Bob Dylan's 'Modern Times'
That title is loaded with mischievous irony. 'Modern Times', like 'Love and Theft' before it, is very self-consciously unconcerned with the contemporary musical landscape. With its 30s and 40s swing croons and rockabilly stompers, it's a deliciously entertaining refashioning of great American musical traditions. Given its coupling of wry, frequently very funny blues pieces with hauntingly evocative major songs, it's easy to see why Columbia Records are presenting it as the conclusion of a great trilogy that began in 1997 with 'Time Out Of Mind'. To understand latter-day Dylan, however, it's necessary to go back a bit further. After the creative low of 'Under The Red Sky' in 1990, Dylan was crippled by writers' block, and retreated into a songbook of folk and blues standards with two excellent albums of reinterpretations, 1992's 'Good As I Been To You' and 'World Gone Wrong' the following year. It is this exuming of his earliest inspirations that seems to have inspired pretty much everything he has recorded since, from 'Time Out Of Mind' and its spidery intimations of mortality, to Love And Theft's gleeful ransacking of the past. Though he was much lambasted for those albums at the time, seen from the vantage point of hindsight, they make perfect sense. It's therefore also not hard to appreciate why the unconverted will probably remain nonplussed by an album like 'Modern Times', not least because of the profound tedium of much of the huge volume of writing about Dylan these days. His most anticipated album since Blood On The Tracks, another masterpiece, yadda, yadda, yawn, yawn....Many of the reviews seem so preoccupied with the mythical influence of Dylan himself that they've failed to engage much with the album.
The bulk of 'Modern Times' is entirely amiable and unassuming, mostly 12 bar blues compositions played with unforced clarity and enthusiasm by his regular touring band. The crisp guitars of Stu Kimball and Denny Freeman duel with the vigour and dynamism of Scotty Moore and Carl Perkins, whilst Tony Garnier's solid upright bass pulse and George Receli's expressive drumming, mostly with brushes, are superb throughout. At its worst, there's some bizarrely cheesy cabaret-style crooning on 'Beyond The Horizon', which would be a lightweight song from a much lesser artist. At the better end, there's the gently rollicking opener 'Thunder On The Mountain', one of many songs featuring Dylan's excellent piano playing (considerably more nuanced and subtle than it was in the days of 'New Morning') and the massively entertaining 'Someday Baby'. Here, the words roll and tumble from Dylan's cracked voice with controlled relish.
There are some endearing rewrites of old standards. Indeed, the bulk of 'Modern Times' is a collection of references to a variety of source material, and it becomes easy to see why the archivist Dylan is now presenting an old time radio show, perhaps exactly the sort of programme Matt Ward was lamenting the loss of on his 'Transistor Radio' album from last year. 'Rollin' and Tumblin' doesn't veer too far away from its Muddy Waters template, and 'The Levee's Gonna Break' will be recognisable to anyone familiar with Memphis Minnie or Led Zeppelin. Even the much more substantial 'Nettie Moore' is in fact directly inspired by a nineteenth century American folk song of the same name. He even references Nina Simone in a particularly sly verse during 'Spirit On The Water': 'They brag about your sugar/Brag about it all over town/Put some sugar in my bowl/I feel like layin' down'.
Lyrically, he seems to be deploying similar deliriously funny wordplay to that used on the best parts of 'Love and Theft'. There are some superb moments, right from the outset. The opening verse of 'Thunder In The Mountain' proclaims 'Today's the day, gonna grab my trombone and blow/Well there's hot stuff here and it's everywhere I go'. Elsewhere, the song features some of his most inventive rhyming couplets - 'I've been sittin' studying the art of love/I think it will fit me like a glove' or, even better, 'Gonna recruit me an army, some real tough sons of bitches/I'll recruit my army from the orphanages/I been to St. Herman's Church, said my religious vows/ I've sucked the milk from a thouuuuussssand cowwwwwws!'. There are again delicious references to the twilight years ('you think I'm over the hill/You think I'm past my prime/Let me see what you got/We can have a whoppin' good time'), reflective ruminations on regret ('I laugh and I cry, and I'm haunted by/Things I never meant or wished to say') or some blackly funny confessions ('some young lazy slut has charmed away my brains!' or, much better, 'I want to be with you in Paradise/And it seems so unfair/I can't go back to paradise no more/...I killed a man back there!').
Amidst all of this riotous worplay, many claim that there it's not possible to detect much of the preoccupation with mortality and weariness that characterised 'Time Out Of Mind'. This isn't quite true. 'When The Deal Goes Down' comes with a lot of waltz, more than a hint of schmaltz, and some slightly clunky lyrics that echo 'Every Grain Of Sand' in their references to Biblical texts and psalms. Somehow, despite all this, it's quietly moving, perhaps because of the inference that 'the deal' in question is dying and the repeated refrain of 'I'll be with you when the deal goes down' is the ultimate pledge. There's also a sense of finality pervading in two of the album's best tracks, the love lament 'Nettie Moore' where 'the world has gone black before my eyes' and the epic finale 'Ain't Talkin', with its series of barren, apocalyptic landscapes.
It is these tracks, plus one other ('Workingman's Blues #2') that will ultimately secure this album's reputation within the Dylan canon (and certainly not the inspid 'Beyond The Horizon', where even the most avid Dylan fan may have to reach for the skip button). 'Ain't Talkin' is a close relation of 'Highlands', the 17 minute closer of 'Time Out Of Mind', although at just nine verses and almost the same number of minutes, it's a good deal more concise. Its tormented, existential journey is composed brilliantly (even though the central image of the 'mystic garden' is perhaps a bit icky), particularly as it gathers intensity towards the end ('the sufferin' is unending, Every nook and cranny has its tears/I'm not playing, I'm not pretending/I'm not nursin' any superfluous fears'). It's also musically fasninating, with eerie guitar arpeggios set against multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron's mournful violin. 'Nettie Moore' is a song in the grand folk tradition, brilliantly arranged, with neat contrast between crisply phrased vocals in the verse, and a more langorous, explicitly romantic chorus.
'Workingman's Blues #2', with both title and theme cribbed from Merle Haggard, is a thornier song. It will certainly be claimed by those still besotted with protest-era Dylan as a conscious return to leftist roots, not least because of some vaguely Marxist lyrics ('the buying power of the proletariat's gone down/money's gettin' shallow and weak' or 'they say low wage is our reality, if we want to compete abroad'). I suspect, particularly given Dylan's long standing reluctance to espouse any specific particular political creed, that the concerns here are more personal than political, especially when the lyric is taken as a whole. Either way, it's one of the most brilliantly sustained lyrics in the latterday Dylan catalogue, with a lingering melody and some stately, elegant playing from the band (again including Dylan's surprisingly intricate piano). It has some truly majestic lines, and my favourite verse on the whole album: 'My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf/Come sit down on my knee/You are dearer to me than myself/As you yourself can see/While I'm listening to the steel rails-a-hum/Got both eyes tight shut/Just sitting here trying to keep the hunger from/Creeping its way inside my gut'). As ever, the delivery of this brilliantly manipulated language enhances its impact. Many fans will note that this is the first time Dylan has deployed the dreaded 'upsinging' device on a studio album. Whilst it has long been the achilles heel of his live shows, here it is deployed with sensitivity and conscious control - the little flick up at the end of some of the lines adding emphasis.
'Modern Times' perhaps suffers a little from predictability, given how well it sits with its immediate predecessors. As Michael Gray has observed in his excellent 'Song and Dance Man' book, it's actually very rare that Dylan offers anything as audience-pleasing or as straightforward as a sequel or follow-up. There's very little evidence that Dylan has kept up with any contemporary trends, as his ranting interview with Rolling Stone magazine's Jonathan Lethem more than suggested (Dylan was fiery in his denunciation of modern production techniques and claimed there had been no decent records made in the last 20 years). Perhaps that's why the strange Alicia Keys lyric stands out so much on 'Thunder On The Mountain' - 'I was thinking about Alicia Keys, couldn't keep from crying/When she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was living down the line/I was wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be/I looked for her even clear through Tennessee'. It's brilliantly unexpected. For the most part though, 'Modern Times' presents Dylan as more plunderer than pioneer, but it's no less enthralling for that. It's worth remembering that this is a writer who has always bent source material to his own wildly inventive purposes, and in reconnecting with the American songbook, he has ironically made himself relevant again. In his wilderness days in the 80s, Dylan seemed very conscious of the need to update and modernise, hence perhaps the deployment of Arthur Baker to produce 'Empire Burlesque' or the use of Sly and Robbie as rhythm section on 'Infidels'. Now, abandoning such surface concerns, he has recovered his very core, becoming in essence a travelling minstrel singer - full of wit and wisdom, but gradually shedding the star's mystique.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
The Art Of Songwriting
I'm becoming very bored with the current focus on singer-songwriters, and the rather lazy clustering of musicians with completely different styles, intentions and of wildly varying quality. Can there really be any benefit in comparing King Creosote with Paolo Nutini? Frankly, James Blunt, the aforementioned Nutini, KT Tunstall, James Morrison and the rest can all piss off. Still, I'm going to do something a bit similar myself, because when auteurs do produce something interesting that goes somewhat against the grain, it's worth taking note.
Whatever your position on Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, it's not difficult to accept Will Oldham as one of modern music's true originals. It's not so much that his music breaks radical new boundaries - in fact, these days, he seems quite comfortable to operate in increasingly traditional idioms. It's more that his whole landscape, particularly his use of language, is completely singular. Any Will Oldham song immediately has his own unique stamp on it - however old and familiar the chords may be, nobody else could have written it. Nobody else would have written those dark but hypnotic words, or phrased the lines quite so adventurously. This is why the likes of 'Riding' and 'I See A Darkness' strike me as some of the major songs of our time, and however few records Oldham sells during his lifetime - he has created timeless music, the influence of which will likely be felt for many years to come.
Not content with having released one excellent album already this year (the underrated covers collaboration with Tortoise), Oldham is back with the latest instalment in his BPB guise. If it seems underwhelming on first listen, it's because it's his most consistent album so far - at least in tone and mood. The prevailing atmosphere is languid, mournful and lyrical. It's not an easy album - its songs demand complete and total attention throughout its longer-than-usual duration. Given patience though, it reveals an enveloping and carefully constructed mood.
'The Letting Go' is most impressive in the way it presents some subtle developments in Oldham's approach. It's perhaps easier for songwriters to fall into a stale rut than it is for bands - there's less creative input in terms of numbers, and once a writer has developed a style it's tempting to stick with it. If anything, Oldham has suffered from the reverse problem in recent years - making a series of rather stubborn and contrary records that presented him as a somewhat obtuse and confusing character. Both the stark 'Master and Everyone' and the chintzy Nashville reinterpretations of his earlier work on 'Greatest Palace Music' yielded some fascinating moments - but neither satisfied across the length of an entire disc. 'The Letting Go' changes all that. It achieves this by merging the delicate acoustic plucking of 'Master and Everyone' with his lushest arrangements to date. From the opening bars of 'Love Comes To Me', with its string flourishes and graceful electric guitar runs, it's clear we're in new territory. The sound in sensuous and romantic in the broadest senses of both words, but without losing the grimly morose and blackly humorous weltanschaung that has long been Oldham's trademark. Decamping to Iceland to record with a string group seems to have invigorated Oldham, just as collaborating with Matt Sweeney inspired him anew on last year's 'Superwolf'.
The dynamics are carefully regulated throughout and, as a result, the ensemble (this somehow seems a more appropriate word than 'band' to describe this operation) can reap magic from very subtle moments. The opening tracks are kept rolling gently by minimal, heartbeat percussion, and the gradual, swelling crescendo on 'Strange Form Of Life' works marvellously. Other unexpected elements include the use of drum programming on the superb 'Lay and Love' , soem military style drumming on 'No Bad News' and a close connection with the blues on the outstanding single 'Cursed Sleep' and on the brooding, apocalyptic 'Seedling'. 'Cold and Wet' even achieves something akin to the swing-era stylings Dylan resurrected on 'Love and Theft' (and reportedly returns to on a couple of songs on 'Modern Times').
For all the intricate arranging, the real star of the show here is actually singer Dawn McCarthy, whose presence is striking throughout the whole album. Oldham is by no means the easiest singer to harmonise with, as his vulnerable and slippery voice often drifts away from defined melodies. Still, McCarthy has achieved something close to the Emmylou's grace against Dylan's grit on 'Desire'. The combination is sublime and adds yet another new string to Oldham's bow.
Oldham has achieved a more direct simplicity with many of his lyrics here, although his poetic language still owes more to John Donne or Walt Whitman than any contemporary songwriter. His unpicks the erotic life with unflinching relish. On 'Cursed Sleep' he sings of 'trembling electric' in his lover's arms, and being 'so enslaved by her sweet wonder'. On 'Lay and Love', there's a magnificent verse capturing the dangerous contradictory impulses of attraction: 'From what I know, you're terrified/You have mistrust running through you/Your smile is hiding something hurtful/It makes me lay here and love you'. There's a perfectly encapsulated longing on 'Strange Form Of Life' with 'the softest lips ever/25 years of waiting to kiss them'. Most of these songs look back to a traditional folk structure, mostly bereft of choruses, and with repeated lyrical devices at the end of each verse. It's refreshing to hear such brilliantly sustained lyrical ideas running through each song.
