Eyes On The Prize

Look, Stranger! – EP (Self-released CDR, 2009) and live at 93 Feet East 22nd September 2009

Look, Stranger! are clearly a generous band. Having just recorded a meticulously arranged and pristine sounding EP with engineer Charles ‘Chicky’ Reeves, they’re now giving it away free at their first headline London show. This might well be something artists are compelled to do in the future, given the current devaluing of music as a product. Indeed, if Spotify ever does start to generate profit, the very concept of music ownership might be up for contention. For now though, it’s just a kind gesture to their burgeoning audience. I’m reminded of that great moment at Porchester Hall, when Arcade Fire’s Win Butler snuck two bemused ticketless fans in through the stage door. The bands that build through word of mouth share their experience with their audience.

Look, Stranger! radiate the same warm and ingratiating qualities onstage as well as off, inviting the audience further forward and engaging in jovial interaction. Whilst their songs are not without a small degree of youthful pretention, or at least a modest theatricality, there seems to be a determination not to incorporate this into their stage performance. They deliver their songs with commitment and charm, impressively faithful to their carefully plotted recorded counterparts.

There’s a sense that Look, Stranger! are venturing into what is now becoming a crowded marketplace. There is a substantial group of bands, from both sides of the Atlantic, including the likes of Battles, Dirty Projectors, Mew, and Three Trapped Tigers, who are reinjecting the virtues of arrangement and composition into rock music. Look, Stranger! seem to share these preoccupations, but with a greater deference to melody, harmony and the timeless impact of the human voice. There’s a palpable, widescreen ambition in songs like ‘She Will Not Rest’ and ‘Nova Zembla’ and the group are not averse to the occasional odd time signature.

If at times it threatens to get a little grandiose (Sheinman half-jokingly describes ‘Nova Zembla’ as the band’s response to the new Muse album), then there are moments of unashamed fun that dilute the danger. ‘She Will Not Rest’ unpredictably explodes into a careering, driving mix of heavy bass synths and stuttering drums. ‘Where Horses Roam’ could be the band’s finest moment, a three minute pop song with a nagging lyricless hook and an angular Grizzly Bear-go-to-studio-54 groove. It has the potential to really capture the imagination – surely it’s only a matter of time before large audiences are chanting ‘woah-hoah-hoah’ along with the band - and then quite possibly to become an albatross around the group’s collective neck.

Most impressive for me is ‘To The River’, where Sheinman’s voice is at its most personable and relaxed and the music is at its most evocative. The integration of electronic and acoustic drums in the rhythm track undoubtedly owes a debt to Radiohead, but the languorous melody also hints at the more emotional territory of Elbow or Sweet Billy Pilgrim. This lush, slow-building terrain, well crafted but also honest and direct is where the band are at their strongest.

This is the work of a sophisticated band. The most transparent evidence of this is in the well executed vocal arrangements and the group’s assured and sensitive handling of dynamics. The overall effect is also enhanced by an excellent rhythm section – bassist Ali Wedderburn and drummer Thom Hosken sit very tightly and play expressively but never contribute any more than is necessary for each particular song’s mood. Hosken is that rarest of things – a drummer with a very light touch who might just, at times, be too quiet! Crucially, Look, Stranger! sound like a real ensemble – there’s also much to enjoy in David Isaacs’ combination of Reichian minimalism and ornate flourish at the keys and in Tim Sheinman’s shimmering guitar lines.

At 93 Feet East the band bring out a more whimsical side to complement their ambition in songs like ‘Lady Godiva’ and also in the playful encore, which features a whistling solo from Wedderburn and sees band members depart from the stage one by one. That the band manage to marry their ambition with qualities of intimacy and immediacy is impressive. There are some minor kinks to be ironed out, some slightly tentative vocal pitching suggesting the group could yet grow in confidence – but this is clearly a band to watch.

The Flight From Convention

Flaming Lips – Embryonic (Warner Bros, 2009)
David Sylvian – Manafon (Samadhi Sound, 2009)

A new Flaming Lips album is always going to be a talking point. It’s unsurprising then that the nature and character of ‘Embryonic’ has already been well documented in publicity and interviews. It’s a massive double album, constructed largely from ‘jams’ in the studio, a move supposedly taken to liberate the group from the restrictions of the song form and to stop them from repeating themselves.

I certainly applaud the band’s willingness to adapt, although it is starting to look as if those brilliant companion albums ‘Zaireeka’ and ‘The Soft Bulletin’ might become twin albatrosses around the group’s collective neck. ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots’ has not, at least for me, endured all that well – relying too much on quirks and production tricks. ‘At War With The Mystics’ may well have been a better record, but it felt dense and impenetrable in places.

Perhaps ‘Embryonic’ might have come as more of a shock if Wayne Coyne hadn’t already explained and justified it so thoroughly. Now that he has, its sound is relatively unsurprising – full of fuzzy noise, propulsive drum grooves (still reliant on that colossal, distorted Dave Fridmann sound) and heavily inspired by the likes of Can and the electric period Miles Davis groups.

Melody is clearly not a priority for the group here, and one of the most interesting changes is the way Wayne Coyne’s voice has now been subsumed into the overall texture of the music. On ‘The Soft Bulletin’, they made a clear virtue of his shaky pitch, presenting him as the very vulnerable, human heart experiencing a sense of cosmic awe. Now he sounds like a background figure, somewhat overwhelmed by the unhinged chaos surrounding him.

As a result, it’s the moments where everything relaxes and the music sleepwalks into a laconic drift that are most surprising. ‘Evil’ is eerie and appropriately sinister, whilst ‘I Can Be A Frog’ is tender and barmy in equal measure, albeit slightly undermined by unsubtle interjecting sound effects. Even better is ‘If’, which sounds like a more aquatic version of Neil Young’s theme from ‘Philadelphia’.

Elsewhere, there is much to enjoy, if you have the patience to trudge through the whole thing. There’s something gleeful and delirious about the chanting on ‘Worm Mountain’ and the opening ‘Convinced By The Hex’ makes for a suitably warped and disconcerting introduction. The frantic, glorious rush of ‘Silver Trembling Hands’ and the way it melts beautifully into its frazzled half-time chorus, is a definite highlight.

Sometimes, though, it has to be conceded that ‘Embryonic’ exposes the limitations of this approach to music making. For improvisation to work, it has to be unselfconscious, with inspired music emerging as a result of a natural, unforced interplay between the members of the ensemble. Yet this is not really what the Flaming Lips do. Their reputation has been built on careful orchestration and meticulous studio processes. In concert, when they are not busy with gesticulation and gimmicky showmanship, their performances consist of near-perfect facsimiles of the studio recordings. It would perhaps be too much to expect them to abandon this aesthetic entirely.

As a result, much of the supposed ‘randomness’ of ‘Embryonic’ sounds meticulously plotted and pre-ordained. When at its least successful, it sounds like a number of, well, ‘embryonic’ ideas stitched together. Yet there are so many ideas here – some worthwhile, whilst others lead the group up cul-de-sacs. At the very least, it invites careful repeated listening. It’s the sort of album that will inspire and frustrate in equal measure.

Embryonic is currently streaming at http://www.colbertnation.com

By way of contrast, David Sylvian is an artist who has been on a path away from the conventional song form for quite some time now. His output has been sporadic, but has always seemed like the result of a clear and driven mission, if not of complete repudiation of his past, then at least in search of radical new directions. It worked brilliantly on ‘Blemish’, a genuinely caustic and provocative record, on which Sylvian sought some kind of catharsis following the collapse of his marriage. It featured contributions from the late, brilliant avant-garde guitarist Derek Bailey and from electronic artist Christian Fennesz.

One of the major characteristics of Sylvian’s recent work has been an attempt to escape from the restrictions of time and rhythm. Like ‘Blemish’, ‘Manafon’ has no drums or percussion, and has a floaty, dreamy atmosphere. Some might argue that Sylvian is more interested in ‘pure sound’ than music here and, as such, ‘Manafon’ does seem more like the product of an art installation than a studio collaboration between experienced musicians. All this reminds me of Ian Carr’s warnings about the limitations of a certain approach to free improvisation. Whilst he had great admiration for the likes of Evan Parker, he also claimed that attempting to avoid time was usually futile – ‘as soon as you play a group of notes, you’re playing in time’.

Whilst ‘Manafon’ adopts a similar approach to Blemish, with Fennesz returning to play a greater role on laptop and guitar, it’s a notably calmer work. Even amidst its references to tortured poets and ‘random acts of senseless violence’, it’s Sylvian’s voice, with its hint of vibrato, that’s placed firmly in the foreground, representing a peculiar sort of serenity. Here is someone who has, at least supposedly, abandoned false idols in search of something pure and crystalline.

