Short Cuts 2

The Roots - How I Got Over

Given their committed work ethic and prolific output, I can probably be forgiven with having lost touch with The Roots a little after Game Theory. They are a band easy to take for granted. How I Got Over must surely rank among their best efforts. It's not ambitious and unwieldy like the superb Phrenology - rather, it's more a concise, tight affair showcasing the group playing to all their strengths. The grooves are righteous and, inevitably perhaps, there are plenty of collaborations. What is particularly exciting about How I Got Over is that the roll call of guests is unusual and intriguing. Right On effectively reworks Joanna Newson's The Book Of Right On into an insistent hip hop track, with surprisingly effective results. The sublime voices of Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian usher in the haunting overture A Peace of Light. ?uestlove's outrageously strong groove feel dominates the group's sound as usual and Radio Daze and Walk Alone are prime examples of the group's musical skill.

Janelle Monae - The Archandroid

Plenty has already been written about this sprawling, hugely impressive work and quite rightly it has been hailed in many quarters as one of the albums of the year. Janelle Monae has superstar quality - she is an assured songwriter with a strong voice and plenty of quirky charisma. Inspired by Fritz Lang's Metropolis, this album veers all over the place and then some, breaking the unspoken industry rule that often places artists in a straightjacket. It seems likely that there is no containing Monae, who is as happy on driving, memorable future pop such as Tightrope as she is on moments of striking vulnerability. I'm not yet convinced that The Archandroid is an unmitigated masterpiece though - sometimes Monae seems to have foregrounded sound and ideas at the expense of strong melodies. Still, it's an exciting and original achievement - and it's great to have an artist this bold and brave striving for a place in the mainstream.

Richard Thompaon - Dream Attic
Although the sound of the Richard Thompson band is by now very familiar, it's hard to imagine Thompson making a bad album. His songriting remains focused and powerful, whilst the sound of the ensemble, never as vividly captured as on this ferocious live recording, is tough and muscular. Thompson's robust, incandescent guitar playing remains a significant defining feature of his music but Dream Attic works well because the group can sink their teeth into some outstanding material. There are some great songs here that veer from the melancholy and moving (A Brother Slips Away) to angry responses to the financial crisis (The Money Shuffle). There are a number of artists continuing to make fascinating and confident musical statements late into their careers - Robert Plant, Elvis Costello and Emmylou Harris are all good examples. Thompson should definitely be included among their number.

Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal
Emeralds - Does It Look Like I'm Here?

As open-minded as I am about music, I sometimes struggle with the breed of electronic composition that emphasises noise above rhythm or harmony. It is difficult to comprehend music that lacks any kind of rhythmic expression or interest. Yet these two albums, both issued on the excellent Mego album, strike me as great examples of how this kind of music can be done in a sophisticated way, without punishing the ears and testing the patience of its audience. Oneohtrix Point Never's Returnal is brilliantly structured, beginning with the most sonically abrasive textures before moving towards a surprisingly peaceful, hypnotic conclusion. The stormy fuzz threatens to conceal what appears to be a benevolent melodic streak lurking just beneath the surface. The Emeralds album is harder to pin down - but somehow both mysterious and graceful. It's main achievement is to produce an edited, more manageable take on the group's improvisational history without any sense of compromise or dilution. Both records share some of the hazy, blissful introversion of Fennesz's extraordinary Endless Summer. It's easy to see why Mego took interest in both releases.

Lorn - Nothing Else
This is another winner from Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder operation. It's a brilliantly dirty, intoxicating collection - full of slow but riveting beats and bursting with ideas. Much of the music seems dark, perhaps even tinged with sadness, yet it remains a curiously enjoyable listen. This music has a magnetic pull from which it is almost impossible to escape. Bass music may be at its zenith right now - it's hard to see how the music will develop beyond splintering into ever more numerous sub genres.

Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record
For some, this has been something of a disappointment. For others, it represents a distillation of BSS' most accessible traits and a pruning of their more wayward tendencies. I'm not sure the latter is actually true. For sure, the album's first half is an irresistible blast of superbly produced, near-anthemic indie-rock. Once again, BSS have placed themselves at the far more imaginative end of this music. The playing is now crisper and tighter, but the arrangements are no less fascinating. Opener World Sick arrives on a bed of delicate, strage electronics, whilst Chase Scene and the fantastic Art House Director have a cinematic energy and vividness. The album's second half is less memorable and more obtuse. It feels like something of a struggle, and there's the sense that the whole thing may be a little overlong. Still - not being quite as good as their previous work, when those albums really did set a benchmark for quality and inventiveness in rock - is hardly that much of a crime.

Teenage Fanclub - Shadows
This is a classic example of the completely lazy misuse of that old journalistic cliche 'return to form'. Shadows is not a return to anything - it's far more a continuation of the hazier, lighter, less immediate style of songwriting Teenage Fanclub have been pursuing over their last couple of albums. Like Man Made and Howdy, it's a completely democratic affair - with Raymond McGinley's more elusive, subtle songs given equal weight. Norman Blake's slices of unashamed pop brilliance - Baby Lee and When I Still Have Thee - are the exceptions here. Prevalence comes from songs of gentle, considered reflection - The Past and The Fall from Raymond McGinley and Gerard Love's rather splendid Shock and Awe and Sweet Days Waiting (the latter a song delivered with such a light touch that it could easily fall apart). The album suggests a gentle acceptance of ageing and new concerns. It seems unlikely that Teenage Fanclub will make an album as crunchy and carefree as Bandwagonesque or as bright and chiming as Grand Priz again. But why should they?

Short Cuts 1

Nina Nastasia - Outlaster (FatCat)
Nastasia seems to have become one of those artists quietly taken for granted by a critical fraternity unwilling to construct much more than a generalised impression. Given her unwavering consistency, this is not entirely unfair - but few seem to have noticed that Outlaster is surely a standout album in her now sizeable catalogue. The songs here seem richer and both more confident and more nuanced. It's really in the detail of the arrangements - written in collaboration with Paul Bryan - that the artistry of Outlaster becomes apparent though. This is a record full of tension and dissonance - familiar acoustic American music made starker and darker. Nastasia has managed to make her writing more sophisticated and expansive without losing her characteristic spare style.

Golden Age Of Steam - Raspberry Tongue (Babel)
This is, at least for me, a long awaited treat of an album. I've seen Golden Age of Steam, ostensibly a trio consisting of reedsman James Allsopp, organist Kit Downes and drummer Tim Giles live a few times over the past couple of years. Their music has evoked a series of strange and contradictory emotions in me - running the gamut from fear to ecstacy. Their improvising is pitched at an intense and demanding level - sometimes it is baffling, sometimes completely entrancing. What is clear is that these are three of the most talented musicians currently at work in London. These sessions capture some of the spontaneous kinetic energy of their live performances - but also demonstrate a musicality and compositional flair too. There's plenty of gleeful rhythmic subversion on display here - but also a piercing quality to some of the lines that Downes and Allsopp conjure up. Similarly, drummer Giles is capable of executing fearsomely complex patterns at terrifying speed, but is also musically adroit, voicing his patterns carefully to create interweaving statements and phrases. The music is fiercely propulsive, but also full of colour and concealed melodic invention. One of the highlights of British jazz this year.

Benoit Pioulard - Lasted (Kranky)
Thomas Meluch has now made three albums of hazy, translucent, homespun music under the alias of Benoit Pioulard. With each release his recordings sound more deliberate and more integrated. Lasted is the most coherent of his full lengths so far, with Pioulard's idiosyncratic soundworld at its most detailed and nuanced. With real success, he has allowed his calm, understated voice to become a stronger, clearer presence. There are all manner of intriguing stories lurking within his warm fuzz and beneath his muffled strum. Sometimes he takes some familiar, perhaps even conventional language from the world of indie-pop and transforms it into something pregnant with mystery and illusion. Tracks like Sault and A Coin On The Tongue are wistful and melodic yet also full of unexpected twists and turns. The results are spellbinding, and a powerful argument against over-production.