It's particularly impressive that Oldham is still looking to forge new songwriting paths well into a long and established career. Whilst there is nothing here that goes against the grain of what we might reasonably expect a Bonnie 'Prince' Billy record to sound like, the way in which that sound has been refined and improved here is striking. The well of inspiration has certainly not yet run dry and 'The Letting Go' is a quiet, stately masterpiece.
Equally impressive is the first proper full length from Cortney Tidwell, who made a huge impression with her debut mini album late last year. 'Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up' is deliciously expansive, with its rich, reverb-laden sound, at turns serene and spectacular. In her chameleonic vocal performances, Tidwell seems to have amalgamated the influence of a broad spectrum of female legends (Kate Bush, Liz Fraser and Bjork are her most obvious reference points). A harsh critic might suggest that, in a similar fashion to Beth Gibbons on her otherwise outstanding collaboration with Paul Webb aka Rustin Man, Tidwell occasionally comes too close to simply emulating particular vocal styles without necessarily finding her own voice. This is however particularly picky when everything about this album - vocal delivery, arrangements and particularly the sound, has been so carefully considered. Lambchop's William Tyler offers spacious, unconventional guitar and Kurt Wagner also provides guest vocals on the supremely relaxed, but compellingly strange 'Society'.
Tidwell always veers towards the unexpected. Opener 'Eyes Are At The Billions' opens in a sea of tranquility, but suddenly swells into something tremendously grand. Her vocal delivery is articulate and peculiarly theatrical, stretching and extending phrases beyond their natural rhythms. There are hints of country music conventions, such as the lush pedal steel guitar on 'Pictures On The Sidewalk', but the style of delivery rarely fits comfortably with such notions. The songs veer from sweetly melodic sections into passages of mysterious and enigmatic calm.
Her vocals are most impressive when layered over each other, such as on the languidly paced but nevertheless slightly discomforting 'I Do Not Notice', where numerous Tidwell's are pitted against each other in a delicately combative round. On the elegant, angelic 'La La', Tidwell provides an entire choir of harmony vocals to soften the corners of her lead delivery. The effect is simply sublime. The music is always hauntingly evocative, although it defies categorisation.
Closer to home, my former University and musical colleague Jeremy Warmsley releases his debut album 'The Art Of Fiction' through the much feted Transgressive label in October. Many of the tracks here have been released before (although often in different versions), but the whole album has been sequenced with meticulous care. Though it veers through an impressive array of styles, it has a smooth and almost uninterrupted flow that allows it to work as a complete whole, despite its musical schizophrenia. Jeremy clearly can't decide whether to be a bedroom auteur with some beats and a laptop, or to opt for the most ostentatious of live instrumentation, with strings, horns, acoustic piano and group vocal arrangements. Mercifully, it's a decision he doesn't have to make, as he's equally comfortable in both worlds, and has a good ear for manipulating sound. Given the genre conventions increasingly imposed by pigeonholing lifestyle-based publications, radio stations etc, it's refreshing to hear a songwriter with little respect for artificial boundaries. Jeremy has no qualms about merging the compositional rigour of Steve Reich with, say, the quirky pop genius of an Andy Partridge or Green Gartside. So, the opening 'Dirty Blue Jeans', with its relentlessly driving rhythm and with strings playing the parts normally expected from a guitar, contrasts neatly with the more electronic leanings of '5 Verses' or 'The Young Man Sees The City As A Chess Board', but all are clearly the product of the same questing spirit.
Strangely, Jeremy may be at his best when at his most whimsical. '5 Verses' is familiar now to anyone who has followed his work over the last couple of years, but its sweetly observed lyric capturing the complete arc of a relationship is clever, and it comes with the real benefit of an infectious melody, despite its rejection of the conventional verse-chorus-verse-chorus pop structure. Similarly, the wartime tragedy of 'I Promise', the point rammed home with military drumming, shows Jeremy's penchant for the kitchen sink epic (and there's nothing wrong with that).
There's real ambition on display here, both in the album's excellent first half and also in its slightly less coherent second section. Early single 'I Believe In The Way You Move' has been dramatically improved here, now sounding at once tender and grand, with its ornate arrangement. Even more striking is 'Jonathan and The Oak Tree', which lurches through a number of radically different sections, rather like a potted pop symphony. It's both confounding and compelling and one of the album's standout tracks. I'm not quite sure what the central point of 'Modern Children' is, but it's full of quirky sounds and carries one of the album's most infectious choruses. This is coupled with a verse where the vocal line emphasises rhythm over melody, possibly betraying the influence of a Bloc Party or a Gang Of Four. The juxtaposition is effective.
Elsewhere, there's an occasional tendency towards abstraction that doesn't always quite work ('A Matter Of Principle' and 'If I Had Only' are perhaps slightly meandering), and a slightly narcissistic bent to the lyrics that might limit the appeal of some of the songs, from the young man trying to make his way in the big old city (the only university graduate without debt too! How fortunate!) in 'Dirty Blue Jeans' to the character looking to be 'the face of a generation' in 'The Young Man Sees...'. There's a lot of relationship dissection, self-aware pronouncements and candid admissions of lust, but sometimes this seems more insular than it is universal. For all this, it's difficult to see whether the conclusion of the eerily beautiful 'I Knew Her Face Was A Lie' (one of a handful of tracks to benefit significantly from the virtuosic piano playing of improv master Tom Rogerson), whereby Jeremy proclaims he's happy to be 'in a single bed on my own', is genuine, mockingly ironic, or just plain unlikely. Perhaps '5 Verses' remains a standout for its deployment of the wryly detached third person vantage point. There is however a clear counter-argument to all this - it's refreshing that this is not yet another sentimental/sensitive troubadour.
Still, this is no major obstacle when there are such rich musical pickings here, and it's important not to overlook the fact that Jeremy is already achieving the results to match his vaunting ambitions. Given that this was originally a loose collection of songs for EPs and singles, it's impressive that it's all been drawn together so coherently, and it's testament to the strength of his songwriting vision and dab hand at production. It's also continually inspiring that music of this quality can now be made easily in the home.
Whatever your position on Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, it's not difficult to accept Will Oldham as one of modern music's true originals. It's not so much that his music breaks radical new boundaries - in fact, these days, he seems quite comfortable to operate in increasingly traditional idioms. It's more that his whole landscape, particularly his use of language, is completely singular. Any Will Oldham song immediately has his own unique stamp on it - however old and familiar the chords may be, nobody else could have written it. Nobody else would have written those dark but hypnotic words, or phrased the lines quite so adventurously. This is why the likes of 'Riding' and 'I See A Darkness' strike me as some of the major songs of our time, and however few records Oldham sells during his lifetime - he has created timeless music, the influence of which will likely be felt for many years to come.
Not content with having released one excellent album already this year (the underrated covers collaboration with Tortoise), Oldham is back with the latest instalment in his BPB guise. If it seems underwhelming on first listen, it's because it's his most consistent album so far - at least in tone and mood. The prevailing atmosphere is languid, mournful and lyrical. It's not an easy album - its songs demand complete and total attention throughout its longer-than-usual duration. Given patience though, it reveals an enveloping and carefully constructed mood.
'The Letting Go' is most impressive in the way it presents some subtle developments in Oldham's approach. It's perhaps easier for songwriters to fall into a stale rut than it is for bands - there's less creative input in terms of numbers, and once a writer has developed a style it's tempting to stick with it. If anything, Oldham has suffered from the reverse problem in recent years - making a series of rather stubborn and contrary records that presented him as a somewhat obtuse and confusing character. Both the stark 'Master and Everyone' and the chintzy Nashville reinterpretations of his earlier work on 'Greatest Palace Music' yielded some fascinating moments - but neither satisfied across the length of an entire disc. 'The Letting Go' changes all that. It achieves this by merging the delicate acoustic plucking of 'Master and Everyone' with his lushest arrangements to date. From the opening bars of 'Love Comes To Me', with its string flourishes and graceful electric guitar runs, it's clear we're in new territory. The sound in sensuous and romantic in the broadest senses of both words, but without losing the grimly morose and blackly humorous weltanschaung that has long been Oldham's trademark. Decamping to Iceland to record with a string group seems to have invigorated Oldham, just as collaborating with Matt Sweeney inspired him anew on last year's 'Superwolf'.
The dynamics are carefully regulated throughout and, as a result, the ensemble (this somehow seems a more appropriate word than 'band' to describe this operation) can reap magic from very subtle moments. The opening tracks are kept rolling gently by minimal, heartbeat percussion, and the gradual, swelling crescendo on 'Strange Form Of Life' works marvellously. Other unexpected elements include the use of drum programming on the superb 'Lay and Love' , soem military style drumming on 'No Bad News' and a close connection with the blues on the outstanding single 'Cursed Sleep' and on the brooding, apocalyptic 'Seedling'. 'Cold and Wet' even achieves something akin to the swing-era stylings Dylan resurrected on 'Love and Theft' (and reportedly returns to on a couple of songs on 'Modern Times').
For all the intricate arranging, the real star of the show here is actually singer Dawn McCarthy, whose presence is striking throughout the whole album. Oldham is by no means the easiest singer to harmonise with, as his vulnerable and slippery voice often drifts away from defined melodies. Still, McCarthy has achieved something close to the Emmylou's grace against Dylan's grit on 'Desire'. The combination is sublime and adds yet another new string to Oldham's bow.
Oldham has achieved a more direct simplicity with many of his lyrics here, although his poetic language still owes more to John Donne or Walt Whitman than any contemporary songwriter. His unpicks the erotic life with unflinching relish. On 'Cursed Sleep' he sings of 'trembling electric' in his lover's arms, and being 'so enslaved by her sweet wonder'. On 'Lay and Love', there's a magnificent verse capturing the dangerous contradictory impulses of attraction: 'From what I know, you're terrified/You have mistrust running through you/Your smile is hiding something hurtful/It makes me lay here and love you'. There's a perfectly encapsulated longing on 'Strange Form Of Life' with 'the softest lips ever/25 years of waiting to kiss them'. Most of these songs look back to a traditional folk structure, mostly bereft of choruses, and with repeated lyrical devices at the end of each verse. It's refreshing to hear such brilliantly sustained lyrical ideas running through each song.
It's particularly impressive that Oldham is still looking to forge new songwriting paths well into a long and established career. Whilst there is nothing here that goes against the grain of what we might reasonably expect a Bonnie 'Prince' Billy record to sound like, the way in which that sound has been refined and improved here is striking. The well of inspiration has certainly not yet run dry and 'The Letting Go' is a quiet, stately masterpiece.
Equally impressive is the first proper full length from Cortney Tidwell, who made a huge impression with her debut mini album late last year. 'Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up' is deliciously expansive, with its rich, reverb-laden sound, at turns serene and spectacular. In her chameleonic vocal performances, Tidwell seems to have amalgamated the influence of a broad spectrum of female legends (Kate Bush, Liz Fraser and Bjork are her most obvious reference points). A harsh critic might suggest that, in a similar fashion to Beth Gibbons on her otherwise outstanding collaboration with Paul Webb aka Rustin Man, Tidwell occasionally comes too close to simply emulating particular vocal styles without necessarily finding her own voice. This is however particularly picky when everything about this album - vocal delivery, arrangements and particularly the sound, has been so carefully considered. Lambchop's William Tyler offers spacious, unconventional guitar and Kurt Wagner also provides guest vocals on the supremely relaxed, but compellingly strange 'Society'.
Tidwell always veers towards the unexpected. Opener 'Eyes Are At The Billions' opens in a sea of tranquility, but suddenly swells into something tremendously grand. Her vocal delivery is articulate and peculiarly theatrical, stretching and extending phrases beyond their natural rhythms. There are hints of country music conventions, such as the lush pedal steel guitar on 'Pictures On The Sidewalk', but the style of delivery rarely fits comfortably with such notions. The songs veer from sweetly melodic sections into passages of mysterious and enigmatic calm.
Her vocals are most impressive when layered over each other, such as on the languidly paced but nevertheless slightly discomforting 'I Do Not Notice', where numerous Tidwell's are pitted against each other in a delicately combative round. On the elegant, angelic 'La La', Tidwell provides an entire choir of harmony vocals to soften the corners of her lead delivery. The effect is simply sublime. The music is always hauntingly evocative, although it defies categorisation.
