend – Contra (XL)

Pretty much every review and feature I’ve read on Vampire Weekend in the past couple of months starts in the same way – with a lengthy examination of supposed critiques of the band as inauthentic ‘cultural tourists’. I’m still wondering precisely who these detractors are. Every review of ‘Contra’ so far has been at least positive, and it seems as if every journalist is trying to position themselves as valiant defenders of this band against a constant stream of invective that doesn’t really seem to exist. Most of us seem to accept that they are privileged and educated New Yorkers – but this doesn’t stop us from enjoying either their witty lyrics or their enthusiasm for African rhythm and harmony. If this music opens doors to Congolese soukous music or the rich contemporary sounds of Mali, this surely cannot be a bad thing.

‘Contra’ is a typical second album in that it consists in part of laudable attempts to develop and diversify alongside a handful of tracks that could have sat comfortably on their debut. ‘Cousins’, somewhat impressively, is an even spikier and more insistent rewrite of ‘A-Punk’ and ‘Holiday’ is a ska-tinged piece of angular post-punk. There’s nothing remotely surprising on either track, including their inherent infectiousness that borders on irritating.

Late last year, the band already gave clues that the full album wouldn’t be quite that simple by posting opening track ‘Horchata’ as a free download. This track amplifies the African influences to almost dizzying and saccharine levels, with its percussion and thumb pianos. It’s also a brilliant song, with Ezra Koenig’s near-nonsense wordplay operating in excelsis.

Much of the rest of the album downplays the familiar strafing and staccato guitar lines in favour of a lush texture dominated by synths and keyboards. It is, on the whole, a less taut and more expansive proposition. Rostam Batmanglij never seemed like a particularly skilled keyboardist, and many of the parts here are quite minimal. Yet the arrangements and overall sound, in which Batmanglij plays the pivotal role, add up to something invigorating and intriguing. There’s a deceptive simplicity to many of these tracks – the detail often matters more than the fundamental elements.

Initially I wasn’t sure about the excess treatment on ‘California English’ – all vocoder gloss – but the track somehow ends up sounding effortless and fluid. Similarly, whilst on first listen to the epic ‘Diplomat’s Son’, the slightly cloying plinky-plonk piano stands out, repeated listens reveal a plethora of riches, from its unpredictable shifting rhythms to its wonderful vocal arrangement. The most impressionistic moment comes with ‘I Think Ur A Contra’, on which the band manage to craft something emotionally affecting beneath their characteristic archness. Perhaps best of all is ‘Taxi Cab’, an almost-ballad that comes across like a brilliantly imagined hybrid of Salif Keita and early Depeche Mode. On these tracks, not only as the musical context been refined, but Koenig has ironed out some of his more provocative vocal quirks in favour of a more understated and subtle delivery. This is no bad thing – and it helps make the band sound less in thrall to the likes of Talking Heads.

Koenig’s lyrics might well be meaningless, but he certainly delights in the way language can trip off the tongue. On ‘Cousins’, he’s particularly exuberant: ‘Dad was a risk-taker/His was a shoemaker/You, greatest hits 2006 little list-maker’ - it sounds like he’s, ahem, gently parodying nerdy music bloggers. Sometimes the lyrics are just joyfully ridiculous (‘In December, drinking Horchata/I look psychotic in a balaclava’). Yet even on a song where political metaphors abound (‘I Think Ur A Contra’), Koenig is capable of isolated moments of disarming directness (‘Never pick sides, never choose between two, well I just wanted you…’).

Amidst all the cleverness, what really comes across is Vampire Weekend’s mastery of the simple pop song. For all its drive to be more adventurous and sonically diverse, ‘Contra’ is still an album full of memorable hooks. It’s hard to know how many albums of this nature a band can produce before their ideas become formulaic – but, for now, it works just fine. ‘Contra’ is short, but very, very sweet.

A Dream of Summer

Memory Tapes - Seek Magic (Something in Construction)

Here is a hazy, warm and blissful pop album in which to drown happily. Davye Hawk is a Philadelphia bedroom producer who has been releasing singles under the monikers Memory Cassette and Weird Tapes. As the new name suggests, Memory Tapes is an effort to combine the preoccupations of his former outfits. The result is a splendid hybrid fusing reflective melancholia with the urgency of disco and house music.

There are hints of New Order, Arthur Russell (most noticeably the facet of Russell preoccupied with dance music and hip hop compiled on ‘Calling Out of Context’) and perhaps even of more contemporary synaesthetic groups such as Animal Collective. Yet there’s also something singular about this project – particularly in the way the dreamy vocal harmonies are subsumed into the overall sound so effectively.

There’s a fuzzy, nostalgic glow to the opening trio of tracks that hints at the capacity of memory to provide a safety net or a path of escape from more immediate concerns. Even when the obscured lyric might be hinting at a form of desperation, the abiding musical sensation is one of lush, sensory beauty and comfort.

‘Seek Magic’ is therefore a collection of music that pushes and pulls in different emotional directions. Its more than possible to enjoy its moments of squelchy funk as pure bolts of joy, but beneath them is a keen awareness of our many changing moods. This is perhaps best captured on the seven minute ‘Stop Talking’, which captures a strong duality between sugar rush and an undercurrent of regret.

Hawk has a wonderful ability for finding simple but striking melodies and placing them against a delicately warped array of synthesisers and found sounds. ‘Plain Material’ almost buries its unnervingly pretty mellotron line beyond walls of fuzzy guitars and an insistent rhythmic urgency.

The closing ‘Run Out’, the slowest and gentlest piece here, suggests that the good times might be gone, but ‘Seek Magic’ at least makes a valiant and noble attempt to revive them. It’s a curious combination of melancholy and nostalgia on one hand, and unashamed joie de vivre on the other. This is a beautiful summer dream in musical form.

New Folk Pathways

Volcano Choir - Unmap (Jagjaguwar, 2009)

Following a critically acclaimed debut is never an easy task but Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon has made it look easy by refusing to play the waiting game. It seemed plausible that ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ could have been one of those great one-off successes but the ‘Blood Bank’ EP suggested new possibilities, from Reichian minimalism to the unexpected vocodered splendour of ‘The Woods’. Now Vernon has made another intriguing sidestep by teaming up with instrumental group Collections of Colonies of Bees for a collaborative project. Those approaching Volcano Choir in search of more of the cabin intimacy that made ‘For Emma’ so beguiling may well be bemused by this music. This is perhaps a more calculated and less nakedly emotional beast, but its challenges are coupled with rewards.

The focus here is not on words, but on sound, texture and mood. Where lyrics are present, they are difficult to discern and are clearly not intended as the main source of meaning. Carried over from ‘For Emma’ is the use of Vernon’s voice as a presiding, haunting presence, but there is less of a sense of thematic unity. Instead, Volcano Choir feels like an artistic experiment, with a collective ensemble feeling for ideas, sometimes tentatively but more often with confidence and combined expertise.

The opening trio of tracks is particularly effective, with the subtle expressive strokes on ‘Husks and Shells’ giving way to enticing rhythmic games on ‘Seeplymouth’ and the brilliant ‘Island, IS’. This emphasis on rhythm immediately distances ‘Unmap’ from Vernon’s work as Bon Iver. ‘Island, IS’ might even be said to be founded on an angular groove, its seemingly mechanised instrumentation anchored and humanised by some delicate but physical drumming. A similar airiness pervades much of ‘Seeplymouth’ and allows space for the track’s compelling crescendos. Particularly fascinating on these tracks is the way the individual parts interlock in a way that seems almost scientific.

‘Dote’ begins with warm tones that hint at the peculiar mood pieces of Stars of the Lid, before a more unnerving fuzz drifts in, along with Vernon’s manipulated voice. It ends with something close to aggression, before suddenly drifting into the near-joyful handclaps and vocal punctuations of ‘And Gather’. It’s an unpredictable and thrilling transition.

Occasionally, things don’t quite work. ‘Cool Knowledge’ represents a potentially quirky and charming diversion into doo-wop influenced vocal layering, but it gets ruthlessly truncated before it really gets going. ‘Mbira in the Morass’ feels noticeably less comfortable than most of the material here – a rather sheepish toe being dipped into the waters of what sounds like free improvisation. It has some common features with David Sylvian’s ‘Manofon’, but lacks that record’s steely self belief and sense of space. ‘Still’ takes those wonderful vocoder-altered vocals from Bon Iver’s ‘The Woods’ and adds instrumentation, but the effect of the new drones and sounds is sadly to cause unnecessary clutter and undermine the devastating impact of the original track.

‘Unmap’ is rounded off beautifully and contemplatively with ‘Youlogy’. The crass wordplay of the title doesn’t quite do justice its carefully crafted serenity. More so than the rest of the album, it hints at the common ground between Bon Iver and this project – and also demonstrates that the more systematic, collaborative approach can still yield emotionally rich results – without recourse to something as limiting as language.

Leaving The Nest?