This music is pregnant with silence, space and air. The musical contributions from Evan Parker amongst others are quiet and mysterious rather than furious or wild. It’s not fair to say that this music lacks melody – it’s more a case of the improvised backdrops inspiring Sylvian to improvise his own melodies. When these integrate well with the music, as on the opening ‘Small Metal Gods’ and ‘Emily Dickinson’, the results are hypnotic. On the longer pieces, though, any sense of shape or flow tends to dissipate, and the results are rather opaque mood pieces.

‘Manafon’ would have worked brilliantly as an EP or a mini-album. But with the entire full length album adopting this delicate, brush stroke approach consistently, it sounds much more like one continuous, overlong piece than a set of individual songs. I deeply admire the emphasis on space, but can’t help longing for some sort of contrast or surprise.

It could certainly be argued that ‘Manafon’ requires one hundred per cent total immersion and concentration to deliver its full rewards. But the individual statements of the musicians, however subtle and controlled, are fleeting and transient, over which Sylvian’s incantations are clearly intended to be transcendent. His intellectual and philosophical musings don’t always offer anything to connect with emotionally, a problem that did not afflict ‘Blemish’.

One has to admire Sylvian’s audacity. Like Scott Walker, he has distanced himself so thoroughly from his former life as a pop star that one now has to expect something challenging and deeply unconventional with every release. His last release with Nine Horses was a smoky treat – and his record label Samedhi Sound is beginning to establish itself as a source of stimulating, powerful music, not least the haunting, beautiful music of Mercury nominated Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Yet in his search for a transcendental, spiritual response to the dangers and chaos of the world, Sylvian may have produced a work which is ultimately rather difficult to enjoy and appreciate. It’s almost as if his music has been so purified that any sense of humanity – any rage, anger, love, passion has been excised in favour of a detached, impartial gaze. It’s arguable that he has done this very thoroughly and successfully but there will be divergent schools of thought as to whether this is a musical goal worth aspiring to or not.

Captive States

Fish Tank (Dir: Andrea Arnold, 2009)
Afterschool (Dir: Antonio Campos, 2009)


Britain’s Andrea Arnold could be an amazingly resourceful woman, someone with impressive connections or just someone to whom very fortunate things happen. She’s certainly a promising talent, but not all talented people win Oscars for their first short films and get their first two features shown in competition at Cannes. Perhaps her earlier career as a presenter on those ITV Saturday morning shows that I do not remember fondly – No. 73 and Motormouth – did her less harm than one might expect. However she’s got to her current position as pre-eminent British auteur, she’s clearly in a league of her own.

Seeing her in conversation at the London Film Festival a couple of years ago for a special screening of her first feature ‘Red Road’, I was a little disappointed at how inarticulate she appeared. ‘Red Road’ had, it transpired, emerged from a collaborative project in which Lars Von Trier’s Zoetrope company had played a dominant role, and Arnold had been given a list of characters around which she would have to craft her film. She seemed to have little else to say about it and, perhaps understandably, seemed frustrated at some of the audience’s more banal questions.

Luckily, Von Trier’s trademark combination of provocation and pretention were nowhere to be found in Arnold’s finished product, which seemed like a murky, disorientating product of the real world. Arnold had elicited some tremendous performances from an unstarry cast and the cinematography and pacing of the film conspired to create a distinctive, claustrophobic atmosphere.

Nevertheless, I expressed some reservations about the film. I speculated as to whether some of the actions of Arnold’s central female character were completely convincing (although I would have to concede I’m not best placed to judge), perhaps enough to undermine the film's central dramatic conceit. I also felt slightly cheated that Arnold had set up the very engaging and timely CCTV scenario only to sidestep the entire issue in favour of a more conventional revenge thriller with an unsatisfactory denouement.

‘Fish Tank’ is perhaps less original but a good deal more assured. It takes Arnold’s natural feel for location and mood and applies them to something which could be described as a social realist genre piece. Arnold not only brilliantly establishes the tension and frustration of a life in enclosed space and with limited opportunity, but also contrasts this with some brilliantly composed images of the wilder, unforgiving Essex countryside.

In the manner of Ken Loach, Arnold again draws terrific performances from her cast, particularly from the established Michael Fassbender and from untrained newcomer Katie Jarvis. Jarvis, who got the role after being spotted mouthing off at a railway station, is certainly a bright spark and one hopes that she is guided to more acting opportunities in the future. Fassbender, who is clearly becoming more selective with his roles now, just goes from strength to strength.

The story focuses on Mia, a prickly, obtuse and naïve fifteen-year-old living in an Essex council estate with her drunken, disinterested mother and her audacious younger sister. Her appetite for confrontation and adventure places her in difficult situations – getting in trouble for breaking another girl's nose with a deft headbutt or ending up in danger when trying to rescue a captive horse. The latter situation is a none-too-subtle but nevertheless affecting metaphor for Mia’s own desire for freedom.

Her life begins to change irrevocably with the appearance of Conor (played by Fassbender) who begins a relationship with her mother. Conor pierces their world with an attractive casual insouciance which masks his secrets and motivations. The first thing he does is to praise Mia, claiming ‘you dance like a black…I mean it as a compliment’. It’s doubtful whether anyone has even noticed Mia’s passion for urban dance before, never mind encouraged it. It represents mysterious new territory for a young girl with little experience of warmth or love.

At first, Mia is confused about how to react and oscillates between reciprocating Conor’s affection (which seems sincere) and flatly rejecting him. There’s a brilliant scene in which Conor takes the whole family to some marshes and catches a fish. Mia’s mother and sister cower on the bank but Mia bravely follows Conor into the water. She cuts her foot in the process and Conor carries her back to the car, but the warm atmosphere quickly reverts to something unbearably tense.

Arnold establishes a sort of grim inevitability to her narrative arc. She’s not in the least bit subtle in establishing the erotic tension between Conor and Mia and it’s hardly a great plot spoiler to reveal that, after a night of heavy drinking, they end up having rather sordid sex. I’m a little agnostic as to whether this inevitability heightens the sense of claustrophobia or whether it actually undercuts the drama. Either way, I can’t help feeling the film suffers a little for occasionally resorting to arthouse cliche. The use of slow motion and heavy breathing on the soundtrack whenever Conor and Mia are in close proximity seems a little simplistic. It risks glamorising the transgression, of which Conor is painfully aware, but which Mia does not recognise until it is too late.

The relationship, of course, is actually a good deal more complicated than this crass eroticism suggests. Mia desperately needs a father figure, and ends up conflating this in her own mind with sexual attraction. Following their encounter, and Conor’s predictable abrupt departure, the film shifts gear as Mia delves for more information, uncovering some shocking truths and, in one brilliant moment at a ‘dance’ audition, finding a real sense of integrity and self belief. This, combined with the escape at the end of the film (whether temporary or permanent) demonstrates Arnold’s essential optimism, and provides a much needed glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak landscape.

At one point towards the end, it looks like the film might drift into ‘Red Road’ style revenge territory. Thankfully, Arnold holds back brilliantly, merely flirting with this theme in a manner which is entirely in keeping with Mia’s character. During this sequence, she ratchets up the tension and very quickly removes it – a sure sign that she has many more mature films to come.

‘Fish Tank’ is not, as some have suggested, a masterpiece. If we are rash in bestowing good films with such status, then we are doing a disservice both to audiences and to cinema. There are clear flaws – from the aforementioned stylistic stereotypes to some parts being a little underwritten. What it is though is an extremely promising and confident work, more controlled and communicative than its predecessor, which proves that there is still great space for expression in the field of social realism.

Young director Antonio Campos is arguably emerging as something of a Stateside counterpart to Arnold. He caused something of a stir with his short film ‘Buy It Now!’, about a teenage girl auctioning her virginity on ebay. With ‘Afterschool’, he has crafted one of the year’s more eye-catching and acclaimed features, albeit one that wears its influences proudly on its sleeve. With its preoccupation with video and high levels of tension, ‘Afterschool’ has been compared with Michael Haneke’s ‘Hidden’, although the ghostly school corridors of Gus Van Sant’s ‘Elephant’ may have exerted an even greater influence. Campos has at least had the grace to develop his own affectations – much of ‘Afterschool’ is framed in a very unconventional manner, leaving heads and faces curiously out of shot.