Closer to home, my former University and musical colleague Jeremy Warmsley releases his debut album 'The Art Of Fiction' through the much feted Transgressive label in October. Many of the tracks here have been released before (although often in different versions), but the whole album has been sequenced with meticulous care. Though it veers through an impressive array of styles, it has a smooth and almost uninterrupted flow that allows it to work as a complete whole, despite its musical schizophrenia. Jeremy clearly can't decide whether to be a bedroom auteur with some beats and a laptop, or to opt for the most ostentatious of live instrumentation, with strings, horns, acoustic piano and group vocal arrangements. Mercifully, it's a decision he doesn't have to make, as he's equally comfortable in both worlds, and has a good ear for manipulating sound. Given the genre conventions increasingly imposed by pigeonholing lifestyle-based publications, radio stations etc, it's refreshing to hear a songwriter with little respect for artificial boundaries. Jeremy has no qualms about merging the compositional rigour of Steve Reich with, say, the quirky pop genius of an Andy Partridge or Green Gartside. So, the opening 'Dirty Blue Jeans', with its relentlessly driving rhythm and with strings playing the parts normally expected from a guitar, contrasts neatly with the more electronic leanings of '5 Verses' or 'The Young Man Sees The City As A Chess Board', but all are clearly the product of the same questing spirit.
Strangely, Jeremy may be at his best when at his most whimsical. '5 Verses' is familiar now to anyone who has followed his work over the last couple of years, but its sweetly observed lyric capturing the complete arc of a relationship is clever, and it comes with the real benefit of an infectious melody, despite its rejection of the conventional verse-chorus-verse-chorus pop structure. Similarly, the wartime tragedy of 'I Promise', the point rammed home with military drumming, shows Jeremy's penchant for the kitchen sink epic (and there's nothing wrong with that).
There's real ambition on display here, both in the album's excellent first half and also in its slightly less coherent second section. Early single 'I Believe In The Way You Move' has been dramatically improved here, now sounding at once tender and grand, with its ornate arrangement. Even more striking is 'Jonathan and The Oak Tree', which lurches through a number of radically different sections, rather like a potted pop symphony. It's both confounding and compelling and one of the album's standout tracks. I'm not quite sure what the central point of 'Modern Children' is, but it's full of quirky sounds and carries one of the album's most infectious choruses. This is coupled with a verse where the vocal line emphasises rhythm over melody, possibly betraying the influence of a Bloc Party or a Gang Of Four. The juxtaposition is effective.
Elsewhere, there's an occasional tendency towards abstraction that doesn't always quite work ('A Matter Of Principle' and 'If I Had Only' are perhaps slightly meandering), and a slightly narcissistic bent to the lyrics that might limit the appeal of some of the songs, from the young man trying to make his way in the big old city (the only university graduate without debt too! How fortunate!) in 'Dirty Blue Jeans' to the character looking to be 'the face of a generation' in 'The Young Man Sees...'. There's a lot of relationship dissection, self-aware pronouncements and candid admissions of lust, but sometimes this seems more insular than it is universal. For all this, it's difficult to see whether the conclusion of the eerily beautiful 'I Knew Her Face Was A Lie' (one of a handful of tracks to benefit significantly from the virtuosic piano playing of improv master Tom Rogerson), whereby Jeremy proclaims he's happy to be 'in a single bed on my own', is genuine, mockingly ironic, or just plain unlikely. Perhaps '5 Verses' remains a standout for its deployment of the wryly detached third person vantage point. There is however a clear counter-argument to all this - it's refreshing that this is not yet another sentimental/sensitive troubadour.
Still, this is no major obstacle when there are such rich musical pickings here, and it's important not to overlook the fact that Jeremy is already achieving the results to match his vaunting ambitions. Given that this was originally a loose collection of songs for EPs and singles, it's impressive that it's all been drawn together so coherently, and it's testament to the strength of his songwriting vision and dab hand at production. It's also continually inspiring that music of this quality can now be made easily in the home.
Friday, August 18, 2006
What The World Needs Now Is....
...Love, sweet love? Well, it would certainly help - but does the world really need another 'best of' compilation from R.E.M.? In fairness, '...And I Feel Fine' does focus squarely on the group's IRS years (up to and including 1987's 'Document') and this early period in their history has so far only been served by the less than comprehensive 'best of REM' and its inferior predecessor 'Eponymous'. The main motive for this release does seem to be the acquisition of R.E.M.'s IRS catalogue by EMI, and with the band currently on hiatus pending the writing and recording of a new album, the timing seems convenient for the industry. Although the IRS albums themselves seem to have been endlessly repackaged and recycled, there hasn't actually been a decent compilation of this music for over ten years.
CD1 is all familiar material, including debut single 'Gardening At Night', which whilst relatively insubstantial, certainly provided signifiers of the relentless backbeat-meets-Byrdsian twang that the band would refine to near perfection on their first three albums. Unlike, its predecessor, its arranged out of chronological sequence, so the development in the band's sound (and Michael Stipe's concurrent growth in confidence as a singer) are lost in favour of a comfortable flow. Some notable omissions from earlier compilations are now welcome inclusions, notably the punchy, strident opener 'Begin The Begin' and some of the more mysterious and elusive moments from 'Fables Of The Reconstruction' ('Feeling Gravitys Pull' (sic) and 'Life And How To Live It', the latter being one of my current favourite REM songs).
Listening to this material in a fresh context, it's striking how fully formed the band were at a remarkably early stage. Listening to 'Radio Free Europe' and 'Sitting Still', it's striking how taut and metronomic the band are. Mike Mills' simple but effective counter melodic bass parts, combined with Peter Buck's predilection for neat arpeggios, differentiated them from the distorted sturm und drang of less interesting indie bands of the period. It's worth noting how they have always avoided tedious chugging rhythms with all band members essentially regurgitating the same stale ideas - today's crop of stadium straddling bands, particularly Coldplay, could do with taking note.
As the confidence grew, the approach to production got bigger and more ambitious. Listen to how the relentless pulse and thunderous drums of 'Finest Worksong' actually seem to emulate the sound of heavy industry. Where the message and political inspirations in the songs were initially shrouded in enigmatic allusions, both lyrics and music became more direct, with 'Cuyahoga' and 'Begin The Begin' two of the most inspirational moments from 1986's outstanding 'Life's Rich Pageant'.
Inevitably, the big selling point here will be the bonus disc, full of the usual outtakes, offcuts, live recordings, demos and scrapyard pickings. All four members of the band (including the now departed Bill Berry) get to pick a personal favourite that missed the cut for the first CD. Mike Mills' selection is 'Pilgrimage', a most welcome inclusion as one of their best early recordings, mixing an infectious chorus with an inventive and minimal verse. It also neatly demonstrates the band's talent for arranging vocal parts, with the voices of Stipe and Mills integrating effortlessly.
Other curios on the disc include the original version of 'Bad Day', which sounds even closer to 'It's The End Of the World As We Know It...' than the re-recorded version for the 'In Time' collection. There's also the early version of 'All The Right Friends', which the band also re-recorded for the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's thoroughly ghastly and pretentious movie Vanilla Sky. The live recordings are of course welcome, particularly the more obscure selections not available on the regular albums. More superflous are the early demos, particularly a horribly sluggish take on 'Gardening At Night', where Stipe either seems to be abandoning all microphone technique, or simply forgetting the words. It really is peculiar to think that the band saw this as fit for release., although it at least elucidates the extent to which songs can be refined and improved between initial idea and finished product. Equally, the hib tone versions of 'Radio Free Europe' and 'Sitting Still' are simply carbon copies of the finished versions, but with much poorer sound quality.
If we accept that this endless repackaging is an inevitable biproduct of a music industry relentlessly keen to cash-in on every conceivable acquisition, then what we really need is a proper boxed set collating both the IRS and Warner Bros years, along with more rarities (how about a live recording of 'I'm Gonna DJ', the relatively insubstantial but highly entertaning song performed during encores on last year's world tour? Or some of the group's excellent covers perhaps - they did a killer version of Leonard Cohen's 'First We Take Manhattan'). Still, in the meantime, this will provide a reminder of the band's greatness for those disillusioned by the slick and plodding REM of 'Around The Sun' and the worst parts of 'Reveal'. For those still looking for a neat introduction to the band's early years, this is a great place to start.
Equally, I wonder whether the world really needs another epic psychedelic rock outfit with squawking guitar solos. There's a lot of very substandard MC5-inspired tosh around at the moment (Wolfmother instantly spring to mind), but there's something a little different about Comets On Fire. Their latest album 'Avatar' brings Ben Chasney (aka Six Organs Of Admittance) into the fold, and his dexterous guitar work provides some nimble and subtle balance to the exhuberant squall. In fact, this album covers many more bases than might reasonably be expected, with hints at Bert Jansch-inspired folk leanings, and even some slightly soulful arrangements. In fact, the penultimate 'Sour Smoke' (or at least that's what I think it's called - lyrics and tracklisting are both printed in frustratingly illegible scrawl) is positively groovy. Better still, the opening 'Dogwood Rust' hints that the band have absorbed the questing spirit of free jazz improvisers as much as the indulgent fretwork so common in this variety of music. The result is that the whole band sounds completely liberated - with thrilling and comelling results. With 'Lucifer's Memory', they opt for something more calm, almost sedate in fact, and achieve something akin to the quirky lilt of Kevin Ayers' 'whatevershebringswesing'. Naturally, there's not one track here that doesn't extend its welcome by a couple of minutes - but freeform rock groups aren't usually well known for careful editing. 'Avatar' works because it feels as exciting for the listener as it must have been for the musicians making it.
I've also just received the new album from Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, but I need to listen to it a bit more first, as it's surprisingly long and dense.
Lots to look forward to in the next few days - M Ward at Bush Hall on Sunday, Quasi at the Luminaire on Monday and Hot Chip doing a free instore at HMV Oxford Circus next Thursday, where new material is promised.
CD1 is all familiar material, including debut single 'Gardening At Night', which whilst relatively insubstantial, certainly provided signifiers of the relentless backbeat-meets-Byrdsian twang that the band would refine to near perfection on their first three albums. Unlike, its predecessor, its arranged out of chronological sequence, so the development in the band's sound (and Michael Stipe's concurrent growth in confidence as a singer) are lost in favour of a comfortable flow. Some notable omissions from earlier compilations are now welcome inclusions, notably the punchy, strident opener 'Begin The Begin' and some of the more mysterious and elusive moments from 'Fables Of The Reconstruction' ('Feeling Gravitys Pull' (sic) and 'Life And How To Live It', the latter being one of my current favourite REM songs).
Listening to this material in a fresh context, it's striking how fully formed the band were at a remarkably early stage. Listening to 'Radio Free Europe' and 'Sitting Still', it's striking how taut and metronomic the band are. Mike Mills' simple but effective counter melodic bass parts, combined with Peter Buck's predilection for neat arpeggios, differentiated them from the distorted sturm und drang of less interesting indie bands of the period. It's worth noting how they have always avoided tedious chugging rhythms with all band members essentially regurgitating the same stale ideas - today's crop of stadium straddling bands, particularly Coldplay, could do with taking note.
As the confidence grew, the approach to production got bigger and more ambitious. Listen to how the relentless pulse and thunderous drums of 'Finest Worksong' actually seem to emulate the sound of heavy industry. Where the message and political inspirations in the songs were initially shrouded in enigmatic allusions, both lyrics and music became more direct, with 'Cuyahoga' and 'Begin The Begin' two of the most inspirational moments from 1986's outstanding 'Life's Rich Pageant'.
Inevitably, the big selling point here will be the bonus disc, full of the usual outtakes, offcuts, live recordings, demos and scrapyard pickings. All four members of the band (including the now departed Bill Berry) get to pick a personal favourite that missed the cut for the first CD. Mike Mills' selection is 'Pilgrimage', a most welcome inclusion as one of their best early recordings, mixing an infectious chorus with an inventive and minimal verse. It also neatly demonstrates the band's talent for arranging vocal parts, with the voices of Stipe and Mills integrating effortlessly.
Other curios on the disc include the original version of 'Bad Day', which sounds even closer to 'It's The End Of the World As We Know It...' than the re-recorded version for the 'In Time' collection. There's also the early version of 'All The Right Friends', which the band also re-recorded for the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's thoroughly ghastly and pretentious movie Vanilla Sky. The live recordings are of course welcome, particularly the more obscure selections not available on the regular albums. More superflous are the early demos, particularly a horribly sluggish take on 'Gardening At Night', where Stipe either seems to be abandoning all microphone technique, or simply forgetting the words. It really is peculiar to think that the band saw this as fit for release., although it at least elucidates the extent to which songs can be refined and improved between initial idea and finished product. Equally, the hib tone versions of 'Radio Free Europe' and 'Sitting Still' are simply carbon copies of the finished versions, but with much poorer sound quality.
If we accept that this endless repackaging is an inevitable biproduct of a music industry relentlessly keen to cash-in on every conceivable acquisition, then what we really need is a proper boxed set collating both the IRS and Warner Bros years, along with more rarities (how about a live recording of 'I'm Gonna DJ', the relatively insubstantial but highly entertaning song performed during encores on last year's world tour? Or some of the group's excellent covers perhaps - they did a killer version of Leonard Cohen's 'First We Take Manhattan'). Still, in the meantime, this will provide a reminder of the band's greatness for those disillusioned by the slick and plodding REM of 'Around The Sun' and the worst parts of 'Reveal'. For those still looking for a neat introduction to the band's early years, this is a great place to start.