Kurt Wagner and Cortney Tidwell present KORT - Invariable Heartache (City Slang)
This is a collaborative effort I've known about for a while - and the resulting album is a quiet, unassuming gem. The tracklist mostly consists of cover versions of country songs from the vaults of Chart Records, a Nashville record label operated by Tidwell's grandfather. Tidwell's solo records, though beautiful and fascinating in their own right, have disguised what is actually a remarkably pure and emotive voice - one that is surprisingly suitable for these songs that are charged with longing and regret. Wagner has such a characterful, unique voice - one that is reliant on phrasing for its effect, that it would seem nearly impossible to harmonise with him. Tidwell pulls it off though, often rounding off the harsher edges of Wagner's peculiarly articulated half-singing with something warmer, but no less powerful. It is, I suspect, a deceptively conventional work - and one that has been very carefully sequenced to reveal unexpected secrets and surprises. It will almost certainly be casually categorised as a bonus curio for fans of both artists - it deserves a little more recognition and attention.

Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth - Deluxe (Clean Feed)
This is one of those insidious jazz albums - being far more about communication and vibe than intricate harmony or fluent improvisation (not to say that the latter two qualities are not also present). Much of the album's distinctive mood is created by Craig Taborn's Fender Rhodes piano. This could be a mere period detail were it not for the wiry, often radical way Taborn plays on it. The warmth of Taborn's varied textures aid in the creation of a spacious, open sound. The album is, perhaps inevitably, somewhat dominated by an illustrious three-pronged saxophone frontline, although it works given how all three saxophonists (Chris Cheek, Tony Malaby and Andrew D'Angelo) play with a united sense of purpose. Deluxe is the sound of an invigorted ensemble playing refreshing, exciting music.

LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
James Murphy has given strong indications in interviews of his intentions to abandon the LCD moniker and return with something a little different. This Is Happening suggests this may be a good idea. It's not that it's a bad album - in fact, it's rather good - it's just that it relies heavily on what are by now very familiar LCD tropes. The irony and wit of Murphy's lyrics remain intact, particularly on the poweful opening sequence of Dance Yourself Clean and Drunk Girls, but there's now a strong sense that this is merely repeating ground already covered to stronger impact on the wonderful Sound of Silver. Many critics have seemed unsympathetic to Murphy's rantings against the music undustry on You Wanted A Hit, particularly given how much freedom Murphy appears to have been given. I wonder if the track might not have been intended so literally - it seems like another example of Murphy's knowing wit - a thinly concealed attack on indier-than-thou hipsters. LCD really only do one thing (two if you count their occasional tender ballads). They became very good at it from the get-go - making mazimal results from the most minimal of musical ingredients. The possibility for Murphy to become a victim of his own very distinctive sound is now obvious. It's time to move on.

Tom Jones - Praise and Blame (Island)
If someone had told me I'd be writing about a Tom Jones album on this blog at the start of this year, I'd have laughed, yet here I am. I've never been a particular fan of Jones - though he's always professed to love the blues and early rock n' roll, most of his artistic decisions have tended towards the highly commercial. Sometimes, in attempting to do something hip and avoid ridicule, he has merely courted it. He also has a tendency to over-use his tremendous vocal power, brow-beating an audience into accepting his talent. On Praise and Blame, however, he may at last have found the right material for his voice as well as a sympathetic producer in Ethan Johns. The album touches on gospel, blues, country and rock and roll - and it is unashamedly uncomplicated - the kind of raw, as-live recording that Jones has been been studiously avoiding until now. The version of Dylan's What Good Am I is more painful and wracked with self doubt than the original - and benefits from a straightforward arrangement largely stripped of the Lanois murk. Elsewhere, the song selection is unfailingly judicious - and even old standards like Nobody's Fault But Mine sound full of life and vitality when passed through Jones' revitalised vocal chords. For the first time in many years, he appears to be exercising some degree of control.

Anais Mitchell - Hadestown (Righteous Babe)
For all the understandable noise surrounding Joanna Newsom's Have One On Me, this similarly ambitious gem of an album seemed to escape largely unnoticed. Mitchell is a hard-working, increasingly inspired songwriter who has pushed herself way out of her comfort zone with this concept piece about the Orpheus myth. The huge roll call of guests (including Bon Iver's Justin Vernon as Orpheus, The Low Anthem's Ben Knox Miller and Ani Difranco as Persephone) has helped Hadestown attract more attention - but really it ought to be vying with Newsom's magnum opus in the upper reaches of critics' end of year lists. By recontextualising the Orpheus myth in depression-era America, Mitchell has created a quintessential American folk album - one that is full of the passion and drama one might expect from the stage version, but which also comes alive because of Mitchell's strong melodies and distinctive vocal character. Even when divorced from their context, a number of these songs are remarkably strong. Wait For Me, a strong feature for Vernon, is full of longing and pain whilst Way Down Hadestown offers a memorable theme, with some of the drunken, lurching quality of Tom Waits' theatrical music. The production is suitably naturalistic and restrained, allowing the vocalists to clearly portray their characters and for the quality of the writing to cut through. Superb.

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (Merge)
Perhaps my tastes have changed since Arcade Fire released Funeral and played that extraordinary debut London show at King's College Student Union. They have not, of course, veered too far from the formula that made them successful in the first place. It's just that, well, it's become so much more formulaic. The Suburbs is a long album and it certainly has its moments. Best of all is probably The Sprawl II, which takes the group way out of their comfort zone into a stranger world with a strong hint of 80s synth pop.

The Suburbs is less grandiose and pompous than Neon Bible for sure, but I'm not sure a concept album about suburban boredom and frustration is a novel or even particularly interesting idea. Win Butler's lyrics continue to fall into the pitfalls of cliche, not least in his numerous rather dismissive references to 'the kids'. For a band that have always maintained a close rapport with their audience, this seems like a strange move. On Funeral, Arcade Fire excited because they described a whole other world in vivid detail. The Suburbs describes a world that seems depressingly earthy and familiar. The stronger vocal presence here is Regine Chassagne - her floaty, wafer-thin voice adds intrigue to the otherwise relentless Empty Room. The delicate shuffle of the title track is deceptively simple and reveals greater rewards over time, but the punishing insistence of tracks like Ready To Start and Modern Man has become rather predictable.

The Missing Links

I've not been writing that much here lately - instead devoting myself to the lovely people over at musicOMH. I thought I'd publish links to some pieces on albums I would have written about here.

http://www.musicomh.com/albums/alasdair-roberts-3_0810.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/neil-young-5_0910.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/gold-panda_0910.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/afrocubism_1010.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/sufjan-stevens-2_1010.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/wyatt-atzmon-stephen_1010.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/matthew-herbert-6_0910.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/dungen_0910.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/lobi-traore_0910.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/el-guincho-2_0910.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/mice-parade_0910.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/roots-manuva-4_0910.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/oval_0810.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/phosphorescent_0810.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/wildbirds-peacedrums-3_0710.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/james-blackshaw_0810.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/luke-abbott_0710.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/women_0810.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/drivan_0810.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/dylan-leblanc_0810.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/matthew-dear_0810.htm
http://www.musicomh.com/albums/marconi-union_0710.htm

Some great music amongst the above - particularly Alasdair Roberts, Matthew Herbert, Luke Abbott, James Blackshaw, Lobi Traore, Afrocubism and the Wyatt, Atzmon and Stephen collaboration.

My stern review of the Sufjan Stevens epic seems to have been a little controversial. I didn't think I was saying anything particularly contentious - but the album appears to have been reviewed very favourably elsewhere and certainly has its passionate defenders. I should point out for the record that I'm certainly not against 'difficult' or ambitious albums - but they have to work artistically. This one, in my view, does not.

Back To The Future

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alone Together

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Playlist

It's been a bit quiet around here lately, I know. I've not been letting the writing slip, however - I've been contributing reviews to the lovely MusicOMH. I plan to write a bit more here soon - there's a huge backlog of releases I've been meaning to write about. In the meantime, here's a small sample of my recent listening.

