Murphy's Law

Pure Reason Revolution, Fans Of Kate- The Barfly, Chalk Farm 18/4/05

Bloody typical. The one time I actually arrive early for a pre-arranged meeting, there is all manner of chaos at Chalk Farm, involving what purported to be a defective train, but what may well actually have been a passenger on the track (especially likely given the strong police and emergency service presence outside the station). I got a justified taste of my own medicine in having to wait half an hour for John Kell to arrive (through no fault of his own). Ho Hum - given the irony, I guess it was appropriate that we ended up drinking Murphy's rather than Guinness inside the venue.

This proved to be a rather more nostalgic evening than I had expected. John Kell had played me a Pure Reason Revolution track whilst I was sitting in on the alumni edition of John Kell Vs. Satan, and from him I knew they had a track on the latest compilation in the Abuse Your Friends series (my old band Hyperfuzz were featured on number one). I also subsequently found out that my friend Seb (lead guitarist in aforementioned teen punk combo) had been asked to join the band on guitar. Had he actually told me that the band featured two former members of fellow teen pop-punkers Gel (who we supported on a number of occasions) and one member of girl punk group the Period Pains, the event would have seemed less like a series of odd coincidences, and more like an intricately connected, somewhat incestuous web. At last it all made sense! What's more bizarre is that I completely failed to recognise either Jon or Andrew from Gel, as they both looked radically different (bulkier and more hairy to put it politely). With two members of Gel, one member of Period Pains, all of Hyperfuzz, and apparently also the once omnipresent Emmy-Kate Montrose of Kenickie, it felt like a big old Friday Dynamite reunion. Anyway, more of PRR later....

First, the support acts. The opening act were called something like Make Your Good Escape, and they played highly proficient rock music that would not have been out of place in the pages of Kerrang! magazine. Not really my cup of tea, but they had a lot of energy, and they seemed more distinctive than the average heavy rock band largely due to some vigorous and technically impressive drumming.

Next up were the much touted Fans Of Kate, who have already received a couple of plays on the new Steve Lamacq afternoon show on BBC 6Music. It would be churlish not to admit that I quite enjoyed their set, bristling as it was with self-effacing charm, zest and a clutch of memorable tunes. Nevertheless, the somewhat conventional and chugging arrangements began to irritate by about half way through the set, and by the end I felt rather like I'd been pushed repeatedly against a brick wall. This was not in itself an entirely un-entertaining experience, but they were perhaps in danger of pummeling some very good pop songs into submitting to a somewhat predictable and generic format. Certainly, the set was perilously close to being samey.

Pure Reason Revolution took the longest setting up, and not without reason. With their banks of synths and keyboards, laptops, electronic drums and guitars they were certainly making use of that new advance from Sony (who are apparently hoping they will break America). How the two brothers from Gel went from 'Picture Frame' and 'Rosie and Jim' to this I'm not entirely sure. They played a near-continuous set of hypnotic, proggy grooves which were punctuated by harmonies straight out of the Crosby, Stills and Nash songbook, and fervent passages of cock-rock action. This made for an unconventional and striking combination. Some people I spoke to remained unconvinved by this staunchly unfashionable sound. I admit that the first reference point that sprang to my mind was Mansun (a band now at least partially unfairly ridiculed) but I wonder if PRR might have more commercial potential than they realise. OK, so 12 minute single 'Bright Ambassadors Of Morning' is hardly likely to be the most played track on your local GWR station - but they seem to have already amassed considerable interest, as well as something approaching a cult following. They are certainly techincally proficient and fearlessly indulgent, but the gift for a good pop melody that Jon displayed with the perpetually effervescent Gel clearly has not deserted him. They also had a remarkably polished sound, that made me temporarily forget I was in the claustrophobic confines of the Barfly (I could easily have been in an enormodome, watching this band open for the likes of Rammstein or Metallica!). The voices meshed together with consummate ease, and the band proved considerably more interesting when utilising the unusual juxtaposition of harmonies and heavy rock than when relying on meandering instrumental passages. I was slightly frustrated by the relentlessness of it all, particularly the insistence on playing a virtually continuous set with scant acknowledgement of the presence of an audience. This could only have added to the slightly unfair preconceptions of this band as pretentious, elitist, arty or other such stereotypes.

At the end, I left Seb vascilating over whether to accept the offer to join the band (it might well entail enduring a gruelling touring schedule as the band focus their efforts on the States). I must admit that I long for the opportunity for one of my musical outfits to be heard by a wider audience. But hey, like the Murphy's, I'm not bitter....

Wind Power!

Another account rather than a proper review, and another thrilling evening I'm pleased to report. My new band Correspondent played their second ever gig (albeit a gig that felt like the first in a really dedicated music venue) at The Windmill, Brixton last night. The Windmill remains one of my favourite London pub venues - it's a place where the promoters and DJs seem to actually have knowledge of music, good taste, and common sense. It's one of the rare places where they manage to put together a diverse line-up of acts that doesn't feel uncomfortable or inappropriate.

Starting off tonight were Ironpaw, two young guys from Kansas who sadly promised a little more than they delivered. With ukelelees, and guitar-case percussion, they looked endearingly ramshackle. They had some pleasant, country-tinged chord sequences (although I did indeed realise, in the middle of Correpondent's performance as I predicted I would, that the song they blatantly plagiarised was the not entirely credible 'Julia' by Chris Rea, so not an indie or country track at all!). These sat somewhat uncomfortably with shouty, chanty vocals that seemed designed more for the football terrace than an intimate pub venue. Still, impressive that they travelled all this way to play a clutch of shows in London - and there may be enough quirkiness in their sound for them to build on.

I was up next with Correspondent, and this seemed an altogether more confident and professional performance than our debut. It also felt enjoyable and entertaining - whereas I felt the first airing of the same set of songs a few weeks ago might have come across as a little po-faced. Various people remarked that the difference between this band and Unit can be summed up in that lyrically, Jeremy Warmsley likes to write about girls, whereas Brendan from Unit likes to write about doing nothing (a little unfair, perhaps - he does occasionally engage with the outside world!) and musically, Unit are a bit all-over-the-shop, whereas Correspondent are more straight ahead indie. I certainly accept the latter point (especially as I don't think it was intended as a criticism). I had been concerned that Correspondent might have been a lot less original a prospect than we had hoped, but I now feel comfortable that we are performing good quality songs with energy and conviction, which is more than enough. Much like Unit, however, we need to improve our engagement with the audience - some proper song titles might be a good starting point! We should be doing some recording soon, so watch this space...

Up next were another American act, this time all the way from Salt Lake City came Will Sartain. I'm not sure if this was a solo singer-songwriter and band, or if that was the name of the band (remember the 1980s confusion over the band called Danny Wilson?) but I can be sure that they were really rather good. The first few songs had jaunty rhythms and quirky vocals that reminded me a little of Ben Folds Five, and they performed with remarkable gusto. Each song seemed to be a mini-epic, with intricate twisting structures and several compelling melodies. Towards the end, it all started to get a little samey - but with their slight hints of psychedelia, classic pop and American indie, these guys had melded together a disparate set of influences with real success.

The headline act were some really nice guys from Switzerland, with the most refreshingly un-arsey drummer I've ever met (he let me use his rather substantial collection of cymbals, including a colossal China which I very much enjoyed crashing during Correspondent's set). Sadly, it was all running a bit late and I needed to get home by this stage - they seemed a bit dark and proggy, with intriguing instrumentation, including electronics, but I can't really pass a useful judgement from the soundcheck and the first song.

VALIDATED!

Colonel Bastard, MJ Hibbett and The Validators, Unit - The Man On The Moon, Cambridge

Obviously I can't really review my own gig - so this is going to be more of an account of what proved to be a quite brilliant night in Cambridge. Thanks must go to Cambridge local heroes Colonel Bastard for arranging this gig - it really was a great pleasure and privilege to play with some bands I actually like rather than a couple of random pub rock seventies throwbacks as usually happens. Self-promotion is the way forward - I intend to begin by honouring my promise of an exchange with Colonel Bastard - I hope we can repeat this line-up in London at some point soon.

Things got off to a terrible start, largely because of my EXTREME LATENESS. Some people (specifically John Kell) will tell you this was not exactly out of character - although having driven for three hours (across London North to South to pick up a bass amp - back again to avoid the apparently clogged M25 and then out to Cambridge) it was not entirely my fault this time. My reckless haste up an almost entirely empty M11 at least meant that the equipment arrived only just over an hour late, and frankly it could have been much worse. Sadly, that still left no time for adequate soundchecks - and I felt it was more than a little unfair that it was us, the latecomers, who managed to get a sneaky level check in before the doors opened.

Whilst we still have a few friends left in Cambridge, I wasn't sure how many people would be there. It transpired that a surprisingly good crowd turned out, which made me feel that my effort had been worth it. We began our groovy mash-up with a pretty storming version of 'Television' - Brendan getting crazy on the guitar, and Dan starting the silly cat dancing far too early in the set! Our new set list continued to work wonders, as there was far less arsing around (although Brendan's guitar tuning nightmares did return to haunt us tonight - we've finally bought an amp, a new guitar is now on the wishlist). We had intended to change it slightly from the previous gig at the Betsey Trotwood, but were ruthlessly curtailed as time seemed to slip from our fingers. Fair enough - it was my fault it was all running a bit late! So, our anti-Bush rant to backing track 'Monkey King' was an unfortunate casualty ('miditastic' as the soundman so accurately described it), as was the Turtle's sublime piece of wry borderline misogyny 'O Woman'. There always seems to be a gaping hole when these songs are absent - but the void was at least partially filled by new song 'The Explorer', given an even more energetic performance tonight than at its debut a couple of weeks ago, and it may well become a standard set closer. I love the lyrics - and the way it veers between half and full time without batting an eyelid. It's one of my current favourites. All good, although the onstage sound was frustratingly muffled and it's always annoying not to be able to hear the vocals. I wondered if place names were repeated during the improvised chorus to 'Shooting People'. This week we will be working on live versions of 'All EYes On You', 'Listen It Out', 'Highway 75' and 'Secretary Of State' - all to be given their live debut in the not too distant future. Check http://www.unit-hq.com for new live dates as they are confirmed.

The full set was:

TELEVISION
SLEEP WHEN YOU'RE DEAD
SHOOTING PEOPLE
EDGE OF TOWN
LOVER'S MESH
2C OTHERS AS THEY C ME
THE EXPLORER

After a quick trip to a cashpoint on the realisation I had no money for drinks - on came MJ Hibbett and The Validators. I've seen them a couple of times now, as well as MJ Hibbett solo, but this was comfortably the best of the bunch. Mark was understandably concerned about playing so many new songs - but I didn't find this a problem at all, simply because the songs are among his most articulate, immediate and entertaining. I particularly enjoyed 'The Gay Train' and 'Tell Me Something You Do Like' and it's refreshing to hear a songwriter so adept at identifying the state of the nation, but also of singing about it all with such infectious positivity. Best of all was a song about the brutal reality of the Thatcher years that may or may not be called 'The Fight For History' - provocative, incisive and also good fun. The band were also on top form, with Frankie Machine's great steal from 'This Charming Man' an extra level of irony to 'The Lesson Of The Smiths'.

All these songs seem to deploy the same four chords - but this doesn't matter a jot, because Hibbett and band can reap so many rewards from what might appear to be a limited framework. The inclusion of a violin with multi-effects also adds to the quirky appeal of their sound. Their performance brought a great beaming smile to my face - and that's a big compliment, if it doesn't sound too cheesy. The Validators are recording a new album imminently - I'm really looking forward to its appearance later this year. MJ Hibbett's own account of the evening can be read at http://www.mjhibbett.com

Headlining were the superb Colonel Bastard, who played many songs I remembered from my student days, but in considerably more polished and impressive versions. I don't think it would be overstating the case to say that this is some of the best indie guitar pop I've heard in recent months - so much more distinctive and enjoyable than most of the po-faced tripe in the pages of the NME. It's music with zest, intelligence and charm to boot. Martin White also has a great sense of humour - "I'm MJ White" he says, "so for one night only we are MJ White and The Vindicators!"

There are classics in abundance - the hilarious 'Peter Sissons' and 'Boring Gordon' are songs which revive the great British tradition of character and narrative in songwriting (and in this respect, Colonel Bastard hark back not just to the power pop of XTC, but also to Ray Davies and The Kinks). They end with a gloriously ragged version of their 'punk rock opera' 'Whitley Grange' which has lodged itself in my consciousness and now refuses to go away. They also looked great in their suits and hats, and had energy and enthusiasm in bucketloads. Tonight has made me realised that, whilst we have some great material, Unit need to go away and work quite hard on this aspect of our performance.