Equally, I wonder whether the world really needs another epic psychedelic rock outfit with squawking guitar solos. There's a lot of very substandard MC5-inspired tosh around at the moment (Wolfmother instantly spring to mind), but there's something a little different about Comets On Fire. Their latest album 'Avatar' brings Ben Chasney (aka Six Organs Of Admittance) into the fold, and his dexterous guitar work provides some nimble and subtle balance to the exhuberant squall. In fact, this album covers many more bases than might reasonably be expected, with hints at Bert Jansch-inspired folk leanings, and even some slightly soulful arrangements. In fact, the penultimate 'Sour Smoke' (or at least that's what I think it's called - lyrics and tracklisting are both printed in frustratingly illegible scrawl) is positively groovy. Better still, the opening 'Dogwood Rust' hints that the band have absorbed the questing spirit of free jazz improvisers as much as the indulgent fretwork so common in this variety of music. The result is that the whole band sounds completely liberated - with thrilling and comelling results. With 'Lucifer's Memory', they opt for something more calm, almost sedate in fact, and achieve something akin to the quirky lilt of Kevin Ayers' 'whatevershebringswesing'. Naturally, there's not one track here that doesn't extend its welcome by a couple of minutes - but freeform rock groups aren't usually well known for careful editing. 'Avatar' works because it feels as exciting for the listener as it must have been for the musicians making it.
I've also just received the new album from Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, but I need to listen to it a bit more first, as it's surprisingly long and dense.
Lots to look forward to in the next few days - M Ward at Bush Hall on Sunday, Quasi at the Luminaire on Monday and Hot Chip doing a free instore at HMV Oxford Circus next Thursday, where new material is promised.
Monday, August 07, 2006
A Little Rain Never Hurt No-One
Well it certainly blessed us with a fantastic Grand Prix (just when it was most needed), and the rain in London this weekend has mercifully lowered the temperature. I was not designed for tropical heat!
Musically, I have caved in to a somewhat guilty pleasure this week. There's always one chart R&B album that I can't resist in any given year, and the spectacular 'In My Own Words' from the unfathomably smooth Ne-Yo is my album of choice for 2006. It's almost absurdly cheesy, and Ne-Yo himself is ludicrously self-confident to the point of self-parody. He clearly sees himself as something of a ladies' man, but with the earthy morals to know that he will have to commit when he settles down. Most hilariously of all, he has spectacularly resurrected the use of the word 'sex' as a verb. In one brilliant lyric he says 'Maybe it's the wrinkle over your nose, when you make your angry face/that makes me want to take off all your clothes/and sex you all over the place'. Perhaps even better is 'When I'm sexing her, I call your name/And I know it's wrong!'. The boy is clearly too young to remember Color Me Badd.
Ne-Yo's vocal style is a refined take on the smooth and seductive approach of R Kelly, and it's refreshing to hear some modern R&B that actually places more emphasis on melody than vocal acrobatics. This is particularly true of the excellent singles 'So Sick' and 'Sexy Love', with their minimal arrangements but slick production and infectious choruses. Ne-Yo's feel for mid-tempo sultry soul is surprisingly well judged, as on the superb 'When You're Mad' and 'Get Down Like That'. There are inevitably some rather horrific token ballads, clustered towards the end, which means the quality control drops a little. Still, this is a minor quibble with an album that is shameless, entertaining and easy on the ear.
On a much more serious note, the dependably prolific Lambchop return with 'Damaged'. Much has already been written about Kurt Wagner's recent cancer scare and how it may have influenced the bleaker tone of this record. It certainly abandons the rather summery sound of the double 'Aw C'Mon/No You C'Mon', but that doesn't necessarily mean it can be summed up as 'Nixon Mk II'. Actually, it rather successfully marries the smoother production values of the 'C'Mon' set with the rigorously controlled dynamic restraint of 'Is A Woman'. This rather brings home exactly how fickle the world of music criticism can be. When 'C'Mon' was released, I remember a whole batch of reviews bemoaning 'Is A Woman' for its supposed tedium, and hailing the double set as a return to form. Now critics are hailing 'Damaged' as the band's best record to date for its mysterious calm!
I don't think this is Lambchop's greatest achievement by any means. Its biggest flaw is that it simply isn't as rhythmically interesting as their best work. Wagner's unusual rhythm guitar style, a subtle but significant feature of both 'Nixon' and 'Is A Woman' has now been backgrounded in favour of the more sedate pluckings of William Tyler. Perhaps aiming for a classic southern soul sound, the tempos are mostly slow, and some of the tracks plod a little too politely. There's nothing as unexpectedly groovy as 'd scott parsley' or their cover of Curtis Mayfield's 'Give Me Your Love' to pierce the ethereal bubble created by these songs.
That being said, there are definitely major songs here, and Wagner has continued to refine his unique (to some, probably frustratingly obtuse) vocal style into something fascinating and powerful. The result is that this music is paradoxically both elusive and elucidating. Wagner continues to find great emotional resonance in the small details of everyday life, whilst easily graspable songwriting conventions (melodies, hooks etc) are frequently underplayed. This is most clearly sensed in the opening 'Paperback Bible', inspired by a radio 'swap shop' show where listeners are invited to share their unwanted items. Wagner's musing on the strange items put up for auction is beautifully developed. The song is ushered in by a pitchless wave of noise, and Wagner's delicate vocal requires the band to create their most reverently hushed atmosphere. It's a remarkable song.
The album peaks in the middle with a trio of superb songs. 'A Day Without Glasses' is sublime, with Paul Niehaus' steel guitar pushed to the foreground. 'Beers Before The Barbican' and 'I Would Have Waited Here All Day' are two of Wagner's most brilliantly sustained lyrics - chorusless prose-poems of considerable power and density. During 'Beers...', Wagner muses just-the-right-side-of- sentimentally on a former lover's qualities ('Your dress is perfect/Your shoes are strictly you/Your speech is articulate/And your eyes were too' - note the sudden change of tense, as if he suddenly realises this relationship is consigned to the past), before zooming in on a mutual experience taking acid. The whole song seems written in the form of an unsent letter ('I know I'll never send this/but you know we never talk of heavy things/if we get a chance to see each other in the future/I am sure we'll find a way to deal with it') and is deeply affecting. 'I Would Have Waited Here..' is a gospel lament, originally written for Candi Staton (her brilliant 'His Hands' album was produced by Lambchop's Mark Nevers), for which Wagner does not reverse the genders (retaining the 'you'll be drying off your dick' lyric that caused Staton to reject the song). It's a deceptively simple song about waiting for a lover to return home, but its lyrics cloak a wealth of sadness ('The afternoon is a study in stagnation/Seems I haven't moved an inch'), ending with the payoff 'it's been a lousy day'. It's Wagner at his very best.
This is a better record than the 'C'Mon' set, with more considered arrangements. The strings are carefully incorporated into each song this time, rather than overpowering the group dynamic with excessive flourishes. Kurt Wagner also remains one of the most inspired and original songwriters currently at work. It is, however, a more oppressively rigorous record than 'Is A Woman', and the thunderous drama of the closing 'The Decline Of Country and Western Civilisation' makes for a welcome surprise. It repays close attention (it could otherwise blend comfortably into the background), and repeated listens. Incidentally, the whole package is a thing of great beauty, the deluxe edition presented in a fold out digipack with a lovingly designed lyric booklet with artwork as mysterious and beautiful as the songs themselves.
Musically, I have caved in to a somewhat guilty pleasure this week. There's always one chart R&B album that I can't resist in any given year, and the spectacular 'In My Own Words' from the unfathomably smooth Ne-Yo is my album of choice for 2006. It's almost absurdly cheesy, and Ne-Yo himself is ludicrously self-confident to the point of self-parody. He clearly sees himself as something of a ladies' man, but with the earthy morals to know that he will have to commit when he settles down. Most hilariously of all, he has spectacularly resurrected the use of the word 'sex' as a verb. In one brilliant lyric he says 'Maybe it's the wrinkle over your nose, when you make your angry face/that makes me want to take off all your clothes/and sex you all over the place'. Perhaps even better is 'When I'm sexing her, I call your name/And I know it's wrong!'. The boy is clearly too young to remember Color Me Badd.
Ne-Yo's vocal style is a refined take on the smooth and seductive approach of R Kelly, and it's refreshing to hear some modern R&B that actually places more emphasis on melody than vocal acrobatics. This is particularly true of the excellent singles 'So Sick' and 'Sexy Love', with their minimal arrangements but slick production and infectious choruses. Ne-Yo's feel for mid-tempo sultry soul is surprisingly well judged, as on the superb 'When You're Mad' and 'Get Down Like That'. There are inevitably some rather horrific token ballads, clustered towards the end, which means the quality control drops a little. Still, this is a minor quibble with an album that is shameless, entertaining and easy on the ear.
On a much more serious note, the dependably prolific Lambchop return with 'Damaged'. Much has already been written about Kurt Wagner's recent cancer scare and how it may have influenced the bleaker tone of this record. It certainly abandons the rather summery sound of the double 'Aw C'Mon/No You C'Mon', but that doesn't necessarily mean it can be summed up as 'Nixon Mk II'. Actually, it rather successfully marries the smoother production values of the 'C'Mon' set with the rigorously controlled dynamic restraint of 'Is A Woman'. This rather brings home exactly how fickle the world of music criticism can be. When 'C'Mon' was released, I remember a whole batch of reviews bemoaning 'Is A Woman' for its supposed tedium, and hailing the double set as a return to form. Now critics are hailing 'Damaged' as the band's best record to date for its mysterious calm!
I don't think this is Lambchop's greatest achievement by any means. Its biggest flaw is that it simply isn't as rhythmically interesting as their best work. Wagner's unusual rhythm guitar style, a subtle but significant feature of both 'Nixon' and 'Is A Woman' has now been backgrounded in favour of the more sedate pluckings of William Tyler. Perhaps aiming for a classic southern soul sound, the tempos are mostly slow, and some of the tracks plod a little too politely. There's nothing as unexpectedly groovy as 'd scott parsley' or their cover of Curtis Mayfield's 'Give Me Your Love' to pierce the ethereal bubble created by these songs.
That being said, there are definitely major songs here, and Wagner has continued to refine his unique (to some, probably frustratingly obtuse) vocal style into something fascinating and powerful. The result is that this music is paradoxically both elusive and elucidating. Wagner continues to find great emotional resonance in the small details of everyday life, whilst easily graspable songwriting conventions (melodies, hooks etc) are frequently underplayed. This is most clearly sensed in the opening 'Paperback Bible', inspired by a radio 'swap shop' show where listeners are invited to share their unwanted items. Wagner's musing on the strange items put up for auction is beautifully developed. The song is ushered in by a pitchless wave of noise, and Wagner's delicate vocal requires the band to create their most reverently hushed atmosphere. It's a remarkable song.
The album peaks in the middle with a trio of superb songs. 'A Day Without Glasses' is sublime, with Paul Niehaus' steel guitar pushed to the foreground. 'Beers Before The Barbican' and 'I Would Have Waited Here All Day' are two of Wagner's most brilliantly sustained lyrics - chorusless prose-poems of considerable power and density. During 'Beers...', Wagner muses just-the-right-side-of- sentimentally on a former lover's qualities ('Your dress is perfect/Your shoes are strictly you/Your speech is articulate/And your eyes were too' - note the sudden change of tense, as if he suddenly realises this relationship is consigned to the past), before zooming in on a mutual experience taking acid. The whole song seems written in the form of an unsent letter ('I know I'll never send this/but you know we never talk of heavy things/if we get a chance to see each other in the future/I am sure we'll find a way to deal with it') and is deeply affecting. 'I Would Have Waited Here..' is a gospel lament, originally written for Candi Staton (her brilliant 'His Hands' album was produced by Lambchop's Mark Nevers), for which Wagner does not reverse the genders (retaining the 'you'll be drying off your dick' lyric that caused Staton to reject the song). It's a deceptively simple song about waiting for a lover to return home, but its lyrics cloak a wealth of sadness ('The afternoon is a study in stagnation/Seems I haven't moved an inch'), ending with the payoff 'it's been a lousy day'. It's Wagner at his very best.