The Hidden Cameras - Origin: Orphan (Arts and Crafts, 2009)

The Hidden Cameras remain a band close to my heart, even though they mostly make the kind of sugary indie-pop that I listen to sparingly these days. There’s still something very admirable in Joel Gibb’s way of fashioning nagging and infectious melodies from very conventional, limited and predictable musical building blocks. All too often, their songs deliver a great burst of joy that is impossible to resist.

That these songs have often come with subversive intent (Gibb’s candid lyrics deal not just with homosexuality and attendant desires – but with the physical mechanics of sexual activity) adds a defiance and triumphalism so often absent from a genre more concerned with nostalgia and whimsy. Gibb seems to have gained a reputation as a miserable interviewee, but when I interviewed him on the band’s first visit to the UK, I found him engaging and unflinching. He wasn’t in the slightest bit worried that anyone should be put off by the frankness of his songs – he was only interested in the open-minded.

‘Origin:Orphan’ is perhaps the first album where Gibb sounds a little confused over his identity. A number of the tracks hark back to the ‘gay folk church’ sound of ‘The Smell of Our Own’ but do so with arrangements that have been embellished even further. Elsewhere, Gibb branches out in rather different directions. Few could have expected a Hidden Cameras album to begin with a two minute drone, or for its title track to sound like a cross between Spiritualized and Depeche Mode.

Sometimes these experiments are done on a budget. Some reviews have compared ‘Do I Belong?’ or ‘Underage’ with ‘new wave techno’ (whatever that is – did techno have a ‘new wave’?). Actually, the former sounds about as cutting edge as Queen’s ‘I Want To Break Free’ played on a Bontempi organ and the latter sounds like ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ as performed by Tight Fit. How on earth does Gibb manage to make these simplistic, arguably tacky, undeniably dated performances so enervating and thrilling? Even though he’s at his most melancholy on the former (even to the extent of ‘sitting by the phone waiting for you to call’), there’s still a mischievousness and playfulness at the heart of these songs.

‘Origin:Orphan’ is often more audacious though. ‘In The NA’ retains Gibb’s trademark melodic sense, and is therefore recognisably a Hidden Cameras song – but it’s combination of synths and clattering percussion are a new addition. It then cascades into a chorus that is plucked straight from the REM songbook. The opening ‘Ratify The New’ is darker and more mysterious, with what sound like an Indian influence. ‘Origin Orphan’ is a rare detour into slower paced territory, with distorted guitars and programmed drums. Best of all is ‘Walk On’ which bolsters its essentially repetitive form with a colossal Spector-ish wall of sound. Gibb’s vocals are often heavily reverb-laden and double tracked which adds to the grandiose atmosphere. Another frequent characteristic is the extended outro – over which Gibb indulges his love of vocal ticks and yelps (often sounding more like a wolf or a dog than a human being), albeit with less irritating impact than has sometimes been the case in the past.

For the most part, Gibb follows the trend set by 2006’s ‘Awoo’ in keeping the lyrics more restrained and focusing more on emotions. The album ends with a song in this vein, and one of the group’s greatest to date, ‘Silence Can Be a Headline’, an epic ballad somewhere in between The Righteous Brothers, The Platters, REM’s ‘Everybody Hurts’ and Roy Orbison.

A couple of tracks see him returning to more provocative themes, not least the hilarious ‘Underage’ (‘let’s do it like we’re underage…’I’ll pretend you’re seven and you’ll pretend I’m eight’….’you have the most beautiful young thing I’ve ever seen’ – eek!). If the Daily Mail were to pick up on this, the band would gain a whole lot more publicity! ‘The Little Bit’ manages to throw every trick in Gibb’s book into one two minute slice of string and brass laden pomp-pop (‘a little bit of spittle and a little bit of blood’ – niiiice). All par for the course, but I’m beginning to prefer Gibb in more tender mode (‘Kingdom Come’ is particularly wonderful). Even after ‘Awoo’, it still remains

‘Origin: Orphan’ perhaps sees Gibb dipping a toe in the water – only partially leaving his roots. Whilst it is at times brave, it’s no radical departure from the honeyed melodic template. Its greatest strength, aside from the chamber pop arrangements, remains Gibb’s voice, which carries exactly the combination of pure clarity and dirty nasal whine that his lyrics demand – that always appealing mix of sacred and profane. The sequencing is inevitably a little haphazard and there are some moments, joyful as they are, where Gibb is clearly repeating earlier achievements (‘He Falls to Me’, ‘Colour of a Man’ – the latter is a sweet melody in search of another section or chorus). Yet, on balance, it’s further evidence of Gibb’s talents, and a firm suggestion that he is far from losing inspiration. There is much here to relish and enjoy.

In Praise of Progress

Sian Alice Group – Troubled, Shaken Etc (Social Registry, 2009)
HEALTH – Get Color (City Slang, 2009)
Tara Jane O’ Neil – A Ways Away (K, 2009)

Such is the heavy pressure to produce easily promoted, mind-blowing debuts these days, that it’s easy to let those acts that manage to develop slip under the radar. I admired ‘59’59”’, the debut album from Sian Alice Group, for its comfortable assimilation of various genres, for its attention to detail and for its hypnotic, repetitive moods. ‘Troubled, Shaken Etc’ really is a massive leap on from that record though. Here, the band return to some of the concerns they only fleetingly addressed on their debut, and explore them in greater depth, with far greater confidence.

It’s immediate from the opening ‘Love That Moves The Sun’ that Sian is allowing herself to stretch out a bit, her voice given a great deal more prominence. A lot of the lyrics remain indecipherable, but there’s a combination of assertion and melancholy that establishes her as a reedier, sleeker PJ Harvey. The song has some elements of a traditional song – arpeggiated guitar chords and a reverb-laden sound – but the unpredictable shape of the melody, playful textural variation and the informed looseness of the ensemble take it somewhere far less familiar. Something similar can be said for ‘Grow, Again, Repeat’, which starts out as a straightforwardly haunting ballad, before moving towards something more unsettling.

The album’s highlight is the shimmering, pulsating ‘Close To The Ground’, which unfolds lengthily over seven minutes, its motorik pulse underpinning a labyrinth of menace and sinister intent. The vibraphone introduction owes a considerable debt to Steve Reich, but the main body of the track has its own steely ebb and flow. It’s an enticing combination of grace and danger, austerity and charm.

Bizarrely, a review on Pitchfork accused Sian Alice Group of ‘avoiding rhythm’ on this album. Some of the tracks certainly have a gentle lilt, or a sense of freedom (the gorgeous closing ballad ‘Salt Water’ or some of the interludes), but then there’s the percussive drive of ‘Close To The Ground’ or the marvellous ‘Vanishing’, which is built on what is effectively a breakbeat. The all-too-brief ‘Longstrakt’ sound like the basis for a Kompakt-esque piece of minimal techno. Rhythm is certainly not absent from these tracks, and the result is that they provide a pleasing contrast with the group’s more aquatic moments. In fact, the use of sophisticated percussion arrangements strikes me as one of this album’s key characteristics.

‘Troubled, Shaken Etc’ is every bit as minimal, economical, cautious and restrained as its predecessor. Yet there’s a more concentrated focus on texture and effect here that adds a sense of tentative adventure. Skeletal templates are developed into haunting, elaborate mood pieces. The effect, particularly on the near-empty title track, is both disorientating and enchanting. This strikes me as a high achieving album, both challenging and enjoyable, and near-perfectly sequenced, which will no doubt go completely unnoticed by the increasingly conservative UK music press.

I can’t say the rather scattershot first album from HEALTH made much of an impression on me, but a firm recommendation of their second ‘Get Color’ (sic) from Three Trapped Tigers’ Tom Rogerson has to carry some weight. So, indeed, it transpires, on listening to this colossal combination of abrasive noise and soft, detached vocals. For all its sonic assaulting, this is also extremely artful music. Although it often explodes into brutality and savagery, it also seems carefully regimented and constructed. Rather than a series of random lurches, these tracks seem like plotted maps for difficult terrain. After a few listens, it becomes clear that we should expect the unexpected.

Importantly, on ‘Get Color’, the band has developed a distinctive and coherent sound, working independently without the use of a producer. Some of their wilful obscurities have been restrained and the template seems to work whether at its most furious and insistent (the double punch of ‘Severin’ and ‘Eat Flesh’) or on something approaching relative tenderness (‘In Violet’). Loud drums are a constant characteristic, and they serve both to anchor the music (with a regular quarter note kick drum pulse) and to stretch it (with elaborate rapid fills and phrasing).

Set against this are barrages of distorted synths and guitars, in carefully orchestrated bursts of noise, both visceral and energising. More important than all of this though are the weirdly androgynous vocals, heavily disguised and distant, but somehow still providing an element of warmth and feeling. It’s a strange, heady mix, but the results are subtly melodic on ‘Before Tigers’ or even arguably anthemic on the insistent, almost industrial clang of ‘Die Slow’. The album is just long enough to state its case and short enough to leave us wanting more.