Wildbirds and Peacedrums - Rivers
Luke Abbott - Holkham Drones
I Am Kloot - Sky At Night
Janelle Monae - The Archandroid
Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot...The Son of Chico Dusty
Department of Eagles - Archives 2003 - 2006
Max Richter - Infra
Kathryn Calder - Are You My Mother?
Dirty Projectors and Bjork - Mount Wittenberg Orca
The Roots - How I Got Over
Sun Kil Moon - Admiral Fell Promises

Here's a new blog that's really worth checking out:
http://thomnambulist.tumblr.com/

Good Vibes

Dadawah - Peace and Love (1974, reissued by Dug Out)

Here is a little known gem, now lovingly reissued by Dug Out and Honest Jon's. I remember this record well from my childhood, the Trojan vinyl edition being one of the weirder selections from my father's wide ranging record collection. I remember bracketing it with Keith Hudson's 'Pick A Dub' as one of the weirder, more mesmerising examples of reggae. It's not as sinister as the Hudson classic, rather more spiritual and devotional, and it still sounds absolutely revelatory. The fuddled, murky sound of the record is every bit as intoxicating as whatever producer Lloyd Charmers and engineer George Raymond were smoking when mixing it. Apparently, they stayed up all night after the session to complete the job. It's rare that albums with such a powerful, characterful sound get made with such spontaneity nowadays.

'Peace and Love' is an example of the Nyabinghi Grounation sub-genre of roots reggae. Essentially, it's a form of Rastafarian devotional music founded on the use of nyabinghi drums. The Dadawah project was one of the vehicles for Ras Michael, whose imposing, resonant voice still dominates these recordings, in spite of the fascinating presence of the music. The traditional chanting and hand drumming form the foundation of the music, but these four tracks have sublimely extended durations - ebbing and flowing delightfully, and uniting Michael's nyabinghi expositions with bass, guitars, piano and organ and a small brass section.

Roots reggae remains little explored in music criticism and in the reissue market, perhaps because greater commercial value was placed on more accessible hybrids of reggae with other western pop styles. There's so much more to discover here though - for this personal and honest music still sounds deeply unusual and exciting. Do seek this out - as well as Michael's other work as Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus. It's all tremendous.

Infinite Space

Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma (Warp)

It's very difficult to make a convincing written case for just how amazing the disjointed, disorientating, genre-spanning work of Steve Ellison is. Every rule that governs the operation of the music business, both in creative and marketing terms, Ellison breaks. His output as Flying Lotus has been lazily classified as 'instrumental hip hop' in the past, or, perhaps even more misleadingly, bracketed with the UK dubstep movement. Whilst some of the Flying Lotus work might share with the likes of Burial a compelling and murky atmosphere, Ellison's scope is considerably wider. On 'Cosmogramma', he seems to have inherited some of his Aunt Alice Coltrane's spiritual concerns. This is a work as indebted to the revolutionary jazz sound as it is to hip hop and electronica.

Initial promotional copies of 'Cosmogramma' were sent out as one long track, although the finished product is divided into seventeen largely brief segments. Part of FlyLo's approach so far has been, much like the work of Prefuse 73, a scattershot approach that makes rapid switches between styles and never allows ideas to outstay their welcome. This might be a major problem, were it not for the coherence and power of the overall vision and architecture.

To my ears, 'Cosmogramma' might helpfully be divided into three distinct movements. The short opening section, comprising 'Clock Catcher', 'Pickled!' and 'Nose Art' is the most electronic and funky section, mixing sinister undertones and playful humour. The opening gurgles and bleeps of 'Clock Catcher' offer the listener a false sense of security - it feels like we're in fairly predictable Warp territory. Similarly, the bass extravaganza of 'Pickled!' could have come from a Squarepusher record.

As it's title suggests, 'Intro/A Cosmic Drama' takes us somewhere else entirely. The longer, central section of this album is beautifully orchestrated and ferociously intense. Even so, this allows for FlyLo to veer from the delightful analogue electro of 'Computer Face/Pure Being' to the improvised drum solo that initiates 'Arkestry'. Again, the title is a giveaway - the sonic and spiritual outlook of Sun Ra is clearly a major influence. All the disparate strands are held together through the serene harp playing of Rebekah Raff.

Within this highly imaginative sound collage are some of FlyLo's most transparently commercial offerings to date. In his hands, however, they sound wondrous. The familiar murmurings of Thom Yorke make '..And The World Laughs With You...' sound eerie and mysterious. The wonderfully titled 'Do The Astral Plane' is a further reminder of Ellison's superb sense of humour. It's an irresistible slice of cosmic disco. 'Mmm..Hmmm', which features Thundercat, is possibly the most straightforwardly melodic thing Ellison has produced to date, but it also has its own unique slinky, cerebral and atmospheric charm.

Some critics have found fault in the final stretch of 'Cosmogramma', from 'Satellliiiite' onwards. It certainly becomes more impressionistic, hazy and distant at this point. To me, it is suggestive of the numinous - something unfathomable beyond the known limits of the universe. This is Ellison at his most expansive and abstract.

It's unlikely that there will be a more diverse, pleasurably confusing, radically unpredictable album in 2010. It's also unlikely that there will be another album with as convincing and exciting a vision. This is brighter, more celebratory and at times more accessible than previous Flying Lotus records - but it's certainly no artistic compromise.

Number One

Matthew Herbert - One One (Accidental)

Occasionally, it's easy to get a little too accustomed to an artist's signature sound, or perhaps more accurately in Matthew Herbert's case, his approach. We know about his radicalism and political activism, we know about his sampling techniques and his didactic, musical ideology. We also know that this approach somehow resulted in some of the finest music of the past decade - music of palpable relevance but with a reach much wider than its immediate context. His most recent Big Band record, on reflection, appears to have been significantly underrated.

It's probably unfair to judge 'One One' in isolation, given that it is part of a projected trilogy of albums all due for release in 2010. This will conclude later in the year with 'One Club', a work made from sounds recorded in nightclubs, and then with the highly controversial 'One Pig', made from sounds recorded from the life cycle of a pig farmed for meat. The latter appears to be a more specific extension of concerns Herbert has already tackled with the astounding 'Plat du Jour' (on which he showcased his own distinctive brand of musique concrete), whilst we might reasonably expect 'One Club' to be one of his more conventional house-influenced records.

The trilogy therefore starts with a total curveball. 'One One' is completely unlike previous Herbert records in both sound and approach. First, it's based less on samples and sounds and more on instrumental parts, all of which were played and recorded by Herbert himself. Secondly, there are no collaborators here - Herbert also sang all the vocal lines.

A cursory listen might suggest this was a rather reckless idea. Herbert is neither a gifted instrumentalist nor a powerful singer. Indeed, the vocals are conversational at best, and often out of tune. Yet the effect of this minimal, peculiar music is disorientating and surprising. This is not a confrontational record - rather, it's Herbert's most intimate and hypnotic work to date.

Although all the tracks are named after major cities ('Manchester', 'Milan', 'Leipzig', 'Porto' - and, er, spot the odd one out, 'Tonbridge'), the overarching concept here is that 'One One' supposedly details one night in its creator's life. Musically, it's largely quiet and unobtrusive, but it's also deftly nuanced, and it's precisely for this reason that it sounds like a journey and an adventure. Songs often threaten to build into something explosive but frequently hold back - 'One One' is full of tantalising promise.

The outstanding example is 'Dublin', built on the simplest of ostinato figures on a guitar, over which Herbert layers increasingly intoxicating vocal lines. 'Leipzig' is full of dark temptation, excitement and perhaps even threat, all concocted from the very simplest of ingredients. In the most part, the rhythms are simple and direct, but also delicate, suggesting vulnerability. Most confounding of all is the closing 'Valencia', which gradually fades to almost nothing, lingering in the memory largely because of its sheer weirdness and originality.