I often comment that school is the most political environment we experience in our lives – more so than any workplace or indeed any explicitly political institution. Campos goes much further than this in establishing it as a chilling, alienating place repressing expression and feeling. So completely dispiriting is this portrait that it seems more like a depiction of a prison. With its harsh lighting and creepy sound design, ‘Afterschool’ is distinctive chiefly for being the coldest, most austere film I have seen in some time. This at times makes it quite challenging to watch.

The film’s protagonist Rob, played appropriately listlessly by Ezra Miller, is compulsively addicted to some of the internet’s darker offerings, from violent pornography to confrontational clips on YouTube. He is interested, he says in slices of ‘things that seem real’. Rob is inarticulate, clumsy and unconfident, particularly in his relationships with girls, and appears to inhabit a world where drugs, both illegal and prescribed are commonplace. Actually, rather than bring him closer to the real world, his immersion in video serves to detach him further from reality.

Rob joins an after school video club to learn filming techniques and perhaps to get closer to a girl. Whilst working on a project, he inadvertently captures the school’s leading lights, glamorous and popular blonde twins, collapsing and dying after snorting cocaine that may have been cut with rat poison. His response to this traumatic experience is affectless and dulled, although it inevitably provokes the well-intentioned but naïve concern of all the adults around him.

Indeed, one of my major misgivings with ‘Afterschool’ is its treatment of the adult community of the school, from its patronising counsellor to its foolish headteacher. The latter shows extraordinary depths of idiocy by assigning Rob to make a video diary in memory of the girls and then being shocked by the unflinchingly honest product with which he is presented (Robert’s film eschews both diplomacy and production values). Predictably Rob’s mother, heard only in a terse telephone conversation in the school common room, is similarly witless and lacking in understanding. Whilst these portrayals don’t quite hit the levels of adult caricature favoured by Channel 4’s Skins, they do fail in the need to capture the complexity of relationships between teenagers and adults (something Andrea Arnold obviously confronts more explicitly in ‘Fish Tank’). Adults can of course seem distant or unhelpful at that age – but usually some are able to bridge the perceived divide and find some common ground. Perhaps these uncomplicated roles were simply necessary for Campos to establish his sense of alienation and confusion.

There are some convincing touches – from Rob’s fumbling and apparently unsatisfying first sexual encounter to his simmering resentment at his room-mate stealing his girlfriend. Campos also does an assured job in realising the real and significant impact such a tragic event would have on a school community. Rob actually captures this in his video, but the headteacher would, understandably, prefer to present the bereaved family with benign platitudes set to appropriate music.

The film’s brutal aesthetic is sustained throughout – an impressive achievement, although one which leaves critical judgment somewhat in the service of personal taste. There is a great deal to admire about ‘Afterschool’, perhaps a little less to like. The film poses intriguing and important questions about guilt and complicity and leaves them tantalisingly unresolved.

One final thought – if ‘Afterschool’ has been so admired on both sides of the Atlantic (in the UK, it received a feature review in Sight and Sound, and broadly positive assessments from Peter Bradshaw and Philip French, widely believed to be our most influential broadsheet critics) – why has it only been showing in one screen in London?!

Into The Woods

Mew – No More Stories Are Told Today I’m Sorry They Washed Away No More Stories The World Is Grey I’m Tired Let’s Wash Away (Columbia, 2009)

Well, that certainly wraps up the ludicrous title of the year award, with bonus points for lack of punctuation. What a shame that such linguistic pretention will most likely alienate this record’s potential audience, for Mew’s excellent, inventive music continues to develop apace. This may well be their warmest, most accessible album but the group’s imagination with rhythm and sound continues to set them apart from most of their peers, placing them firmly in that league of superior, composition-focused rock groups (see also Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear, Apostle of Hustle, Three Trapped Tigers etc).

Those with an innate suspicion of ‘intellectual’ rock music might pounce on the angular subdivisions of ‘Introducing Palace Players’ (featuring a style of drumming that is somewhat alien to the rigorous restrictions of indie-rock). They might also be dissuaded by the rather self-conscious reversed weirdness of the opening ‘New Terrain’ and condemn Mew as ‘difficult’. For me, there’s something curiously uplifting in the disjunctive robotic movements of the former and something surreal and disorientating in the textures of the latter.

Whilst this music is certainly meticulously constructed, it’s not without more immediate charms. There’s the insistent pulse of ‘Repeaterbeater’ or the gorgeous summery shimmer of ‘Beach’. Even more off the beaten track is the bastardised samba of ‘Hawaii’, an irresistible confection which seems. Whilst Mew are renowned for their short attention spans, tending to flip between a wealth of ideas, these songs are more notable for their consistent, carefully detailed moods.

The mid-section of the album adopts a more stately pace. The saccharine ‘Silas The Magic Car’ is the one point where Jonas Bjerre’s cutesy, childlike vocals threaten to become an irritation. Much better is ‘Cartoons and Macrame Wounds’, an engrossing and mesmerising epic with a peculiar combination of gentle lilt and emphatic crescendos.

Rich Costey’s production is a significant factor throughout. Having also produced the group’s international debut ‘Frengers’, Costey has played a vital role in defining the distinctive Mew sound, which is sleek and precise. It strikes me that Mew are actually quite close in sonic terms to Muse, another band that Costey has produced, although they are nowhere near as grandiose and they lack Matt Bellamy’s nails-down-a-blackboard vocal histrionics. Perhaps this explains Mew’s modest but fiercely loyal audience – they’ll never break into stadiums in the way that Muse have, perhaps because of the sense of restraint that tempers their otherwise expansive music.

There’s something quietly subversive about Mew’s coupling of mainstream production values with the impulse for adventure. Whilst the album’s title exposes their affectations, there’s also something innocent and charming in their bizarre, almost nonsensical lyrics and delicate melodies. Listening to them is like walking into a fairytale forest – it looks beautiful and enticing but offers unexpected twists and turns in the dark.

Ellie Greenwich 1940 - 2009

‘Be My Baby’, ‘Leader of the Pack’, ‘Then He Kissed Me’, ‘I Can Hear Music’, ‘River Deep Mountain High’, or even the much less cool ‘Sunshine After The Rain’ – it’s an old cliché, but they simply don’t make them like that anymore. All were co-written by the great Ellie Greenwich, who died this week at the age of 68. Theiconic producers behind her biggest hits (Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Phil Spector) are rightly given credit for defining the sound of popular music at that time, but their influence would not have been so pervasive were it not for the quality of the writing of Greenwich and her partner Jeff Barry. Whilst the other husband and wife writing teams of the time, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill, remain household names, few are even aware of Greenwich’s achievement.

Many of her songs exalted the naïve excesses of adolescent emotions, making them readily identifiable for many. Whilst they were undoubtedly written for a commercial imperative in a rapidly growing market, they also came to define the genuine art of the 2-3 minute pop songs. Here was all the grandeur and feeling of a symphony, compacted into a readily digestible form. The harmonic progressions were necessarily simple, but the formula was always irresistible and endlessly repeatable.

Many will know Greenwich’s best loved songs, even if they are completely unaware that she wrote them. Fewer will have any idea of her own solo recordings as a singer-songwriter, most of which are criminally unavailable. Posthumous it will now be, but a reissue programme would be greatly appreciated.

Shopping List

The busy part of the year seems to have started early this year, and suddenly I find there's lots within my radar. Release dates in brackets where I know what they are.

Sian Alice Group – Troubled, Shaken etc (out now)
Tara Jane O’Neil – A Ways Away (out now)
Mew – No More Stories…(out now)
The XX – The XX (out now)
Olafur Arnalds – Found Songs (out now)
Christian McBride and Inside Straight – Kind of Brown (out now)
John Surman with John Abercrombie, Drew Gress and Jack De Johnette – Brewter’s Rooster (out now)
Vijay Iyer Trio – Historicity (out now)
Bill Frisell – Disfarmer (out now)
Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs (7/9)
David Sylvian – Manafon (14/9)
Tyondai Braxton – Central Market (14/9)
The Very Best – Warm Heart Of Africa (14/9)
Health – Get Colour (14/9)
Volcano Choir – Unmap (21/9)
Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba – I Speak Fula (21/9)
Pearl Jam – Backspacer (21/9)
Antipop Consortium – Flourescent Black (28/9)
Liam Hayes and Plush – Bright Penny (28/9)
The Twilight Sad – Forget The Night Ahead (5/10)
Flaming Lips – Embryonic (13/10)
Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions – Through The Devil Softly

Vintage Premonitions

Susanna and the Magical Orchestra - 3 (Rune Grammofon, 2009)

Whilst I’ve written very favourably about Susanna Wallumrod both as a solo artist and in this duo set up with Morten Qvenild, I also argued that her next release would have to offer something different to save her from being caricatured. With ‘3’, she has emerged as a more confident singer and writer, largely jettisoning the austere accompaniments with which her audience will by now be overly familiar. Whilst the pace is still mostly glacial, the settings are fresh. Susanna’s voice is now centre stage, frequently multi-tracked, and surrounded by swathes of dense synthesiser layers.