Tara Jane O’Neil might best be categorised as a folk singer, but such commonplace terminology doesn’t really do justice to the strange and unnerving space her music occupies. This is actually her fifth album as a solo artist, but it’s the first time I’ve ventured into her weird and wonderful world, thanks largely to a positive and intriguing review over at Mapsadaisical.

The songs here are simple, often built on drones and unhurried chord changes, but the devil is most definitely in the details. O’Neil’s production is exquisite, from the layered harmonies on ‘In Tall Grass’ that add to the sense of awe and beauty, or the shaking bells on ‘Dig In’ providing an underlying sense of creepy unease (a consistent factor throughout the record). Perhaps most impressive of all is ‘Howl’, where a sense of personal vulnerability is allowed to seep in, its circular theme getting progressively more intense with each reiteration.

‘A Ways Away’ sounds like a coherent set of music rather than a gathering of isolated songs. It subverts our traditional expectations of singer-songwriters by capturing both a sense of worldly beauty and a sense of fear. This distinctive world is not something that could ever be described as twee. O’Neil realises it through her delicate balance between acoustic vulnerability and an odd kind of distance through fuzzy electric intervention.

By all accounts, this seems to be quite a development from earlier albums and it’s the sort of music that could easily reach a much wider audience in light of the success of Bon Iver. Sadly, the lack of mythical backstory probably means that few will pay attention. Also, there’s something significant in what O’Neil holds back. Whilst this is a frequently intimate and poignant album, it’s not a heart-on-sleeves backwoods confessional in the Bon Iver mould. It’s a good deal more mysterious and ghostly.

Soundbites Part 2

Apostle of Hustle – Eats Darkness (Arts and Crafts, 2009)

With the incorporation of ‘world’ rhythms into western alternative rock currently very much in vogue, it’s surprising that little has been written in the UK about Apostle of Hustle. The group is the individual project of Broken Social Scene guitarist Andrew Whiteman, and has so far proved comfortably the most fruitful and original of that group’s many offshoots.

‘Eats Darkness’ is their third album, but it began life as a more modest EP of studio experiments that Whiteman had intended to give away free to fans. Perhaps as a result of this, even at a concise 35 minutes, it’s a bit of a strange melting pot of ideas. The encircling dub textures of ‘Perfect Fit’ and the Afro-Cuban rhythms of ‘Easy Speaks’ are excellent examples of Whiteman’s jubilant assimilations.

Whiteman has claimed that it’s a loose concept album about conflict and struggle and it certainly begins provocatively. The short skit ‘Snakes’ that opens the album riffs on the hermaphroditic nature of snakes and their resulting untrustworthiness (‘how can you trust a b*tch that can literally go f*ck herself?!’). This sounds like an easy but effective satire on the posturing fanfares that tend to introduce hip-hop albums.

Yet elsewhere, Whiteman is more conciliatory. The ‘Lust for Life’-derived shuffle of ‘Xerxes’ and twangy guitars of ‘Soul Unwind’ seem more familiar indie-rock devices, although the latter’s rejection of conventional song structure (it’s more of a call and response chant than a song as such) still says much about Whiteman’s eccentricity.

‘Eats Darkness’ isn’t as successful as its excellent predecessor ‘National Anthem of Nowhere’ – too many of the ideas here are left only partially complete and even the best tracks don’t really push Whiteman away from terrain he’s already traversed more successfully before. Nevertheless, there’s much to enjoy here, not least Whiteman’s drive to add rhythmic invention and playfulness to his brand of alternative rock.

Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (Domino, 2009)

Whilst Wild Beasts’ debut album from last year (‘Limbo, Panto’) demonstrated much promise, its insistent quirks also left me somewhat overwhelmed, unsure of whether this was a group I admired or genuinely liked. The excellent ‘Two Dancers’ does much to address this ambiguity, tempering some of the band’s more aggressive traits without sacrificing their character or eccentricity.

Hayden Thorpe’s extravagant, theatrical falsetto is very much still present here, but it’s now less untamed and not always the most dominant stylistic feature. Wild Beasts have another vocal weapon in the form of Tom Fleming’s more lugubrious baritone. This is put to particularly splendid use on ‘All The King’s Men, where the contrast between the two voices is stark and effective.

More importantly, however, is the album’s consistent sound, texture and mood, foregrounding chiming guitar lines and percussion. It’s more lush, sensuous and exotic than its more relentless predecessor. The band certainly wear their influences proudly on their sleeves – Billy Mackenzie, Orange Juice, The Smiths and even, at times, the more otherworldly mysteries of The Cocteau Twins are obvious reference points. There’s also something distinctive here though – something tribal and forceful that jars with the deceptive prettiness of the guitar lines and makes sense when taken in conjunction with the group’s bizarre lyrical content.

Much of the album seems to be about bad behaviour, expressed in a language that is ribald and quaint, but which rolls off Thorpe’s tongue deliciously (‘with courage and conviction, in donkey-jaw diction, we cry for the cause’). If much of this is about drunken lads acting-up, the band are also determined aesthetes, and manage to make it all sound either camp or lurid. The intertwining of sexuality and violence is occasionally uncomfortable (‘this is a booty call – my boot up your asshole’) but otherwise rather ridiculous (‘his dancing cock, down by his knees’ or the hilarious chant of ‘girls astride me, girls beneath me..’).

The greater emphasis on sound and melody here makes all this either more palatable, or alternatively enhances the contrast between the thematic and the musical content. Whilst in the past it might have seemed a bit contrived for some tastes – it now seems that this is a group developing an individual and powerful identity. Whereas so many British bands seem to be dead after their over-hyped debuts, Wild Beasts are being given the space to develop and grow. Let’s hope this fine album helps them find a bigger audience for it.

Dinosaur Jr. – Farm (Jagjaguwar)

How bizarre that J Mascis has promised to replace initial pressings of this new Dinosaur Jr. album because they were mastered at ‘too loud’ a level. I slipped ‘Farm’ into my CD player and got a great swathe of dense guitar noise and pummelling drums in my headphones. Isn’t this how a Dinosaur Jr. album should sound?! Surely their greatest hits compilation was called ‘Ear Bleeding Country’ for a reason?! Suffice it to say, I haven’t bothered to exchange my copy of ‘Farm’ for the quieter model.

To put it frankly, the reformed Dinosaur Jr. are a good deal better than they have any right to be. As good as comeback album ‘Beyond’ was, ‘Farm’ is yet better still, a collection of songs as turbulent and infectious as any the group has produced in its long history. I reviewed ‘Beyond’ with some minor reservations, most important of which was the danger that the second period of Dinosaur Jr., which saw Mascis work in a duo with Mike Johnson, might be unfairly consigned to the dustbin of musical history, when it in fact produced some memorable work. ‘Farm’ is so good that this now seems completely inevitable.

Nothing here is unexpected of course but there are some bands for whom change is acceptable anathema. Even the slacker song titles are comfortingly familiar. ‘Over It’, ‘I Don’t Wanna Go There’, ‘There’s No Hope’ – surely Mascis has used these already? Also in place is the brutal fuzz distortion and the combination of Mascis’ laconic drawl with some fearsome guitar shredding. There are some of Mascis’ most memorable melodies in ‘Plans’ and ‘Over It’, two solid gold Dinosaur classics to rival ‘Freak Scene’ or ‘The Wagon’.

Perhaps most welcome here is the inclusion of two contributions from Lou Barlow, ‘Your Weather’ and ‘Imagination Blind’, both of which come close to scaling the invigorating heights of his most insistent songs for Sebadoh (‘Soul and Fire’, ‘The Beauty of the Ride’). If rumour is correct and Barlow and Mascis haven’t entirely buried the hatchet, they’ve at least developed a working method that’s a little closer to democracy. There’s an exuberance throughout that belies both the group’s advanced years and Mascis’ undeserved reputation for laziness (perhaps people confuse the laconic voice with the personality behind it). Ludicrous cover art though.

Magnolia Electric Co. – Josephine (Secretly Canadian, 2009)

There’s no doubt that Jason Molina needed to do something different. The alternation between spectral, mysterious solo albums and the trenchant, steadfast blues-rock of his band had begun to wear a little thin. The epic ‘Sojourner’ box set arguably revealed the band’s limitations as much as it did their formidable qualities. Mercifully, then, ‘Josephine’ is the most restrained and the least lumbering of all the albums under the MEC moniker. The thudding backbeats and Neil Young derived guitar solos seem mostly to have been abandoned in favour of a subtler, perhaps more conventional country-meets-chamber-pop sound.

Whilst much has understandably been made of the tragic death of bassist Evan Farrell and the melancholy tone of ‘Josephine’, I’m more struck by the comparative brightness of the album’s first half. Molina’s music has always been tinged with eeriness and sadness, but these songs seem sweeter, lighter and more immediate. The strident, chiming opener ‘O! Grace’ stood out as one of the highlights of the group’s live shows when touring the ‘Sojourner’ box set a couple of years ago. It stands out here together with the more wistful ‘Whip-Poor-Will’ – both tracks in their own ways bolstered by what might even be described as singalong choruses. Then there’s the sweet ‘Rock of Ages’, with its slight hint of doo-wop, or the sublime ballad ‘Shenandoah’.