This is a better record than the 'C'Mon' set, with more considered arrangements. The strings are carefully incorporated into each song this time, rather than overpowering the group dynamic with excessive flourishes. Kurt Wagner also remains one of the most inspired and original songwriters currently at work. It is, however, a more oppressively rigorous record than 'Is A Woman', and the thunderous drama of the closing 'The Decline Of Country and Western Civilisation' makes for a welcome surprise. It repays close attention (it could otherwise blend comfortably into the background), and repeated listens. Incidentally, the whole package is a thing of great beauty, the deluxe edition presented in a fold out digipack with a lovingly designed lyric booklet with artwork as mysterious and beautiful as the songs themselves.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Billy Bragg's Gone Fishing In His 4x4
My Dad often bemoans the lack of committed political protest songs these days. I'll certainly concede that you're unlikely to hear any on daytime radio - but I think he would have appreciated the evening of good old fashioned left-wing protest music at the Stripes Bar at Brentford FC last Saturday night. With all due respect to the people of Brentford, the place really is something of a hell-hole - overpowered by that nasty A4/M4 flyover that goes out to Heathrow, the GlaxoSmithKline office block and a group of old tower blocks halfway through demolition. It may well be in a 'transitional' phase, but it comes as something of a shock immediately after the comparatively pleasant high street feel of South Ealing. Regeneration will probably come in the form of yuppie appartment blocks Still, it was a refreshing change of venue, and somewhat incongruous with its carpeted floors, and school assembly seating arrangement.
The music was consistently refreshing, erudite and intelligent - with Atilla The Stockbroker trading his passionate, gutsy folk music with Roger McGough-esque performance poetry. It's the sort of thing that is sadly too frequently laughed at - but Atilla is a force to be reckoned with, and his merciless ranting style is articulate and forceful. Chris T-T is simply getting better and better. He's always been an endearing if ramshackle performer - now he remains endearing but has polished up some of the rough edges. He's achieved this without losing any of his distinctive charm though, instead adding more controlled vocal performances (with greater dynamic range), crisp phrasing and a guitar playing style which is now less aggressive. He mixes the explicitly political songs from his recent '9 Red Songs' collection with the more personal songs from 'London Is Sinking', and even a rare outing for 'Open Books' from 'Panic Attack At Sainsbury's'. We also get a lovely, powerful take on 'Bored Of the War', a single from the height of the Iraq conflict.
Both Chris T-T and outstanding American songwriter David Rovics also have thoughtful, self-aware songs in their repertoire. T-T's is 'Preaching To The Converted', a song that neatly captures some of the pitfalls of political protest singing, especially at events like this where the purpose is clear from the outset. Rovics has 'I'm A Better Anarchist Than You', a brilliantly hilarious look at the competitive fervour that sometimes drives idealists to madness. Will I hear a better lyrical couplet this year than 'I don't have sex/and there will not be a sequel/Because heterosexual relationships are inherently unequal'. I think not!
Rovics' set is particularly powerful because he does not stick rigidly to rational arguments but also captures the horror and devastation of conflict. There's always criticism levelled at those who resort to 'emotional' arguments over warfare - but it's also very easy for the cosy British middle classes to forget exactly what conflict means. Chris T-T also hints at this with his introduction of a song as being about 'people trapped in a conflict between two terrorist groups, one of which thinks it's a government'. Rovics' American delivery is slightly to the cartoonish end of the spectrum - which frequently emphasises his words powerfully, but can also become grating after a while. T-T, by contrast, is estuary English through and through.
Local boy Robb Johnson proves the revelation of the evening. I was a little uncertain about his opening tune, with its sporadic breaks for strange words such as 'pre-condimented', but I gradually warmed to his unique satirical style. Best of all were his refashioning of the National Anthem to include the lines 'She Lives In Slough' (good view, convenient for Heathrow etc etc) and something about 'The Age Of The Moron', which went well beyond preaching to a partisan crowd, denouncing not just vacuous reality TV and tabloid hell, but also a certain breed of football supporter.
The evening was intelligently staged, with each performer playing two sets with very quick changeovers. The closing encore with all four on stage performing Johnson's 'Be Reasonable' was appropriately rousing. Its chorus of 'Be reasonable and demand the impossible now!' neatly captured both the innate appeal and inherent frustration in protest songwriting. Definitely an evening well spent.
The music was consistently refreshing, erudite and intelligent - with Atilla The Stockbroker trading his passionate, gutsy folk music with Roger McGough-esque performance poetry. It's the sort of thing that is sadly too frequently laughed at - but Atilla is a force to be reckoned with, and his merciless ranting style is articulate and forceful. Chris T-T is simply getting better and better. He's always been an endearing if ramshackle performer - now he remains endearing but has polished up some of the rough edges. He's achieved this without losing any of his distinctive charm though, instead adding more controlled vocal performances (with greater dynamic range), crisp phrasing and a guitar playing style which is now less aggressive. He mixes the explicitly political songs from his recent '9 Red Songs' collection with the more personal songs from 'London Is Sinking', and even a rare outing for 'Open Books' from 'Panic Attack At Sainsbury's'. We also get a lovely, powerful take on 'Bored Of the War', a single from the height of the Iraq conflict.
Both Chris T-T and outstanding American songwriter David Rovics also have thoughtful, self-aware songs in their repertoire. T-T's is 'Preaching To The Converted', a song that neatly captures some of the pitfalls of political protest singing, especially at events like this where the purpose is clear from the outset. Rovics has 'I'm A Better Anarchist Than You', a brilliantly hilarious look at the competitive fervour that sometimes drives idealists to madness. Will I hear a better lyrical couplet this year than 'I don't have sex/and there will not be a sequel/Because heterosexual relationships are inherently unequal'. I think not!
Rovics' set is particularly powerful because he does not stick rigidly to rational arguments but also captures the horror and devastation of conflict. There's always criticism levelled at those who resort to 'emotional' arguments over warfare - but it's also very easy for the cosy British middle classes to forget exactly what conflict means. Chris T-T also hints at this with his introduction of a song as being about 'people trapped in a conflict between two terrorist groups, one of which thinks it's a government'. Rovics' American delivery is slightly to the cartoonish end of the spectrum - which frequently emphasises his words powerfully, but can also become grating after a while. T-T, by contrast, is estuary English through and through.
Local boy Robb Johnson proves the revelation of the evening. I was a little uncertain about his opening tune, with its sporadic breaks for strange words such as 'pre-condimented', but I gradually warmed to his unique satirical style. Best of all were his refashioning of the National Anthem to include the lines 'She Lives In Slough' (good view, convenient for Heathrow etc etc) and something about 'The Age Of The Moron', which went well beyond preaching to a partisan crowd, denouncing not just vacuous reality TV and tabloid hell, but also a certain breed of football supporter.
The evening was intelligently staged, with each performer playing two sets with very quick changeovers. The closing encore with all four on stage performing Johnson's 'Be Reasonable' was appropriately rousing. Its chorus of 'Be reasonable and demand the impossible now!' neatly captured both the innate appeal and inherent frustration in protest songwriting. Definitely an evening well spent.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Retrieved From The Cutting Room Floor
Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche
Not content with setting himself the surely unachievable goal of recording an album for every US State, Sufjan Stevens is now releasing an outtake collection as a stopgap. 'The Avalanche' is by no means scraping the barrel either - at a CD busting 75 minutes, it has even more material than the original 'Illinois' album that spawned it. Admittedly, some of this is somewhat superfluous (do we really need three different versions of 'Chicago'?). For the most part though, this is a collection of previously unheard material completed at the same sessions as the 'Illinois' album. Perhaps Stevens is simply pre-empting the exploitative reissue series twenty years hence - or maybe he just has a compelling desire to release his every recorded note.
There's certainly material of real value here - and the highlights rival any of the best material on its parent album. The opening title track has that warm, familiar and endearingly delicate way with melody that is Stevens' greatest songwriting gift. It's strange too that 'Saul Bellow' was left off the original album, given that it references one of America's towering literary figures, and undoubtedly one of Chicago's 'great men'. There's more infectious breezy pop on 'The Mistress Witch From McClure', which also comes bolstered with an intelligent horn arrangement that is more subtle and less twee than usual. Most unexpected is the slightly bluesy 'Springfield, or Bobby Got A Shadfly Caught In His Hair' (the ludicrous song titles are still present and correct), which even comes with some effective dissonant guitar work.
Yet this album also leaves a lingering impression that Stevens' working methods may be beginning to obscure his talents. He certainly has a gift for arrangements - but as he piles on more and more unusual instruments, the songs occasionally get lost. There are three versions of 'Chicago' here (in addition to the completed version used on 'Illinois') - the 'acoustic' version, the 'adult contemporary easy listening version' (oh, the irony) and the 'multiple personality disorder' version. By far the best is the acoustic demo, in which Stevens pares down the instrumentation, and allows the song's wistful grace some room to breathe. The songs with the more grandiose arrangements here tend to sound more saccharine and, paradoxically given their vaunting ambition, less distinctive. Certainly, over the course of 75 minutes, the limitations of the trademark Stevens sound become more apparent - and many of the songs end up bleeding into each other.
As a lyricist, Stevens remains a uniquely eloquent chronicler of the 'little moments' of local history, as well as the broad canvas of American myth-making. He may yet evolve into the brightest American songsmith of these times - but he will need to find new contexts for his elegiac melodic tone, and resist always settling for the 'big' sound.
Not content with setting himself the surely unachievable goal of recording an album for every US State, Sufjan Stevens is now releasing an outtake collection as a stopgap. 'The Avalanche' is by no means scraping the barrel either - at a CD busting 75 minutes, it has even more material than the original 'Illinois' album that spawned it. Admittedly, some of this is somewhat superfluous (do we really need three different versions of 'Chicago'?). For the most part though, this is a collection of previously unheard material completed at the same sessions as the 'Illinois' album. Perhaps Stevens is simply pre-empting the exploitative reissue series twenty years hence - or maybe he just has a compelling desire to release his every recorded note.
There's certainly material of real value here - and the highlights rival any of the best material on its parent album. The opening title track has that warm, familiar and endearingly delicate way with melody that is Stevens' greatest songwriting gift. It's strange too that 'Saul Bellow' was left off the original album, given that it references one of America's towering literary figures, and undoubtedly one of Chicago's 'great men'. There's more infectious breezy pop on 'The Mistress Witch From McClure', which also comes bolstered with an intelligent horn arrangement that is more subtle and less twee than usual. Most unexpected is the slightly bluesy 'Springfield, or Bobby Got A Shadfly Caught In His Hair' (the ludicrous song titles are still present and correct), which even comes with some effective dissonant guitar work.
Yet this album also leaves a lingering impression that Stevens' working methods may be beginning to obscure his talents. He certainly has a gift for arrangements - but as he piles on more and more unusual instruments, the songs occasionally get lost. There are three versions of 'Chicago' here (in addition to the completed version used on 'Illinois') - the 'acoustic' version, the 'adult contemporary easy listening version' (oh, the irony) and the 'multiple personality disorder' version. By far the best is the acoustic demo, in which Stevens pares down the instrumentation, and allows the song's wistful grace some room to breathe. The songs with the more grandiose arrangements here tend to sound more saccharine and, paradoxically given their vaunting ambition, less distinctive. Certainly, over the course of 75 minutes, the limitations of the trademark Stevens sound become more apparent - and many of the songs end up bleeding into each other.
As a lyricist, Stevens remains a uniquely eloquent chronicler of the 'little moments' of local history, as well as the broad canvas of American myth-making. He may yet evolve into the brightest American songsmith of these times - but he will need to find new contexts for his elegiac melodic tone, and resist always settling for the 'big' sound.
Back To The Future
I really need to do something with the Links section of this blog. As a useful resource, it's fast becoming obsolete. A lot of the URLs are now outdated and there are plenty of new sites and MySpace profiles I could add were I to find the time. Rest assured that it's on my 'to do' list.
In the meantime, here are some thoughts on some records from the giant backlogue....
2005 was not a terribly illustrious year for electronic music, but just beyond its mid-way point, 2006 already shows much brighter prospects. Regular readers will already know (at least from my Mercury Music Prize analysis) that, like many other music bloggers on the internet, I'm thoroughly captivated by the self-titled album on Kode 9 from Burial. I cannot claim to know very much at all about the dubstep scene, or the immediate heritage of this music, aside from occasional listens to North London grime pirate radio stations (I'm more familiar with the mainstream end of the spectrum - Dizzee, Roll Deep, Lethal Bizzle etc). Sometimes I find it baffling, disorientating and disjointed - sometimes it is simply propulsive and compelling. 'Burial' is a more complex beast. It is decidedly minimal - the beats are syncopated, unusual and located far from conventional dancefloor rhythms, but not in the more predictable stutter, click and cut mode of most of the music unpalatably termed IDM. Melody and harmony are also subsumed to droning atmospherics, but again these found sounds and looped synth effects are well outside conventional parameters. This is the sound of damp city streets after dark - there's a vague sense of menace lurking beneath the surface, but also the familiar and comforting streetlight glow. There are abstract echoes and unexplained sounds, subtle shifts of tone and mood. The term 'urban' music so beloved of those who need to create lifestyle tickboxes for music consumers might be far better employed here. This is instrumental music that captures the paradoxical claustrophobia and expanse of London life better than anything else I've heard this year. The genre term 'dubstep' seems apt - the subtle shifts in sound do recall the ingenious productions of Scientist or Lee Scratch Perry, although the emphasis on bowel-quashing bass is not quite so marked. The rhythms clearly descend from the two-step and garage scenes, but they are made fractured, confusing and completely hypnotic. Sometimes it sounds like there's too little going on here - but listen closely and it quickly becomes hypnotic. A marvellous hybrid sound and one of the great achievements of 2006 so far. Yet outside the genuine internet buzz that has built a strong word-of-mouth profile, will it get any albums of the year plaudits come December?