Afterwards, it was all back to Ben from Colonel Bastard's place for an aftershow with BEER - although it involved negotiating a maze of Cambridge backstreets that I never even knew existed. Thanks again to everyone involved.

Happy Birthday!

I can't believe I've managed to let In League With Paton's first birthday slip by (can it really be a year since I started this?).

So anyway, March 25th 2005 was the date - but I have no problem with a belated celebration!

In other news - for those in the Cambridge area there is a gig alert - TONIGHT - Colonel Bastard, MJ Hibbett and The Validators and Unit (my band!) at The Man On The Moon. It promises to be an excellent night!

Return Of The Mode

This has made me quite excited.....

http://www.nme.com/news/112011.htm

Following the remix album, it seems Depeche Mode are fashionable once more! Ben Hiller has produced some of the most intriguing British albums of recent years (Doves - Some Cities, Elbow - Cast Of Thousands, Blur - Think Tank) so I have very high expectations of this project.

Fun, Fun, Fun

Redjetson, Libreez, Twentysix Feet, Jeremy Warmsley – The Marquee 11/4/05

Truth be told, this was a bit of a frustrating evening, although clearly a labour of love for its promoter, who twice admonished us for sitting at the candlelit tables when we should have been standing in the middle watching the bands. Well, fine – and I’m all in favour of showing respect for the artists on stage (the woman in front of me who had an exceedingly loud conversation all the way through Jeremy Warmsley’s set did annoy me somewhat). However, first of all, the artists on stage need to show a corresponding degree of respect for their audience and two, don’t provide the tables if you don’t want people to use them. Promoters also need to use some modicum of common sense when putting events like this together. I’m by no means closed minded in my tastes, and I support diversity (anyone who has ever heard In League With Paton on CUR1350 or read this blog would realise this), but this line-up just felt somewhat uncomfortable in its self-conscious bucking of conventions.

Jeremy Warmsley opened the night convincingly, with brash energy. It’s hard for me to write critically about a friend – especially one whose music I certainly have admiration for, but there can be little doubt that Jeremy is a songwriter brimming with potential. On disc, he demonstrates a tremendous skill with atmospherics and production trickery. Live, and entirely solo, his songs are necessarily more skeletal – although he manages to get some interesting results from his heavy reliance on guitar loops and effects. Shorn of the layered vocals and electronic punctuations, ‘After The Fact’ and ‘Centre Of Things’ sound closer to the post-punk and new wave inspirations currently very much in vogue. Jeremy manages to avoid academic references by means of his inventive, spiky guitar playing and distinctive, powerful, slightly nasal vocals. He’s also reliable with a good melody – although his best songs twist and turn in unpredictable directions rather than relying on verse/chorus structures. He’s tremendously self-confident, and his talent is manifest. It’s refreshing simply to see a solo singer-songwriter not content to sit on a stool and blandly strum at an acoustic guitar. John Kell described him as ‘a more interesting Sondre Lerche’ – which, for those familiar with the work of either songwriter, pretty much hits the nail on the head. Both have a penchant for angular, quirky pop songs, although Lerche’s appeal rests more on a certain naivety and innocence, whilst Warmsley’s rests largely on his sheer precociousness.

The set was not without its problems, however. The murky sound didn’t help much, with a reverb-laden vocal so boomy that it became very difficult to discern Jeremy’s half-hearted between-song banter or even what he was singing about. Why do sound engineers do this? Granted, reverb can be a useful tool in crafting a mysterious sound (My Morning Jacket might well be the best recent example), but Jeremy’s voice has an unusual, striking character of its own – and this was unfortunately submerged in echo this evening. Given what I could comprehend, I’m not entirely convinced that Jeremy has found his voice as a lyricist yet. His words can seem a little self-absorbed or detached and he doesn’t yet have the poetic qualities of the classic songwriters. Still, this may come, as he experiments more with narrative in songs like ‘5 Verses’ (one of the highlights this evening) or comes closer to universalising his own experiences. He has largely abandoned his older songs that, although less original, had considerable warmth and charm. His more recent material however does demonstrate an admirable desire to escape the spell of his immediate influences, and tonight justifiably earned him a warm reception.

Whilst Jeremy undoubtedly takes his work very seriously (and some might even find him lacking in humour), it did seem more than a little unfair to lump him with such a po-faced line-up tonight. Twentysix Feet at least had voluminous commitment and energy (the singer’s highly physical performance seemed to leave him suffering from an unpleasant back injury). They also had a robust, impressively loud sound, incorporating electronics without sounding too mechanistic or clunky. It was, however, possibly all a bit too relentless. They were at their best when they allowed subtler textures and hints of melody to pierce through the metallic sheen. Still, possibly ones to watch, as this kind of prog-metal seems to be very much the rage right now (see also Oceansize and Pure Reason Revolution).

When Libreez began setting up, John Kell remarked that they ‘looked a bit indie in a Strokes- rather -than- Belle -and -Sebastian -kind -of -way’. Much to our mutual horror, he could not have been more wrong. This was art-wank of the most uncomfortable and embarrassing kind. As a jazz trained musician who has grown up instilled with the modern jazz tradition, I am open to the avant garde, and I dismiss improvised music with reluctance. This, however, really was utterly hopeless. One thrumming, dissonant chord was repeated over and over again, behind which the drummer bashed out intricate, impulsive interventions with considerable fervour. There was also a saxophone player, who attempted neither the squawking ferocity of an Evan Parker, nor the cool sophistication of a John Surman. He just warbled aimlessly over the top. It was 15-20 minutes of continuous meandering noise. If it was a jazz-club style satirical joke, it was complete genius – but I get the feeling these people are aiming for the heart of the improv pitch – and are therefore taking it all very seriously indeed. It didn’t have the intensity for free jazz, nor the aggression for rock or the melody for pop. All the great jazz pioneers – from Duke Ellington and Miles Davis to John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, all learnt the rulebook before they attempted to break it. These foolishly confrontational imbeciles demonstrated little or no knowledge of the tradition from which they were self-righteously stealing. The only positive comment I can make about this performance was that the silence at the end of their deluge of mindless noise was about the most sublime sound I heard all evening.
Redjetson finished the night with some slow-paced, doggedly tempestuous post-rock. We stayed for a few tunes that were not exactly unengaging – but felt like too small a reward after such a massive endurance test. They at least incorporated affecting melody into their tried and tested sturm und drang, sounding tough and, at least initially, powerfully arresting. Yet, without Jeremy’s appealing subversion of pop songwriting conventions, this line-up would have been insufferably po-faced and excessively serious. Whilst talent was evident, the evening was desperately in need of a sense of fun.

Music From The Margins

Prefuse 73 – Surrounded By Silence (Warp)

A more appropriate title might well have been ‘Surrounded By Special Guests’, so prominent are collaborations on this album. This work has been heavily criticised in some quarters for being fractured and fragmented, which seems odd to me given that these were the same people who heaped plaudits on its predecessor (‘One Word Extinguisher’), which was an equally bitty record. Herren’s working method is to ensure that his tracks are mercilessly concise, hence ‘Surrounded By Silence’ manages to squeeze a testing 21 tracks into its 70+ minutes. Whilst this approach tends to be a major obstacle to enjoying most conventional hip hop albums for me, it works perfectly with Prefuse 73. This is mainly because Herren is intelligent and talented enough a producer to know that short does not necessarily have to mean insubstantial.

What an array of guests Herren has amassed for this one – El-P, The Books, Broadcast, Aesop Rock, Kazu from Blonde Redhead, Beans – it’s a critical list of the most significant figures in contemporary experimental music. Reading the album credits feels a little uncomfortable – you could be forgiven for pre-judging Herren and assuming that he has depended on the talents of others to carry an otherwise lacklustre work. Luckily, this is not the case. The crucial point to remember is that Herren is not a lyricist – so collaborations are to some extent a necessity if Herren is going to progress beyond a narrow audience and convert more traditional rap fans.

This isn’t to say that there are no problems with ‘Surrounded By Silence’, just that the scattergun approach has always seemed to me to be one of Herren’s endearing idiosyncrasies. The slight malaise that drags down much of this record is its slight trepidation. It doesn’t ever go straight for the jugular like previous Prefuse releases, and it sounds slightly tentative and afraid to be audacious. The stuttering, fearlessly intricate beats of previous albums have been replaced by flatter, slightly plodding, more generic hip-hop conventions. The jazzy infusions of ‘One Word Extinguisher’ have been replaced by more familiar murky atmospherics.

There are some notable stand-out moments. Kazu’s breathy, slightly distant vocal adds some appealing mystery to ‘We Got Our Own Way’, whilst El-P and Ghostface sound ragged and fiery on ‘Hide Ya Face’. Beans retains his quixotic, quirky wordplay on the excellent ‘Morale Crusher’. Elsewhere, some of the collaborations feel strangely fruitless. The Books are one of the most inventive and distinctive electronica acts of the moment, but Herren can do little to improve on their already comfortable blueprint on ‘Pagina Dos’. ‘Just The Thought’, featuring Masta Killa and Gza of the Wu-Tang Clan ought to be a bewildering and brilliant clash of styles – but it disappoints simply by fault of not sounding fresh enough.

‘Surrounded By Silence’ also suffers as an album because of the lack of a unifying theme. The best hip hop albums of recent years have been powerful thematically as well as musically (take Cannibal Ox’s ‘The Cold Vein’, a dazzling, almost overwhelmingly brutal record that is evokes contemporary New York with grim and uncompromising realism). As a compilation, ‘Surrounded By Silence’ would be an impressive display, capturing both the successes and failures of an intelligent producer. As an album, it’s something of a frustrating challenge. It does reap rewards, but some of Herren’s sharper edges have been blunted in the process.


Sage Francis – A Healthy Distrust (Epitaph)

Sage Francis is a white rapper who has endured the inevitable comparisons with Eminem. Why are music journalists so lazy? Eminem is a hugely marketable proposition, with a cartoon style and populist production. Francis is uncompromising, with an acid tongue, and a brings a wry, refreshingly liberal perspective to his probing social commentaries. Their chosen genre of performance and the colour of their skin may well be their only common ground. It’s unlikely that Francis will enjoy Eminem’s massive success, but ‘A Healthy Distrust’ is a brilliant record nonetheless, elaborate, articulate, and hitting all the right targets with admirable rigour.

I picked this up largely because of ‘Sea Lion’, a collaboration with Will Oldham that works remarkably well. I’m always endeared to rappers and hip hop producers who seek out new ways of incorporating melody without relying on lazy cut and paste samples from classic soul records (compare this with the complete tedium of Kanye West and his helium segments). ‘Sea Lion’ is a deceptively simple record, with its skeletal guitar and woozy melody, and its effect is something close to intoxicating. It’s one of the finest tracks I’ve heard so far this year.

Fortuitously, there’s plenty more of interest elsewhere on this record. Francis is an engaging and often fearless rapper, dismissing radio stations that ignore him because they are afraid of veering from ‘clear channel playlists’ and best of all undermining rap’s casual homophobia by depicting the gun as a phallic symbol on the remarkable ‘Gunz Yo’. He even gets metaphysical on ‘Sun Vs. Moon’, stating that ‘the Devil only exists because of your belief in him’ and envisioning a ‘cock fight’ between the sun and moon. ‘Slow Down Gandhi’ seems to encompass as many topics as possible – berating political bandwagonists whilst providing something approaching a cogent analysis of America’s current political cul-de-sac. When placed next to the wealth-obsessed, bling nightmare of the current mainstream hip hop scene, we have an articulate poet, characterised by extreme scepticism (as the title implies) who is capable of reflection as well as braggadocio, and who is unafraid of confronting darker forces in the world around him.

Francis has also employed some inventive and creative producers to help him out. Alias, one of the numerous members of the Anticon collective, provides something close to folky ambience, particularly evocative for ‘Escape Artist’ and the aforementioned ‘Sea Lion’. There are also memorable contributions from Reanimator and Daddy Key. Best of all is Dangermouse, who gives a menacing undercurrent to ‘Gunz Yo’, placing the cut and paste schtik of ‘The Grey Album’ in a more intriguing context. All the contributions cohere more easily than the latest Prefuse 73 effort, at least in part due to Francis’ engagement with wider themes, and ‘A Healthy Distrust’ seems to work effortlessly.