Throughout, Molina’s voice sounds less vulnerable than in the past, and seems now to have assumed a quiet confidence. Even more striking though is the more developed instrumentation – with piano, organ and even cornets enriching the group’s sound. The drums are mostly brushed, with allows for a great deal more breathing space and feeling in the arrangements. Someone should have told Jason Evans Groth that his saxophone solo on ‘O! Grace’ was ill advised though. It comes perilously close to ruining the song. Still, it’s great to find Molina making more productive use of his musicians, and freeing up his affecting melodies a little more.

Somewhere mid-way through, things take a darker, more portentous turn. The drums get louder and the music somewhat more stormy and oppressive. It’s worth noting however that it’s never as leaden as the band can sometimes be in concert. As a result, the songs are slightly less comfortable to digest, although the guitar atmospherics on ‘Knoxville Girl’ are a particular highlight.

‘Josephine’ has been described as a song cycle. It’s therefore no surprise to find that the name appears more than in just the title track. Elsewhere though, it’s increasingly clear that Molina’s vocabulary is limited. ‘Horizons’ and ‘ghosts’ return a little too frequently as he resorts to imagery he’s already explored thoroughly elsewhere. Whilst the group’s musical language has certainly been refreshed here, there’s an increasing sense that Molina also needs a conceptual and poetic rejuvenation too. Still, it’s a haunting and evocative album that at last takes Molina’s journey to a new stage.

King Creosote – Flick The Vs (Domino, 2009)

This is much better. For a start, the harmonium is back. There’s no doubt that Kenny Anderson sounds so much more at home back on Domino, once more a self-governing entity. King Creosote’s songs always seemed so much more quirky and deft than the unsubtle, lumbering treatments on ‘Bombshell’ and parts of ‘KC Rules OK’ allowed. Those two albums on 679 tried to model him, mostly unsuccessfully, into something approaching a conventional singer-songwriter.

Here there are some big melodies and chugging playing that seem like hangovers from the 679 period, but they are tempered by a renewed focus on Anderson’s gorgeous conversational voice (one that thankfully makes no attempt to hide the warmth of his Scottish accent), some playful excursions into bedroom electronica and a proud and idiosyncratic sense of isolation.

It’s probably a bit ironic that the song that sums all this up best is ‘Coast On By’, by far the album’s poppiest track. Lyrically, it details Anderson’s rejection of ambition and potential recognition in favour of ‘coasting on by’, with ‘this music thing’ being the only activity for which he’ll consider leaving Fife, and one that also serves to calm him down. It’s charmingly colloquial.

There’s a much greater hit-to-miss ratio here than we’ve seen on KC albums for some time. ‘Nothing Rings True’ is gorgeous and deceptively simple, ‘Camels Swapped For Wives’ is heartbreaking and ‘Fell an Ox’, initially impenetrable, reveals its mysterious grandeur after a few listens. Throughout, there are quirks and tricks that are completely characteristic of Anderson – the kind of endearing novelties that were unfortunately excised from ‘KC Rules OK’ and ‘Bombshell’. There’s the peculiar brass stabs on the otherwise delicate waltz of ‘Curtain Craft’, or the ska saxophone on the brilliant ‘No Way She Exists’ for example.

Perhaps best of all is the blistering ‘Rims’ which manages to combine uniquely drab and dispiriting lyrics (a repeated chant of ‘I am the worst’) with music that begins as a country hoedown before morphing into something close to a dance track. It’s both baffling and irresistible. It appears that Anderson is well on the way back to his deserved position as one of the great contemporary eccentrics.

The Gossip – Music For Men (Sony, 2009)

I’m not one of those people who resent bands when they achieve commercial success. Nevertheless, one has to admit it’s a jarring irony to find a woman who often ranted vehemently against the evils of the music industry now happily signed to that well known DIY independent Sony and thoroughly established as a magazine celebrity.

‘Music For Men’ is unsurprisingly a step further into the mainstream for Beth Ditto’s band, slickly produced by Rick Rubin and aiming to prove that ‘Standing In The Way of Control’ was no fluke. Of course, those of us who enjoyed much of The Gossip’s previous albums know that already, and hardly need convincing. ‘Music For Men’ comes across as a bit of a self-conscious mixed bag – with some audacious steps at diversification mingling with straight-up rewrites of former glories.

In the latter camp, there’s slow bass and drums trudge ‘Dimestore Diamond’ and the single ‘Heavy Cross’, which sounds like a slicker version of ‘Standing in the Way of Control’. By way of contrast, ‘Pop Goes The World’ and ‘Men In Love’ are energetic and entertaining forays into classic club territory, foregrounding synths and percussion over guitars. For all her former zeal in rejecting commercial imperatives, Ditto sounds completely at home in this environment. It’s highly accessible but also highly charged. Unfortunately, they go one step too far with ‘Love Long Distance’ though – its slabs of Italian house piano start to grate very quickly.

Rick Rubin seems to have been acclaimed for his treatment of Beth Ditto’s voice on ‘Music For Men’, but I’m not sure I can join the chorus of approval here. What was once a guttural, bluesy, soulful howl seems now to have been rendered a slightly nasal whine which frequently becomes irritating, especially when delivering some of her more clunky lyrics. This adds to the sense that ‘Music For Men’, whilst having much to recommend it, is a little tentative and inconsistent.

Hitting The Spot Like Gatorade

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca (Domino, 2009)

‘Bitte Orca’ would appear to be Dirty Projectors’ breakthrough album – the one that somehow makes sense to critics alienated by the conceptual quirks of ‘Rise Above’ or ‘The Getty Address’. Those who, like me, fell in love with ‘Rise Above’ and its audacious reimagining of hardcore punk as meticulous and virtuosic composition might initially find it hard to locate precisely what is so singular about ‘Bitte Orca’. On first listen, it seems like a beefier, heavier take on the group’s bizarre mix of math-rock and African soukous and hi-life rhythms. It’s every bit as planned and cerebral as ‘Rise Above’, but with some concessions to commercial production techniques that threaten to make it less visceral and exciting.

Thankfully, repeated listens reveal ‘Bitte Orca’ to be yet another example of David Longstreth’s peculiar genius. It seems like more of a collective enterprise this time – with Longstreth’s female collaborators Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian allowed a more individual and imposing presence. This time, Longstreth has added a sincere affection for poptastic R&B and chamber folk music into his already overflowing melting pot. How it all coheres is a total mystery. Somehow, ‘Bitte Orca’ doesn’t simply sound like a grab-bag of musical influences but rather a carefully arranged and highly original synthesis. References to Talking Heads are understandable (especially given Longstreth’s tendency for vocal yelps and acrobatics), but that band rarely sounded as aggressive as Dirty Projectors do on ‘Cannibal Resource’ or as tender as ‘Two Doves’. Essentially, there is no other rock band at work now covering this range or making music as simultaneously adventurous and entertaining.

Longstreth’s cerebral approach (it’s no surprise to discover he studied composition at Yale) can be off-putting for those who prefer rock music to be more instinctive and less studied. My response to this has been to emphasise the sheer thrill of this group’s sound – the unexpected jerks and rhythmic shifts, the sudden explosions amidst otherwise pretty surroundings, the unpredictable ebb and flow of Longstreth’s daredevil melodies. It also strikes me that the idea that collective improvisation or the basic energy of four square rock have somehow superseded the art of composing is a rather offensive and pretentious notion. Any understanding of music’s value and impact has to recognise that are a wealth of different means to achieving an emotional reaction. Many of this album’s most exciting moments occur as a result of Longstreth’s ambitious arrangements. The vocal breakdown on ‘Remade Horizon’, which the group do indeed replicate in concert, is particularly staggering.

Sometimes it appears as if the African influence on Longstreth’s writing and guitar playing has diminished here. Arguably, it’s more plausible that it has been better subsumed within the group’s overall sound. For example, ‘Remade Horizon’ veers joyously between a lush folk strum and a 12/8 afro groove. The guitar lines throughout the album proudly display these influences, even when the rhythms suggest more common western idioms.

Beneath the hard-hitting punctuation of Brian McComber’s precise drumming ( which at times hints a little too much at the famous Dave Fridmann thunderous drum sound), there is a nuance, subtlety and care to much of this music. Sometimes this is deceptive – amidst its sweet string arrangement and tender vocal, ‘Two Doves’ contains some crushing lyrics. After listing some inspiring images, Angel Deradoorian confesses ‘our bed is like a failure’. ‘The Bride’ is at least partially melancholic and reflective, whilst the closing ‘Flourescent Half Dome’ could almost be described as a ballad. ‘Temecula Sunrise’ is a peculiar mix of delicate, intricate plucking and noisy outbursts of joy.