Where once Wallumrod and Qvenild would have doggedly pursued an unchanging dynamic and mood throughout an entire album, here a single exotic track such as ‘Palpatine’s Dream’ incorporates a variety of textures and moods. This is all achieved without losing a sense of stylistic identity. The music on ‘3’ is still intimate and subtle, but also arguably warmer and with a greater element of surprise. It helps that Qvenild has a notable restraint and a sensitivity to balance. For all the group’s icy Nordic exterior, this is also an emotional work, filled with melancholy laments of considerable power.

Some critics have found Susanna’s po-mo cover versions gimmicky but she has made a major contribution towards re-establishing the art of interpretation (something that looked in danger of being lost to contemporary pop music). Her work is more artful than the tacky, one-dimensional approach of Nouvelle Vague (anyone who makes Kiss’ ‘Crazy Crazy Nights’ into something heartbreaking surely deserves respect). Those harshest of critics should be pleased that ‘3’ focuses more on her excellent original writing but will also no doubt gleefully pounce on the wonderful version of Rush’s ‘Subdivisions’ included here. Stripping that song of Rush’s false grandeur, it becomes something of a futuristic Ballardian nightmare – full of foreboding but also tender and bittersweet.

Even better though is her take on a less provocative selection – English folk singer Roy Harper’s ‘Another Day’. This song is hardly in need of an injection of good taste but the English folk idiom occupies a space at some remove from this very produced and arranged fantasia. Wisely, Qvenild reduces the accompaniment to delicate piano lines, allowing Susanna’s resonant but controlled vocal performance the space it demands. In its slow building intensity it reminds me of Kate Bush’s ‘This Woman’s Work’.

Harper’s narrative of relationship regret and lost chances fits well with the prevailing sense of loss that pervades the original songs. There’s the delicate, desolate sadness of ‘Game’ and the languid melancholy of ‘Someday’, the latter strikingly direct. Susanna’s voice, whilst mostly understated, has a piercing clarity and haunting effect.

Even when Qvenild’s arrangements become more sophisticated, as they do on ‘Palpatine’s Dream’ and the gorgeous ‘Deer Eyed Lady’, Susanna’s voice is still the focal point. She harmonises with herself on ‘Palpatine’s Dream’ to mesmeric effect. We’re so used to hearing her voice as a pure, unadorned siren’s call that to hear it in layers makes the whole process of vocal multi-tracking seem novel once again. Perhaps best of all is ‘Recall’ which begins with painful memories but has an unexpected glimmer of hope and brightness at its heart. These new settings add sensuality and depth to Susanna’s performances.

It’s worth noting that Susanna is an unusually prolific artist given the modern album’s usual lengthy gestation period. It was only a few months ago that I was transfixed by her live performance supporting Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy in London, and then she was mainly performing songs from last year’s ‘Flower of Evil’. For a while, it looked as if this determination to keep releasing music would result in repetition but ‘3’ marks a bold progression. It’s a retro-futurist gem, its landscape of vintage synths conspiring to create something peculiar and touching.

Back To Life

Pearl Jam - London O2 Arena 18th August 2009

The feeling at the end of this epic performance was, for Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder ‘beyond words’. It has to be admitted that even for a relative unbeliever, this might have been enough to convert me back to the cause.

I use the qualifications ‘relative’ and ‘convert back’ because, some time in my early teens, I might well have counted Pearl Jam among my favourite bands. I remember waiting for ‘Vitalogy’ to come out with genuine excitement and, even when it turned out to be a rather hit and miss combination of great songwriting, untamed aggression and half-arsed experiments in banality, found that excitement rather uncritically satiated.

Some time after ‘No Code’ (an album that now seems like the key to their catalogue – the point of transition), I switched off. Vedder’s earnest, self-important side seemed to take over and, whilst the band could still knock out serviceable riffs with commanding energy, they seemed to have forgotten about writing memorable songs. In retrospect, perhaps every Pearl Jam album is a little troublesome to digest whole but, whilst ‘Binaural’ ‘Riot Act’ and ‘Pearl Jam’ all have their moments, they somehow seem to veer closer to monotony.

In August 2009, the group seem like a band revitalised. In the early nineties, the group often seemed like the unacceptable face of grunge – the ones who had the ambition to be more than moderately successful and who were also largely comfortable with the results. This year, the obligatory anniversary repackaging of their debut ‘Ten’ has helped remind people that there was always soul and subtlety beneath their mainstream rock sheen. In addition to this, the imminent ‘Backspacer’ seems exactly what is required – a mercilessly concise half hour of new wave influenced pop songs. The three that they tackle during this gig sound refreshingly lightweight and entertaining, free from the burden of clumsy lurches at profundity.

Pearl Jam have clearly been educated at the Bruce Springsteen school of live performance – they’re in absolutely no hurry to finish and know how to get an arena crowd involved. We clap on command and ‘doo-de-doo’ along to the refrain from ‘Black’, proving that nothing unites a huge crowd quite as easily as a break-up song. By the encore, the audience are so enthusiastic that Vedder can afford his own Robbie Williams moment, allowing the crowd to sing the entire opening verse of 'Betterman' for him. The set, at two and a half hours, delivers value for money but also a whole lot more besides. Very few bands could get away with playing for this long without including some of their best loved songs (‘Jeremy’ and ‘Daughter’ are conspicuous by their absence) but Pearl Jam pull off the neat trick of juxtaposing some unpredictable selections with more established gems.

The band play six songs from ‘Ten’ and, save for the half beard denoting some form of maturity, Eddie Vedder has hardly changed much since 1992, still sporting big shorts and trainers and veering between sombre invocations and savage growl (he sounds dignified on ‘Immortality’ but like he’s ripping his own vocal chords out on ‘Blood’). Similarly, Mike McCready, in spite of signs of middle-aged spread, still stalks the stage like a man possessed, unleashing fearsome guitar solos. Much of this music is made for arenas and must have sounded distinctly out of place at their debut London show at the Borderline back in ’92. However, by opening with the otherworldly drone of ‘Release’, the side of the group that veers well beyond stadium rock conventions is immediately emphasised. It’s an odd opening gambit, but it works superbly – the band are left largely unlit for the song’s duration, before the stage lights ignite as the group launch into ‘Animal’. Aside from this, there’s actually very little in the way of big show theatrics here – the visuals for the screens are restrained and sepia-tinged, there are no explosions, no props and no videos. The music is obviously intended to speak for itself.

The first six songs cover the period from ‘Ten’ to ‘Vitalogy’, including a furious ‘Corduroy’ and strident ‘Why Go?’. The group veer straight from this run through their golden period to brand new single ‘The Fixer’, which sits very comfortably alongside those powerful earlier songs. It’s an immediately likeable slice of heavy pop that already looks like a crowd favourite. Vedder precedes it with an endearing bit of amateur psychology, explaining that men always want to find quick fixes to relationship problems when listening and understanding might be the preferred response.

The set takes some bizarre twists and turns as it progresses. Either respectfully or satirically, Vedder introduces a thrilling version of ‘Rats’ with a few bars of Michael Jackson’s ‘Ben’ and dedicates it to ‘a man who was supposed to be on this very stage, doing what he did’. There are several tracks not associated with any album – in the main set there’s ‘I Got ID’ from the Merkinball single released around the same time as the group’s collaboration with Neil Young on ‘Mirrorball’. The lengthy encores feature covers of songs by The Who and Victoria Williams (‘Crazy Mary’), as well as the punk-meets-Motown stomp of B-side ‘Leavin’ Here’ and a rare example of a B-side that has developed a life all of its own, the closing ‘Yellow Ledbetter’. It’s a gorgeous song, strongly influenced by the more lilting and reflective side of Jimi Hendrix, but also dense and verbose, perhaps even a little obtuse. Surely even Vedder doesn’t know what all the words are!

By this time, it’s 11.15pm and Pearl Jam have clearly outstayed their welcome. The house lights have been turned on in an effort to encourage people to leave, but the group are still onstage, Vedder nonchalantly sharing a bottle of beer and a cigarette with the front row, breaking not only the curfew but the anti-smoking law as well. The show has been a celebration of this group’s considerable virtues and their dogged longevity. They are the true survivors of the grunge era, somehow managing to transcend the style at the same time as maintaining it.