If it initially sounds tentative, 'One One' eventually reveals itself as a very carefully judged, superbly timed, logically and musically coherent statement. It will certainly confuse many of Herbert's long-term fans, although perhaps less so those who have followed the weird world of home-baked folk, electronica and bedroom soul released across his Accidental label. It's difficult to predict what the rest of the trilogy will sound like now - but it's already beginning to sound like one of the year's bravest and most surprising achievements.

Stagefright

Lonelady - Nerve Up (Warp)

This album ticks so many hipster boxes that I ought really to despise it. There’s the moody, enigmatic monochrome cover shot. It’s one of Warp records’ increasingly frequent ventures outside the world of intelligent electronica. The musical reference points are specific and fashionable – a bit of wiry Gang of Four scratchy guitar, the jangle of early REM or the skeletal funk of ESG. Julie Campbell is from Manchester – the sound of the Factory era clearly also still resonates with her. Surely, ‘Nerve Up’ is simply traversing old, very familiar ground?

Beneath the surface though, there’s actually something a little out of the ordinary about ‘Nerve Up’. Perhaps it’s that Julie Campbell has had the audacity to cherry pick from all these influences, rather than focusing too tightly on a tired punk-funk agenda. More significantly, it’s that the music, thanks in part to Campbell’s songwriting, mostly rises above mere facsimile. It is taut and exciting – with a nervous itchiness of its own.

It’s rare to find a female solo artist that sounds so solitary and alienated. Usually, we get the sensual, idiosyncratic, fantastic personalities of the likes of Kate Bush, Bjork, PJ Harvey or Joanna Newsom. Lonelady does not belong in that world. Her voice is strange, slippery and beguiling. Her music is precise, rigid and austere rather than flighty and wild.

It’s odd that the twitchy, anxious outsider position that Campbell has assumed became such a male pursuit. One of the most exciting things about Nerve Up is hearing Campbell’s distinctive thin but intoxicating voice set against this resolute, propulsive music. The Byrdsian twang of ‘Immaterial’ might hint back at Murmur-era REM, but Campbell’s voice also adds a fairytale sense of mystery and enchantment.

Everything here is minimal, perhaps even slightly desolate. There’s scratchy guitar, a drum machine and Campbell’s voice. The title track particularly succeeds in building a detailed impression with a rigorous approach. There are very few constituent elements. What further overdubs there are always serve the tense, nervous mood. On tracks like ‘Army’ and ‘Intuition’, there’s also an irrepressible and irresistible urgency.

Campbell won’t be able to repeat this trick too often. Yet the closing ‘Fear No More’ betrays a softer core. Whilst it’s not in itself entirely successful, it at least demonstrates another dimension to Campbell’s world and hints at other paths that she could follow. In the meantime, ‘Nerve Up’ is an authoritative, surprisingly satisfying work.

Dive In

Pantha du Prince - Black Noise (Rough Trade)
Caribou - Swim (City Slang)

There's already a sense that 2010 is shaping up to be a particularly fine year for electronic music. We've already enjoyed superb albums from Four Tet and Hot Chip, and there have been a number of releases I haven't yet managed to digest (including Autechre). Although there's an argument that his debut album 'This Bliss' (released in 2007) is even better, Pantha du Prince's 'Black Noise' adds to the list by virtue of being a lush, compelling piece of work. Like its predecessor, it's a rapturous and immersive experience.

This is spare and minimal music that still finds room for a warmth and beauty amidst the mechanical precision. It's repetitive and relentless but in a pleasingly hypnotic, rather than irritating way. The overarching atmosphere is rather magical. A number of the titles are almost onomatopaeic in their aptness ('Lay in a Shimmer', 'The Splendour', 'Bohemian Forest') such is the glimmering, haunting effect of the music.

Much of this is achieved through percussion sounds - be it the clicks and clatters in the background or the steel pan and glockenspiel sounds that yield the subtle but charming melodic lines. The music unfolds slowly and delicately, somehow achieving an effect that is both melancholic and euphoric, reflective and uplifting.

The last album from Caribou, aka Dan Snaith and the artist formerly known as Manitoba, 'Andorra', won Canada's equivalent of the Mercury Music Prize whilst continuing his preference for bucolic, hazy psychedelia and chaotic, cluttered percussion. It was an appealing, summery set but one that hinted that Snaith's sound, however distinctive, may have run its course.

Pleasingly, he has refreshed and refined his approach on 'Swim', which manages to combine some familiar elements of the Caribou sound with at least one eye firmly fixed back on the dancefloor. This is certainly the grooviest album Snaith has made yet - his rhythms have been stripped back to their most essential elements and a lot of the dense noise has been removed. This doesn't mean there isn't room for ambition - towards its conclusion on tracks like 'Hannibal' and 'Jamelia' have bold, expansive arrangements that suggest Snaith may have been listening to Ennio Morricone or David Axelrod.

'Swim' is most surprising when at its simplest and most direct. There's a touch of Prince to the propulsive but light disco of 'Odessa' that makes it both fluffy and infectious and curiously intelligent. On 'Sun', some of Snaith's recognisable concerns reappear, but it's a much more shimmering and aquatic creation, with plenty of breathing space. Perhaps most impressive of all is 'Bowls', the album's stunning, wonderfully linear centrepiece.

Snaith is not blessed with the world's greatest singing voice and there are plenty of borderline Caribou admirers who might well be completely converted were Snaith to abandon singing entirely. 'Odessa' at least hints at a use of his voice that is both more sensible and more creative - the delivery is largely conversational. It's when he attempts to make his vocal the melodic heart of his music that it risks descending into fragile whimsy. Still, the music that dominates 'Swim' is so resonant and so elegantly constructed that this is ultimately a minor concern. This is one of 2010's most enjoyable and adventurous albums so far.

Identity Crisis

I Am Love (dir: Luca Guadagnino)

Perhaps this movie’s very title, pretentious and grandiose as it is, should have been a giveaway, but I’d read enough positive thoughts on this film (not least Jonathan Romney’s rapturous piece in ‘Sight & Sound’) to believe it might be a bold and exciting piece of cinema. Whilst the film begins with considerable promise, the final impression is one of incoherence and catastrophic misjudgement. Ultimately, ‘I Am Love’ is exhausting and infuriating.

Film critics are now so frequently blinded by technical skill. As a result, directors such as Carlos Reygadas are all too easily indulged for pompous and didactic work. There is certainly enough technical accomplishment in ‘I Am Love’ to suggest that Luca Guadagnino is a promising director. The names of many Italian masters have been used as reference points – not least film-makers as different from each other as Visconti and Antonioni. In the early stages of the film, with its superb family dinner sequence, and with some elegant, meticulously framed shots of the Recchi family’s extraordinary mansion home (particularly of Tilda Swinton’s graceful walks up and down the staircase), I felt a more transparent influence was the great Orson Welles.

The film begins as what appears to be a subtle, restrained but simultaneously poised family saga. When the retiring grandfather unexpectedly bequeaths the family textile empire to both his son and grandson to share, it sets the scene for an intriguing and compelling power struggle. Yet this becomes simply the restrictive and repressive context for the film’s central concern – the tragedy that accompanies Emma Recchi’s sexual awakening and discovering of her true self.

There are some positive aspects to this film. Daughter Betta’s lesbianism (a no doubt still shocking and unacceptable thing to a wealthy Italian family such as this) is handled with great tenderness, and there are some delightful scenes between her and Emma. Swinton is every bit as majestic as you might expect – brilliantly capturing the conflict between social duty and inner desire.

Also impressive is the way the film withholds crucial information until quite late in its running time. We only find out Emma’s personal history through the course of her affair with Antonio, and this is the film’s one intriguing and original device. Unfortunately, it is only really used to inform the film’s hackneyed and rather muddled theme of personal identity.

However, this is most certainly a film with fatal flaws that sadly linger long in the mind. Many critics have praised the film’s exploration of the sensual aspects of food – but I found this crass. Guadagnino and Swinton seem keen to browbeat the audience with culinary eroticism. Had they left this notion implied or understated, it could have been much more interesting. Instead, these scenes come across more like a piece of gastropornography from a Nigella Lawson programme.