‘Stillness Is The Move’ has been the main talking point here, for obvious reasons, as it seems like a move into soulful slow jam territory. Amber Coffman’s vocal might be flighty at times, but it also makes for the most accessible piece of music Longstreth has yet produced, albeit one which is impressively artful in its construction. Much of its success comes from the juxtaposition of the vocal melody with Longstreth’s looped, confounding guitar figure. Even better though is the extraordinary ‘Useful Chamber’, which begins in a delicately vocodered electronic haze before travelling off in several different directions, its most aggressive section giving the album its title.

There can be little doubt now that Longstreth is a massive talent. Whilst he’s kept the same formation that toured Rise Above, he’s cleverly avoided simply remaking that record with original lyrics. Whilst he is undoubtedly both playful and confounding, it’s also clear from ‘Bitte Orca’ that his passion for a broad range of music is entirely sincere. The interplay between the various voices is a delight, whilst the rigorous control of the entire ensemble is unmatched elsewhere in alternative rock. This is as complete a record as we could have wished for, this time without any endearingly conceptual peg. The astounding music speaks entirely for itself.

Baroque N' Roll

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest (Warp, 2009)

Having studiously ignored the leak of Grizzly Bear’s latest magnum opus that set the internet alight some months ago, I may now look like the slowest writer in the blogosphere. But, as the tortoise said to the hare, sometimes slow and steady wins the race. I would always prefer to voice a considered opinion over one influenced by hyperbole and feverish excitement. Rest assured that ‘Veckatimest’ is a major statement, although there are transparent reasons why it hasn’t generated quite the same critical elation here in the UK as, say, Animal Collective’s ‘Merriweather Post Pavillion’.

‘Two Weeks’ and ‘Cheerleader’, the two tracks offered as official tasters, prove in some ways to be red herrings. The former is an immediate and appealing slice of ornate chamber pop, with a lush, blissful vocal arrangement. The latter is a lithe, almost funky light rock groove in which everything (even the choir) is delivered with delicacy and restraint. They both benefit from some imaginative musicianship. ‘Two Weeks’ pits some carefully voiced drumming against an insistent keyboard stomp. Whilst these pieces are both intricately arranged, they give little hint of the hyper-composed, rigorously organised nature of the rest of ‘Veckatimest’. It’s a consistently absorbing listen, but absorbing mainly in the sense that it demands complete and uncompromised attention.

Clearly, in these times of attention deficiency and choice saturation, this is no bad thing. One major criterion for a work that might stand the test of time is that it should provide more than just an instant thrill. Grizzly Bear are not looking for the rapidly fading pleasures of a casual fling – they’re after the long term relationship. The band’s preoccupations on ‘Veckatimest’ seem to be focused as much on sound and timbre as they are on pop’s traditional domains of melody and harmony.

Another reason that this album hasn’t quite met with the universal acclaim bloggers predicted is that its sound is not altogether that fashionable or modish. Whilst it is ornate, it is never grandiose or anthemic. The employment of arranger du jour Nico Muhly hasn’t resulted in the band pressing any of the obvious buttons to lift the hairs on the back of the neck. Both Muhly and the band themselves are more sophisticated musicians. A lot of ‘Veckatimest’ is more cerebral and whilst Grizzly Bear have sounded mysterious and meandering in the past, parts of ‘Veckatimest’ seem surprisingly dark and foreboding. I’m reminded particularly of Hans Christian Andersen fairytales when listening to this.

The musical comparisons that most strike me are ones that would not so long ago have ensured a band was in for a critical mauling. I can’t help thinking of the surreal and highly composed worlds of 1970s music – King Crimson and Van De Graf Generator particularly spring to mind. This sophisticated approach to writing for a rock ensemble seems to be increasingly prominent once again. Grizzly Bear’s closest contemporary relations might well be Dirty Projectors, but there’s an immediate visceral impact to Dave Longstreth’s meticulously planned constructions that is mostly absent here. This music is more nebulous – its emotional core often concealed behind a studied veneer and customarily oblique lyrics.

Put in the effort though, and ‘Veckatimest’ is a coherent work of hazy, melancholy beauty. Its mostly gentle, bucolic arrangements recall the jazz-folk crossovers of John Martyn or Terry Callier, but its occasional explosions of aggression are unexpected, puncturing the calm atmosphere without remorse. The consistent use of close harmony singing explains the public approval from Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, even if in this context they seem closer to doo wop groups than to Crosby, Stills and Nash. Grizzly Bear also seem less interested in arcane magic realist concerns. For all these reference points, they still seem like a fearlessly contemporary band.

These are not verse-chorus-verse pop songs (and how refreshing that they are not), but they are still informed by a powerful melodic sensibility. It’s perhaps for this reason that I find myself recalling some of the striking sub-sections of songs, rather than the complete songs themselves. There are repeated vocal chants at the end of ‘All We Ask’ and at the centre of ‘Cheerleader’ that substitute for recognisable choruses and are notable for their warmth and inclusiveness. After several listens, some of the album’s more wistful moments become less abstruse. The delightful jazzy flutter of the opening ‘Southern Point’ is particularly charming.

Another important element of this music is the contrast between its peculiar, mysterious gentleness and its moments of abrasive attack. Sometimes the two come together. ‘Hold Still’ is brief but beautiful, all dreamy strummed guitars, but pierced by some Marc Ribot-esque guitar lines that render it disarmingly sinister. The various impulses directing this music coalesce majestically towards the album’s conclusion, with the astonishing ‘I Live With You’, which manages to combine bombast with tenderness and empathy with anger.

‘Veckatimest’ sounds like a labour of love and care, preoccupied as it is with musical colour, texture and mood. There are few modern rock bands who could craft something this precise whilst also imbuing it with feeling. ‘Veckatimest’ is made all the more complex by its alternating senses of joy and sadness. It requires some work, but it is not impermeable – it gradually reveals its discreet strengths and considerable charms. There will not be many better records released this year.

The Hazards Of Prog

The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love (Rough Trade, 2009)

I know I’m not exactly hot off the press on this one, but I’ve been pondering exactly what to say about this perhaps intentionally ridiculous record. I’ve been a longstanding evangelist for The Decemberists’ anglophile folk-rock and I enjoy Colin Meloy’s literate, narrative take on songwriting. Their last record, ‘The Crane Wife’ was majestic – an ambitious juxtaposition of interconnected song suite and more digestible pop nuggets. Perhaps inevitably, ‘The Hazards of Love’ takes the concept suite format and runs with it, producing something that we might fairly term a ‘rock opera’. One of my major reservations about this record is that the seamless longform folktale seems like too obvious a step for the group, a potential pitfall that they might have more fruitfully avoided. The other niggle, this one perhaps fairer and more significant, is that the group have already done this a good deal better on their excellent musical setting of ‘The Tain’.

Over a longer distance, ‘The Hazards of Love’ doesn’t just tiptoe into excess, it takes a running jump at it. There are thematic connections explored in both lyrics and music – so melodies and sequences already familiar reappear at later junctures. There are guest vocalists (from Lavender Diamond and My Brightest Diamond – does Meloy have a thing for diamonds?) to enable all the characters to be voiced. There are unexpected interjections of violent prog-metal. A small chunk of this record sounds suspiciously like Queen circa ‘A Night At The Opera’, not by any means the most fashionable of influences. Most worryingly of all, there’s a sodding childrens’ choir. Some of it actually works terrifically and many of the individual tracks are really rather good. The complete whole, without so much as a pause for breath, is difficult to digest though and some sections of it are deeply irritating.

In the first instance, it requires a generous spoonful of tolerance to enjoy this rather whimsical nightmare fairytale about Margaret, a woman impregnated by a shape-shifting fawn. Naturally, a rake and a Queen also get involved. Luckily, Meloy’s typically verbose and colourful lyrics help the whole project to be, on balance, more entertaining than alienating. Still, it takes a lot of work on behalf of the listener to digest the music at the same time as following the rather waifer-thin plot. The presence of the guest vocalists is actually a real blessing, as it helps to create contrast amidst the mounting tension and otherwise relentless extravagance.

In some ways, ‘The Hazards of Love’ seems to have something of a split personality. With the influence of Queen, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin never far away, much of it (‘Won’t Want For Love’, ‘Repaid’, the occasional interruptions in ‘The Abduction of Margaret’, ‘The Queen’s Rebuke’) is sludgy, old-fashioned hair rock. By way of contrast, some of the more immediate moments are very much of the moment and somewhat conventional. ‘The Wanting Comes In The Waves’ has a section that rather too closely resembles Arcade Fire. The punishing chug of ‘The Rake’s Song’ could come from any contemporary indie band, although it’s rendered interesting by the palpable savagery in Meloy’s snarly vocal, in character as ‘The Rake’. This is all before we even mention the occasionally tendency towards baroque chamber pop. The oom-pah waltz recasting of the title theme delivered by child’s choir is far too much for me and has so far made me lurch for the skip button every time.