Head Music

Steve Lehman Octet – Travail, Transformation and Flow (Pi, 2009)

It cannot be said that the title of this album does not prepare the listener adequately for the music it describes. Saxophonist and composer Steve Lehman is a fearless intellectual and his music comes far more from the head than the heart. Lehman has been exploring the possibilities of metric modulations and broken time for a few years now, both in his own work and in his outstanding trio Fieldwork with Vijay Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey. His explorations have resulted in some of the most challenging and provocative music currently being made in American jazz.

For this new work, he has focused at least in part on his interest in the techniques of ‘spectral composition’, an approach most closely associated with the composer Tristan Murail, with whom Lehman has studied. This goes well beyond my areas of expertise, but the process apparently involves using computer modelling to base harmony on sound properties rather than on intervals. Its application to the dynamic of a jazz ensemble, particularly the relatively unconventional octet format, at least appears rather apt. The sheets of sound on the opening ‘Echoes’ are weird and disorientating, especially when combined with Lehman’s fondness for head-spinning rhythmic innovation. ‘Echoes’ sets the scene for what follows, which is essentially further explorations of the same ideas, with varying degrees of abstraction.

Lehman’s music here certainly sounds thoroughly composed and arranged. It will also sound somewhat unfamiliar to those ears fully rooted in the jazz tradition. It’s easy to see why it divides opinion (some find Lehman’s relentless complexity and harmonic approach alienating or even unmusical). Yet it’s also possible to approach this challenging music more positively and constructively. For all his preoccupations with software mapping and mathematical precision, much of this music feels spacious and liberated, even accounting for the constant distraction of Tyshawn Sorey’s rapid fire drumming. It works so well at least in part because the rhythm section of Sorey and Drew Gress are strong enough to handle the various subdivisions and tempo changes demanded by Lehman’s arrangements. It also seems that Lehman’s processes can be applied in a variety of ways, from fast tempos (‘No Neighbourhood Rough Enough’) to freer, almost lyrical environments (‘Waves’ – an apt title for this aquatic sounding piece).

This is not, it has to be said, emotional or emotive music. It does not invoke sensations of longing, neither does it express anything particularly profound about the human condition. Only ‘Waves’ approaches anything sensual and the abstruse nature of Lehman’s approach does not result in anything particularly mysterious. It is systems music, perhaps even designed to express nothing beyond itself. Perhaps one does have to work to understand this very specific musical language in order to appreciate it fully. This approach could easily lead Lehman up an artistic cul-de-sac (the same marginal route that many others have followed before him). To these ears, though, there’s something innately thrilling about the juxtaposition of these sheets of peculiar harmony with Tyshawn Sorey’s drumming, seemingly as much drawn from electronic music as from jazz. The impressive technique of the ensemble is put to good use in creating something vibrant and exciting.

Lehman’s success here is to break through borders that are too readily assumed to be closed. His confident absorption of techniques thought only applicable to specific areas of twentieth century composition reinforces the notion that spontaneous interaction and compositional processes need not be mutually exclusive. As if to take the genre-crossing project far beyond its logical conclusion, the album ends with a Wu-Tang Clan transcription, which is as enervating a jazz recording as I’ve heard all year.

Floating Above The Storm

The Low Anthem – Oh My God, Charlie Darwin (Bella Union)

Many writers are comparing this with Fleet Foxes, if only because both acts are signed to Bella Union and the label is, rather understandably, looking to repeat that success. The two acts could be said to be alike in that they both deal in forms of modern American folk music, although that very broad umbrella is where the comparisons should end. There’s little of Fleet Foxes’ hippie mysticism or their chamber pop arrangements. Ostensibly, what The Low Anthem offer is closer to the tradition of Woody Guthrie or Hank Williams – narratives rich in pathos and with powerful, haunting melodies.

Of course, the group have their own spin on this sound, with Ben Knox Miller veering from a warm, ingratiating tenor to a more otherworldly falsetto. The latter is put to superb use on the opening ‘Charlie Darwin’, a simple but spectral and evocative piece that lingers long in the memory. On ‘Cage The Songbird’ he veers confidently between the two. With its rudimentary drum machine and synth pad backing, this actually sounds closer to Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel than to Crosby, Stills and Nash.

There are a couple of particularly beautiful story songs – ‘To Ohio’, which is so moving in its initial version that the reprise at the album’s conclusion fails to serve much purpose. Perhaps best of all is ‘Ticket Taker’, where Knox Miller husks a little more, almost in the manner of Leonard Cohen, a voice perfectly suited to the song’s humble central character (‘Mary Anne – I know I’m a long shot/But Mary Anne, what else have you got?’). The instrumentation is subtle and unusual, with multi-instrumentalist Jocie Adams adding texture on clarinet and harmonium.

Where the band trip up, at least to my ears, is when Knox Miller adopts a whisky-soaked gravel growl, and the band attempt a rather clumsy hybrid of Tom Waits and The Pogues, driven by a relentless four to the floor bass drum beat. One of these tracks, ‘Home I’ll Never Be’, is actually a cover of Waits’ musical setting of Jack Kerouac. Given how well Waits has perfected this particular vocal style and the extent to which he has made it his own, emulating it seems rather futile. These tracks also jar substantially with the album’s predominant mood of melancholy reflection. They sound like the work of a completely different band. No doubt this tactic will have as many admirers as detractors, but I’m more taken with the group’s core sound than with their occasional lurch into drunken hoedowns.

Soundbites Part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (Domino, 2009)

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

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

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

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

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

Dinosaur Jr. – Farm (Jagjaguwar)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

King Creosote – Flick The Vs (Domino, 2009)

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

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

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

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

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

The Gossip – Music For Men (Sony, 2009)

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

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

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

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

That Time of Year Again...

Can I really be bothered with Mercury Music Prize analysis and predictions again? It's no surprise to see a female-dominated shortlist, but why on earth can they not ever nominate the right female artists? Where's Micachu for example?

I'm quite surprised that Led Bib got the contemporary jazz nod over Zed-U and Troyka. I rather feel it should have gone to Mark Lockheart.

I'm tipping either Bat For Lashes or the tiresomely overrated Speech Debelle to win, just on a hunch.

The only truly justified winners from this list would be The Invisible or Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Too much to hope for no doubt!

Of course, one can easily posit a better list from the omissions:
James Blackshaw, Acoustic Ladyland, Polar Bear, Curios, Tim Friese-Green (which I've yet to hear but sounds interesting), Doves, Micachu, Alasdair Roberts, Pet Shop Boys, Super Furry Animals, Roots Manuva, Max Tundra, The Week That Was...

New Fusions

Acoustic Ladyland – Living With a Tiger (Strong and Wrong, 2009)

The name Acoustic Ladyland had a certain logic when the group emerged as an acoustic jazz quartet performing works inspired by Jimi Hendrix. Since then, they’ve become a full-blooded jazz-rock ensemble, with increasing emphasis on the rock. The moniker now begins to look more like a stubborn contradiction.

With explosive guitarist replacing the now departed keyboardist Tom Cawley and Ruth Goller replacing Tom Herbert on electric bass, the band have undergone a major line-up change. This hasn’t radically redefined their sound, but has rather refocused their energies and bolstered their already aggressive dynamic. The resulting album is brutal, insistent and undeniably enjoyable, brimming with riotous energy and enthusiasm.

There’s a playful verve to ‘Have Another Go’ and ‘Death By Platitude’, underpinned by Seb Rochford’s drumming, which is at once rigorous and thrilling. Best of all are probably the swampy ‘Gratitude’ and the closing ‘You and I’. The latter has a primal rhythmic urgency. On the former, Sharkey gets welcome space to demonstrate his chops as well as his array of effects pedals and the group begins to resemble an edgier Led Zeppelin.

Much of the music here is taken at a frantic pace (the opening ‘Sport Mode’ certainly wastes no time in establishing the mood), although the band are sounding increasingly assured with slower grooves too. ‘The Mighty Q’, dedicated to saxophonist and band leader Pete Wareham’s newborn son Quincy is one of these moments, demonstrating that there’s a very human heart beneath the relentless attack. ‘Worry’ even allows a slight hint of melancholy into the proceedings, hinting that Wareham might be able to provide the group with much more light and shade in the future.

‘Living With a Tiger’ is a considerably more confident album than its predecessor ‘Skinny Grin’. That record had its moments – but didn’t sound anywhere near as powerful as this. Perhaps part of this process of refinement has been the abandoning of vocals – although I admire Alice Grant’s original vocal style. On ‘Living With a Tiger’, Wareham’s saxophone playing has the passion, guts and gusto of a bellowing human voice. This could easily be stereotyped as angry music, but I’m struck most by its positivity and joy.