Alasdair Roberts – No Earthly Man (Drag City)

I had high expectations of this record, not least because Alasdair Roberts has delivered two of my favourite records of recent years with ‘The Crook Of My Arm’ and ‘Farewell Sorrow’, and also because production duties on this third solo album are handled by Will Oldham. It is, of course, a natural move for Roberts. He has collaborated with Oldham before (on the Amalgamated Sons Of Rest project, also with Jason Molina) and benefited from Oldham’s patronage when fronting the now justly revered Appendix Out.

Oldham’s production makes for a considerably more challenging record. These songs delve right back into the folk tradition –with dirge-like melodies, and relentless, droning accompaniments. Oldham creates a mysterious space through which Roberts can thread his delicate, wispy vocals. Deeply respectful of the tradition from which he has drawn these songs, Roberts commits to singing all the verses, and the songs are typical of their idiom in their length and tendency towards repetition. This makes for a difficult listen – but the obstacles to enjoyment are counterbalanced by the ease with which Roberts inhabits this distant world of murder and sin. There are some who would question whether Roberts can really justify recording a collection of Scottish folk ballads – but listening to ‘No Earthly Man’, it becomes immediately clear how deep his understanding of the genre is. This is the music he has grown up with, refashioned for the contemporary folk world.

There are times when the effect is mesmerising and hypnotic. Opening track ‘Lord Ronald’ is typical. It is unusually floaty, but is cemented by Roberts’ endearingly vulnerable voice, the striking poetry of the lyrics and the respect for the traditional melody. Oldham provides some appropriately spectral backing vocals that weave in and out of the mix. It’s unusual to hear traditional music that sounds this original and fascinating, whilst also capturing the timeless quality of folk music. It’s easy to imagine these ballads as campfire songs – but they have been refracted through the restless imaginations of Roberts and Oldham. Even when they adopt something close to a conventional approach, such as on the acoustic lament ‘Sweet William’, it still sounds distant and almost alien. The paradoxes at the heart of this deeply impressive record make for a confounding but engaging experience.


Antony and The Johnsons – I Am A Bird Now (Secretly Canadian/ Rough Trade)

I bought this very hyped record after being so sick of reading about Antony that I simply had to hear the music speak for itself. Given the knowledge that this was an album of highly theatrical cabaret torch songs, I was expecting to admire it more than appreciate it. I’ve been somewhat guilty of prejudging it – this is an exquisite album, and one that is virtuous in restraint as well as elaborate expression. At just over 35 minutes, it is brilliantly brief. A longer album might well have given us too much of Antony’s tremulous vibrato. As it stands, we are left wanting more. Not only this, but there is much subtlety to be found beneath the theatrics.

This doesn’t have much in common with the Prefuse 73 album – but it does share that record’s preponderance for special guests. ‘I Am A Bird Now’ gives gainful employment to all the musical cognoscenti who have offered Antony their patronage – from critics’ darling Rufus Wainwright to fallen icon Boy George, via Lou Reed and overrated new folk minstrel Devendra Banhart. Some of them pale into insignificance next to Antony’s exquisite phrasing. Boy George guests on the sublime ‘You Are My Sister’ but it rather sounds like he’s trying too hard to emulate Antony’s distinctive style, Banhart is left floundering. Lou Reed offers a typically droll semi-spoken intro to the outstanding ‘Fistfull Of Love’ (sic) and therefore fares much better simply by being himself. Wainwright and Antony have already collaborated on the outrageously camp ‘Old Whore’s Diet’ (from Rufus’ excellent Want Two album), and they repeat the trick here.

Yet Antony manages to emerge sounding not only the freshest but also the most impressive talent here, particularly at the beginning and end of the album. The first three tracks are extraordinary. On ‘Hope There’s Someone’, he genuinely evokes memories of Nina Simone with his hovering, vulnerable tones, and he lends a sensuous, soulful quality to ‘My Lady Story’. Best of all is the delightfully simple ‘For Today I Am A Boy’, where the vocals are multi-tracked in delirious harmony. Significantly, whilst these tracks play heavily on Antony’s gender bending persona, they do not sound contrived or unconvincing, but instead entirely natural. This all reaches its apotheosis in the outstanding closer ‘Bird Guhrl’, which seems to sum up Antony’s thematic preoccupations very neatly, whilst also being remarkably free in its expression.
This is not just an album of cabaret torch songs, however. It’s clear that Antony’s inspiration runs deeper than that – there are hints of Southern Soul in the brass punctuations of ‘Fistfull Of Love’, and ‘My Lady Story’ might betray an interest in 80s electronics. The overall sound is both coherent and distinctive – and the salacious, sultry mood also comes tinged with mournful sadness and regret. ‘I Am A Bird Now’ is moving, evocative and timelessly beautiful.

One Step Forward and Three Steps Back

…As Paula Abdul and MC Skat Kat sang back in early 1990. This is part one of what will most likely become a two-week long megapost as I try to work my way through all the CDs that I’ve picked up over the last couple of months or so. I have decided to begin with the upfront pre-releases, so I can at least appear as if I’m one step ahead of the game.

Teenage Fanclub – Man-Made (Pema)

It exists and it’s finally here! Words cannot express the beam of joy that exploded across my face as I came across a promo of this record. This is what I’ve been waiting five long years for!

Alan McGee used to say that he never knew quite what to make of each new Teenage Fanclub album when they first played the finished product to him, as it always took him at least twenty listens to appreciate them. Given the immediate chiming pop appeal of albums like ‘Grand Prix’ and ‘Songs From Northern Britain’, I always found this notion a little baffling. With ‘Man-Made’, however, I begin to see his point. I have to concede that on first listen I was slightly underwhelmed by this – the songs are lovely of course, but the melodies are sometimes slightly more obtuse than usual, the production seems deliberately muffled, and the trademark harmonies, whilst still very much in the frame, are less of a feature than on previous albums.

But wait! It’s a real grower! ‘Man-Made’ may be less immediate, but it benefits greatly from a more subtle approach to arrangement and production. There are some wonderfully heart-stopping moments on this album, many of them entirely unexpected. I love the way the middle-section in the thumping ‘Time Stops’ suddenly gives way to some delicately bucolic acoustic guitar plucking, the way the main arrangement of ‘Flowing’ fades out, just leaving some warmly fuzzy lead guitars to conclude the song, and the way ‘Slow Fade, the paciest and most aggressive recording they’ve made since the days of ‘Thirteen’, ends a good minute before you expect it to. This is probably Teenage Fanclub’s most musically intelligent album to date, and the muted production sound (courtesy of John McEntire of Tortoise) frequently sounds strangely appropriate, such as on the dry, touching and carefully arranged ‘Only With You’.

As for the songwriting, this is The Fannies’ most democratic album so far, with each member of the band composing four songs. Luckily, the days when the words ‘Raymond’s going to sing this one’ inspired a slightly uncomfortable feeling are long gone. Since the remarkable blossoming of his songwriting talents on ‘Songs From Northern Britain’, Raymond McGinley has never looked back, and ‘Man-Made’ marks an admirable continuation of this trend. The aforementioned ‘Only With You’, with its vulnerable arpeggios, tinkly piano and muted rhythm guitar is one of the best tracks here, and the closing ‘Don’t Hide’ features a similarly inventive arrangement. ‘Feel’ (Feel what? The sunshine of course, what else?!?) is a typical Teenage Fanclub summery pop song, whilst ‘Nowhere’ has a pleasant Byrdsian shimmer.

Gerry Love has some gems too – ‘Born Under A Good Sign’ may not be the most substantial song here, essentially being built on a repeated chord sequence and ending with a huge psychedelic duelling guitar solo, but it certainly has energy and enthusiasm in droves. Much better though is ‘Fallen Leaves’, which, with its chorus claiming ‘the future’s here’ is one of the most uplifting songs in this set. ‘Save’ is one of the songs that takes a while to get to grips with, but it features some lovely rhythm guitar playing and benefits from the juxtaposition of a lingeringly infectious chorus with a slightly more underplayed melody in its verses.

Norman Blake is such a dependable songwriter that it hardly needs to be stated that he writes the album’s warmest, most familiar and comfortable songs. I’d be very surprised if album opener ‘It’s All In My Mind’, with its chugging rhythm and naggingly insistent melodic line was not used as the album’s lead single. He also offers the simple sugar rush of ‘Slow Fade’, the delicate melancholy of ‘Flowing’ (although perhaps the lyrics here rest a little too much on familiar sentiment) and the rustic folk of ‘Cells’, another of the album’s most engaging moments. He hasn’t written anything here quite in the same league as ‘Neil Jung’, ‘I Don’t Want Control Of You’ or ‘Did I Say’ though, and perhaps the one thing ‘Man-Made’ lacks is an absolute killer song.

However, that’s not really what it’s about – it’s an album where all three songwriters seem entirely comfortable and at ease, and where the arrangements have become as important as the melodies. It’s a remarkably coherent and consistent work, and if given time, may be seen as one of their most successful records. It remains to be seen whether there’s anyone left in the music press who still cares (I can’t imagine the current staff at the NME getting too excited about this) – we can only hope that this album brings The Fannies the dues they so richly deserve. Britain’s finest songwriters since Lennon-McCartney are still going strong.

Four Tet – Everything Ecstatic

Is that title just meant to imply extreme happiness – or is there a trippy drugs influence behind this album? Either way, it sees Kieren Hebden veer away from the music somewhat uncomfortably dubbed ‘folktronica’ (understandably, Hebden has felt uncomfortable with this tag) and back into the realms of percussion-heavy electronica and free-jazz inspired swampy grooves. If anything, this album is closer to ‘Dialogue’, Hebden’s debut as Four Tet, than to any of his subsequent work under the moniker.

Previous album ‘Rounds’ was so successful because it carefully integrated tiny fractured melodies, and intriguing harmonic implications into its ethereal electronic mix. This made it both more accessible and more engaging. ‘Everything Ecstatic’ is a less easy listen – many of its ideas seem almost self-consciously complex and confrontational, but it marks another interesting sidestep from one of our most inventive producers and composers.

There are moments of sheer brilliance – opening track ‘A Joy’ has some exuberant multi-tracked beats that manage to sound naturalistic and organic. ‘High Fives’ is more densely textured and evocative, and possibly the closest this album comes to recreating the elusive mystery of ‘Rounds’.

Elsewhere, there are plenty of rhythmic flourishes and squawking saxophones, and single ‘Smile Around The Face’ is perhaps a little too repetitive, with its high pitched ostinato melody the main focus, it borders on irritating.
Hebden remains as inventive as ever, and ‘Everything Ecstatic’ is admirable for its cavalier approach to genre convention. Hebden has melded a number of different styles together here and, for the most part, has successfully shaken off the apparent stigma of journalistic tags. It’s much less accessible than his recent highly acclaimed albums, and may have the effect of pushing him back into the margins when he should be reaping commercial rewards. The open-minded will find it engaging and compelling.

New Order – Waiting For The Sirens’ Call

It feels a bit churlish – but there’s just something not quite right about this new album from New Order. They are now a highly marketable proposition, based on their enduring status as influential pioneers. Yet, like all of the New Order releases post ‘Technique’, there’s not actually all that much innovation going on here. It feels comfortably familiar (sometimes persistent and infectious), and some of the tracks have a lovely summery pop vibe. The sound, however, as always characterised by the uniquely melodic bass lines of Peter Hook and the robotic drumming of Steven Morris, has not really been embellished or developed much for this release. Sometimes, it even feels like a more polished, neutered version of the classic New Order sound.

The first single, ‘Krafty’ very much sets the tone. It’s entirely unobjectionable, and comes with a string of instantly hummable hooks and melodies. It has that lingering atmosphere (hammered home with some trademark swirling synths and clanging guitars) that marks out the best New Order pop songs. Taken in isolation, its enjoyable enough, but when placed next to a string of very similar sounding songs (‘Who’s Joe?’, ‘Hey Now, What You Doing?, ‘Turn’) it no longer sounds distinctive.

Whereas ‘Krafty’ has enough rhythmic propulsion and feeling to render it engaging, there are some real low points on this album that just sound totally contrived. Worst of all is the electro reggae of ‘I Told You So’, which genuinely starts out sounding like Ace of Base. I’m entirely in favour of the band expanding their reach (and this album clearly demonstrates that they need to reinvent themselves somehow), but genre parody is not really the best approach. Equally, ‘Jetstream’, with the moonlighting Ana Matronic of the Scissor Sisters feels like an uncomfortable attempt to broaden their target audience. The closing ‘Working Overtime’ is a clunky rather than quirky Stooges-inspired turd.