Whilst there’s something rather refreshing in both the retro-rock and harpsichord excursions, they risk the trappings of irony and detachment and, as a result, don’t really move me. It’s very theatrical but not always all that dramatic. The group really prove their mettle on two outstanding songs here which also happen to be the most direct. ‘Annan Water’ alternates between a rolling and tumbling folk strum and a disarmingly beautiful chorus stripped back to just vocals and Hammond organ. The closing final piece in the ‘Hazards of Love’ jigsaw could almost be described as a soft rock ballad – but it’s performed tastefully and is sweetened by one of Colin Meloy’s most delicate and appealing melodies.

With all its transparent indulgences, ‘The Hazards of Love’ sometimes seems to be trying hard to induce a reaction in its listeners. The Decemberists are too good a band for that though and, try as I might, I can’t quite dislike this preposterous record. Meloy’s love for the English folk rock tradition is clear and not even the liberal peppering of harder edged heavy rock can disguise this. After all, it’s not as if we would ever come to a Decemberists album expecting something contemporary and fashionable.

Solo Pornography

AC Newman – Get Guilty (Matador, 2009)
Neko Case – Middle Cyclone (Anti, 2009)

This week two solo albums arrive from members of the infectious, zany power-pop supergroup New Pornographers. Whilst Neko Case has, over several albums now, established her own signature style, informed by backwoods country, Byrdsian twang and classic pop, AC Newman’s solo career has struggled to exist as a proposition distinct from his parent band. Newman writes the majority of the songs for New Pornographers, and their best albums arguably succeed because Dan Bejar’s excursions into weird, fantastical stream-of-consciousness provide some balance to Newman’s relentless pop sensibility. A whole album of Newman confections might well be difficult to digest.

‘Get Guilty’ is a big improvement on ‘The Slow Wonder’. That album had been frontloaded with excellent songs only to veer off into more obtuse, meandering territory. Whilst not quite as consistent as the best of the New Pornographers albums, ‘Get Guilty’ maintains a more engaging standard throughout. It succeeds partly through being more ramshackle and less overblown than the last New Pornographers outing, the disappointing ‘Challengers’. There’s a big emphasis on rhythmic clatter and percussive drive, most effectively on ‘Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer’. Whilst the arrangements are frequently lush, there’s a roughness around the edges that lends the music some endearing imperfections. In addition to this, there are unusual choices of instruments, including recorders and melodicas. It feels loose and fun, rather than over-composed.

The pomp-pop of ‘Challengers’ is refined into a more agreeable proposition on two tracks - the Spector-ish opener ‘There Are Maybe Ten Or Twelve’ and ‘The Changeling’, which seems to recast Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ as a drunken lurch. Both are bold, chiming, confident performances. On a second play, I wonder whether a better comparison might even be the lavish, irresistible early pop singles of the Bee Gees, minus the squeaky falsettos of course.

Elswhere, as might be expected, Newman’s predilection for relentlessly summery melodies presides. The first four tracks represent Newman at his strongest – combining this tendency with a slightly ragged musical delivery and an abundance of rhythmic quirks and tricks. ‘Too Many Prophets’ and ‘The Heartbreak Rides’ are among his most direct songs, where his tendency for lyrical verbosity and awkwardness doesn’t intrude too much on the overall performance. It would be easy to view Newman’s chirpy enthusiasm as irritating – but there’s also something undeniably delightful about their impact. Even the more translucent songs that constitute the final third of the record have a steely conviction and confidence.

Neko Case’s songs on ‘Middle Cyclone’ are less openly enthusiastic and insistent than Newman’s but, I suspect, ultimately more enduring. Here, she has refined and polished her sound without losing her idiosyncratic qualities as a songwriter. The BBC website describes ‘Middle Cyclone’ as a set of simple country songs but I can’t help feeling that underestes its achievement and misunderstands Case’s strategy. 2002’s ‘Blacklisted’ was something of a pivotal point in her career, the point at which she abandoned ‘Her Boyfriends’, took songwriting control and started to develop a stranger, reverb-laden sound evocative of fairytales and sinister menace. It was the perfect context for her unusual, sometimes creepy metaphors. Whilst ‘Middle Cyclone’ certainly presents a smoother, more approachable version of this sound, Case still inhabits her own unique space and in some ways it represents an expansion of her language.

‘People Got A Lotta Nerve’, the taster freely distributed around the internet, is in some ways quite misleading. Its twelve string guitar jangle and hummable chorus suggest an immediacy and directness not always in evidence elsewhere. Some of these songs are more complex creations. Indeed, sometimes when the surface appearance of a song is disarmingly simple, closer listening reveals that there’s much more than first meets the ear.

This is particularly true of the delightful title track. Its delicate strum and hushed, restrained vocal make it sound remarkably straightforward. The music box counter melody almost (but not quite) sends it into the realm of tweeness. Close listening, however, reveals an odd structure veering between bars of 5 and 6 in an unpredictable pattern. It’s a love song of sorts, or at least about the difficulty in accepting the need for love. The lyrics are both clever and achingly bittersweet. It’s a quiet gem and one of a handful of songs here to deal more directly with the feeling of falling in love.

There’s still a characteristic helping of magical realism though and Case’s preoccupation with the animal kingdom continues apace, now further enhanced by broader nature metaphors, as the title suggests. On the opening ‘This Tornado Loves You’, Case casts herself as a force of nature, wanting to ‘carve your name across three counties’. It’s one of many striking images liberally scattered throughout this album – another favourite is the key line from ‘Prison Girls’ – ‘I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes’.

For every crisp and immediate song here (the driving rock of ‘I’m an Animal’ is probably the closest thing here to something New Pornographers might produce), there is something distinctly odd. ‘Fever’ is full of weird and wonderful sounds, from the clicking sound of drum rims to discomforting guitar effects. Some of these tracks were recorded in Case’s rural barn, in which she utilised eight upright pianos.

‘Polar Nettles’ and ‘Vengeance is Sleeping’ both benefit from that underlying sense of barbarous threat that makes even her softest, most skeletal songs sound unusual. The longer ‘Prison Girls’ and ‘The Pharoahs’ essentially restate Case’s talent for narrative driven songs set to lilting shuffles. Neither perhaps breaks new ground for her (the former sounds like a slower version of ‘Deep Red Bells’) but both serve to emphasise her core talents with effortless ease.

The two judiciously selected cover versions also remind us how superb an interpreter Neko Case is. Her version of Sparks’ ‘Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth’, surgically removing any sense of playful irony or parody associated with the original band, is so good as to make me wonder whether all albums should be compelled to include a Sparks cover. Nilsson’s anguished, but also blackly humorous ‘Don’t Forget Me’ seems like a more obvious choice, but that shouldn’t take anything away from her thoughtful and composed delivery.

‘Middle Cyclone’ is a resplendent album that rewards more and more with every play. From the unashamed brutality of a line like ‘the next time you say forever, I will punch you in the face’ to the confessional tenderness of its title track, it contains a wealth of personal emotional directness not heard on its immediate predecessors. Yet it sacrifices little in its quest for broader appeal – this is still a strange, murky, half-fantastical world. My only reservation is the bonus track – a whopping 31 minutes of ambient sound from the pond at the aforementioned barn that is almost as long as the rest of the album. Sorry, but that’s just an unnecessarily large and wasteful file that almost undercuts the haunting beauty of everything that has gone before.

Joining The Dots

Various Artists - Dark Was The Night (Red Hot Organisation/4AD, 2009)

As the very endearing character JJ from Skins might put it – ‘oh my giddy, giddy aunt!’ ‘Dark Was The Night’ is a charity compilation curated by Aaron and Bryce Dessner from The National for the Red Hot AIDS awareness organisation. As someone who has contributed music to a charity album myself, I strongly support Red Hot’s contention that music can be a positive force for social change. Quite how much awareness a group of North American artists can raise in the areas where it’s most needed is probably a moot point but the project is undoubtedly a worthy one. It’s a rare charity undertaking where quality is in the ascendancy rather than vanity. Having quite this much excellent music spread across two discs is in itself really rather wonderful.

It features a whole host of inspired artists demonstrating that North American music is currently in remarkably vibrant health. The Dessners are clearly very well connected – but attempts to assert this as some kind of scene seem a little far-fetched. You could make the case for the thriving Brooklyn groups and there’s the predictable host of Canadian artists too. Inevitably, composer and string arranger du jour Nico Muhly also makes a contribution. Quite where Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch, Buck 65 and the Kronos Quartet fit into this spectrum is anyone’s guess but the set coheres surprisingly well.

The compilation has no concept as such, beyond showcasing independent artists refashioning traditional themes in a contemporary way. Mercifully, this rubric doesn’t preclude original compositions, although almost everything here borrows something from the great American folk tradition. The first disc is presented as the darker of the two discs, inspired by Blind Willie Johnson’s piece that gives the project its title and which the Kronos Quartet present in a decidedly avuncular manner. Some of the contributions to this disc are indeed quite theatrical and morose. The second disc is supposedly lighter and brighter, although it certainly has its fair share of quietly affecting moments.