Troyka – Troyka (Edition, 2009)

There’s a great deal of love for Troyka at the moment and it’s easy to understand why. The group is based on a straightforward but original conceit. Here is a conventional organ trio line-up (Kit Downes on organ, Chris Montague on guitar and the truly fearsome Josh Blackmore on drums) playing anything but conventional music. This band deconstructs genre boundaries with a wilful and sometimes brutal intent. The virtuosic ability of these three musicians, not purely in terms of technique, but also in terms of developing expressive musical ideas, is impossible to deny.

The in-demand Robert Harder, who also worked on Acoustic Ladyland’s album, again lends his engineering skills here. The whole album certainly sounds brilliant. There’s a constant sense of drama and tension, frequently found in the contrast between the underlying electronics and Montague’s daredevil highwire acrobatics on the guitar. The drum sound is also impressively crisp, with Josh Blackmore’s elaborately arranged kit voicings influencing the overall impact of the performances as much as the interplay between Montague and Downes.

Yet so much is thrown into the musical melting pot here that it threatens to become both overwhelming and oppressive. The compositions are angular and cerebral, and are frequently characterised by metronomically precise but unexpected interjections of electronic noise and crunching rock guitar riffing. In the short term, the control with which the band executes these changes is frankly breathtaking. The outstanding ‘Clint’ veers from a peculiar groove to a heavy recontextualisation of the slide guitar. But after a few listens, I find myself yearning for just some of the multitude of ideas to be expanded and developed.

Somewhat oddly, Montague’s compositions seem to work best when mercilessly concise. It’s refreshing to hear tunes as short as one and a half minutes in length that somehow sound complete. On the longer pieces, the group seem so keen to squeeze in all of their ideas that it’s often hard to find the common thread. Downes’ contributions, especially the mysterious ‘Golden’, offer breathing space for more lyrical playing.

This is exciting, challenging music and if I sometimes fail to rise to the challenge here, it possibly says more about me as a listener than it does about Troyka as an ensemble. Given time, I suspect this quirky, cerebral beast will reveal more than just an intricate logic.

Zed-U – Night Time on the Middle Passage (Babel, 2009)

Zed-U, a trio featuring Shabaka Hutchings, Neil Charles and Tom Skinner have variously been described as thrash jazz or dub jazz. Inevitably, these generic terms don’t come anywhere close to capturing their subtle combination of dreamy fantasia and punchy improvisation. ‘Night Time on the Middle Passage’ is less concerned with browbeating its audience with its innovative credentials, instead concentrating on mood, texture and space. For this reason, it demands concentration and repeated listens, but may actually be the most successful of these recent records aiming to redefine what jazz musicians can play.

Those who have seen saxophonist and clarinettist Hutchings play live will be aware that he can play with an imposing and impassioned authority. This side of his personality emerges less frequently here and is all the more striking as a result. ‘Chief’ is characterised by a fiery intensity and crafty staccato unison lines. Even better is the gradual crescendo of ‘Roki’, which builds from a restrained introduction into tempestuous repeated phrases.

Elsewhere though, the focus is more on his spare and elegant clarinet playing, frequently manipulated through effects and sampling. What is most impressive about this music is the way the instruments leave space for each other, with Hutchings’ direct, clear motifs interweaving with Neil Charles’ expressive basslines. Charles and drummer Tom Skinner do so much more than simply anchor the group – they inform the texture and intensity levels with intuitive musicality.

There will no doubt be tedious debates about whether this constitutes jazz or not. For the adventurous and open-minded listener, it won’t matter much how it’s classified. It certainly falls into the bracket of improvised music – in live performance, the group use this music as a springboard for further exploration, with tremendously exciting results. No two performances will be the same. In this sense, it fits my personal notion of what constitutes 'jazz', and represents a clear attempt to draw from that tradition and make it more relevant to a younger audience both in London and beyond.

Some have criticised the record for foregrounding texture and sound at the expense of composition, but I’m not sure I agree with this. There are formalities and rigours to the music here. It’s arguable that the pieces seem to be based more around phrasing and articulation than around conventional melodies but in some ways this makes the music more fresh and intriguing. The clipped, rhythmic motifs of Kraftwerk’s. Similarly, structure and dynamics play an important role. From start to finish, the album sounds fantastic, with a careful attention to detail and a consistently mysterious, sometimes unnerving mood. Zed-U’s novel synthesis can no doubt be further developed, but this is a brilliantly realised first step.

Soundbites Part 1

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (Honest Jon’s, 2009)

I’m not sure there’s much mileage in this conceit beyond one album, but what a tremendously enjoyable album this is. Juxtaposing the full force and authority of a New Orleans-style brass ensemble with some righteous hip-hop inspired grooves (courtesy of outstanding drummers Malcolm Catto and Sola Akingbola) results in music with unstoppable urgency and insistence. There wouldn’t be quite such an energy rush were the arrangements not so convincing and the playing so jubilant. The likes of ‘Rabbit Hop’ and ‘Alyo’ are celebratory blasts, brimming with enthusiasm.

Levon Helm – Electric Dirt (Vangard/EMI, 2009)

I foolishly missed Levon Helm’s excellent comeback album ‘Dirt Farmer’ when it was first released a couple of years ago but have since immersed myself in its brilliant journey through the American folk tradition. Its immediate follow-up is better still, as its title suggests offering up more of the same with extra amplification. Former Bob Dylan guitarist Larry Campbell again produces and, although there’s only one original Helm song here, it must be noted that this is a far more inspired journey through blues, country and soul than Dylan’s ‘Together Through Life’. Helm’s voice still has considerable power, particularly remarkable given his recent battle with throat cancer. He also plays drums on every track, his dusty shuffle grooves still impeccable. The whole experience is elevated by Steve Bernstein’s wonderful horn arrangements, which bring a modified version of New Orleans to the proceedings. The vocal arrangements are similarly impressive, adding sophistication to an already effortless band delivery (Larry Campbell’s ‘When I Go Away’ is probably the best example of this). This is gutsy, soulful music with spirit and feeling. In its mapping of the connections between Appalachian folk, country, soul, gospel, blues and early New Orleans jazz, it’s one of the best records of the year so far, and arguably the best trip through American folk music since Steve Earle’s ‘The Mountain’.

Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications (Rough Trade, 2009)

I don’t write this blog to waste time by being a carping critic. Generally, I prefer to enthuse about music I like rather than rant about what I dislike. But here is one of those examples of a record I want to like a great deal more than I actually do. Has Jarvis Cocker's solo career appears like a journey away from pop stardom towards some sort of outsider status.

The trouble with this is, whilst Jarvis was a tremendous pop star, he doesn’t make for such a good alternative icon. Some people have lauded this album for the fruitful results of Steve Albini’s production, but I don’t hear this. It’s hard to be an unreserved Albini enthusiast – his laissez-faire approach works well when there’s a great band playing original and captivating material. Unfortunately, Jarvis’ current backing group are lumbering at best and the songs here are mostly derivative or half-baked. The lack of garnish in the production further exposes their limitations.

Jarvis himself mostly sounds completely adrift, with very little to say. The most pervasive subject appears to be sex – or at least meaningless carnal desire. Perhaps appropriately, Jarvis has little profound or novel to say on the subject. There are a handful of endearing bad puns (‘I met her in the museum of Palaeontology but I make no bones about it’) but the central idea of the album’s best track (‘I never said I was deep but I am profoundly shallow’) sadly seems to encapsulate Jarvis’ lack of inspiration.

What happened to Jarvis’ witty and incisive social observation? The rather patronising character study of ‘Angela’ can’t really qualify for this. With the brilliant ‘C*nts Are Still Running The World’, it seemed that Jarvis’ solo career got off to a flying start, but the subsequent solo albums have presented him as an artist in apparent terminal decline. It’s all too tempting to describe ‘Further Complications’ as an artistic mid-life crisis. I really hope he can reverse the trend.