The more conventional, guitar-dominated pop songs certainly fare better, but Bernard Sumner’s lyrics and vocal lines remain frustratingly inconsistent. Plenty of people have hailed this album as a success simply because of its ‘quality songwriting’. I would certainly concede that an album of quality songs would be enough from a band that has already done so much to break the mould. However, ‘Waiting For The Sirens’ Call’ simply isn’t consistent enough an album to fit that description.

Mu – Out Of Breach

Readers of John Kell’s Unpredictable Same fanzine (http://www.kingofquiet.tk) might remember be waxing lyrical about the debut Mu album ‘Afro Finger and Gel’ in the first issue. I stated then that it’s hard to explain why a talentless Japanese girl shouting over minimal percussion and bass backdrops was so thrilling, and the point is worth repeating. ‘Out Of Breach’ basically provides more of the same and is, if anything, even more extreme. It could not exactly be described as melodic, but it remains memorable and convincing nonetheless.

It all works best when the extraordinary producer Maurice Fulton cooks up his most hypnotic grooves. ‘Tigerbastard’ essentially repeats the tricks of cult classic single ‘Let’s Get Sick’, with its relentless driving beat and flurry of agogo and cowbells. The title track is magnificent, with Mu’s voice made to sound disconcertingly masculine with some canny use of vocal effects. The overall impact is disquieting and sinister. It’s also dance music that genuinely makes you want to dance, whether in a club environment or within the privacy of your own home.

If the music is uncompromising and confrontational, Mu’s voice is something else entirely. She is totally tuneless – and often grating – as she shrieks and hollers her way through her primitive English lyrics, frequently incomprehensibly. Luckily there’s an accompanying lyric sheet, which does not reveal her to be a great poet, or indeed much of a master of the conventions of grammar. There is, however, something entirely appropriate about her self-righteous, fundamental screaming that combines perfectly with Fulton’s crazed, psycho-delic take on house music. On ‘Tigerbastard’, one of the best tracks, Mu disses her old record label with remarkable anger and self-belief. It all sounds peculiarly liberating – and Mu definitely comes across as a feisty woman – someone you wouldn’t want to double cross or meet in a dark alleyway.

Best of all is the timely ‘Stop Bothering Michael Jackson’, where Mu defends the troubled former King of Pop with a near religious fervour. It’s a weirdly calculated chaos of pounding drums and violent vocal outbursts and, unsurprisingly, Martin Bashir does not escape from Mu’s unstoppable wrath.

‘Out Of Breach’ tails off slightly towards the end, when the vocals start to dominate the music a little too much, and Fulton breaks away from his beats into more abstract territory. Nevertheless, it’s a more consistently experimental work than its predecessor, and shows that this extraordinary team are honing and improving their sound. It’s difficult to know how long the thrill will last (there are only so many albums of this kind of material anyone could take), and it’s certainly not for everyone, but ‘Out Of Breach’ marks another step on a challenging and adventurous path.

Many more reviews to come later this week….

'Man-Made' But Divinely Inspired

Teenage Fanclub, The Scala, London 29/3/05

It’s been a while since we’ve seen The Fannies round these parts. Their last tour was a couple of years ago, and that was a jaunt to promote a greatest hits compilation. Back then, I genuinely feared that it might be the last we saw of them, despite Norman's assurances that they would record a new album. This show is one of two low-key dates aimed at the loyal fanbase to test the water for new material, and it's wonderful to have them back. It’s therefore surprising how little new material they opt to perform this evening – I was basically expecting pretty much the whole of the new album (‘Man-Made’, out May 9th) to get an airing plus a few rarely aired fan favourites from the back catalogue. What we actually got was the first half of ‘Man-Made’ spread evenly throughout the set, along with a fair few now comfortingly familiar classics. Teenage Fanclub therefore remain the most steadfastly predictable of live acts. For some bands this might be considered pejorative, but it is this sturdy dependability that make this band a national treasure. With every Fanclub gig, you know basically what you’re going to get and they pretty much always deliver the goods, leaving the audience feeling warm and elated. This show was no different.

After a pleasant if slightly drifting set from support act Green Peppers (melancholy acoustic singer-songwriter stuff), TFC took the stage and launched into ‘It’s All In My Mind’, the opening track from ‘Man-Made’. This chugging and characteristically infectious tune sounded effortlessly bright and remarkably assured given it was actually the first time the band had played it live. The sound of the band was full, and the vocal harmonies in the chorus seemed a little more subtle and underplayed than usual. A wonderful guitar solo from Norman with what looked like an E-bow really brought the track to life. Perhaps unwisely, they followed it with ‘Time Stops’, thus opening the gig with the opening two tracks on the new album. This one was a little more tentative, and suffered from an overly prominent bass twang. Still, the chorus was lovely and Gerry’s voice sounded in fine form.

From the outset the band were in excellent spirits, Norman joking about his glasses falling off, and Raymond exchanging a few words with a heckler who denounced his endearingly messy new long hair with the words ‘where are the scissors, Raymond?’ In fact, Raymond McGinley is something of a revelation these days. His slightly uneasy stance still makes for a marked contrast with Norman Blake’s effusive and relaxed confidence – but as a songwriter and performer, he improves with every new release. He takes on most of the lead guitar duties these days, and plays with verve throughout tonight’s show. His songs provide some of the evening’s highlights – ‘Verisimilitude’ as the first universally recognised song, ‘Your Love Is The Place Where I Come From’ as a beautiful, emotionally direct lament complete with comedy glockenspiel, ‘About You’ as the song that at last gets the somewhat restrained audience jumping and singing along. He also provides one of the highlights of the encores, but more of that later…

The new songs all sounded confident and intelligently arranged, from the sugar rush of ‘Slow Fade’ (easily the paciest thing they’ve recorded since the days of ‘Thirteen’ ‘Don’t blink’, says Norman, ‘it’s so short you might miss it!’). Gerry contributes the marvellous ‘Save’, which whilst a little elusive on record, sounds absolutely lovely here – particularly thanks to some delightful pedal steel guitar work. Raymond’s ‘Nowhere’ is more jangly and less immediate, but it has some wonderful lead guitar work. I don't want to say too much more about them now, as a review of the album is on its way!

The band cover all bases by playing material from throughout their career, including second ever single ‘God Knows It’s True’ and ‘Did I Say’, the exquisite, rapturous gem of a new track on the best of primer. We get some favourites that weren’t performed as regularly as they might have been on the last tour (‘I Don’t Want Control Of You’ and ‘Near You’ were both excellent) and ending with a flurry of classics proves to be a wise move, and shows how well this band can judge the pacing and timing of a good set. Only ‘Thirteen’ is cruelly ignored – given a slightly longer set, we might have heard ‘Radio’, ‘Norman 3’ or ‘The Cabbage’ at least. As it stands, the set very much favours Grand Prix the albums subsequent to it.

Best of all are the encores, where they premier ‘Only With You’, one of the best of Raymond McGinley’s songs, with its inventive arrangement and slightly wistful melody. It was very touching indeed, and brought a sense of reverential hush to the venue, before much of the audience laughed over the solo piano at the end because they had started clapping well before the end. They always seem to end with ‘Everything Flows’ these days, which makes it all the more amazing that they can still play this early classic with such radical gusto. It sounds for all the world like they only wrote it yesterday. This, ‘Start Again’ and ‘Don’t Look Back’ sound colossal and at last the audience seem engaged.

The band seem genuinely surprised when the crowd refuse to stop cheering until a second encore is delivered. They return to play an endearingly ragged, unrehearsed version of ‘Alcoholiday’ – a former live favourite that seems to have fallen off the radar a little in more recent years. It was an inspired choice. Whilst it left regulars like ‘The Concept’ and ‘Starsign’ unplayed – it was crowd-pleasing enough to mean that this didn’t really matter.
The problem now is surely that this band simply have too many great songs. With ‘Man-Made’ added to the mix, they now have a vast plethora of material to draw from, and it would be impossible for them to deliver absolutely everything. I would have loved to hear some less frequently aired gems (‘Going Places’, ‘Winter’ or ‘Speed Of Light’ would have been great, and they don’t seem to play ‘Neil Jung’ enough these days either), but this was clearly not the kind of set they opted for this evening. Teenage Fanclub were reliably great tonight – but they were preaching to the converted. I have this little glimmer of hope that ‘Man-Made’ will at last bring them to a wider audience, but it’s depressingly unlikely. Through their rigid adherence to the old-fashioned virtues of beautiful harmonies, a good tune and some rollicking guitar solos, The Fannies remain our very best songwriters - a crucial but criminally ignored piece of Britain's pop legacy.

Radio Radio

Yes, for the first time since last year's Glastonbury Festival I will be hitting the radio airwaves once more! In League With Paton (the radio show which gave this blog its name) will be returning to Cambridge University's radio station, CUR1350, for one show only - as part of a special day of alumni programming - next Saturday at 1oam. Visit the website (http://www.cur1350.co.uk) for more information for how to tune in online. I shall publish a playlist on this site after the show.

The more observant among you may have noticed that I have now added numerous links to the sidebar (scroll down a bit and you'll see them). This should be a pretty useful resource to anyone interested in the music and film I write about here - if you're not familiar with any of these sites, be sure to check them out!

The End Is The Beginning and The Beginning Is The End

5x2 (Dir: Francois Ozon)

This new film from Francois Ozon, the enfant terrible of French cinema, appears to have divided critics somewhat and I must admit that I was surprised by my own somewhat ambivalent feelings towards it. Ozon strikes me as one of the most promising among younger directors, and I would happily deploy him as armour to bolster my argument against those tedious ‘golden age theorists’ who think cinema is in a state of terminal decline. He has made films that veer from the wilfully perverse (‘Criminal Lovers’, ‘Sitcom’) to the lightweight and farcical (‘8 Women’, ‘Swimming Pool’ ‘Sitcom’) via a brilliantly intense examination of grief and loss (‘Under The Sand’) that remains his finest work to date. He has demonstrated both his prolificacy (a new film seems to emerge every year) and his deftness of touch arguably more successfully than the similarly lauded Michael Winterbottom, who may yet prove to be a jack of all trades but master of none.

‘5x2’ is without doubt his most mature and technically accomplished film yet. It is closest to ‘Under The Sand’ in atmosphere and impact. Like Mike Leigh’s recent ‘Vera Drake’, this film effectively utilises close-ups and claustrophobic theatrical situations to deconstruct its portrait of a disintegrating marriage. Like Gaspar Noe’s recent shocker ‘Irreversible’, it tells its story backwards, but with a much greater degree of subtlety. In fact, it may be the case that this film is too subtle – by leaving far more unstated than it includes, it proves somewhat elusive.

It begins superbly, with the divorce of its two protagonists – an uncomfortable office scene demonstrating cannily how a once emotional intimacy has been reduced to legalistic terminology, the rubble of a collapsed love. Ozon’s greatest success in this movie is to have the couple go to a hotel for one final act of love, rather than merely going their separate ways. What follows is the most torrid and uncomfortable sex scene I have ever witnessed in the cinema, and one that merits far more column inches than any of the ‘real sex’ in Winterbottom’s apparently simplistic ‘9 Songs’. It begins uneasily enough, but when she appears to change her mind, it appears to become rape. By virtue of the backward arc of the narrative, these moral complications are left unexamined, and we are left with a somewhat complicated view of Gilles, the husband, as the film progresses, and one, which I must admit left me viewing him in a somewhat unsympathetic light for the entire duration of the film.

The middle sections of the film are equally complex and problematic. Ozon depicts a party where Gilles’ homosexual brother and his new boyfriend, a blandly handsome and unashamedly promiscuous Mediterranean type come round for dinner, alcohol and soft drugs, and a rather stilted examination of conventional and unconventional relationships ensues. The results are appropriately uneasy – but I do wonder if this is the kind of conversation real people have at dinner parties. It’s essential for Ozon’s narrative structure that it appears – but does it really shed any light on the mystery of human relationships beyond the merely prosaic? Although this is the least camp of Ozon’s films, he seems unable to resist the introduction of a gay element here, and it just feels a little incongruous given the closed, introverted nature of its central couple. Also, using homosexuality as a means of elucidating differences between ‘conventional’ and ‘unconventional’ relationships strikes me as an entirely unnecessary and unhelpful dichotomy (this film will only reinforce the opinion held by evangelicals and right-wingers that homosexuality threatens to destroy the institution of marriage) – but that’s for an entirely different discussion.