The set opens with some dream collaborations. First of all, David Byrne teams up with the marvellous Dirty Projectors. ‘Knotty Pine’ actually turns out to be a good deal more conventional than might be expected, but its syncopated rhythms are in keeping with Dave Longstreth’s lurching, confusing style of composition. Its chorus could almost be described as infectious – one wonders if this is the influence of Byrne’s melodic maturity, or whether it hints at a poppier direction for Longstreth’s forthcoming albums. The Books work with Jose Gonzalez on an electronic version of Nick Drake’s ‘Cello Song’ that sounds exactly as you’d hear it in your dreams. Perhaps the best of these meeting of minds is Feist duetting with Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard on a lovely version of Vashti Bunyan’s ‘Train Song’, which is thoroughly Americanised with a surprising infusion of the blues.

Other specially commissioned collaborations later in the disc include Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) which somehow manages to combine the bourbon-soaked wistfulness of The National with Vernon’s appetising introspection. Those clamouring for Antony Hegarty to find a new context for his over-exposed voice need look no further than his beguiling version of Dylan’s ‘I Was Young When I Left Home’, accompanied by the feathery pluckings of Bryce Dessner. Perhaps its overkill to have Feist crop up again, but the exquisite and mysterious backdrop provided for her by Grizzly Bear (whose new album I am eagerly anticipating) on ‘Service Bell’ works perfectly.

There are original compositions from Bon Iver (‘Brackett, WI’ is a dirtier, more rhythmically driven take on his majestic choral wonders) and Yeasayer. The latter are on solid form, with ‘Tightrope’ as percussive, intricate and fascinating as anything on ‘All Hour Cymbals’. It is, however, perhaps the hardest track to reconcile with the folk tradition that informs the collection as a whole. As with most of the group’s music, it draws on a diverse and unpredictable array of unfashionable influences.

Perhaps the most striking contrast on the album is established by the juxtaposition of The Decemberists’ ‘Sleepless’, one of their more extravagant ballads, with ‘Die’, a contribution from Iron and Wine so brief it would be easy to skip past it altogether. Sam Beam’s voice sounds bolder and more forthright than usual here and the song is so stark and simple as to lack his usual lyrical flights of fancy. It’s an interesting diversion for a talented writer.

My Brightest Diamond’s interpretation of ‘Feeling Good’ (originally from ‘Roar of the Greasepaint’ but arguably most closely associated with Nina Simone) is mercifully a good deal more subtle than Muse’s ghastly demolition of it. In fact, it’s a rather haunting and memorable deconstruction of a song usually delivered much more emphatically.

The track most likely to catch people’s attention (and divide opinion) is Sufjan Stevens’ uncharacteristically overcooked ten minute rendering of The Castanets’ ‘You Are The Blood’. It’s particularly interesting for reintroducing Stevens’ electronic preoccupations, something not heard since his bizarre ‘Enjoy Your Rabbit’ album. This acts as the album’s grand centrepiece, reappearing as it does in radically reimagined form in the second disc by hip hop artist Buck 65. Stevens has clearly gone to more effort than most here – there’s seemingly nothing he hasn’t thrown into this precocious melting pot. It has an elaborate brass section, immediately followed by a classical piano cadenza (is this played by Stevens himself?). You can’t fault him for ambition but, to my mind, it’s a strangely self-conscious addition to his impressive output.

The second disc is never quite as wilfully unpredictable, but it has many pleasures. Arcade Fire contribute ‘Lenin’, a reduced budget version of their orchestrated chugging which has the benefit of sounding as if it would be more at home on ‘Funeral’ than on ‘Neon Bible’. Similarly, Zach Condon delivers an accordion and brass band offcut that could have sat quite comfortably on ‘The Flying Club Cup’. There’s nothing in any way revelatory about either, and they feel more at home as part of their artists’ already established catalogues than on this compilation, but both are dependably enjoyable.

The second disc contains two solid gold gems. My Morning Jacket’s ‘El Caporal’, recorded back in 2007 before the unfortunate ‘Evil Urges’, proves where their more fertile and comfortable ground lies. This is a swaying country-tinged saloon-bar ballad, with some strange lyrics (‘I just hope, love, that my kisses will linger/On your sweet, confused captain’s face’) and a swooning, lovely vocal from Jim James. It teeters on the brink of schmaltz but stays the right side throughout. It’s perhaps most closely related to James’ sterling version of Bob Dylan’s ‘Goin’ To Acapulco’ from the ‘I’m Not There’ soundtrack.

The second gem sees violinist and troubadour Andrew Bird taking on one of my favourite songs of all time, The Handsome Family’s ‘The Giant of Illinois’. It can’t be coincidence that my favourite Bird tracks are both Handsome Family covers, and this is every bit as flavoursome as his magisterial version of ‘Don’t Be Scared’. His skill is to reshape the melody completely, without losing the power and melancholy of the original. It remains a sweet fable in his capable hands and his music is much more palatable when divorced from his self-conscious, ultimately rather meaningless lyrics. Rennie Sparks is mercifully a much more direct, generous and insightful storyteller, and her words fit perfectly on this project.

Of the rest, New Pornographers offer up ‘Hey, Snow White’, a Dan Bejar song that is oddly more in keeping with Carl Newman’s ornate pop songcraft than with his usual verbose streams of consciousness. Stuart Murdoch reworks ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ into a contemporary folk song of his own, whilst Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings’ faithful but groovy rendering of Shuggie Otis’ superb ‘Inspiration Information’ sticks out here like a sore thumb, albeit in a good way. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings team up with Coner Oberst for a version of the latter’s ‘Lua’. Oddly, I find myself preferring the original in spite of all my reservations about Oberst and his histrionics. It seemed more brutally honest and intimate than this more straightforward and restrained version, although if this is a sign that Welch and Rawlings are finally springing back into action that would be most welcome indeed. Is it inappropriate or all-too-appropriate that an AIDS awareness project should end with Kevin Drew’s surprisingly wistful ‘Love vs. Porn’?

‘Dark Was The Night’ is an intelligently compiled selection of riches, from a wide variety of excellent artists. Bryce and Aaron Dessner’s sterling work here may well direct me to see The National in a different light, as they clearly have a thorough understanding of American musical tradition as well as being well connected with its contemporary flourishing. Comparisons will inevitably be made with ‘No Alternative’ that other great Red Hot compilation that featured the likes of Nirvana and Sonic Youth. Many of those bands had already become iconic. With the exception of Arcade Fire, there’s nobody here with that kind of devoted following and subsequent influence. Yet what ‘Dark Was The Night’ amply demonstrates is that the various pockets of brilliance in modern American music can combine to create something noble and meaningful. Could Britain have produced something this impressive? Who might have organised it?

Macroreverie

Deerhunter - Microcastle (Kranky, 2008)

A good friend has been raving about Deerhunter at me for some time. Their 2007 album ‘Cryptograms’ struck me as interesting but a little cold and self-absorbed. With ‘Microcastle’, an album much-hyped following a pre-release internet leak and swift appearance on iTunes, I think I suddenly get it. Maybe it’s that I’ve been enchanted by Deerhunter mainman Bradford Cox’s romantic sheets-of-noise side project Atlas Sound and that the demarcation between the two projects seems increasingly permeable. Or perhaps it’s simply that there’s a greater spectrum of ideas and influences at work on ‘Microcastle’ – right down to the incorporation of a stronger sense of melody and harmony, much of it assimilated from 50s and 60s pop.

The impact of Deerhunter’s music has in the past been mainly visceral. On ‘Microcastle’, Cox has tempered that brutal force with something more emotional.
The mostly fuzzy guitars hint at The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and a wealth of British shoegazers, but it’s both more musical and more engaged than such comparisons suggest. There are moments of deceptive prettiness such as ‘Agoraphobia’ that mask the desperation or frustration that sometimes haunt Cox’s monosyllabic lyrics. Also, Cox frequently lends his melodies an unexpected twist of melancholy that transports his music far away from anything twee.

Similarly, there’s no sense of redundant or empty celebration here, and it’s clear that whilst music is a labour of love for Cox, it’s also a form of catharsis. The combination of healing and infectious enthusiasm is what imbues ‘Microcastle’ with a distinctive musical personality and a crossover appeal. The gradual swells of ‘Little Kids’ and ‘Neverstops’ transform songs of brief duration into expansive epics, whilst the sheer momentum and energy of ‘Nothing Ever Happened’ renders it irresistible. There’s every sense that this music could reach the Arcade Fire contingent – it’s the sort of combination of vulnerability, anger and impressionism that inspires devotion. Plus the gangly, ungainly Cox hardly looks any weirder than Win Butler and his not-so-merry band.

Sometimes the power of the music is based largely on pitting repeated phrases against increasing layers of sound. This technique works brilliantly on the near-euphoric coda to ‘Little Kids’, and the effect is made even more potent by its juxtaposition with the stark, almost naked sounding introduction to the title track. Cox manages to make a virtue of the inherent limitations of his voice – it’s weak, but he frequently makes it sound awestruck and overpowered by its environment rather than useless. The effect is then repeated in reverse when ‘Microcastle’ bursts into a joyous heat-haze. The sequencing may well be as significant as the production and writing on this album – it’s certainly difficult to hear it without the grandiose ‘Twilight at Carbon Lake’ rounding things off.