Cortney Tidwell – Boys (City Slang, 2009)

Sometimes artists sound less distinctive with each subsequent release. On her debut self-titled mini album and first full length, Cortney Tidwell emerged as an individual vocalist with a good ear for sound, both otherworldly and bewitching. On the much delayed ‘Boys’, she frequently starts to resemble other artists. During ‘Watusii’, I can’t help thinking of Laura Veirs, ’17 Horses’ could slot very easily on to PJ Harvey’s ‘Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea’, whilst the intimate ‘Son and Moon’ so closely resembles Bjork circa Vespertine that it could be accused of imitation. Elsewhere, there’s an indie brightness that makes for a more conventional sound. I’m not sure this should detract too much from the quality of this record though – the material is still strong, with considered and effective production. The dusty opener ‘Solid State’ and the duet with Jim James on ‘Being Crosby’ are deceptively simple acoustic gems, whilst propulsive pounders like ‘So We Sing’ and ‘Watusii’ vary the tempo and mood. Another obvious reference now seems to be Hope Sandoval and Mazzy Star, but there’s just that bit of additional weirdness – the peculiar, fuzzy, haunting atmospheres of ‘Palace’ or ‘Oslo’ for example – which help Tidwell remain in her own space. The tracks with the most space, and where her voice is at its most tender and delicate – ‘Bad News’ and ‘Oh, China’ particularly - are beguiling.

Wilco – Wilco (The Album) (Nonesuch, 2009)

Admiration for Wilco has perhaps lead to this album being slightly indulged by critics. There’s definitely a sense now that Jeff Tweedy has settled into a dependable groove, the results being that this flippantly titled album is, like ‘Sky Blue Sky’ before it, a bit of a mixed bag. There are some great songs here and the presence of Nels Cline on guitar continues to temper the occasional lapses into hazy blandness. For the most part though, Jeff Tweedy is resolutely refusing to break new ground. Having said that, I’m someone who admires ‘Summerteeth’ nearly as much as ‘A Ghost Is Born’, and there’s something straightforwardly appealing about the summery harmonies of ‘You Never Know’ and especially about the ornate chamber pop of ‘Deeper Down’. It would take a complete miser to resist the considerable charms of ‘You And I’, a saccharine duet with Leslie Feist which makes for a nice mirror to Feist’s own ‘Intuition’ in shedding new light on human relationships. ‘Bull Black Nova’ presents the band in excoriating form, but it’s basically an edited rewrite of ‘Spiders’ from ‘A Ghost Is Born’. Elsewhere, a soft, hazy and amenable sound is very much in abundance – nice enough, but hardly revolutionary.

Playlist

Need...more...time...to...write...about...great....records....

Zed-U – Night Time on the Middle Passage (Babel)
Steve Lehman Octet - Travail, Transformation and Flow (Pi)
Joe Lovano Us Five - Folk Art (Blue Note/EMI)
Andy Sheppard – Movements In Colour (ECM)
Miroslav Vitous – Remembering Weather Report (ECM)
Acoustic Ladyland – Living With a Tiger (Strong and Wrong)
Troyka – Troyka (Edition)
Kronos Quartet – Floodplain (Nonesuch)
Elvis Costello – Secret, Profane and Sugarcane (Decca)
Levon Helm – Electric Dirt (Vanguard/EMI)
The Low Anthem – Oh My God, Charlie Darwin (Bella Union)
Wilco – Wilco (The Album) (Nonesuch)
Tinariwen – Imdiwan: Companions (Indipendiente)
City Center – City Center (Type)
Apostle Of Hustle – Eats Darkness (Arts and Crafts)
Charles Spearin – The Happiness Project (Arts and Crafts)
Dinosaur Jr. – Farm (Jagjagwar)
Cortney Tidwell – Boys (City Slang)
Gossip – Music For Men (Sony)

Summer Meltdown

Acoustic Ladyland - Clore Ballroom Sunday 14th June
Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra/The Bad Plus - Saturday 20th June
Ornette Coleman with Baaba Maal, Flea, Charlie Haden and The Master Musicians of Jajouka - Sunday 21st June

The Meltdown festival has become something of a regular fixture in my musical calendar and the presence of the legendary Ornette Coleman as curator for 2009 made it completely unmissable. Sadly, I wasn’t able to catch as much of it as I would have liked but what follows is a brief dispatch from the shows I did attend.

Whilst their musical tropes are by now familiar, Acoustic Ladyland’s new line-up still comes as something of a shock. Tom Herbert departed to focus on Polar Bear and The Invisible some time ago and now superb pianist Tom Cawley has left to concentrate on his own more meditative music. Ruth Goller has picked up the mantle of aggressive, driving bass playing with consummate ease, but Cawley’s shoes must surely be particularly difficult to fill. Sensibly, Pete Wareham hasn’t tried to do that, instead opting for the terrifying presence of rock guitarist Chris Sharkey.

The new music isn’t much of a departure from their now established thrash jazz template, although whilst the group seemed to be treading water a bit on ‘Skinny Grin’, they now sound positively rejuvenated. The title of their new album (‘Living With A Tiger’) seems apt – this is a tougher, louder beast of a band. Seb Rochford continues to demonstrate his versatility by playing at about seven hundred times the volume he would deploy with Oriole or even Polar Bear, with heavy snare drum accents and swashbuckling cymbals in abundance.

The best of the new tracks slow it down a little, but keep it swampy – with what sounds like a pretty heavy Led Zeppelin influence. Space for improvisation continues to be minimal – but Sharkey’s dynamic bursts of noise have given this engaging, attacking sound fresh impetus. The group’s name continues to seem completely incongruous – and the one significant limitation is that it’s all a little one-dimensional. Hopefully one day Pete Wareham will surprise everyone by writing some ballads that are every bit as exciting.

I would have liked to have been able to stay through for the concert that featured Marc Ribot, Evan Parker and Han Benninck and also a surprise support slot from About, the new improvising group featuring John Coxon, Charles Hayward and Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor. From the other reviews of this show that I’ve read, and from what Alexis has told me about the About project, the upcoming album that the group have produced should be one of the year’s essential releases. It’s encouraging to think that Taylor’s presence might bring freely improvised music to a new, broader audience here in the UK.

The final weekend saw Ornette Coleman himself perform twice, and a mouth-watering collaboration between Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, Carla Bley and Robert Wyatt. I missed the first Ornette Coleman show, although a compelling account of it can be found here: http://mapsadaisical.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/ornette-coleman-and-the-master-musicians-of-jajouka-royal-festival-hall-190609/

Support for Charlie Haden’s project came from New York trio The Bad Plus. My opinion on this group has fluctuated widely from passionate enthusiasm through to complete frustration. Where once they concentrated on creating a modern standard repertoire from pop, rock and dance music (Nirvana, Blondie, Aphex Twin etc), they now seem to have shifted to reinterpreting twentieth century classical music (they performed pieces by Stravinsky and Ligeti). I have no objections to this per se, but there’s increasingly something irritating about their studied quirkiness and intellectual playing. There’s no doubting their brilliant musicianship and supreme technical ability, but I can’t help feeling (as I think I’ve said in more than one previous review), that all this talent is now better served by their own compositions. There was plenty of support for this argument when the group unleashed the beautiful ‘Giant’, composed by bassist Reid Anderson and from their best album (‘Prog’), where some restraint and directness enabled the group to come alive.

Joining Charlie Haden, Carla Bley were a group of London musicians, including Shabaka Hutchings and Jason Yarde, demonstrating just how vibrant the Jazz scene in the capital is right now. Haden began the show by emphasising the political context of his recordings – with albums having been recorded under Nixon, Reagan, Bush Snr and Bush Jnr. ‘Don’t make another one!’ shouted a member of the audience, perhaps missing the point that the albums had been written and recorded as responses to the political climate. I don’t get the impression Haden had ever intended to instigate years of reactionary conservatism in the United States!

Reaction after the show from friends seemed mixed, largely due to some rather shambolic organisational difficulties. Apparently the concert had been timed rather carefully to arrange for an appearance from curator Ornette Coleman, which never actually happened (although he did appear at the end to embrace Haden). Perhaps the rustling to locate sheet music not yet on stage, the spaces that Haden needed to fill with some admittedly hilarious jokes and his struggling to announce the names of the musicians correctly may have turned collective ears against what was actually a rather powerful performance. Reviews in the mainstream press so far seem to have been overwhelmingly positive.

The concert featured music from throughout Haden’s career, but focused on most recent album ‘Not In Our Name’. This material could seem redundant in the brave new world of the Obama era, but a reiteration of the value of music as a means of protest and celebration can hardly be a bad thing. Indeed, whilst a lot of ‘political’ music can seem negative or aggressive, Carla Bley’s arrangements of tunes from the classic American songbook (particularly ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘We Shall Overcome’) had a joyous potency.

The sound of a group this size is often a source of great joy, but the playing was often full-blooded and rich. There were some wonderful individual contributions too, from Shabaka Hutchings’ fiery and vibrant bursts of ideas contrasting with mellifluous trumpet solos. The dignity and humanity of the music came through in the group’s playing throughout.