Ozon then moves to depict the birth of their child, in complicated medical circumstances, with real technical mastery. This is the one section of the film where I felt an emotional connection with the characters, and it was a careful, controlled examination of how one central event can undermine intimacy and trust between two people. When Gilles fails to appear at the birth to support his wife, there is a sense of palpable inevitability (especially given the reverse structure of the film) – a line has been crossed and the consequences will not be reversed. The earlier scenes, where we see Gilles bonding intimately with his son far more than with his wife, are now thrown into much sharper focus by this section of the film, and his unsympathetic character more carefully illuminated.

The marriage sequence shows us the untainted abandon and excitement of romance effectively, but it is also where Ozon makes his most significant misstep. By introducing a nameless hunk to tempt Marion into adultery on their wedding night, Ozon indulges his taste for the palpably absurd. It’s almost as if, to provide some balance for his resolutely unsympathetic portrait of Gilles, he has to give Marion a flaw of her own. Unfortunately, this scene is just so clunky and mishandled that the tactic misfires spectacularly, leaving the audience confused and frustrated. It also seems to imply that the marriage was doomed from the very outset – which gives the film an even greater sense of overbearing inevitability.

The final holiday resort scenes, which finally show us where Marion and Gilles first meet, are quietly charming, but the character of Gilles’ former girlfriend of four years seems tokenistic and underwritten, and her outpourings of jealousy and frustration seem like stereotyped and conventional female responses to the encroaching threat of ‘the other woman’, whether real or imagined. Again, Ozon’s direction is more subtle than his writing, and we are left with the sense that these early flourishings of intimacy are left underplayed and are something of a missed opportunity.

Some people may feel moved by this film’s conclusion, and may feel that the reverse narrative adds dramatic and emotional weight. Others may feel that it adds only cynicism and inevitability to an already slight portrayal of a disintegrating marriage. I felt sandwiched uncomfortably between these opposing viewpoints. I desparately wanted to react without cynicism to this accomplished piece of film-making – but it would be giving Ozon too much dramatic license to ignore this film’s significant flaws. Given his love of theatre, and his comfortable handling of comedy and farce in earlier pictures, it is a surprise that its Ozon’s writing here that lets him down somewhat. I felt we needed to know more about this film’s central characters – not even the most intense of marriages can possibly exist in complete isolation. The film is excellent and effective in portraying honestly the profoundly irrational actions of human beings (Gilles does not seem to know why he cannot bring himself to support Marion during childbirth). A lesser director would have made a film where the characters’ actions were more calculated and less convincing (and this makes the film’s two major slips – the dinner party conversation and Marion’s wedding-night temptation) seem even more superfluous. ‘5x2’ is as engrossing a film as one might expect from Ozon – but it doesn’t achieve the poignancy and profundity of Bergman, arguably the best director of these claustrophobic pieces (‘5x2’ will inevitably be compared unfavourably with ‘Scenes From A Marriage’, or perhaps more appropriately with its imminent sequel ‘Saraband’). Still, perhaps at this stage that kind of creative brilliance is an unrealistic expectation – and Ozon is a less weighty and more playful director than Bergman anyway. It may be satisfying enough that he is continuing to develop his control and technique, expanding his range along the way.

Good Things Come To Those Who Wait

Rilo Kiley at the Marquee 16/3/05

I normally hate all seated gigs, but a chair would have been a great relief at this one. I haven’t been kept waiting for a band this long since the days of the Cambridge Boat Race, where, lovely venue thought it was, they frequently spent three times as much time setting up as the band spent on stage. It was 10pm by the time they finally appeared, and thoughts of missing the last train home did begin to enter my mind around this time.

This was all made much worse by the cloyingly earnest performance from support act Marc Carroll. He is the kind of ‘artist’ that makes the term ‘singer-songwriter’ sound horribly offensive. Every line was hammed-up and overwrought, every chord strummed with an unpleasant and grating faux intensity. This quite literally heavy-handed strumming style was so relentless and uniform that it made the numerous guitar changes seem like mere window dressing. Unfortunately, you can't polish a turd. That being said, ‘Crash Pad Number’ was at least a pleasant slice of Byrdsian jangle pop, even if it did bear more than a passing resemblance to ‘Manic Monday’ (Prince wrote that y’know, a piece of pop trivia considerably more interesting than anything Carroll’s career will ever result in).

Rilo Kiley’s performance has drawn some harsh criticism from some quarters, not least from John Kell, who has declared Rilo Kiley to be MOR. I sort of see where he is coming from – they are more glossy and less lyrically substantial than many of the glowing reviews of their albums have accounted for, and there was an unexpected emphasis on fuzzy dual guitar solos in a vaguely 70s FM radio rock style. Yet, ‘MOR’ has always struck me as an overused and somewhat unhelpful term and, to these ears at least, there was little that was Middle of the Road about this performance. It was technically impressive, with some striking slide guitar flourishes, and surprising levels of rhythmic inventiveness where so many alt. Country combos are merely functional. At times, the dazzling musicianship was thrilling and the intricate arrangements always fascinating. I'm slightly wary of simply dismissing quality musicianship as MOR, and Rilo Kiley are most certainly not Keane. If we’re going to use one of those annoying critical terms (and be frustratingly pedantic at the same time), we might better dub Rilo Kiley AOR. They are perfectly pitched at the Word Magazine readership (Word promoted tonight’s show) and are most likely to appeal to mature, middle-aged, reasonably conservative listeners, rather than some of the surprising number of indie kids in the audience. Not only this, but they also bolster their sound a little for live performance, frequently emphasising the rock element to their sound as much as the country. Occasionally this spills into self-indulgence, as the biting ‘Does He Love You?’ disintegrates into a rather aimless jam session.

Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett make for a slightly unusual pairing at the front – he looks like your typical indie fop, and she could easily be the queen of a beauty pageant. Her voice lacks rough edges, but is engaging, and her phrasing is crisp. She is let down tonight by a slightly problematic sound mix, which swamps her understated delivery beneath the wall of guitars. Still, ‘Portions For Foxes’ is more energetic than on record, and ‘I Never’ sounds suitably sultry. Best of all was a brand new song, which had a slightly unconventional melody, and demonstrated that this band are still expanding their reach.

The Arcade Fire gig earlier this month ended with a spectacular set-piece bringing band and audience closer together, and Rilo Kiley conclude proceedings with a similarly good natured flourish. They invite Word’s Andrew Harrison and members of the audience to invade the stage for a singalong finale of ‘With Arms Outstretched’ (from ‘The Execution of All Things’), one of their sweetest songs and, as it turns out, clearly a fan favourite. It left me feeling somewhat warm and sentimental.

Whilst this music will certainly not change the world, I very much enjoyed this set, and it marked Rilo Kiley out as genuinely worthy songwriters, rather than the mere pretentions at worthiness that characterise the likes of Damien Dempsey or indeed Marc Carroll. I concede that they will need to be braver with future releases (I suspect that, despite the assumptions of its title, 'More Adventurous' is probably neither more nor less adventurous than its immediate predecessor). The one new song here hinted that this might be a realistic possibility - let's hope so.

Death Becomes Them

The Arcade Fire, King's College Student Union, 8th March 2005

I don’t normally go in for hyperbole, but this really was something quite special. Besides, I got there before the NME anyway. The anticipation for The Arcade Fire’s first gig outside North America had reached feverish levels seemingly entirely by word of mouth (and the web), the gig having comfortably sold out before the NME fell into rapture over the wonderful ‘Funeral’ album. There were several important people in the audience, including Steve Lamacq and XFM’s John Kennedy and also, so I’m reliably informed, Bjork. These people are not the nation’s tastemakers for nothing – and in this case, they should be lauded for lending their support to this remarkable band.

If anything, The Arcade Fire are a more invigorating and distinctive prospect live than on record. From the word go, they are a band that manage to appear intensely serious (or maybe seriously intense?) about their work, but also thrillingly entertaining. Whilst much of this is down to how they look on stage (they all look slightly odd and are dressed in dark suits), the music and the performance are even more captivating. They open with ‘Wake Up’, one of the more immediate songs on ‘Funeral’, its insistent one chord attack giving way to an entirely unpredictable change of pace and feel. With all six members of the band singing loudly in unison, it delivers a palpable sense of drama and occasion that immediately marks this band out for larger territories than student union bars.

From the outset, this is a set that, while necessarily mostly drawing on the immediately familiar material from ‘Funeral’, remains engaging and unpredictable, full of unexpected twists and turns. These twists take various guises, from the carefully plotted merging of two of their most rhythmically insistent tracks (‘The Power Out’ and ‘Rebellion (Lies)’), to the fearless instrument swapping, sometimes mid-song. There is a vast plethora of instruments on stage, from the conventional guitars-bass-keyboards-drums set up to the more unusual varieties of percussion (glockenspiel and steel drum) and accordion. They utilise these instruments ingeniously, so that the gig is as much a visual spectacle as an astonishing display of musical invention (witness one member wearing a motorcycle helmet and then proceeding to hit it repeatedly, before moving to the side of the stage to give the PA stack a good beating). The sound has remarkable clarity for a basic bar venue, and every detail is clearly audible. Whilst ‘Funeral’ may have resulted from the deaths of several family members during writing and recording, its songs are also unfashionably romantic, and are essentially thrilling escapist dreams that translate brilliantly to live performance.

The band seem genuinely overwhelmed by the warm reception – and the banter does not extend much beyond slightly uncomfortable thank yous. No big problem, however, as they save the best for last. After their elegant, mysterious rendition of Talking Heads’ ‘This Must Be The Place’ (David Byrne joined them onstage in New York earlier this year) and a final, elaborate and highly theatrical delivery of album closer ‘In The Backseat’ (where the lead vocals are delivered with dramatic precision by Regine Chassagne), the band appear to disappear from the stage, but beating drums and ghostly voices are still clearly audible. The realisation suddenly dawns that the band themselves are snaking through the crowd – a quite brilliant ending to a wonderful performance. No matter how seriously they may take themselves, or indeed how intensely worshipped they may be by the music press, this is clearly not a band that intends to neglect its audience. Whether they will be able to repeat this trick when they play the larger Astoria Theatre in June remains to be seen – but either way, that is a gig which those not lucky enough to grab a ticket for this show simply must attend.

A whole batch of album reviews to follow soon....

Slow and Steady Wins The Race

Well I promised posts over the weekend, and have failed in my duty largely due to vegetating in front of Snooker on the TV (if there is a true genius in sport right now, it’s surely Ronnie O’Sullivan, anything but slow and steady this weekend – more frantic and unstoppable). Nevertheless, whilst only really half awake, I did make it to the Royal Festival Hall to catch Low, a band I’ve been meaning to see live for years, and have never quite got round to it. Perhaps sleepiness is not the best state to be in for this band, even with the slightly weightier material from their new album, they are still as stately and understated as ever.

Still – sleep was not an option during the mercifully brief set from the London Dirthole Collective. What a cacophony! Four percussionists beat out exactly the same perfunctory rhythms on their skeletal drum kits, guitarists stab at spiky two chord riffs, and the singer babbles incomprehensible gibberish tunelessly over the top. It was either riotous genius or mindless crap. I err towards the latter.

Second support act Kid Dakota made for a welcome contrast. Yet another two-piece band (although they were joined by Low’s Zak Sally on bass for the final few songs), they had some powerful moments, thanks largely to the singer’s distinctive, slightly abrasive voice, and an unusually aggressive take on the usual Americana influences. Low have been touring the States with Pedro the Lion (and particularly aware readers will recognise that the title of this post is a reference to that band) – what a treat that would have been. Despite the manifest qualities of Kid Dakota, probably a prospect I would have relished a good deal more than this uneasy, confrontational line-up.

Low themselves were reliably sublime – and, perhaps more surprisingly, a rare lesson in how to craft a world of intriguing sounds from a bank of guitar effects pedals. Laden with reverb, Alan Sparhawk’s guitar sounded impressively full-bodied, and otherworldly. It had real engaging presence during some of the newer numbers, particularly a thrusting and engaging ‘Monkey’, the crisp and unusually infectious ‘California’ and it also added texture and poise to the more subtle, beautifully distant ‘Silver Rider’. Underpinning all was the rumbling, menacing presence of Zak Sally, whose bass playing was both more audible and more expressive than it is on record, and the skeletal, rudimentary beatings of Mimi Parker.