Completely different in sound and approach, and a great deal more playful, is the latest album from Matmos. Wary listeners could be forgiven for looking at the title ('The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast') and running a mile for fear of some pretentious nonsense. This prejudgment might well be exacerbated by the fact that Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt have demonstrated a consistently 'scientific' and proscribed approach to music making. Well, this is certainly sound collage, but it's also full of wit and invention. Its overarching concept (a series of compositions written in honour of dead gay icons) gives it coherence and (whisper it) maybe even some warmth (certainly it's rich in delirious humour).
If Matmos have in the past been perhaps too in thrall to their conceptual concerns - this time, the theme allows them to run wild in all directions, and one of the fascinating elements in listening to this record is picking up the personality traits and characteristics in each icon that may have contributed to the sound of the track. Sometimes the inspiration is blindingly obvious, such as on 'Buttons For Joe Meek', in which the duo construct what is more a gleeful homage than original concoction, recontextualising the Meek psychedelic sound for the modern laptop era. 'Snails and Lasers For Patricia Highsmith' has a smoky, noir-ish atmosphere, with Amy Vallaincourt's French Horn (a wonderful instrument heard all too infrequently in modern popular music) helping to recreate the tension and mystery of classic Detective movie soundtracks. The superb 'Steam and Sequins For Larry Levan' is easily the grooviest concoction Matmos have yet created, with its irresistible house-meets-disco beat, energising bassline, clavinet riffing and early 80s percussion samples. It's clearly influenced by the sound Levan himself pioneered as a DJ at the Paradise Garage, but it's also possible to hear the textural influence of Arthur Russell and Dinosaur L. By contrast, 'Semen Song For James Bidgood' has a decidedly more abstract, melancholy and sophisticated sound, with floaty, layered atmospherics partially reminscent of Portishead. It's another example of the duo moving well beyond their comfort zone.
That said, the baffling sample wizardry has certainly not been abandoned. In fact, it's still the central aspect of this record's sound. Yet, when you've sampled rhinoplasty operations, what can you do next? Well, look at what MC Schmidt is credited as playing on 'Tract For Valerie Solanas' - a cow's uterus, reproductive tract and vagina! Let's hope the Animal Rights militia don't get hold of this record! Even more ridiculous is 'Public Sex For Boyd MacDonald', a track that actually comes close to fulfilling the promise of its title. It apparently features samples of 'anonymous sex acts recorded at Blow Buddies during International Bear Weekend'. Delightful!
This manages to avoid dry theoretical tedium because Matmos have incorporated have achieved a more successful musical synergy this time around, largely through intelligently deployed guest appearances. There are strings performed by ACME and the Kronos Quartet, unashamedly funky live guitar parts, and vocals courtesy of Bjork and Antony Hegarty (although both resist delivering anything predictable). 'The Rose Has Teeth...' is comfortably the best album of their career so far. What could easily have been an exercise in nostalgic meandering has turned out to be fascinating and wildly entertaining.
I was a little disappointed with Ellen Allien's last album 'Thrills'. It was full of headspinning repetition and came with plenty of energy but, for me, lacked the occasional beauty and emotional pull of her classic 'Berlinette' album. 'Orchestra Of Bubbles', written and recorded in collaboration with Apparat, is a great deal more successful. It still has the same relentless, pulsating quality that has characterised all of Allien's work so far, along with her decidedly minimal, breathy vocals, but it also teases more possibilities from this defiantly skeletal approach. The tracks deploying a cello are excellent, 'Retina' sounding eerie and beautiful, 'Metric' carrying a real sense of menace and suspense. The latter layers its repeated phrases to chilling effect and is thoroughly compelling. Elsewhere, the pleasures are more familiar. 'Sleepless' is grindingly rhythmic, a perfect insomniac anthem, with Allien's vocals adding to the drama and confusion. The myriad bleeps and noises of the lengthy 'Jet' build into something energetic and invigorating. Like much of the best electronic music, the success of 'Orchestra of Bubbles' lies in the subtle manipulation of very simple devices and ideas. It's an outstanding headphones album. It still doesn't quite recapture the cold heart of 'Berlinette', but it's not as stark and uncompromising as 'Thrills' either.
It's a bit debatable as to whether 'Everything', the debut album on Matthew Herbert's Accidental label from Micah actually fulfills its considerable promise. The accompanying blurb talks about Micah Gaugh's eager desire to rechannel the spirit of Prince and The Cocteau Twins, but the music is sometimes a little too sedate and polite to capture the inventiveness of either act. All this is a surprise given the refreshingly understated quality of Micah's voice, and the fact that production duties on this record were carried out by the frequently uncompromising Arto Lindsay. What should therefore have been a decidedly artful affair has ended up only partially successful, its questing spirit sometimes undermined by restraint and technical gloss. There's no escaping this record's enveloping pleasantries - its delicate, underplayed guitar motifs, hypnotic Fender Rhodes keyboards and superficially jazzy aura. Still, like a number of the much feted nu-soul artists of the 90s (Erykah Badu particularly), it tends to get stuck in a mid-paced groove. The opening 'Constant' is a glaring example of this, with metronomic and very basic 4/4 programming not allowing it to veer in any unexpected or interesting directions. The same problem mires the single 'Revelation' which tries very hard to find some soulful, gospel spirit, and would probably succeed were it not for the flat monotony of the beat. Elsewhere, the programming is less restrictive but the tempo rarely breaks above a gentle trot. It would be interesting to see whether this material might work better with a live backing band, rather than relying so heavily on the conventions of studio trickery (mind you, 'Nothing', the one track with something close to a live sound dangerously resembles lumbering 90s funk-rock merchants Living Colour and is thoroughly unremarkable as a result).
It's not all negative though, as there's much of promise here and the album proves that Micah is at his best when at his most quirky. The delightful 'Knitting' has more variation in the programming and plenty of melodic interest. In fact, it works brilliantly because Micah deploys the full extent of his vocal range, thoughtfully expanding the harmony for the song's chorus, but rooting it firmly with a distinctive pop sensibility. The multi-tracked Micahs that permeate the contemporary reggae gloss of 'Give Up' add depth and intrigue to an effectively hypnotic backing track. The combination of pop and soul influences hinted at by Accidental's press release also comes out more clearly in the title track, which benefits from a highly infectious melody. 'Operator' is astonishing, chiefly because it seems to be several different songs spliced together, and entirely different in approach from the occasionally stifling rhythmic control of the rest of the album. Best of all is 'Sutra', which departs firmly from the sultry soul template to search for a more unique space - it's highly repetetive, a little like a mantra, but punctuated by highly effective interludes of musical invention. More of this upbeat contemporary psychedelic soul (like Norman Whitfield refashioned for a laptop) would really have elevated this album. As it stands, for all its strengths, the minimalist electro-soul template becomes a little soporiphic after a while. Persevearance certainly pays off, but there's little doubt that Micah's best records are still to come.
In the meantime, here are some thoughts on some records from the giant backlogue....
2005 was not a terribly illustrious year for electronic music, but just beyond its mid-way point, 2006 already shows much brighter prospects. Regular readers will already know (at least from my Mercury Music Prize analysis) that, like many other music bloggers on the internet, I'm thoroughly captivated by the self-titled album on Kode 9 from Burial. I cannot claim to know very much at all about the dubstep scene, or the immediate heritage of this music, aside from occasional listens to North London grime pirate radio stations (I'm more familiar with the mainstream end of the spectrum - Dizzee, Roll Deep, Lethal Bizzle etc). Sometimes I find it baffling, disorientating and disjointed - sometimes it is simply propulsive and compelling. 'Burial' is a more complex beast. It is decidedly minimal - the beats are syncopated, unusual and located far from conventional dancefloor rhythms, but not in the more predictable stutter, click and cut mode of most of the music unpalatably termed IDM. Melody and harmony are also subsumed to droning atmospherics, but again these found sounds and looped synth effects are well outside conventional parameters. This is the sound of damp city streets after dark - there's a vague sense of menace lurking beneath the surface, but also the familiar and comforting streetlight glow. There are abstract echoes and unexplained sounds, subtle shifts of tone and mood. The term 'urban' music so beloved of those who need to create lifestyle tickboxes for music consumers might be far better employed here. This is instrumental music that captures the paradoxical claustrophobia and expanse of London life better than anything else I've heard this year. The genre term 'dubstep' seems apt - the subtle shifts in sound do recall the ingenious productions of Scientist or Lee Scratch Perry, although the emphasis on bowel-quashing bass is not quite so marked. The rhythms clearly descend from the two-step and garage scenes, but they are made fractured, confusing and completely hypnotic. Sometimes it sounds like there's too little going on here - but listen closely and it quickly becomes hypnotic. A marvellous hybrid sound and one of the great achievements of 2006 so far. Yet outside the genuine internet buzz that has built a strong word-of-mouth profile, will it get any albums of the year plaudits come December?
Completely different in sound and approach, and a great deal more playful, is the latest album from Matmos. Wary listeners could be forgiven for looking at the title ('The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast') and running a mile for fear of some pretentious nonsense. This prejudgment might well be exacerbated by the fact that Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt have demonstrated a consistently 'scientific' and proscribed approach to music making. Well, this is certainly sound collage, but it's also full of wit and invention. Its overarching concept (a series of compositions written in honour of dead gay icons) gives it coherence and (whisper it) maybe even some warmth (certainly it's rich in delirious humour).
If Matmos have in the past been perhaps too in thrall to their conceptual concerns - this time, the theme allows them to run wild in all directions, and one of the fascinating elements in listening to this record is picking up the personality traits and characteristics in each icon that may have contributed to the sound of the track. Sometimes the inspiration is blindingly obvious, such as on 'Buttons For Joe Meek', in which the duo construct what is more a gleeful homage than original concoction, recontextualising the Meek psychedelic sound for the modern laptop era. 'Snails and Lasers For Patricia Highsmith' has a smoky, noir-ish atmosphere, with Amy Vallaincourt's French Horn (a wonderful instrument heard all too infrequently in modern popular music) helping to recreate the tension and mystery of classic Detective movie soundtracks. The superb 'Steam and Sequins For Larry Levan' is easily the grooviest concoction Matmos have yet created, with its irresistible house-meets-disco beat, energising bassline, clavinet riffing and early 80s percussion samples. It's clearly influenced by the sound Levan himself pioneered as a DJ at the Paradise Garage, but it's also possible to hear the textural influence of Arthur Russell and Dinosaur L. By contrast, 'Semen Song For James Bidgood' has a decidedly more abstract, melancholy and sophisticated sound, with floaty, layered atmospherics partially reminscent of Portishead. It's another example of the duo moving well beyond their comfort zone.
That said, the baffling sample wizardry has certainly not been abandoned. In fact, it's still the central aspect of this record's sound. Yet, when you've sampled rhinoplasty operations, what can you do next? Well, look at what MC Schmidt is credited as playing on 'Tract For Valerie Solanas' - a cow's uterus, reproductive tract and vagina! Let's hope the Animal Rights militia don't get hold of this record! Even more ridiculous is 'Public Sex For Boyd MacDonald', a track that actually comes close to fulfilling the promise of its title. It apparently features samples of 'anonymous sex acts recorded at Blow Buddies during International Bear Weekend'. Delightful!
This manages to avoid dry theoretical tedium because Matmos have incorporated have achieved a more successful musical synergy this time around, largely through intelligently deployed guest appearances. There are strings performed by ACME and the Kronos Quartet, unashamedly funky live guitar parts, and vocals courtesy of Bjork and Antony Hegarty (although both resist delivering anything predictable). 'The Rose Has Teeth...' is comfortably the best album of their career so far. What could easily have been an exercise in nostalgic meandering has turned out to be fascinating and wildly entertaining.
I was a little disappointed with Ellen Allien's last album 'Thrills'. It was full of headspinning repetition and came with plenty of energy but, for me, lacked the occasional beauty and emotional pull of her classic 'Berlinette' album. 'Orchestra Of Bubbles', written and recorded in collaboration with Apparat, is a great deal more successful. It still has the same relentless, pulsating quality that has characterised all of Allien's work so far, along with her decidedly minimal, breathy vocals, but it also teases more possibilities from this defiantly skeletal approach. The tracks deploying a cello are excellent, 'Retina' sounding eerie and beautiful, 'Metric' carrying a real sense of menace and suspense. The latter layers its repeated phrases to chilling effect and is thoroughly compelling. Elsewhere, the pleasures are more familiar. 'Sleepless' is grindingly rhythmic, a perfect insomniac anthem, with Allien's vocals adding to the drama and confusion. The myriad bleeps and noises of the lengthy 'Jet' build into something energetic and invigorating. Like much of the best electronic music, the success of 'Orchestra of Bubbles' lies in the subtle manipulation of very simple devices and ideas. It's an outstanding headphones album. It still doesn't quite recapture the cold heart of 'Berlinette', but it's not as stark and uncompromising as 'Thrills' either.