Even worse is the film’s handling of sex itself. Emma and Antonio’s lengthy soft focus al fresco love scene might have been better placed in one of the Emmanuelle films, so horribly clichéd is its cutting between the building natural elements and the moving bodies. The close-ups of skin are unusual in contemporary cinema and could have been quite erotic if left on their own, but the opening scene of Resnais’ ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’ achieved so much more to this effect.

Perhaps more fatally is the way that, in spite of the film’s overlong two hour running time, characters and plot strands are left undeveloped. Given his youthful energy, natural talent and passion for food, it’s easy to see why Emma might be attracted to Antonio, but less easy to see why she would fall in love with him. It’s even harder to accept that this love would endure the terrible, cataclysmic event that befalls her family as an indirect result of her actions.

It is perhaps suggested that Emma’s son and heir to the business Eduardo may too have affections for Antonio (‘when I first tasted this man’s cooking, I fell in love with him’), but we are supposed to accept that Emma is completely impervious to this closeness. Similarly, we are expected to accept that Antonio would be completely careless in his attitude towards protecting the secrecy of his relationship with Emma (the ultimate revelation, inevitably, involves food).

What we are left with is a rather didactic and unsubtle divide in the family between socially repressed women allying themselves in self-discovery, and authoritarian, conforming men. This might well be an entirely fair and observant comment on wealthy Italian society – but it is hardly in itself original. The film’s final descent into melodrama merely serves to bludgeon the audience with this point, with entirely embarrassing results.

The confrontation between Tancredi (who is a stereotyped sexless regal male throughout) and Emma in the cathedral, complete with the obligatory baptismal rainstorm, is screamingly awful. However impressive an actress Swinton is, she cannot rise above this level of cliché and heavy-handed direction. Whilst the nature of the tragic event that destroys the family is in itself shocking and unexpected, the film’s treatment of its immediate aftermath is completely lacking in nuance or understanding.

If the melodramatic final scenes, complete with religious symbolism (a post-credits coda shows Emma and Antonio entwined in a cave) are supposed to betray the influence of Douglas Sirk, the only plausible response is to highlight how superior a homage Todd Haynes made with the wonderful ‘Far From Heaven’. Many have praised the use of the bombastic music of American composer John Adams here, but I found it intrusive and unpleasant. Whilst I could just about tolerate its role in the sequence where Emma follows Antonio through the streets of San Remo (where the film achieves an enjoyable albeit decidedly Hitchcockian balance of tension and playfulness), the grandiose music that accompanies the final moments is cloying and overblown.

The problem is precisely that ‘I Am Love’ tries so hard to achieve a grand operatic sweep. This is a film crying out for a little more intimacy, reflection and care. In fact, its precisely in its more tender, less provocative moments that this picture is at its best. In trying to make theatrical gestures and romantic statements from the idea of self-discovery, it conspicuously fails to engage with what self-discovery actually entails, or even what it might mean, save for the inevitable collapse of one wealthy family. I am also deeply suspicious of the film’s implied sense that the discovery of a dormant true identity is a purely feminine thing – why are all the male characters left so stilted and underwritten? It’s entirely reasonable to make a film about female subjugation in Italian society – but it is necessary to do much more than simply render the male characters as cardboard cut-outs.

Given the response this film has had elsewhere, I know there will be people stumbling across this review who passionately disagree with me. Yet the very fact that Guadagnino and Swinton spent seven years working on this project betrays that it is, at its core, a vanity project no more worthy of serious attention than those of Mel Gibson. I honestly find it hard to defend a film that is such an inherent stylistic mess and that so thoroughly botches all its themes.

It is not enough to throw together a disparate array of knowing references for the benefit of cinephiles, nor is it enough to try to make weak material transcendent through the use of melodrama. If we accept films like this, however impressive the photography, acting and staging may be, as the best modern cinema has to offer, we are doing audiences, the art of criticism and the medium of cinema itself a huge disservice. That is simply not good enough.

Quantity

Field Music - (Measure) (Memphis Industries)

The story of Field Music is one of the more interesting industry sagas of recent years, and a refreshing example of how a combination of imagination and sheer persistence can reap rewards. Unfairly written off as an inferior cousin to The Futureheads, there's now plenty of evidence that Field Music were always the better band - a group with an unusual ability to be as inventive as possible with the traditional rock group set-up. Perhaps their quirky, angular, constantly shifting approach to classic pop was never likely to have mass appeal, but the excellent 'Tones of Town' album was cruelly overlooked both by critics and the public. Meeting with such indifference, Field Music announced an indefinite hiatus, but rather than abandoning their musical dreams altogether, the Brewis brothers sub-divided into two separate projects, School of Language and The Week That Was. Both yielded outstanding results and had distinctive individual identities.

With their profile now duly raised by this clever musical and promotional game playing, the Brewis brothers return as Field Music with a substantial double album demonstrating their ambition, if not quite the full scope of their interests. As if by way of atonement, '(Measure)' has received ecstatic featured reviews in the monthly rock press. Critics are correct to eulogise the Brewis' melodic and rhythmic gifts - and '(Measure)' is unsurprisingly filled with structural intelligence and exceedingly clever writing. At times, it also sounds remarkably taut - the sound of a well-rehearsed, carefully arranged small unit.

There is much to admire on '(Measure)', from the nimble chamber-pop of the title track to the insistent, spiky adrenaline rush of 'Effortlessly' or the infectious chime of 'Them That Do Nothing'. Many of these songs are astute lessons in how to produce guitar based pop with sophistication and clarity. The Brewis brothers work brilliantly together, and their refined vocal harmonies are a major feature of the group's sound. Similarly, they design their songs to feature intricate, complementary guitar parts. They rarely resort to bland strumming or the simple marking of time. This is often what makes their songs stand out as exciting.

Sometimes, I suspect, it makes their music seem more adventurous than it actually is. '(Measure)' is very much rooted in classic British pop - and for much of its duration it seems like a more progressive reformulation of the essential ingredients of pop music as defined by the great acts of the 60s and 70s. Perhaps as a result, it does occasionally drift into slightly plodding, guitar-rock formula ('Lights Up'). As much as I enjoy it (and I really do), I can't help feeling it's a less intriguing project than either the School of Language or The Week That Was albums. Those albums had strong conceptual foundations and drew from a less obvious array of musical influences.

'(Measure)' works best when it hints at this broader knowledge - the superb minimal synth and percussion workout of 'Let's Write A Book' or the Afro-Cuban informed coda to 'All You'd Ever Need To Say'. The latter is a good example of another frustrating tendency here - occasionally, the Brewis brothers have great ideas which they simply throw in loosely and fail to develop. Still, there's no doubting the Brewis brothers have major talent and an appetite for adventure - and it's great to see their peculiar business model sustaining them. This should set the benchmark for British rock bands. It provides clear evidence that it is possible to play classic rock music with a pioneering spirit.

New Directions

Polar Bear - Peepers (Leaf)

I don't always admire the work of Paul Morley, but his current Guardian video series investigating the nature of modern jazz in Britain is fascinating and important. So often, jazz cocoons itself in existential worries ('is this jazz?' 'is it too accessible?') and shields itself from other forms. Yet in this country right now, there is a very vibrant scene of improvising musicians forging connections across the contemporary musical spectrum. It was pleasing to see Polar Bear's Sebastian Rochford and Pete Wareham, in conversation with Morley, highlighting the likes of Zed-U and TrioVD, but also recognise that adventurous, compositional rock bands such as Grizzly Bear might offer inspiration to the aspiring jazz musician.

Rochford appears to see jazz as more of a concept or approach than a sound - it doesn't have to swing, but it does have to be 'liberating', confident and prepared to take risks. Rochford is something of an old-fashioned collector of music who enjoys making new discoveries in independent record shops. He has absorbed a massive range of music yet the result of his avid listening is a remarkably distinctive compositional voice. Perhaps there was a danger of this developing into a formula - many will probably feel that 'Peepers', a relatively concise and focused set, is exactly what was required after the dense, sprawling exploration of their previous self-titled work (for the record, I loved that album too).