Like Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker are a husband and wife team who harmonise with unbelievable clarity and beauty. Minimal, delicate songs are rendered powerfully moving due to both the poetic intimacy of the lyrics and the smooth intertwining of the voices. The sound is something akin to a spider’s web, elegantly crafted, but with a brittle vulnerability that makes it even more enticing. It all comes together perfectly in the encore, where they play a brilliantly balanced combination of ‘Sunflower’ and the early song ‘Fear’ (on the request of their sound engineer).

There is also much warmth from the band during the obligatory banter – they thank us all for funding their families for so long. Whilst tuning his guitar, Sparhawk asks the audience if there is anything they want to get off their chests. When one shouts out ‘I don’t like Brussels Sprouts’, he replies with scorn: ‘Is that the best you can do – I was hoping for something more profound.’
My only gripe was the brevity of the set. With the two encores taken into account, they played up to the 11pm curfew, but it still felt there was a relative paucity of material. They got through the bulk of the new album, but didn’t manage all of it (I would have liked to hear the uncharacteristically breezy ‘Just Stand Back’ in live performance), and there were only a handful of old tracks. Still, when these include the masterful ‘Laser Beam’, in which Mimi Parker’s voice gets to work its magic free from Sparkawk’s earthier tones and the mysterious, elusive ‘(That’s How You Sing) Amazing Grace’, it’s probably churlish to complain. Still, why no ‘Dinosaur Act’?!?

Ain't That Good News, Man Ain't That News

Two pieces of news to report which have raised my spirits in the last couple of days.

First off - Columbia Records are to release a new Bruce Springsteen album, Devils and Dust on the 26th April (presumably that would mean a 25th April release date in the UK). This album is appearing much earlier than expected, with all the recent chatter being just rumours based on some sessions Sprinsteen made last year at Brendan O'Brien's studio. Anyway, the news is now 100% official, and it would appear that the album marks a return to the more acoustic, folk-tinged territory of 'Nebraska' and 'The Ghost Of Tom Joad', which is absolutely fine with me, and will make a very interesting contrast to the gospel-inspired uplift of The Rising. Springsteen has apparently revisited some of the songs performed on his last acoustic tour ten years ago, but which didn't make the final cut for 'The Ghost Of Tom Joad' . What is even more exciting is that Sprinsteen is planning to tour again for the album, either with a small band, or solo and acoustic, playing shows in Europe as well as the US, and targeting theatres and small venues. Getting a ticket may well involve bribery or murder - but it will be absolutely essential.

Secondly, on a smaller scale - but no less exciting, some more news has finally emerged regarding the new Teenage Fanclub album. It's still not entirely clear which label will be putting it out, but it has a title ('Man Made') and is now planned for a spring release, which makes for a twelve month delay between the completion of recording in Chicago and the appearance of a finished product, which must have been frustrating for the band as well as the fans. Let's hope it gets some publicity (some newspaper reports in Scotland regarding their appearance at the Glasgow SECC Tsunami benefit gig and Norman Blake's recent chat on 6Music are some small but encouraging signs) and that the band play a few shows in support of it.

Some more reviews will appear over the weekend....

It's Valentine's Day, and I'm Catatonic

Patrick Wolf – The Borderline, 14/02/05

In search of something productive to do to avoid the tedium of Valentine’s day, I picked up a last minute ticket for this launch gig for Patrick Wolf’s ‘Wind in the Wires’ album at London’s charming Borderline venue – an intimate bar/log cabin which Mr. Wolf appeared to have sold out comfortably, albeit with rumours of an unusually substantial guest list. It seems that everybody I know (including myself, vaguely) has some kind of connection with Patrick – he once (already precocious at the age of just 15) played gigs at the Friday Dynamite club, where my first serious band (Hyperfuzz) also gigged regularly, he DJd at the Kashpoint club with Brendan from Unit, and Jeremy Warmsley apparently attended the same school for a while (yep, the one Patrick was supposedly bullied out of). I remember being completely baffled by his apparently random pluckings of a viola back in the Friday Dynamite days – but then I was in an energetic, if fairly unoriginal punk-pop band – perhaps it was just that he was already forging a more distinctive path.

If my earlier review of ‘Wind In The Wires’ seemed a little agnostic, then perhaps it just needed a few more listens. With this performance at least, the songs suddenly seemed to click for me. Playing with only rudimentary drums for accompaniment, Patrick still manages to create a remarkable sound on stage, and his voice is impressively expressive. He also sounds more powerful and less mannered live, which allows his songs a little more room to breathe. Dressed in a bizarre all-black costume, unfathomably tall, and with a peculiar floppy hairstyle, he cuts an imposing, handsome presence on stage – yet remains somehow unassuming and free from ego. He is as comfortable explaining the origins of his evocative narratives as he is with the performance.

The songs actually sound more unusual when played entirely on acoustic instruments. Free from the occasionally cluttered baggage of the programmed beats Patrick liberally employs on both his albums so far, these songs sound like a radical refashioning of folk music, with a bewildering array of neo-classical and contemporary influences thrown into the mix, from Bjork, Diamanda Galas and Kate Bush, to Stockhausen and Steve Reich. The tone and feel of the performance is kept varied by the constant switching of instruments – Patrick plays two different ukeleles, a viola and some wonderfully brooding heavy piano.

He gets through pretty much all of ‘Wind In The Wires’, and his tales of escape to the wilderness all have a strong sense of geography and place. He is as much aware of environment as he is of feeling and mood, and these may be the best songs about the West Country ever written. Particular highlights for me were the carefully constructed drama of ‘This Weather’, the quietly moving ballad ‘Teignmouth’ and the appropriately folky ‘Gypsy Song’.

Mercifully, he doesn’t attempt to play the entire album in order, and finds some room for other material as well, including ‘London’ and ‘Paris’, two of the highlights from his debut. He also performs ‘Souvenirs’, a song that didn’t quite make the cut for ‘Wind In The Wires’, and ‘Penzance’, one of the B-sides of ‘The Libertine’ single that surely should have been included. The latter sounds particularly inspired.
For the obligatory encore, he is joined by string group The Mulettes, who play frantic, endearingly under-rehearsed versions of ‘The Libertine’ and ‘Wolf Song’ to round off proceedings. ‘The Libertine’, with its dismissal of false idols who speak ‘with cliché and addiction’ sounds as if it might be aimed at one specific piece of current tabloid fodder, but whether it is or not, it certainly seems like a bold and original statement of intent – a refusal to tow the line that indicates just how far removed Patrick is from his contemporaries. This is all much more interesting than the over-rated likes of Devendra Banhart, and this could well be an exciting year for this exceptional musician.

Indie Heaven

The Broken Family Band – Welcome Home, Loser (Track and Field)

Strawberry Fair, Midsummer Common, Cambridge, 2003 – The Broken Family Band have just completed a rollicking, spirited headline set and the elated crowd are refusing to let them leave the stage. ‘Love you…’ says lead singer Steven Adams. Then the moment of distinctive inspiration – ‘no you hang up, no you hang up!’ There could not have been a more apposite introduction to this very special band (how did I live in Cambridge for so long before I finally found out about them?). Adams’ performance and songwriting blend lacerating humour and devastating pathos more successfully than virtually any other tunesmith currently at work in British music. Their fanbase have remained loyal and passionate for a number of years now – it is hoped that ‘Welcome Home, Loser’ (their second full album, but fourth release including the two mini albums) is the record that will justly bring them to wider attention. You would have therefore thought that, between them, Track and Field and the distribution company would have got their act together in getting this record into the major stores by the morning of release, instead of sending me on a wild goose chase around London, but that’s another story (I eventually found it in Rough Trade Covent Garden, where I had the satisfaction of being congratulated on my choice of purchase by their ever-knowledgeable and friendly staff – I love that shop).

‘Welcome Home, Loser’ doesn’t disappoint, although it doesn’t quite branch out as much as I had expected it might. It’s certainly their best and most consistent collection of songs so far, and most rework the established formula to increasingly powerful effect. Two of these songs (‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ and ‘Where The Hell Is My Baby?’) have been live favourites for a couple of years now, and many more have been performed regularly more recently, so it’s very difficult to talk about first impressions when writing about this album. It already feels homely and familiar, and it’s satisfying to finally have a recorded document of these excellent songs. What certainly stands out is the production, which is noticeably more polished and considered than the fairly organic ‘live’ sound of previous efforts. I initially felt it might have blunted some of the bite of the songs – but there’s still some very aggressive playing on display here, which more than justifies Steve Adams’ contention that BFB are as much a punk band as a country band.

The BFB certainly know how to play a good hoedown – and there are a couple of fantastic examples on ‘Welcome Home, Loser.’ ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ makes for a wonderfully energetic opener, with Adams revelling in the dark irony of its title and lyrical theme. Later on, we get the hilarious ‘Honest Man’s Blues’, liberally laced with Timothy Victor’s breakneck banjo playing, and blessed with the best opening line of recent memory (‘If you work in a whorehouse – you’re gonna get fucked!’). There’s also the swung majesty of ‘Living In Sin’, an uproariously funny narrative of the sexual allure of the dark side (‘You’re a devil woman/Your heart is black but your body drives me craaaazy!/ You’re a sick, satanic lady/You’re full of hate and you know I love that’).

Elsewhere, there are perhaps the two greatest examples of Adams’ juxtaposition of poignancy and wit on the genuinely touching ‘John Belushi’ and ‘We Already Said Goodbye’. There are also the aching and affecting hangover laments ‘Cocktail Lounge’ and ‘O Princess’. In ‘The Last Song’, there is also a touching and perceptive exposition of the songwriting process itself.
The band break free from the formula on a few tracks – notably the almost funky (and thrilling) ‘Yer Little Bedroom’, which seems like the heavier flipside of ‘Gone Dark’ from ‘Cold Water Songs’. They also indulge themselves with the negligibly brief ‘Roman Johnson One’, which comes across as an indie equivalent of the infuriating skits that tend to pepper hip hop albums. We’ll forgive them that, though, particularly as the wonderful aforementioned ‘The Last Song’ follows it. There’s also an epic closer in the form of ‘Coping With Fear’, perhaps unsurprisingly built around the thinnest harmonic and melodic ideas on the album, but not entirely without merit thanks to Adams’ relentless overstatement of its theme. Yet, despite the slight need for this band to veer away from their signature sound, there is the nagging sense that extended instrumental breaks are not necessarily the best way forward.

These are small niggles though and ‘Welcome Home, Loser’ is predictably a treat, comfortably the most fully realised BFB album yet. It’s an essential purchase for fans and as good a starting point as any for the uninitiated.

M Ward – Transistor Radio (Matador)

I should really begin by offering the caveat that this album is so clearly after my own heart that this review cannot possibly be considered objective. Not only am I a sucker for albums that sound as old as the hills – and this one is imbued with a resonant, beautifully timeless quality, but I am also enticed by the dedication to ‘the last of the independent and open format ones of your kind’. It is an album inspired not just by radio, but by the classic form of open minded, intelligent music radio that, with the death of John Peel, we may sadly have lost (a small aside – witness Radio 1’s crass decision to replace the Peel programme with three narrowly focussed ‘specialist’ programmes. Surely the whole point of the Peel show was that we could hear all this stuff within the same two hours??).

M Ward seems to be channelling his energies against two prevailing trends here – the first is the submission of the music-loving radio presenter to formats and directives from business executives. The second is drive that artists have to be original, and the corresponding fear of anything that might sound old or traditional. In addressing these concerns, Matt Ward has produced what promises to be one of the most intriguing albums of 2005.

It’s an audacious album indeed that is book-ended by an acoustic, instrumental take on Brian Wilson’s ‘You Still Believe In Me’ (from ‘Pet Sounds’) and ends with a picked guitar interpretation of JS Bach. Yet these two tracks work brilliantly in their respective positions because they give a clear idea of the breadth of Ward’s vision. He is completely unafraid to delve deep into musical history, and to refashion established texts in fascinating new contexts. His reading of ‘You Still Believe In Me’, in forsaking the original’s lyrics, forsakes some of its innocence and naivety, and instead achieves a kind of wistful melancholy akin to Bert Jansch or Nick Drake.