It's a bit debatable as to whether 'Everything', the debut album on Matthew Herbert's Accidental label from Micah actually fulfills its considerable promise. The accompanying blurb talks about Micah Gaugh's eager desire to rechannel the spirit of Prince and The Cocteau Twins, but the music is sometimes a little too sedate and polite to capture the inventiveness of either act. All this is a surprise given the refreshingly understated quality of Micah's voice, and the fact that production duties on this record were carried out by the frequently uncompromising Arto Lindsay. What should therefore have been a decidedly artful affair has ended up only partially successful, its questing spirit sometimes undermined by restraint and technical gloss. There's no escaping this record's enveloping pleasantries - its delicate, underplayed guitar motifs, hypnotic Fender Rhodes keyboards and superficially jazzy aura. Still, like a number of the much feted nu-soul artists of the 90s (Erykah Badu particularly), it tends to get stuck in a mid-paced groove. The opening 'Constant' is a glaring example of this, with metronomic and very basic 4/4 programming not allowing it to veer in any unexpected or interesting directions. The same problem mires the single 'Revelation' which tries very hard to find some soulful, gospel spirit, and would probably succeed were it not for the flat monotony of the beat. Elsewhere, the programming is less restrictive but the tempo rarely breaks above a gentle trot. It would be interesting to see whether this material might work better with a live backing band, rather than relying so heavily on the conventions of studio trickery (mind you, 'Nothing', the one track with something close to a live sound dangerously resembles lumbering 90s funk-rock merchants Living Colour and is thoroughly unremarkable as a result).
It's not all negative though, as there's much of promise here and the album proves that Micah is at his best when at his most quirky. The delightful 'Knitting' has more variation in the programming and plenty of melodic interest. In fact, it works brilliantly because Micah deploys the full extent of his vocal range, thoughtfully expanding the harmony for the song's chorus, but rooting it firmly with a distinctive pop sensibility. The multi-tracked Micahs that permeate the contemporary reggae gloss of 'Give Up' add depth and intrigue to an effectively hypnotic backing track. The combination of pop and soul influences hinted at by Accidental's press release also comes out more clearly in the title track, which benefits from a highly infectious melody. 'Operator' is astonishing, chiefly because it seems to be several different songs spliced together, and entirely different in approach from the occasionally stifling rhythmic control of the rest of the album. Best of all is 'Sutra', which departs firmly from the sultry soul template to search for a more unique space - it's highly repetetive, a little like a mantra, but punctuated by highly effective interludes of musical invention. More of this upbeat contemporary psychedelic soul (like Norman Whitfield refashioned for a laptop) would really have elevated this album. As it stands, for all its strengths, the minimalist electro-soul template becomes a little soporiphic after a while. Persevearance certainly pays off, but there's little doubt that Micah's best records are still to come.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Revitalised!
What a great weekend! In this stifling heat, it was good to get away to coastal Wales (for the Aberystwyth Arts Festival), where it was still ridiculously hot, but with the added benefit of a refreshing sea breeze. It all helped clear the head after a mildly depressing couple of weeks. The long drive through the Welsh hills and valleys was particularly enjoyable too, listening to the Pipettes, Camera Obscura, Scritti Politti and Tom Petty's surprisingly agreeable new album.
The long weekend was topped off with a dependably brilliant Teenage Fanclub gig at the Forum last night. I've probably written all I can about the pure pop genius of this band, so I don't need to add much here, other than that they played 'Bandwagonesque' in its entirety, with Brendan O'Hare back behind the kit, his unpredictable surrealist comic genius still intact (he played much of the set with no trousers on). This of course meant plenty of songs we never hear from the Fannies these days - 'Metal Baby', 'Pet Rock', 'December', 'Guiding Star' and a first-ever performance of the Goal of the Month soundtracking 'Is This Music?' set hilariously to rudimentary drum machine. 'There's been much debate over who has been the best drummer in Teenage Fanclub', says O'Hare gleefully. 'Now we have the defininitive answer - it's the drumulator! Keeps time! All the time!'. Of course, the first thing it did was to fail to work. Throughout, balding men in their mid to late forties are actively moshing, crowd-surfing and bellowing at the top of their voices. Quite bizarre, and very sweaty.
There's a short break before an additional 45 minute 'greatest misses' set full of favourites 'About You', 'I Don't Want Control Of You', 'Don't Look Back', 'Mellow Doubt' and the rest, including some technical hitches with a glockenspiel on 'Your Love Is The Place Where I Come From'. The middle aged men are replaced by some indie boys (are TFC really picking up new fans now?) . Whilst the atmoshere initially deflates somewhat, it's back to the unexpected energy by the closing numbers. Quite wonderful and some strong competition for Bruce Springsteen as the gig of the year so far.
The long weekend was topped off with a dependably brilliant Teenage Fanclub gig at the Forum last night. I've probably written all I can about the pure pop genius of this band, so I don't need to add much here, other than that they played 'Bandwagonesque' in its entirety, with Brendan O'Hare back behind the kit, his unpredictable surrealist comic genius still intact (he played much of the set with no trousers on). This of course meant plenty of songs we never hear from the Fannies these days - 'Metal Baby', 'Pet Rock', 'December', 'Guiding Star' and a first-ever performance of the Goal of the Month soundtracking 'Is This Music?' set hilariously to rudimentary drum machine. 'There's been much debate over who has been the best drummer in Teenage Fanclub', says O'Hare gleefully. 'Now we have the defininitive answer - it's the drumulator! Keeps time! All the time!'. Of course, the first thing it did was to fail to work. Throughout, balding men in their mid to late forties are actively moshing, crowd-surfing and bellowing at the top of their voices. Quite bizarre, and very sweaty.
There's a short break before an additional 45 minute 'greatest misses' set full of favourites 'About You', 'I Don't Want Control Of You', 'Don't Look Back', 'Mellow Doubt' and the rest, including some technical hitches with a glockenspiel on 'Your Love Is The Place Where I Come From'. The middle aged men are replaced by some indie boys (are TFC really picking up new fans now?) . Whilst the atmoshere initially deflates somewhat, it's back to the unexpected energy by the closing numbers. Quite wonderful and some strong competition for Bruce Springsteen as the gig of the year so far.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Mercury Falling
Sorry, a bit late with the news, but just in case anyone out there doesn't already know - these are this year's Mercury Nominations:
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not#
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Ballad Of The Broken Seas
Editors - The Back Room
Guillemots - Through The Windowpane
Richard Hawley - Coles Corner
Hot Chip - The Warning
Muse - Black Holes And Revelations
Zoe Rahman - Melting Pot
Lou Rhodes - Beloved One
Scritti Politti - White Bread, Black Beer
Sway - This Is My Demo
Thom Yorke - The Eraser
Some obvious inclusions here that I'd manage to overlook (not that they'd necessarily be on my ideal list) - Guillemots, Sway, Richard Hawley all quite predictable really. The inclusion of dismal Interpol copyists Editors is perhaps the least inspired decision. Why not Elbow instead? Only one 'token' nomination from specialist genres here (middlebrow choice Zoe Rahman) - no folk (Vashti Bunyan for heaven's sake!) or contemporary classical. DJ Martian rightly pointed to Neil Cowley as a superior jazz option - I would have liked to see Andrew McCormack included.
The omission of Matthew Herbert is a real oversight. He should have been nominated in previous years (for Plat du Jour, Bodily Functions or Goodbye Swingtime).
The Isobel Campbell/Mark Lanegan collaboration was partially funded by the Scottish Arts Council. Whilst it's great to see that funding for new music projects is available somewhere - the resulting album is, in my view, nowhere near exciting enough for a nomination.
The inclusion of Muse is a laughable reaction to popularity and media hype.
Of those nominated, I'm rooting for Hot Chip for slightly biased reasons, and I'm sure they have a decent chance at winning if the judges swing in the direction of electronica this year. The fact that it's an excellent album should also help. If not 'The Warning', then the award must go to Scritti Politti's outstanding 'White Bread, Black Beer' if it is to draw any credibility at all from this rather conservative list.
A shame that neither the Burial nor Boxcutter albums were eligible.
Much like the Kaiser Chiefs last year, the Arctic Monkeys are the tedious clear favourites. They will get enough albums of the year plaudits from mainstream music magazines come the end of the year. The arrogance of NME editor Conor McNicholas is, as usual, astounding, as he claims that he will be 'flabbergasted' if the Monkeys don't win. Aside from the fact that there are more worthy contenders, there's no reason for them to win purely because their success has been based substantially on misleading NME hype. Given the judges' predilection for snubbing popular favourites - I wouldn't be at all surprised if they don't win!
Of course, we shouldn't forget moaning Thom Yorke - The Eraser is probably just bold enough to stand an outside chance, especially as Radiohead have so far been neglected.
What this year's list reveals more than ever is the need for strong financial backing to even be considered for the award. Hot Chip got nowhere with 'Coming On Strong', their debut on Moshi Moshi, but now with the backing of EMI they have much better prospects. Boxcutter and Burial were not nominated because Planet Mu and Kode9 probably have little money to spare for entrance fees, even if the resulting exposure from a nomination would raise their respective profiles considerably.
The winner will be announced on September 5th.
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not#
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Ballad Of The Broken Seas
Editors - The Back Room
Guillemots - Through The Windowpane
Richard Hawley - Coles Corner
Hot Chip - The Warning
Muse - Black Holes And Revelations
Zoe Rahman - Melting Pot
Lou Rhodes - Beloved One
Scritti Politti - White Bread, Black Beer
Sway - This Is My Demo
Thom Yorke - The Eraser
Some obvious inclusions here that I'd manage to overlook (not that they'd necessarily be on my ideal list) - Guillemots, Sway, Richard Hawley all quite predictable really. The inclusion of dismal Interpol copyists Editors is perhaps the least inspired decision. Why not Elbow instead? Only one 'token' nomination from specialist genres here (middlebrow choice Zoe Rahman) - no folk (Vashti Bunyan for heaven's sake!) or contemporary classical. DJ Martian rightly pointed to Neil Cowley as a superior jazz option - I would have liked to see Andrew McCormack included.
The omission of Matthew Herbert is a real oversight. He should have been nominated in previous years (for Plat du Jour, Bodily Functions or Goodbye Swingtime).
The Isobel Campbell/Mark Lanegan collaboration was partially funded by the Scottish Arts Council. Whilst it's great to see that funding for new music projects is available somewhere - the resulting album is, in my view, nowhere near exciting enough for a nomination.
The inclusion of Muse is a laughable reaction to popularity and media hype.
Of those nominated, I'm rooting for Hot Chip for slightly biased reasons, and I'm sure they have a decent chance at winning if the judges swing in the direction of electronica this year. The fact that it's an excellent album should also help. If not 'The Warning', then the award must go to Scritti Politti's outstanding 'White Bread, Black Beer' if it is to draw any credibility at all from this rather conservative list.
A shame that neither the Burial nor Boxcutter albums were eligible.
Much like the Kaiser Chiefs last year, the Arctic Monkeys are the tedious clear favourites. They will get enough albums of the year plaudits from mainstream music magazines come the end of the year. The arrogance of NME editor Conor McNicholas is, as usual, astounding, as he claims that he will be 'flabbergasted' if the Monkeys don't win. Aside from the fact that there are more worthy contenders, there's no reason for them to win purely because their success has been based substantially on misleading NME hype. Given the judges' predilection for snubbing popular favourites - I wouldn't be at all surprised if they don't win!
Of course, we shouldn't forget moaning Thom Yorke - The Eraser is probably just bold enough to stand an outside chance, especially as Radiohead have so far been neglected.
What this year's list reveals more than ever is the need for strong financial backing to even be considered for the award. Hot Chip got nowhere with 'Coming On Strong', their debut on Moshi Moshi, but now with the backing of EMI they have much better prospects. Boxcutter and Burial were not nominated because Planet Mu and Kode9 probably have little money to spare for entrance fees, even if the resulting exposure from a nomination would raise their respective profiles considerably.
The winner will be announced on September 5th.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Razor's Edge
All my own opinion, not work related etc etc....
In an extraordinary spirit of generosity, when one of my colleagues handed me a copy of Razorlight’s self-titled second album this morning, I decided I’d give it a chance. The record has been described as ‘insanely ambitious’ in various sections of the press, but I’d suggest ‘cocky’ and ‘nakedly commercial’ as more accurate descriptions before I reached for the plaudits. To be fair, the band have certainly moved well beyond the Strokes-lite rifferama of ‘Up All Night’ into rather more distastefully anthemic territory. The opening ‘In The Morning’, with its taut guitars and clamorous drumming, along with ‘Pop Song 2006’ and ‘Back To The Start’, provide some sort of connection between the two records – but for the most part, Johnny Borrell seems to be looking more to Bon Jovi than Television this time around.