There’s a surreal, magical and romantic mood to the three brief pieces that make up the centre of the album. ‘Calvary Scars’ and ‘Green Jacket’ are melancholy and touching, whilst ‘Activa’ is deeply odd, the overall effect of the three combined being somewhat discomforting. With the latter, it’s a result of what is held back as much as what is stated – unusual sounds are left lingering and there’s a wealth of space in the music. Much of the success of ‘Microcastle’ stems from Cox’s admirable concision – no idea ever outstays its welcome here.

Sometimes there’s a sense that Cox might merely be luxuriating in his record collection – for example, the motorik ending of ‘Nothing Ever Happened’ that echoes Neu! or Joy Division or the Spector-ish pop influences with which he liberally peppers the rest of the album. Yet ‘Nothing Ever Happened’ is so much more satisfying a refashioning of Krautrock than anything Primal Scream have recently served up, and the influences always seem to be serviced towards a broader, overarching vision. Cox may describe ‘Twilight at Carbon Lake’ as ‘doo-wop’ – but it’s a particularly warped, outsider’s take on the form.

Live at The Dome in Tufnell Park a month or so ago, the group not only seemed on excellent form (they are one of those bands who seem to create a massive, unstoppable sound from a straightforward onstage set-up) but also appeared rather amiable. Cox, gangly and distressingly thin, is an unusual and dominant presence on stage, and whilst he is clearly very serious about his music, he also seems very serious about pleasing those who take the time and effort to hear him. It’s this kind of relationship between band and audience that makes some groups stand out from the crowd – it is, after all, what transported Arcade Fire into arenas.

An Impressive Cast

Okkervil River - The Stand-Ins (Jagjaguwar, 2008)

Sometimes I associate particular bands or specific albums with times and places. Okkervil River, about whom I’ve enthused rapturously here several times, are inexorably linked with my visit to Toronto, where I purchased their outstanding ‘Black Sheep Boy’ album on a whim (mostly because I adore the Tim Hardin song that inspired it). That album, with its literary brand of songwriting, made virtues out of melodrama and excess, in a way that the more photogenic and well-promoted Conor Oberst clearly aspires to but, for me at least, never quite achieves. ‘The Stand-Ins’, with its frequent allusions to band life and being on tour, is clearly an album intended to be divorced from specific locations, if not from memories.

Last year’s ‘The Stage Names’ again demonstrated Will Sheff’s presentation of songs as miniature novels – squeezing in a wealth of intelligent musings, quirky images and elaborate character portraits. Musically, it was a different beast though – at times veering into a more upbeat and exuberant stomp. ‘The Stand-Ins’ is a collection of songs recorded at the same time but then shelved when it was decided a double album would be too great an indulgence. It’s clearly very much a companion piece, revisiting some of the characters and themes first introduced in ‘The Stage Names’, particularly the acting/movie concept, seafaring imagery and emphasis on songs about being in a band (Sheff shares a lot of songwriting qualities and characteristics with Craig Finn of The Hold Steady). 'Starry Stairs' even continues the story of 'Savannah Smiles' from the previous album.

The initial reaction on the blogosphere seems to be one of mild disappointment, at least when ‘The Stand Ins’ is judged by the band’s so far consistently high standards. On the surface, it’s easy to see the reasons for this. At 40 minutes, including three instrumental interludes, it’s surprisingly concise and there’s little doubt that the group have moved towards something more musically accessible. The Motown stomp that informed a couple of tracks on ‘The Stage Names’ is in full flight here, and ‘Starry Staired’ even flirts with Memphis soul horns.

I’m not underwhelmed by this articulate, moving and intelligently designed record though. If Sheff’s linguistic intricacies can find a wider audience, I’m all in favour of a greater reliance on standard melodies and immediate hooks. His lyrics here are frequently wonderful, often capturing something melancholy or poignant with free-flowing ease. ‘On Tour With Zykos’ movingly details the emotions of a lover left-behind as the touring band move on.

Closer to home perhaps, ‘Lost Coastlines’, on which Sheff duets with the now- departed Jonathan Meiburg, is particularly affecting. The two deploy shipping metaphors to express the inherent difficulties in keeping a band together. Meiburg’s smooth but charismatic baritone makes for some restrained relief from Sheff’s emoting. The final lines sum up life in a band succinctly and perceptively: ‘Every night finds us rocking and rolling on waves wild and wide, and if we’ve lost our way, well no-one’s gonna say it outright.’ When strings and horns enter in the song’s final section, it seems to elevate the song to something vivid and dramatic, but which also emphasises the song’s mournful core.

Sometimes the lyrics are so cutting and insightful that they jar with the jauntiness of the music. The contrast is surprisingly effective on ‘Calling and Not Calling My Ex’, where Sheff ruminates eloquently on resuming contact with an ex from three years ago who has progressed to celebrity status (‘you look the same on TV as when you were mine’). The music veers between a familiar chiming theme and moments of reflective calm.

It’s a song full of hypothetical conjectures, resentment and devastating regret – the sort of intense but futile emotions that are very common human failings. He imagines the girl’s sudden return: ‘…it’s a mixture of dumb jealousy and fear/that I might feel should she appear…as if it hasn’t been three years’. The song is made even more touching because it keeps one rational eye on a more uneventful, mundane reality (life is ‘slightly, disappointingly, just gliding by’). It ends with an inevitable resignation: ‘I remember every instance that you stung me, oh you’re so lovely, you’re so smart/ So go turn their heads, go knock ‘em dead, go break their hearts/And I know you will’. For all his self-absorbtion and self-pity, it’s hard not to sympathise with Sheff’s character’s pain, so artful is his expression of it.

Perhaps most powerful of all is the epic closing track, with its rather unmanageable title: ‘Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979’. Cambell was apparently a gay glam rock artist, whose star shone only briefly, eventually reduced to singing cabaret at parties as Cole Berlin. Suffering from AIDS, he committed suicide in 1983. The song has Campbell weakened, drinking on his own and ‘sick of singing the same songs’. The song’s conclusion would be absurdly grandiose in any other hands, with Campbell being lifted into space (presumably reflecting his thematic preoccupation with aliens).

Elsewhere, Sheff’s concerns are less weighty. ‘Singer Songwriter’ is the kind of snarling character assassination of which the young Bob Dylan could be proud (indeed, there’s more than a hint of ‘Positively 4th Street’ in the song’s nursery rhyme melody and insistent rhythm). ‘I saw your big sis on the year’s best book list/and your brother he manages bands’ Sheff rasps dismissively, before sneering ‘you’ve got wealth, you’ve got wealth/ What a bitch, they didn’t give you much else!’. The song surprises at its end by turning inward – with its cry of ‘your world isn’t gonna change nothing’ subtly becoming ‘our world isn’t gonna change nothing’, as if Sheff is condemning himself alongside his target. This self-reverential irony crops up again on ‘Pop Lie’, a song cynically sniping at songs with choruses designed to get people to sing along. The song itself of course has something approaching a singalong chorus, and a relentless energy that suggests unshakeable conviction.

Sometimes it’s the sheer combination of words Sheff uses that is most imaginative, from the ‘cuts from the Kinks’ on ‘Singer Songwriter’ to this wonderfully florid passage from ‘Lost Coastlines’: ‘Is that marionette real enough yet to step off that set and decide what a dance might mean to it’. Then there’s the conflicting emotions of ‘On Tour With Zykos’, with Sheff convincing in female character – ‘how come I shout goodbye when I just want to make this white lie big enough to climb inside with you’. It gets even better ‘I’m in disgust with desire from the guys who conspire at the only decent bar in town/and they wish they had me like I wish I had fire, what a sad way to be…’ It’s all observed with piercing clarity, but also with disarming tenderness and sensitivity.

Sheff has discovered ways and means of hitting all the right buttons with his arrangements, particularly with swelling strings and horns, that mean his ambitions are no longer forced or overwraught. He always uses the additional instruments to animate the sentiments and feelings of his songs. Listen to the way the organ subtly shadows the piano during ‘On Tour With Zykos’, before dramatically taking the lead as the song takes flight and then itself giving way to the strings.

There will some who will dislike the glimmer of light that fights against the melodramatic darkness the group communicated circa ‘Black Sheep Boy’. They may also dislike the fact that Sheff’s linguistic imagination has been fitted neatly into a crisper, more coherent musical template. But these songs are so much more than mere Motown pastiches – they are as much alive with America’s literary tradition as with its rich pop music heritage. His cast of recurring characters is as reminiscent of Raymond Carver as Bruce Springsteen.

This has been a long review, but Sheff writes songs that can be listened to repeatedly, with language that wraps itself around you and absorbs you completely. They cannot easily be summarised and paraphrased. Something new will emerge from his words and music with every play. This is a glorious record that, for all its emphasis on character and disguise, is very much filled with real life and real feeling. It shines a rare spotlight on those left behind or cruelly ignored, and even undercuts the self-aggrandising image of those putting on the whole show.

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.