There are two central relationships crucial to Polar Bear's alchemy - the powerful connection between Rochford and Tom Herbert, which is both steady and dynamic, and the relationship between saxophonists Mark Lockheart and Pete Wareham, as contrasting and complementary a frontline as you could hope to find. 'Peepers' sees Rochford now using this foundation to branch out into new territory. Electronics wizard Leafcutter John plays guitar on a number of tracks, giving the band harmonic accompaniment for the first time. If anything, though, the effect is largely rhythmic or atmospheric, either producing ska-infused choppiness or surprising tenderness.

The exhilarating burst of unashamed joy on the opening 'Happy For You' will be familiar to long time Polar Bear fans, as will the lurching groove Rochford deploys on the hugely enjoyable 'Drunken Pharoah'. These are unselfconcious pieces of music, rich in character and humour, but with a strong musical understanding and interplay cementing them. What will be less familiar are the moments of delicacy and vulnarability that mark 'Peepers' out as Polar Bear's most varied and immersing work so far. 'The Love Don't Go Anywhere' is an impressionistic piece tinged with sadness and regret, whilst 'A New Morning Will Come' is a shimmering delight.

Perhaps my favourite moment on the album is the subtle 'Want To Believe Everything', on which the internal dynamics of Rochford's drumming are brilliantly controlled. The piece takes Polar Bear's familiar off-kilter groove and plays it out in a lighter, more airy setting. The gentle closer 'All Here' has something of an inspirational feel - like a soft prayer. It sounds like a Stax soul ballad - a Mavis Staples song as played by a jazz ensemble. This is new territory for the group, and certainly not unwelcome.

'Peepers', contrary to its title, is not the sound of a band tentatively peeping at another direction. It's a confident, assured opening of new doors. It has a raw, unpolished sound that may infuriate some but which delights me - it sounds like a real band playing intuitively.

Summer tinged with sadness

Laura Veirs - July Flame (Bella Union)

Laura Veirs is the sort of singer-songwriter it's all too easy to take for granted, releasing new albums of dependable quality at regular intervals without really making radical shifts in direction. Amidst all the noise currently being made around female talents (the elaborate fantasias of Joanna Newsom or the supposed prodigious maturity of Laura Marling), it would be easy for 'July Flame' to fall by the wayside. This would be a real shame, for there's definitely an argument to be made that 'July Flame' is Veirs' most accomplished work.

As its title suggests, 'July Flame' works as a warmer, brighter flipside to the icy charm of her previous career watermark 'Carbon Glacier'. The albums Veirs has released in between the two have all been good, but maybe burdened by the weight of one or two standout songs apiece. 'July Flame' is a good deal more consistent - brimming with largely simple, unaffected but strikingly beautiful songwriting. The arrangements are mostly minimal but characterised by delightful textural nuances.

Veirs continues to work with producer Tucker Martine and 'July Flame' contains the finest results yet from this fruitful collaboration. I became tremendously excited when I heard the news that REM were recording new demos with Martine, for he is exactly the sort of producer to reinject some mystery into that band - but it seems they have returned to the ugly, hyper-compressed commercialism of Jacknife Lee for their forthcoming album. What a shame because judging by what Veirs and Martine have achieved here - an unassuming, home recorded work still full of richness and beauty - a Martine-helmed REM might have been something both surprising and special.

'July Flame' delicately unfolds into a mission of quiet discovery. There's the gentle reverb (applied carefully and thoughtfully) that renders 'I Can See Your Tracks' a mesmerising introduction. There's the otherwordly, slightly woozy waltz of 'Little Deschutes' and the southern gothic tapestry of 'Where Are You Driving?'. Veirs seems to have ironed out some of the harshness from her voice and, whilst these songs are not without her trademark wistful melacholy, they do seem to have a warmer, more enchanted gaze. Perhaps best of all is the sensual, rapturous but avowedly linear title track.

Veirs comes across as a disarmingly modest writer and performer (and her humility comes across in her sincere tribute to legendary session bassist Carol Kaye), but also a meticulously honest one - and this is perhaps why she appears to have so many admirers. Colin Meloy from the Decemberists campaigned for 'July Flame' to get a proper release when Nonesuch records declined to put it out (did they learn nothing from the 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' farce?) and Jim James from My Morning Jacket provides some suitably spectral vocal harmonies. It's good to hear James' voice in a more sympathetic context after the uncomfortable fusions of 'Evil Urges'. I suspect 'July Flame' will be one of the albums I listen to most this year, such is its winning combination of adventure and accessibility.

The Return

I've not been able to blog in some time now. My life is taking all sorts of interesting twists and turns at the moment, involving plenty of uncertainty but also, I hope, some new opportunities. I hope, slowly but surely, to ease back into regular writing again.

Whilst I've been busy working and planning for the future, plenty seems to have happened in the world of music, not least the sad loss of two figures personally significant for me (and many others). Along with John Peel, Charlie Gillett was surely one of the two most important voices in British broadcasting. He treated his listeners with respect, trusting them to have the same keen and adventurous ears that he had. His style was totally and refreshingly unshowy and unpretentious, allowing the music to speak for itself whilst also communicating his enthusiasm and passion for it in a naturalistic, almost effortless manner. He was a broadcaster of real integrity - compromising his own tastes and interests in the service of his career would have been unthinkable. Compare this with the excitable preaching of Zane Lowe and it's easy to see what has been lost to the tradition of radio with Charlie's passing. He can't be replaced - but I do hope the World Service continues to devote a small part of its schedule to sharing music from around the world.

Alex Chilton was a more tricksy character but, at his best, undeniably one of the great pop songwriters. Big Star were a band that sounded like they ought to have had hit after hit but, in the end, they remained a cult concern. It's worth remembering that, over time, cult interest bands have considerable impact on a wide range of people - and the many tributes to Alex on Twitter are testament to the fact that conventional, commercial measures of popularity often serve to marginalise immensely significant players. 'The Ballad of El Goodo', 'September Gurls', 'Thirteen', 'Thank You Friends', 'Kanga Roo' rank among some of the finest songs I know. As a solo artist, Chilton was wayward and unpredictable - although there are those for whom the ragged charm of 'Like Flies on Sherbert' holds more interest than the more polished sound of the first two Big Star albums. There's definitely a sense that, middling quality of the recent Big Star album notwithstanding, Chilton had more to offer.

I now have a large task on my hands attempting to catch up on everything I've been enjoying recently. Blogging will probably remain intermittent as I start a month of new work on Tuesday and I really hope to get the best out of a short amount of time.

Rock Heritage

John Cale and The Heritage Orchestra perform Paris 1919
Royal Festival Hall – 5th March 2010

Having never seen the great John Cale live before, and with the knowledge that he would be performing his superb ‘Paris 1919’ album in full, I’d been eagerly anticipating this concert for some time. I use the word ‘concert’ rather than gig because that is very much what it was – a stately, reverential and, for the most part, somewhat uninspired recreation of Cale’s 1973 hymn to cold war Europe, coupled with a rather short and ungenerous second half of more adventurous pieces for the band.

‘Paris 1919’ is rightly regarded as one of Cale’s more conventional albums. Whilst it has rich orchestral arrangements, it’s very much a set of melodic pop songs and there is very little hint of Cale’s interest in the avant garde, or of the poised confrontation of The Velvet Underground. The recording, however, is beautifully nuanced and with members of Little Feat in the original band, even the languid ballads threaten to tip into a lithe groove.

Yet when the band finally joins the orchestra onstage after a somewhat unprofessional and uncertain pause, the opening ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ simply lacks punch. Perhaps it’s something to do with drummer Michael Jerome playing an unconventional kit, largely sticking to brushes and providing the kick from a cajon. The problem isn’t confined just to this song, unfortunately, with the entire rendition of the album seeming slick, over-rehearsed and lacking any injection of immediacy or inspiration.