In between these interpretations of familiar pieces are a clutch of songs that are subtle, sensitively executed and arranged with considerable care. They demonstrate Ward’s versatile manipulation of sound – in the diverse ways he plucks his guitar, in the way he varies the tone and sound of his voice to suit the mood of the song, in the considered instrumentation and production. ‘One Life Away’, shrouded in mysterious static, actually sounds like the early 1930s blues tracks to which it clearly aspires. It achieves the strange of effect of sounding strange and fresh simply by sounding distinctly old fashioned. ‘Fuel For Fire’ is sweet and sad, whilst ‘Four Hours In Washington’ realises the primal restlessness of insomnia and frustration with its clattering drums, pointedly basic strum and exaggerated vocal phrasing. ‘Big Boat’ has a rudimentary quirky charm. ‘Paul’s Song’ successfully employs reverb to create a haunting mood.

Mostly these are short songs that don’t outstay their welcome – all are memorable, some are peculiarly affecting. Whilst this is clearly an album inspired by the musical past – it inhabits its chosen territory so brilliantly that it cannot be considered backward or conservative (although it may be reactionary in the strictest sense – a reaction against current musical and cultural trends, for sure). It sounds nothing like the rather bland conservatism of, say, Josh Rouse. It radiates warmth, wisdom and experience. This is one radio station you won’t want to tune away from.

King Creosote – Rock D.I.Y. (Fence)

Oh me oh my, this is great - a modern day folk album that manages to effortlessly combine plaintive, sincere emoting and the odd wry, humorous treatise. It comes from an entirely different perspective from the M Ward album, seeking not to hark back to the distant musical past, but to create something resonant with all the resources of modern technology, whilst retaining a homespun simplicity. This is one of those lo-fi, home-recorded classics. Its arrangements recall Badly Drawn Boy’s ‘Hour Of Bewilderbeast’ in their delicate intricacy, whilst the overall effect is something akin to Arab Strap crossing paths with Hot Chip. Each song sounds complete and entirely satisfying in itself. Taken as a whole, ‘Rock D.I.Y.’ is a touching collection of compacted kitchen sink epics that lingers in the memory long after it has been prized away from the stereo. At just over 30 minutes, it’s a brief album – but is says so much more in that time than numerous bloated indulgences that push the limit of the CD’s capacity.

King Creosote has actually been at work for years, releasing as many as 23 albums on self-released CDRs distributed at gigs. His last officially sanctioned album (‘Kenny and Beth’s Musical Boat Rides’) made it into Rough Trade Shops’ Best of 2003 list, a high accolade indeed, and his tracks can also be found on the various compilations released by the wonderful Fence Collective, also home to James Yorkston, Lonepidgeon, Pip Dylan and many other fascinating associates. On the evidence of this set, Creosote cares not a jot for recording quality, or for virtuosity, instead favouring the one-take capturing of songs once favoured by Bob Dylan. His songs are left at their bare bones – some rustlings of piano keys, a rudimentary strum and occasionally a drum machine, but yet they sound as rich and full as if they were densely orchestrated.

Much of this is down to Creosote’s highly distinctive style of songwriting – setting his endearingly frail voice in a variety of settings that neatly complement his unusual anti-poetry. His more languid moments, often characterised by an accordion or sustained piano chords, are particularly moving. ‘Crow’s Feet’. ‘Circle My Demise’ and ‘The Someone Else’ are among the sweetest, saddest songs I’ve heard in a long time, their deliberately skeletal melodies imbuing them with wisdom and melancholy. This is by no means an album for the adolescent miserabilist however, as Creosote also produces upbeat, pulsating pop songs with admirable gusto. Throughout, he sustains an understated mastery of the couplet – and the ingenuity of these songs often rests on their bizarre almost-but-not-quite-non-sequitors (two of my favourites are ‘You’re growing old and growing tense/I was past the age of 35 before my face made much sense’ and ‘Let’s leave the lemmings to do their thing/let’s you and I avoid Burger King’. The songs all have narratives that emphasise the ordinary and transform everyday experience into something magical and transcendent. This is exactly what the best songwriting can do.
‘Rock D.I.Y.’ is a brilliantly understated, unassuming collection of uniquely oddball pop songs, which maintain their own kind of peculiar dignity. For those more than a little tired of Elvis’ current stranglehold on the mainstream pop charts, bow down to a different King.

First of all, I must issue an apology of sorts for the recent paucity of posting on this blog. But in staying away for a while, I have left plenty of catching up to do, both from the tail end of 2004, and from the start of 2005. I’m going to concentrate on the latter in this post, if only because this must be the most exciting start to a musical year that I can remember. It’s extremely rare for so many of the key releases of the year to have emerged before the end of January, and it’s been both time consuming and expensive trying to keep up with them all.



Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Matt Sweeney – Superwolf

There is the nagging sense that as Will Oldham has become increasingly prolific, his work has become less engaging. The peculiar and uncharacteristic self-consciousness behind his last couple of albums has blunted their impact. ‘Master and Everyone’ seemed like too deliberate an attempt to strip back the arrangements to their bare bones, and last year’s ‘Greatest Palace Music’, a collection of reinterpretations of some of his best songs with all manner of Nashville chintz superimposed, seemed confrontational, a slight swipe at those portions of his audience who would have him pigeonholed as some dark magus of Alt.Country. Both albums had their moments, but ‘Superwolf’, collaboration with ex-Chavez frontman and former Zwan contributor Matt Sweeney feels a good deal more organic and unforced.

This does seem to have been a collaboration in the purest sense, with Oldham ‘challenging’ Sweeney to compose some music to accompany his latest set of lyrics. The result is an album of spare elegance and brooding majesty. Other writers have pointed out that there’s nothing particularly novel here, and indeed Sweeney’s compositions provide a familiar and apposite context for Oldham’s characteristically unusual musings. Yet the differences, subtle though they are, are significant. Sweeney’s more elaborate, textured guitar playing makes the music more technically daring, and the fact that his intelligently picked figures and phrasings seem to make perfect sense makes this even more impressive. The thrill of the challenge seems to have produced the best results from both musicians, with Oldham’s bleak, mordant worldview seeming more elliptical and provocative than on recent releases.

Many of the songs are still characterised by Oldham’s distinctive use of bestial, primitive imagery, which somehow manages to be strangely affecting. Particularly successful is ‘Beast For Thee’, where Oldham’s haunting vocal line makes for an intriguing contrast with the counter melody of the guitar line. The symbolic pledge of the title is both disconcertingly bizarre and refreshingly direct. On ‘What Are You’, Oldham even offers a merciless bout of spanking, a classic example of where his black humour is delivered with what seems like a resolutely serious tone. The key track is the evocative ‘Blood Embrace’ with its memorable picked guitar line and what sound like samples from film dialogue, although I’m unable to identify them. It’s a lengthy, mysterious and brooding highlight.

Much of ‘Superwolf’ might seem a little homogenous to some ears, with its skeletal arrangements and hushed vocalising. Its few uncharacteristically explosive moments therefore come as blessings, even though it is slightly misleading to make one of them the opening track. ‘My Home Is The Sea’ is utterly brilliant, a compelling epic seemingly comprised of segments from two entirely different songs. Somehow they merge together if not quite seamlessly, then at least tastefully, and the full-blooded and expressive guitar work both creates and resolves an enticing tension. ‘Goat and Ram’ moves entirely unpredictably from a muted and whispered beginning to a massive barrage of distorted guitars and spectral harmonies bellowing the words ‘all hail!’. In another context, it might feel portentous or heavy handed, but it works well here for its sheer audacity.

Despite its consistency of pace and mood, ‘Superwolf’ sounds naturalistic, controlled and is richly poetic. Collaborating with Sweeney has broken Oldham’s creative deadlock, allowed him to find his own distinctive voice again and has resulted in his best album since ‘I See A Darkness’.

Athlete – Tourist

It seems churlish and cynical to include a review of this record purely as an excuse to have a rant, but I really can’t resist it. Amidst all the quality releases of the past couple of weeks, ‘Tourist’ stands out for its calculated, manipulative brand (and brand is definitely the right word) of earnest balladry, as well as simply for being utterly execrable. I appreciate that the sincere, overcooked ballad template is extremely popular at the moment (more power to the piano!), but what with this and the new Feeder album pushing the same blandly trite emoting, it seems we’re going to be force-fed this populist tripe for some time to come, especially as Parlophone are intent on releasing a mind-numbing five singles from this relentlessly dull collection.

I must confess I hadn’t realised that Athlete’s debut album had sold in excess of 300,000 copies in the UK, so perhaps their sudden leap into the super league isn’t quite as unexpected as I feel it should be. I hated that album, particularly for its irritating jauntiness and dependency on silly keyboard and synth effects that added nothing to the generally unremarkable songwriting. Compared to this, though, that album was brimming with innovation. ‘Tourist’ is a uniformly plodding, leaden affair that repeatedly strives for transcendence, but ends up crippled by its own lack of ideas or direction. It refuses to veer away from the limited palette established by Coldplay and Keane, and generally fails to throw up any rhythmic, harmonic or melodic invention. Songs like ‘Chances’, ‘Tourist’ and ‘Yesterday Threw Everything At Me’ begin with half-hearted attempts at creating a subtle mood, but eventually collapse under the weight of benign lyrical platitudes (of the ‘I don’t want anyone else but you’ variety) and aimless synth strings that are plastered over them. Most tracks suffer from exactly the same shortcomings as the interminable single ‘Wires’ in failing to ever really take flight. By way of contrast, ‘Half Light’ places more emphasis on the guitars, but they still strum and drong at the same dragging, insipid tempo.

I don’t want to be too callous – but this really does seem like a marketing exercise whereby the record company have thrown money at this band so that they record an album cynically aimed at the current mass market. It has so little individuality or quality of expression that, whilst it may sell bucket loads in the short term, in the long term, it will most likely prove valueless. I’ve already had the misfortune of seeing this band live twice in supporting slots. Mercifully, they seem to be well on their way to headlining enormodomes of their own now so I may well avoid them this year, although the chilling prospect of them headlining the summer festivals cannot be all that distant a prospect. First the return of the appalling Embrace, now this. Make it stop.



Shivaree – Who’s Got Trouble

Ah, much better. There’s more subtlety and invention in any thirty second sample of this album you could select than Athlete can muster across an entire 50 minutes. No doubt it is destined to suffer a similar fate in this country as Shivaree’s previous two albums, despite their debut having sold substantial amounts in other territories. This is beguiling, shimmering, haunting pop music at its very best. Those only familiar with the neutered faux-jazz of Norah Jones and Katie Melua could do worse than approach Ambrosia Parsley (or even her equally excellent contemporaries Erin McKeown and Jolie Holland) for a sultry lesson in how to incorporate jazz phrasing into a pop idiom. Really, I should be speaking in the plural here, as ‘Who’s Got Trouble’ covers so much ground across its eleven tracks that it’s simply impossible to categorise it. This is perhaps unsurprising, as their previous album ‘Rough Dreams’ adopted a similar tactic, but the sheer breadth of ideas and inspirations here is still breathtaking.

Parsley and her exquisite musicians are so confident in their handling of the material that they attempt styles that might come across as either po-faced or cheesy in less capable hands. On ‘Little Black Mess’ and the delightful ‘I Close My Eyes’, they revisit the classy bossa nova tinged feel of ‘Goodnight Moon’ (now easily recognisable as the closing music for the dreadful Kill Bill vol 2). ‘Someday’ has resonances of traditional New Orleans stomps. On ‘Lost In A Dream’, and the startling opener ‘New Casablanca’, they even craft a subtle form of low-key, smoky barroom jazz balladry. If this sounds dull, fear not, because Shivaree are masters of subtlety, texture and mood. The arrangements are intricate and fascinating, and the melodies both infectious and unpredictable. Where strings and horns are deployed, they add colour, texture and contrast to the sound, rather than aiming for the ‘soaring’ blandness that so many others currently seem to prefer. Whilst the individual parts are never overly complicated, the music seems perfectly pieced together so that nothing is superfluous or insignificant.

Whilst Parsley’s vocals were certainly seductive on the previous two Shivaree albums, she has made further improvements here. She sounds consummately elegant, mysterious and sublime, and her phrasing teases out the devastating impact from her deceptively simple words. When she sings: ‘The first cigarette, my first pill/The first cup of coffee and my first chill/You’ll never know my first kiss, somebody else will’, her precise phrasing and delivery imbue these lines with a palpable charge. On ‘Baby Girls’, she sounds like a less abrasive Lucinda Williams, actively contributing to the spooky mood of the song.