As promised, Robert Wyatt joined mid-set for two numbers sung in Spanish, Silvio Rodriguez’s ‘Tale of the Tornado’ and Haden’s own ‘Song For Che’ (which Wyatt himself recorded on ‘Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard’ and curator Ornette Coleman also performed on ‘Crisis’, if memory serves me correctly). If Wyatt seemed slightly nervous and hesitant on the former, the latter demonstrated his familiar and distinctive conversational style in more confident flow. His voice seemed natural and unforced on this beautiful and haunting piece of music. It was a joy to catch a rare onstage performance from him.

The set ended in truly compelling fashion, first with a majestic drum solo – one of those supremely controlled displays that began with a simple piece of phrasing, before developing it around the kit and embellishing it with flourishes both technically accomplished and musically intuitive. Haden of course made his individual statement too, although it was hard to tell whether his persistent requests to ‘turn the bass down’ were part of the by now jokey atmosphere or a serious irritation hampering him. If the latter, it wasn’t evident as the solo developed, characterised by singing lines and some knowing quoting of Coleman’s modified blues ‘Turnaround’.

It was a shame that the intended appearance from Coleman for ‘Skies of America’ didn’t happen, but perhaps an even bigger shame that the distracting hustle and bustle made everything seem a little on-the-fly and disjointed. The first part of the set seemed a little stylistically boxed too – with a Cuban piece followed by an arrangement with a reggae feel. On balance though, this was a powerful, musically thoughtful performance.

On paper, Ornette Coleman’s closing night performance looked potentially dangerous. With guest appearances from artists in residence Master Musicians of Jajouka, Baaba Maal and that well known free improvising jazzer Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers – this had the makings of a rather confused and confounding event. Thankfully, it proved to be nothing of the sort – and was rather a consistently engaging, wonderfully enervating concert experience.

The Master Musicians’ support set must have required some adjustments for most Western ears. I’ve not got a good enough musical ear to identify what precisely is so harsh about their sound – the pipes seem tuned against each other in very narrow intervals and it takes a while to locate the true pulse amidst their complex polyrhythms. Still, though, their visible sense of enjoyment and showmanship was enough to persuade me to immerse myself in their mesmerising and ultimately uplifting sound.

Ornette Coleman took to the stage immensely slowly, with a sense of fragility that made me a little nervous, especially as he struggled to connect his strap to his saxophone. As soon as the first notes emanated from his alto though, it became clear that the concern was entirely unwarranted. What a marvel that this pioneering figure can produce such eloquent phrasing and vigorous sound at the age of 79 (or 82 as someone else quoted, I’m not sure which is correct).

Titled ‘Reflections of This Is Our Music’, this concert might better have been dubbed ‘reflections of an illustrious and radical career’. Continuing to reject conventional harmonic accompaniment in favour of a two bassists line-up (Tony Falanga and Al McDowell), Coleman’s approach somehow still sounds as furious and otherworldly today as it did in the late fifties. Yet deconstructed airings of ‘Turnaround’ and ‘Blues Connotation’ suggest that those who view Coleman’s music as impenetrable or intractable are missing the point – here is a man who remains as in touch with the blues as he is with his own attempts to move away from form. Veering between violin, saxophone and even a brief spell on trumpet, he seemed gleeful, impish and full of ideas from both within and outside the jazz idiom.

Listening to ‘Blues Connotation’ particularly, I wondered whether the term ‘punk jazz’, which provided the title for a Jaco Pastorius composition and has since been lazily dished out to all manner of groups attempting some kind of jazz-rock fusion, might genuinely be apt for this group. They played throughout with a devil-may-care and visceral abandon that left my heart racing and my thoughts buzzing off in several directions simultaneously. Denardo is an unashamedly unconventional drummer, with a relentless but muffled sound that goes against the brightness and verve of most jazz drumming. He seems to have devised his own range of stick grips and frequently veers out of time, forcing Tony Falanga to work his way back into the fold and his conception of swing exists somewhere out on its own astral plain. Yet there’s something lucid and compelling about his peculiar stomp, and it imbues this already captivating music with an undeniable originality, even when the material being performed is the best part of 50 years old.

The choice of music is both richly satisfying (‘Lonely Woman’) and somewhat bizarre (a perhaps slightly hesitant recontextualisation of Bach’s Prelude to Cello Suite No. 1). The collaborations mid-set seemed like the perfect encapsulation of Coleman’s questing spirit and open-mindedness. I had admittedly been prejudiced against the appearance of Flea, but his intuitive playing somehow managed to make the three-pronged bass attack completely invigorating, and extraordinarily physical. His contributions often featured the language of disco and funk, which might be expected. What was less predictable was just how much of a positive impact his propulsive playing had on the overall sound of the ensemble. When joined onstage by the Master Musicians, it seemed as if Coleman and his group were initially grasping at something and not quite finding it but, slowly, a more singing tone emerged from the saxophone responding to the persistent dynamic of the Master Musicians. It was a tremendous, intoxicating cacophony.

After a trio performance with Charlie Haden for the encore, on which Haden’s bass sounded opulent and resonant, Coleman seemed reluctant to leave the stage, thanking the sound crew before embarking on a personal odyssey to shake as many audience members’ hands as he felt possible. Even when his security intervened he didn’t seem particularly inclined to be rescued. Whether this was an act of gentlemanly kindness towards his audience or an egotistical acknowledgement of his iconic status didn’t really matter – this man has earned the right to a long goodbye. Whoever they get to curate Meltdown next year has some big shoes to fill.

Hitting The Spot Like Gatorade

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca (Domino, 2009)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comforting Sounds

James Blackshaw - The Glass Bead Game (Young God, 2009)

In spite of (or perhaps because of?) once naming a song ‘The Sound and The Fury’, I’m rather suspicious of musical works named after great literature. It always seems rather lazy to state your broader inspirations in such a transparent and unadventurous way. This, however, is a James Blackshaw record, and this exceptionally gifted young guitarist and composer has yet to disappoint. True to form, ‘The Glass Bead Game’ marks a further development of his ambition and may well be his most fully realised work to date (although at least one reviewer at The Wire magazine is obstinately dissenting from the critical consensus for Blackshaw). Now signed to Michael Gira’s Young God label, Blackshaw looks sure to secure yet more devotion from the faithful for this extraordinary record.

Even given his unexpected piano playing on ‘Litany of Echoes’, it might still have been tempting to dismiss Blackshaw as a derivative exponent of the Takoma school of folk music. ‘The Glass Bead Game’ answers this charge with a richer, more arranged tapestry of sound. The opening ‘Cross’ is simply beautiful. Whilst Blackshaw’s basic guitar foundation sustains his core preoccupations and could have appeared on any of his albums thus far, the addition of strings (contributed by members of Current 93) and wordless vocals takes it to entirely new territory. The vocals hint at predictable Reichian influences but actually remind me more of Meredith Monk’s ‘Mercy’. There’s already something mysteriously powerful about Blackshaw’s hypnotic playing – whilst it remains harmonically anchored, it’s still emotionally resonant and deeply satisfying.

The epic, 18-minute ‘Arc’ (with Blackshaw on piano again) is the yang to the yin of ‘Cross’ and it therefore makes perfect logical sense that it should close the album. Whilst it adheres to a minimalist framework, there’s something powerful, maybe even devotional about it, achieved largely through the deliberate over-use of the sustain pedal, allowing its clusters to blur, overlap and blissfully merge. The heavy sustain comes perilously close to burying the contributions from strings and wind instruments, but in effect allows notes to rise and fall from a resplendent overall sheet of sound. The effect is deeply moving.

In between, there’s the sublime ‘Bled’ which seems to begin with broad brush strokes before expanding into a more detailed and colourful response to the initial theme. There might even be a rare nod to the blues in its closing minutes. ‘Key’ is more in keeping with what we’ve come to expect from Blackshaw, but no less impressive for its notional familiarity. Melodically, it is strikingly pretty.

More controversial for me is the other piano piece ‘Fix’. I have been pondering whether this might be the first time Blackshaw has resorted to more calculated emotional manipulation. Whilst it sounds haunting and sad, the plodding, insistent crotchet rhythm invokes the overrated Sigur Ros, or could even be something Chris Martin from Coldplay might come up with. Whilst the presence of the violin certainly enhances the track’s warmth, I can’t help feeling that this is a bit too straightforward and transparent for Blackshaw, although some see it as the album’s standout track.

Still, this is only a minor quibble with an otherwise outstanding album that sees Blackshaw continue to expand his reach. The ideas are well executed, and developed with care and grace by Blackshaw and his accompanying musicians. These tracks hint that a more ensemble-based approach could be just as fruitful as Blackshaw’s virtuosic solo performances, perhaps even more so.