The arrangements seemed to suffer from overthinking how best to combine band and orchestra. Perhaps wary of cutting through the string section, guitarist Dustin Boyer repeatedly resorted to a clichéd and grating distorted rock ballad guitar sound that undermined the sensitivities of the songs. Rather than touching or affecting, the album’s ballads ended up overcooked and bordering on histrionic. The album’s livelier moments, such as ‘Macbeth’ (moved to the end of the set presumably to create a rousing finale), seemed to lack teeth. Only ‘Graham Greene’, one of my least favourite songs on the album, seemed to achieve a fresh impetus – less playful but more insistent than the studio version.

If the original recording has a significant fault, it’s that Cale’s consistently double tracked vocals are often uncomfortably flat. Tonight, his voice sounded stronger, more confident and more articulate. The intelligent, wry wordplay of much of the album’s lyrics at least came through with clarity and purpose. This made it all the more unfortunate that the sound of the musicians was so muddy and undefined. At one point, a near constant low level feedback from the horn section threatened to completely destroy the mood.

After a short break (the brevity of which certainly caught out those who insisted on another trip to the bar), the group returned to perform some choice selections from Cale’s career. These included a wiry, claustrophobic interpretation of The Velvet Underground’s ‘Femme Fatale’ (intercut with ‘Rosegarden Funeral of Sores’), a somewhat dreamy ‘Amsterdam’ and an outstanding, clamorous, deeply weird deconstruction of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. In this short section of the concert, the band played so much more intuitively and intelligently, crafting thrilling and futuristic music. I would have appreciated more of this. Both orchestra and bombast return for a rapturously applauded ‘Hedda Gabbler’.

The concert has been well received elsewhere in the press, and the audience afforded Cale a rather uncritical standing ovation. Yet, to me, it all seemed rather perfunctory and ungenerous – an example of getting a job done rather than anything more artistically adventurous. The performance of ‘Paris 1919’, curiously unsatisfying as it was, didn’t even provide the warm glow of nostalgia one might reasonably expect. Perhaps there is a broader problem with this recent trend of performing classic albums in full – but if classical audiences pay to see complete symphonies, I don’t really see the difference. For a large portion of popular music’s history now, the album has been the nearest equivalent to a full composed work, and reports of its death are no doubt greatly exaggerated. Still, any attempt to produce a tasteful facsimile of the original work, rather than something living, breathing and challenging, ought to be avoided at all costs.

Enough To Get You Drunk

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me (Drag City)

Joanna Newsom seems to be one of those artists about whom writers are incapable of exercising nuance – she’s a polarising figure who has taken to making grand, indulgent and idiosyncratic works that demand to be either loved or hated. There’s little room for indifference. Looking back over my rather cursory review of Joanna Newsom’s last album ‘Ys’, I wasn’t quite as dismissive as I’d thought I’d been, but I did question the lack of perspective and distance deployed in criticism of the record. Music critics (mostly males it must be admitted) seemed to veer into rhapsodic swoons at Newsom’s unrestrained verbosity and the romantic sweep of Van Dyke Parks’ grandiose arrangements.

I’ve been a good deal more agnostic about Newsom. ‘The Milk Eyed Mendor’ had some endearing songs but was undermined by Newsom’s grating childlike whimsy. ‘Ys’, on the other hand, was a bizarre detour into a world of excess. With barely a moment free from the piercing sound of Newsom’s voice, certainly an acquired taste, it seemed to me oppressive and not especially likeable. It was rare to find a record rooted in conventional harmony and folk traditions that also sounded so confrontational and difficult.

‘Have One On Me’ sounds even more daunting on paper – more than two hours of Newsom’s music spread across three CDs! She simply does not know how to edit herself. In reality, though, it’s a much more accessible album than ‘Ys’ and arguably a more artistic one too. There are no Van Dyke Parks arrangements here, instead that responsibility falls to Ryan Francesconi, leader of Newsom’s touring band. The arrangements here are occasionally intricate, but always serve to complement or enhance the song. On five of the eighteen tracks, Newsom even forsakes the harp in favour of the piano. Most importantly, these factors combine to ensure that there is a great range in texture and dynamic that had been largely absent from ‘Ys’.

Also immediately noticeable are the changes in Newsom’s vocal delivery. Apparently she underwent surgery for vocal chord nodules last year – I’m not sure whether it’s this or a conscious decision that has prompted the greater restraint. She now sings with a much greater depth of feeling, poise and soulfulness. Sometimes the delivery is so subtle it’s almost ghostly, a big contrast from Newsom’s previous tendency to impose her personality with unwavering intensity. She still sounds quirky, for sure, but now far more naturally so and much less irritating as a result. There’s also much greater attention paid to phrasing, and there are fewer moments when Newsom seems to be forcing her flighty lyrics to scan. The squeakier, less controlled side of her voice threatens to re-emerge on the third disc, but it sounds more surprising as a result of her control elsewhere.

Newsom also displays a penchant for direct and simple melodies here, as well as her gradually unfolding, lengthy linear narratives that will be familiar to devotees of ‘Ys’. The uncharacteristically concise ‘On A Good Day’ resembles a hymn and elsewhere it sounds as if Newsom might be crafting her own traditional folk songs or nursery rhymes. This is not a criticism – a lot of these songs have direct and clear charm. On much of ‘Have One On Me’, Newsom appears to have developed the artistry and self belief to be simple but not simplistic. It’s pretty clear that she herself recognises the difference.

There’s so much material here it’s hard to know where to start. The most striking tracks are those that present the clearest sense of departure for Newsom. There’s the gently rolling road song ‘Good Intentions Paving Company’, on which Newsom sings with a chorus of her band members, phrasing the vocals in line with the song’s harmonic rhythm. It’s light and bouncy but, for those used to Newsom’s harp and voice based performances, also curiously strident. It also takes a completely unexpected twist into romantic territory as Newsom realises that the long journey has to end somewhere. The song is driven by Newsom’s basic piano style, not unlike Dylan’s untutored gospel touch on ‘New Morning’, and by the limber, creative drumming of Neal Morgan.

Similarly impressive is ‘Baby Birch’, which begins as a plaintive, gospel tinged ballad but gradually builds a delicate momentum, punctuated with bursts of electric guitar. What is most striking here is that, in contrast to pretty much all of ‘Ys’, ‘Baby Birch’ is full of space and calm – moments where Newsom no longer feels she has to browbeat us with linguistic or musical clutter. She has the confidence here to let her ideas unfold slowly and gracefully.

There are many tracks that take off where ‘Ys’ left off. They begin with Newsom alone with her harp, or have her accompanied by a string or woodwind section, and feature dense, sprawling fantasies brimming with alliteration. Disc three probably presents the more challenging of these rapturous fantasias, including the uncompromising, exaggerated ‘Esme’. Perhaps the most successful example is the extraordinary ‘Go Long’, during which no lyrical conceit seems too bizarre or wild for Newsom (she is carried in on a ‘palanquin’ made from the naked bodies of many beautiful women). Her disconcerting intensity is softened, however, by a spine-tingling integrated mesh of harp and kora.

Indeed, the instrumentation throughout hints at a wider range of influences, many of which add texture, depth and nuance to Newsom’s idiosyncratic visions. Andrew Strain’s trombone is a particularly welcome presence, adding warmth and a hint of New Orleans to ‘You and Me, Bess’ and ‘Good Intentions Paving Company’. Newsom’s piano playing, slightly untutored and unsophisticated, has something of the gospel-infused urgency of Dylan’s piano playing on the still underrated ‘New Morning’. The closing ‘Does Not Suffice’ is therefore unexpectedly soulful. The hints of Eastern musical flavours on ‘Kingfisher’ are similarly unpredictable and charming. Newsom’s range on ‘Have One On Me’ is broader and more inclusive.

Lyrically, there are still certainly moments when Newsom’s insistence on luxuriating in language leads to uncomfortable displays of verbose banality (‘her faultlessly etiolated fish-belly face’ on ‘No Provenance’ is a line that sticks out like a sore thumb). However, the overall impression left by ‘Have One On Me’ is that Newsom has balanced her expansive dreamy reveries with a new lyrical directness and self reflection. There’s the affecting pleas at the end of ‘Good Intentions…’ (‘I only want for you to pull over and hold me, til I can’t remember my own name’) and Jackrabbits (‘tell me that I can love you again’), or there’s the preoccupation with the idea of home on songs like ‘In California’ or ‘Autumn’. Then there’s the celebration of drinking, not only confined to the extraordinary title track.