This is as considered and nuanced a record as I have heard in a long time, yet it is not academic. It is also a powerfully moving statement, and one that more than consolidates the achievements of their previous releases. It’s criminal that the British music press have given this band so little attention. It’s not being granted an official UK release until April – so at least they have some time to wake up.




Low – The Great Destroyer
Laurent Garnier – The Cloud Making Machine

I’ve banded these two albums together as both have been presented, perhaps a little simplistically, as major changes of direction for the artists concerned. Much has been made of how Low, who usually take their songs at a funeral pace and never really raise the volume above a whisper, have ‘gone heavy’ with this new album, their second for Rough Trade and recorded with uber-producer Dave Fridmann (who has been hard at work over the past few months with Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips and, more intriguingly, Sleater Kinney). Equally, reviews of Laurent Garnier’s first proper album for over five years have centred on his apparent abandonment of club-focused techno in favour of a more downtempo approach.

The Low album is not really that significant a change in direction at all. Some sources have suggested that songs here resemble early nineties goth rockers Curve. I really don’t see how anyone could have arrived at this impression. Actually, all the traditional elements that have made Low’s music so distinctive remain in place. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s voices still intertwine in the most glorious and inseparable harmony. When Alan Sparhawk sings alone on ‘Death of A Salesman’, the result is an oddly empty affair, lacking force or emphasis. The approach to rhythm and melody is still avowedly minimal – notes and chords are allowed to linger for what often seems like ages, and Mimi Parker’s percussion retains its appropriately skeletal form.

What is different here is the context. The overall sound is more aggressive, and there is ample opportunity for Fridmann to work his magic with chiming guitar chords and his trademark reverb-assisted drum sound. The opening track (‘Monkey’), with its distorted chords and the elliptical couplet ‘Tonight you will be mine/Tonight the monkey dies’, suggests that the current political climate may have inspired Low to produce a record where anger and bile are frequently favoured over stately reflection. The result is an imposing and intense album that seethes with righteousness and engages more with the outside world. ‘On The Edge Of’ sounds huge, and effectively incorporates some Neil Young inspired fretwork into the wall of sound. There are even attempts at a more conventional pop sound – ‘Just Stand Back’ even recalls Big Star or Teenage Fanclub (another band steadfast in sticking to their trademark sound) and forthcoming single ‘California’ is probably their most immediate and accessible track to date.

That does not mean that poignancy or mystery have been completely excised. ‘Cue The Strings’ begins by doing exactly what it says on the tin, effectively a slightly inferior rewrite of the wonderful ‘Will The Night’ from the ‘Secret Name’ album (still, to these ears, one of the most beautiful songs of recent years). It unexpectedly evolves into something considerably more challenging. ‘When I Go Deaf’ is particularly haunting, and ‘Silver Rider’ retreads some of the more mysterious, elusive and eerie ground that they have covered before, albeit with sublime results in this case.

Dave Fridmann is the Phil Spector of contemporary alternative rock. Sometimes his distinctive production really lifts a record – as with The Flaming Lips’ ‘Soft Bulletin’, and sometimes it smothers material in swathes of unnecessary effects, particularly with recent albums from Mercury Rev. Here he has managed to integrate new elements into Low’s oeuvre without compromising their unique aesthetic. ‘The Great Destroyer’ is a convincing and well-executed meeting of minds that bodes considerably well for the forthcoming Sleater Kinney record.

Garnier’s new release is much less of a synthesis and by far the more radical volte-face of these two albums. ‘The Cloud Making Machine’ is by no means a failure, but I’m not yet convinced that it is worthy of some of the plaudits currently being heaped on it. It is a drifting, ethereal collection of mood pieces that frequently sounds impressive but, at least with the first few listens, doesn’t quite manage to sustain attention. One pointer as to where Garnier’s intentions may lie with this release can be spotted in the presence of electronic jazz keyboardist Bugge Wesseltoft, whose self-styled ‘new conception of jazz’ seems to inform a large portion of the material here. There is a lot of meandering, semi-improvised material here, much of it never quite creating the thrill of improvised jazz, or the hypnotic calm of the best electronica.

Having said that, the best bits of ‘The Cloud Making Machine’ work brilliantly. ‘9:01-9:06’ is stuttering and unpredictable, and sounds doubly surprising sequenced after the somewhat noodling introduction. ‘Babiturik Blues’ incorporates the blues and jazz influences into Garnier’s vision with some degree of clarity. ‘Jeux D’Enfants’ is intelligently textured, and benefits from some unusual sounds.

Elsewhere, however, Garnier falls flat on his face. The one moment where he attempts to craft something energetic and inspiring (‘I Wanna Be Waiting For My Plane’) turned out to be a horrible electronic Stooges parody with particularly dire lyrics. In fact, the lyrical and thematic concerns of this album seem a little impressionistic and under-developed. Given that Garnier’s real strength lies in the field of instrumental music, I can’t help feeling he should have stuck to this domain. There are, after all, still plenty of possibilities for him to explore, as the finest moments here attest.

Whilst it is an interesting departure for Garnier (and how easy it would have been to simply repeat the formula of ‘Unreasonable Behaviour’), there is nothing here as thrilling as ‘The Man With The Red Face’, with its genuine improvised rush, or ‘The Sound Of The Big Baboo’, with its relentless energy. It just seems to melt too comfortably into the background, too often failing to engage. It may well simply be something of a grower – if it worms it’s way into the higher echelons of my albums of the year list come December – you’ll know that I’ve changed my mind!

Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning/Digital Ash In A Digital Urn

So far, I’ve been somewhat agnostic about the talents of Nebraskan wunderkind Conor Oberst – not least because whenever someone is heralded as the ‘new Bob Dylan’, I’m always a little suspicious. My suspicions of Oberst’s earlier work proved to be well grounded, given his tendency to over-emote and, unsurprisingly, pen lyrics of a slightly earnest adolescent tone. ‘Lifted’, his previous record, although bloated and inconsistent, displayed definite signs of improvement, and these two simultaneous releases go some way towards fulfilling that promise. Oberst is beginning to explore different settings for his expressive, occasionally cloyingly nasal vocals, and is beginning to exercise admirable restraint over his less appealing mannerisms.

He has not opted for the double album – or the two separate albums packaged as one – no, these are two entirely separate releases for which you will have to pay full price twice. The former has been billed, accurately, as a melancholy, countrified collection that betrays some hint of Oberst’s recent role as a political campaigner (he joined Bruce Springsteen and REM on the Vote for Change tour, a line-up to die for, although clearly not good enough to oust a President). The latter has been described in some quarters, wildly inaccurately, as a flirtation with avant-garde electronica. Electronic, in part, it may be – but it’s not particularly avant-garde at all. It strikes me as a pop album, heavily influenced by the experiments with electronics in the eighties, and sometimes benefits greatly from adopting a more melodic approach.

The use of backing vocalists on ‘I’m Wide Awake…’ has proved to be an inspired move. Emmylou Harris might seem an obvious choice of guest singer – especially as she appears to be something of a backing singer for hire at the moment – but let’s not take her enormous talent for granted. It would not be overstating the case to proclaim her as the best harmony singer in the world – she is the only person to have successfully harmonised with Bob Dylan, and her recordings with Gram Parsons are rightly hailed as the finest examples of close harmony singing in the country genre. The impact of her presence here is enormous – her controlled and passionate reading of Oberst’s melodies blunts some of the harshness in his approach, and the choruses frequently sound sublime, particularly on ‘We Are Nowhere (And It’s Now)’ and the expansive rush of ‘Landlocked Blues’, which neatly combines Oberst’s personal and political fears. The guest appearance of My Morning Jacket’s Jim James on the opening ‘At The Bottom Of Everything’ also adds feeling and colour to the endearingly jaunty hoedown sound.

The musicianship here is superb – and whilst Oberst himself is a compelling presence – much of the credit must go to producer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis, who has also contributed his alchemic talents to the wonderful new album from Rilo Kiley. The instrumentation is particularly dazzling on ‘Old Soul Song (For The New World Order’, which is eager to remind of the strong links between country and soul music.

It sounds brilliant, but much of this material suffers from the kind of banal grandstanding statements that occasionally make Oberst seem pretentious. He still displays a tendency towards oversinging, although he has started to tone down his mannerisms. The best moment here is the hit single ‘Lua’, which is as spare as a recording can be, and where Oberst starts to assume a genuine vulnerability rather than a cloying earnestness. Its simple tale of the fading of hedonism into reality in the morning light is honest and touching. ‘I’m Wide Awake..’ is not quite the new American masterpiece some have suggested it is – but it’s certainly an invigorating listen, and a major step on Conor Oberst’s long road to realising his considerable potential.

Whilst ‘I’m Wide Awake..’ is easily the more immediate and accessible of the two albums, I wonder if I might come to like ‘Digital Ash in a Digital Urn’ more. It suffers from a similar set of problems – the obsession with binary, digits, data and primitive technology is surely a bit obvious and calculated for a move towards embracing electronica. It works despite its faults, however, because rather than having made a ‘dance’ album, Oberst has achieved something trickier. There is a very successful integration of acoustic and electronic instrumentation here that allows harps and flutes to sit comfortably with drum machines and analogue synthesizers. Oberst also makes full use of live drums, occasionally manipulated, which adds strength and energy to the sound. He has also saved some of his best songs for this album. ‘Arc Of Time’ and ‘Take It Easy (Love Nothing)’ are almost infectious, and are two of the more instantly appealing songs here. Others take more time, and present more of a challenge, but ‘I Believe In Symmetry’ and ‘Down A Rabbit Hole’ are crafted with elegant precision, and sound full of confusion and chaos. It’s by no means as ‘out there’ as some would suggest – it’s a good pop album, impressively orchestrated and cleverly executed.

Magnolia Electric Co – Trials and Errors

This is a crushing disappointment. Over the last few albums recorded by Jason Molina under a variety of different monikers, I have become enticed by his slow-paced and hypnotic dirges, and particularly by the raw majesty of some of his full-band studio recordings. Confused though I am by his current name changes – a Songs:Ohia album called ‘The Magnolia Electric Co’ is followed by a new line-up of Songs:Ohia claiming the album title as their new band name, whilst Molina produces a remarkable solo album under the name of ‘The Pyramid Electric Co’. Are you still with me?

‘Trials and Errors’ is a live album that bears some similarity with Neko Case’s recent gem ‘The Tigers Have Spoken’ in that it features previously unreleased material. Two of the tracks here are destined to appear on Magnolia Electric Co’s forthcoming Steve Albini-produced studio set, while many of the others are available exclusively on this limited release. Unfortunately, whilst it offers long-term fans plenty of incentive to dish out the cash, it compares much less favourably with the Case album in terms of quality. Whereas ‘The Tigers Have Spoken’ was a charming and nuanced collection that documented Case’s current outlook, both in terms of traditional influences and her own original writing, ‘Trials and Errors’ merely details Molina’s Neil Young fixation at quite considerable length.

The pace and tone of this set is not just consistent, it is entirely homogenous. The drum sound is a horrible plodding rock thud that is rarely ever allowed to stray from the basic backbeat formula. Country rock drummers are often rudimentary, but most at least have some awareness of the need for dynamic variation and a sense of progression within each song. The guitars strum and duel relentlessly, and there are numerous solos, many of them gratuitous or unnecessary, failing to add any depth or resonance to the songs. This is a considerable shame, particularly considering that the new writing is crisp and powerfully emotive. The first couple of songs reveal the recurring theme of darkness, and ‘The Dark Don’t Hide It’ and ‘Don’t It Feel Like The Dark’ are classic Molina songs, characterised by a poetic ambiguity and haunting core, with some typically vulnerable Molina vocals adding extra depth. Musically, however, they seem heavy-handed and stilted, and it is this rather leaden sound that persists throughout the entire album.

Unsurprisingly, the problems are particularly acute on the renditions of more familiar material. On the ‘Magnolia Electric Co’ album, ‘Almost Was Good Enough’ was slow burning, but also brilliantly intense – here it just sounds tepid and flat. ‘Cross The Road’, from the outstanding ‘Didn’t It Rain’ album, was an elusive, fragile beauty, but now sounds lumbering and directionless. Virtually every song is taken at the same level and each utilise the same limited palette of ideas. I can’t decide whether it is the production values or the playing that is at fault – but I don’t come away from this album with a sense of Magnolia Electric Co as an exciting live act, and my sense of Jason Molina as an increasingly original and unusual songwriter can only be mildly dissipated by the realisation that he has failed to translate his vision to live performance.
There’s still a lot to get through, so expect more reviews to be posted in the next few days…