Given that I listened to ‘Ys’ only three times before giving up on it and confining it to the shelves, it’s entirely surprising just how much I’ve wanted to revel in the plethora of ideas and riches on display here. For anyone previously averse to Newsom, I recommend keeping an open mind – ‘Have One On Me’ is indulgent and extravagant for sure, but it’s also deeply touching and brilliantly imaginative. It’s the kind of record no-one else would dare to make. The question, of course, is where she could possibly go from here – one hopes it doesn’t all result in a dreadful hangover.

Caught In The Waves

Corinne Bailey Rae - The Sea

The fact that I'm sitting down to write a review of a Corinne Bailey Rae album comes as something of a surprise to me. I should state for the record that I don't have any particular axe to grind with Ms. Rae, it's simply that her debut was far too light and frothy a concoction to really have registered with me, although her Jools Holland performances certainly showed she had vocal talents. Her follow up album 'The Sea' is a totally different story.

It would be very tempting to write about the sad and untimely death of Bailey Rae's partner Jason Rae and how it has informed this album. Whilst it is a record touched by grief and loss, much of the writing had been done before the event, and certain songs have probably been made more poignant by the tragedy. There can be no doubt that this must have affected Bailey Rae tremendously - perhaps some of the pain was poured into completing this surprisingly powerful, dramatic and engaging album. But this is speculation - what seems more important from the context of Bailey Rae's developing career is that she seems to have been left free to make precisely the album she wanted to make. So many different styles inform this liberated, free flowing music. There are hints at Bailey Rae's love of jazz (particularly Billie Holliday records), but also material drawn from the folk world, and even from indie rock. The seductive opener 'Are You Here?' begins with an electric guitar riff that could have been drawn from a PJ Harvey record. Indeed, it comes as something of a surprise to hear Bailey Rae's soft, playful vocal delivery over it.

This sophisticated, superbly executed music is quite some way from the coffee table blandness with which Bailey Rae has been, perhaps unfairly, associated. It's a record that suggests that of all the recent heavily hyped, BBC sound-of-the-year approved female solo artists, Bailey Rae may well turn out to be the one with long term artistic potential. Artists that spring to mind when listening to 'The Sea' include Joni Mitchell, John Martyn and Terry Callier - the kind of solo artists that blurred genre boundaries with effortless, intoxicating ease.

Even the single 'I'd Do It All Again', itself a powerfully linear, deeply expressed and passionate song, gives little indication of the quality of the writing and the ensemble performances on 'The Sea'. The music is sensitively delivered and thoughtfully textured. A song like 'Feels Like The First Time', which initially threatens to be generic summery funk-lite unfolds to reveal a slightly exotic, menacing chorus with vaguely threatening string lines.

More surprising are the upbeat, sultry and insistent pieces such as 'The Blackest Lily'. With Hammond organ and spiky electric guitar, the song has a slightly retro vibe, but everything about the delivery is so righteous and confident that it ends up being thoroughly irresistible. Perhaps the breezy pop of 'Paris Nights/New York Mornings' is slightly out of place on an otherwise intense and rapturous set of songs, but the sheer panache of the band performances make it seem necessary.

Perhaps the album's greatest strengths lie in its lush, rhapsodic ballads, which are emotional without becoming histrionic. Bailey Rae has a control and delicacy that suggests turmoil in the most unforced and convincing of ways. 'I Would Like To Call It Beauty' is particularly beautiful - sensual and gentle but compelling from start to finish, whilst 'Love's On Its Way' gradually builds into something somehow both overwhelming and underplayed. The closing title track is aptly named - the sensation of listening to it is akin to being washed with waves of water. It feels like writing it may have been a cathartic, purgatorial experience.

There will always be some people for whom Bailey Rae is just not edgy enough a personality. Yet these people will miss out by unfairly ignoring this excellent album. Whilst her soft, sometimes childlike vocals could sit very comfortably in lightweight presentation, the contexts Bailey Rae has chosen here are a good deal more mature and adventurous. A great deal of attention has been paid to the detail of the arrangements and the sounds of particular instruments and to the overall mood. 'The Sea' is an elemental triumph.

Celebrating a Polymath

Ian Carr - A Celebration of a Life in Music
Nikki Yeoh
Art Themen, Norma Winstone, Michael Garrick, Don Rendell, Dave Green, Trevor Tomkins
Musicians from Royal College of Music, Guy Barker, Tim Whitehead
Nucleus Revisited: Geoff Castle, Mark Wood, Rob Statham, Nic France, Tim Whitehead, Chris Batchelor, Phil Todd, plus guests John Marshall and Ray Russell
Queen Elizbeth Hall, 23rd February


Given his achievements as a jazz musician, a composer, a pioneer of jazz-rock fusion and also as a writer and educator, this concert celebration of the great Ian Carr (who died from Alzheimer’s disease last year) was always going to be an ambitious task. Luckily, it had been carefully planned, satisfying those in the audience who knew Ian well (I myself was one of his students at WAC in North London) and offering a neat snapshot for the uninitiated.

The words often seemed as vital and important as the music. The musings and memories of Nikki Yeoh, Julian Joseph and Michael Garrick captured Ian’s character (his breadth of knowledge, his passions for literature as well as music, his encouragement and his occasionally acid tongue) with real detail and affection, with Garrick even veering into an uncanny impression.

The concert opened with a short solo set from Nikki Yeoh, a star student of Ian’s, who spoke openly and honestly about his inspirational teaching. Her ‘Dance of Two Small Bears’ seemed appropriately indebted to Keith Jarrett (who, along with Miles Davis, represented the pinnacle of musical achievement for Ian), delightfully playful and vibrant but with a deeper, more romantic substance.

Yeoh was followed by a group lead by Michael Garrick, and featuring members of the great Rendell-Carr quintet. The rhythm section of Dave Green and Trevor Tomkins seemed more pensive and less propulsive, but compositions such as ‘Dusk Fire’ and ‘Voices’ still have a commanding resonance. The involvement of the great vocalist Norma Winstone elevated the performance, even if she occasionally threatened to interject too frequently. The appearance of an aged but still powerful Don Rendell drew deserved cheers from the audience.

The second half began with arguably the concert’s highlight, the London premier of Carr’s work for jazz trumpet, saxophone and small string orchestra ‘Northumbrian Sketches’, originally commissioned twenty five years ago. These pieces vividly capture a sense of time and place and the writing, whilst unassuming, is absorbed in the blues and rhythmically driven. Soloists Guy Barker and Tim Whitehead played with clarity and feeling and conductor Mike Gibbs controlled the ensemble with the very minimum of physical effort. Hearing a string orchestra swing will probably always remain an unusual experience. In this case, it was also a richly enjoyable one.

The finale of a very long evening was provided by a large ensemble based on the Nucleus fusion groups of the 70s and 80s. It was extremely loud, and dominated by distorted guitar and a tightly grooving rhythm section (with Rob Statham on bass and the excellent Nic France on drums). Geoff Castle’s keyboards, especially the acoustic piano, were sadly occasionally overwhelmed. The short selection of Ian’s pieces was judicious, including ‘Mister Jelly Lord’, ‘Selena’ (inspired by Miles Davis’ ‘All Blues’ and writer for Ian’s daughter), ‘Lady Bountiful’, ‘Roots’ and a majestic ‘Things Past’. I must admit to preferring the more intuitive and considered improvising of special guest guitarist Ray Russell to the histrionic shredding from Mark Wood, although the roof-raising finale featuring two guitarists and two drummers (John Marshall joining Nic France) was as vibrant and brilliantly chaotic as one of Ian’s WAC workshops. Tim Whitehead’s exultant solo on the closing ‘Things Past’ was both fittingly emotional and musically articulate.