Pretty much all the songs are insanely infectious, and it’s therefore not difficult to understand their mass appeal. The band sound tight, controlled and fresh, and it’s easy to see these songs filling arenas up and down the country. All this wouldn’t be quite so objectionable if Borrell wasn’t so infuriatingly drawn to cliché and platitude. There are lyrics here that make Richard Ashcroft look like Walt Whitman. As if the single’s bland assertion that ‘in the morning, you know we won’t remember a thing’ isn’t bad enough, Borrell then repeats the same line verbatim on ‘Kirby’s House’. It was barely worth him opening his mouth the first time. Elsewhere, we get ‘Who Needs Love?’ a shallow, ugly song about rejecting relationships – an idea that could produce something interesting and individual given some thought and more articulate self-expression. ‘Hold On’ is a giant sugar rush, but this kind of sentiment is so familiar now as to be meaningless, particularly in this rather lightweight context. Worse still is the attempt at ballad-tempo reflection in ‘America’, where Borrell repeats ‘All my life, I’ve been watching America/All my life, there’s panic in America’. The song then proceeds to tell us nothing terribly interesting about his life or about the vast landmass of its title.
From a man who already claims to have written more great songs than Bob Dylan, we might reasonably expect some insight or intelligence, but ‘Razorlight’ is parked firmly in the middle of the road. As for the question of ‘ambition’, this certainly stakes Borrell’s claim to be a vacuous, posturing rock star, but listening to this next to ‘Born Sandy Devotional’ from The Triffids, a significantly more questing and richly poetic record first released 20 years ago, helped put it all in perspective.
In an extraordinary spirit of generosity, when one of my colleagues handed me a copy of Razorlight’s self-titled second album this morning, I decided I’d give it a chance. The record has been described as ‘insanely ambitious’ in various sections of the press, but I’d suggest ‘cocky’ and ‘nakedly commercial’ as more accurate descriptions before I reached for the plaudits. To be fair, the band have certainly moved well beyond the Strokes-lite rifferama of ‘Up All Night’ into rather more distastefully anthemic territory. The opening ‘In The Morning’, with its taut guitars and clamorous drumming, along with ‘Pop Song 2006’ and ‘Back To The Start’, provide some sort of connection between the two records – but for the most part, Johnny Borrell seems to be looking more to Bon Jovi than Television this time around.
Pretty much all the songs are insanely infectious, and it’s therefore not difficult to understand their mass appeal. The band sound tight, controlled and fresh, and it’s easy to see these songs filling arenas up and down the country. All this wouldn’t be quite so objectionable if Borrell wasn’t so infuriatingly drawn to cliché and platitude. There are lyrics here that make Richard Ashcroft look like Walt Whitman. As if the single’s bland assertion that ‘in the morning, you know we won’t remember a thing’ isn’t bad enough, Borrell then repeats the same line verbatim on ‘Kirby’s House’. It was barely worth him opening his mouth the first time. Elsewhere, we get ‘Who Needs Love?’ a shallow, ugly song about rejecting relationships – an idea that could produce something interesting and individual given some thought and more articulate self-expression. ‘Hold On’ is a giant sugar rush, but this kind of sentiment is so familiar now as to be meaningless, particularly in this rather lightweight context. Worse still is the attempt at ballad-tempo reflection in ‘America’, where Borrell repeats ‘All my life, I’ve been watching America/All my life, there’s panic in America’. The song then proceeds to tell us nothing terribly interesting about his life or about the vast landmass of its title.
From a man who already claims to have written more great songs than Bob Dylan, we might reasonably expect some insight or intelligence, but ‘Razorlight’ is parked firmly in the middle of the road. As for the question of ‘ambition’, this certainly stakes Borrell’s claim to be a vacuous, posturing rock star, but listening to this next to ‘Born Sandy Devotional’ from The Triffids, a significantly more questing and richly poetic record first released 20 years ago, helped put it all in perspective.
The Crystal Ball
Deciding an album of the year for 2006 is going to be a particularly tricky task. We’ve already had highly worthy contenders from TV On The Radio, Scott Walker, Matmos, Cortney Tidwell, Gnarls Barkley, Johnny Cash, Hot Chip and much more besides. This will no doubt result in weeks of chronic indecision at the end of the year, exacerbated by this hugely impressive release schedule. It’s all a little bit quiet for the summer months, but things really do start to get interesting again:
22/8
BROADCAST – Future Crayons (B-sides and rarities set)
LAMBCHOP – Damaged
JASON MOLINA – Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go (one of several Magnolia Electric Co. related projects scheduled for release in 2006-7)
PAJO – 1968
M WARD – Post-War (a third album in as many years?)
28/8
BOB DYLAN – Modern Times (inevitably a major talking point)
THE ROOTS – Game Theory
5/9
HIDDEN CAMERAS – Awoo
11/9
BASEMENT JAXX – Crazy Itch Radio
MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO. – Fading Trails
NINA NASTASIA – Title TBC
YO LA TENGO – I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass (now there’s a title!)
18/9
BONNIE “PRINCE” BILLY – Then The Letting Go
DANI SICILIANO – Slappers
25/9
SOLOMON BURKE – Nashville
THE LEMONHEADS – Title TBC
SPARKLEHORSE – Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain (ugly title!)
2/10
THE DECEMBERISTS – The Crane Wife
CLINIC – Visitations
CALIFONE – Roots and Crowns
BLOOD BROTHERS – Young Machetes
MICAH P. HINSON – Micah P. Hinson and The Opera Circuit
17/10
SQUAREPUSHER – Hello Everything
We’re also expecting new albums at some point from:
CANNIBAL OX
EL-P
FEIST
JARVIS COCKER (yes!)
JUNIOR BOYS
THE SHINS
SPIRITUALIZED (will Jason Pierce’s recent brush with serious illness bring him back to the top of his form?)
PATRICK WOLF
GILLIAN WELCH
22/8
BROADCAST – Future Crayons (B-sides and rarities set)
LAMBCHOP – Damaged
JASON MOLINA – Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go (one of several Magnolia Electric Co. related projects scheduled for release in 2006-7)
PAJO – 1968
M WARD – Post-War (a third album in as many years?)
28/8
BOB DYLAN – Modern Times (inevitably a major talking point)
THE ROOTS – Game Theory
5/9
HIDDEN CAMERAS – Awoo
11/9
BASEMENT JAXX – Crazy Itch Radio
MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO. – Fading Trails
NINA NASTASIA – Title TBC
YO LA TENGO – I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass (now there’s a title!)
18/9
BONNIE “PRINCE” BILLY – Then The Letting Go
DANI SICILIANO – Slappers
25/9
SOLOMON BURKE – Nashville
THE LEMONHEADS – Title TBC
SPARKLEHORSE – Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain (ugly title!)
2/10
THE DECEMBERISTS – The Crane Wife
CLINIC – Visitations
CALIFONE – Roots and Crowns
BLOOD BROTHERS – Young Machetes
MICAH P. HINSON – Micah P. Hinson and The Opera Circuit
17/10
SQUAREPUSHER – Hello Everything
We’re also expecting new albums at some point from:
CANNIBAL OX
EL-P
FEIST
JARVIS COCKER (yes!)
JUNIOR BOYS
THE SHINS
SPIRITUALIZED (will Jason Pierce’s recent brush with serious illness bring him back to the top of his form?)
PATRICK WOLF
GILLIAN WELCH
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Physically Lightweight, Intellectually Heavyweight
A good description of some of Haruki Murakami's best novels, which apparently can be useful props when trying to impress the object of your desires. Must try that sometime....
Right, now we've got that out of the way we can get on to to the music. Lots to catch up on, some new stuff and some albums that have been lingering around for a while. I simply have to write something about Scott Walker's 'The Drift' - but a serious album demands some serious comment, so it will have to wait for another post now. In the meantime, here's the first stage in an attempt to get back on track.
The critical barbs are already flying for the debut album from retro girl group The Pipettes. Apparently, they are 'no more than mere pastiche' or, even worse, 'The Darkness in polka dots'. Oh piss off you pompous killjoy music critic dullards! Go back to your Razorshite and Lily Allen promos (funny that nobody seems to notice the pastiche there, isn't it?)! Of course this isn't music that's going to change the world or break any boundaries. What it is is good, healthy fun (and it's more than a little bit camp too). All fourteen songs here are crisp and ruthlessly brief; compact paens to dancefloors, school discos, sex and pretty boys, all with thunderous drums, taut rhythm guitars and immensely hummable melodies. You'd have to be extremely churlish not to accept that this is a genuinely enjoyable record - witty, charming and exhuberant. Yes, it's completely derivitive in its homage to 50s girl pop and Phil Spector production values - but the songs work because they are delivered with verve and spirit, and because the backing band have a really great feel for the style and feel of the music. It's all introduced by 'We Are The Pipettes', a refreshing blast of a theme tune. The infectious quality of the tunes is sustained throughout, even if many are now familiar from live shows or previous single releases. 'Pull Shapes' and 'ABC' are gloriously effervescent, whilst 'It Hurts To See You Dance So Well' is a marvellous inversion of all those 'I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor' type songs currently doing the rounds. It's unlikely they'll be unable to sustain an enduring career on this basis - but we should not feel guilty for enjoying it while it lasts.
It has become very easy to take The Handsome Family for granted. They've made a string of consistently excellent records bi-annually since 'Through The Trees', and their latest 'Last Days Of Wonder' is no exception. The band used to be extraordinary principally due to Rennie Sparks' bizarre, surreal and frequently verbose prose-poems, which husband Brett would labour hard to transform into equally evocative music. The lyrics on 'Last Days...' are noticeably more compact, but they have lost none of their striking imagery or mastery of allusion. As with any Handsome Family record, there are a handful of great songs here. My personal favourites are the touching, elegiac 'Beautiful William', the desperate longing of 'All The Time In Airports' (which revisits the plaintive strum of 'The Giant Of Illinois') and the more familiar gothic country stylings of 'Your Great Journey' and 'Flapping Your Broken Wings'. I'm not sure that Rennie's own attempts at singing really add much - although she had previously been almost entirely passive at a musical level. The album also tails off a bit towards the end, where the songs become less memorable. Still, a new Handsome Family album should always be embraced - maybe at some point they won't release them anymore.
One of the very best albums of 2006 so far comes from TV On The Radio, a band who continue to push themselves in exciting new directions and are becoming more adventurous with every release. 'Return To Cookie Mountain' effortlessly combines a dazzling array of influences, from twitchy modern R&B to Brian Wilson-derived vocal arrangements. Producer David Sitek creates dense, powerful atmospherics using unusual samples and striking sounds, but the strength of this record really lies in the empathetic vocal unity between singers Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone. The sound of their voices together, even when they are simply singing identical lines, is mysterious and bewitching. The album originally leaked with the full throttle, even aggressive 'Wolf Like Me' as the opening track, but the order has since been successfully revised, with 'I Was A Lover' now opening the album on an entirely more enigmatic, bewildering and enticing note. The lyrics of these songs frequently allude to war, apocalypse and devastation, but in a way that seems uniquely personal and guarded. The music veers between sweet, lingering melancholy and violent outbursts of sound, yet the tone and mood is impressively coherent. This is a record with a vision - although it is sufficiently understated to allow plenty of mystery and confusion to seep in. It's challenging, but also immediately likeable - with a warmth and obvious enthusiasm sometimes lacking in experimental music. If it's true that rhythm is currently overtaking melody as the prime feature in contemporary independent music - then this album stands apart for having both in abundance.
Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint have worked together before (Toussaint provided the expressive piano playing for Costello's 'Deep Dark Truthful Mirror' on the unfairly overlooked 'Spike' album), but the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina offered a powerful context for revisiting that collaboration across a whole disc. 'The River In Reverse' is a record well versed in the language and spirit of gospel and soul, and The Imposters, Costello's backing band, do a very honourable job of imitating the house band style of classic soul records. Costello's voice is at its grittiest here as he gamely tries to capture some of the overwhelming sweat and emotion at the heart of New Orleans' musical heritage, and he sometimes strains at notes as a consequence. The fact that some of the vocal takes are a little ragged, for me, only adds to the sense of authenticity here. Costello has earned his right to sing these songs.
The album offers rich pickings from Toussaint's illustrious catalogue, but is chiefly interesting due to some new collaborative songwriting efforts. The best of these is arguably 'Ascencion Day', based on an old Professor Longhair tune and rich in Costello's trademark kinetic wordplay. It paints a vivid picture of a day of reckoning. The title track is wordier still, and far less melodic - and sees Costello combine his penchant for a Dylan-esque ramble with some fiery blues playing. It rolls on relentlessly, much like the river bursting its flood banks. The very lack of structure and energy of the delivery adds to the song's forceful impact. More jubilant is 'International Echo', an energetic romp in homage to the global language of great music.
Of the older songs, 'Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further?' (originally written by Toussaint for Lee Dorsey) features Toussaint's only lead vocal, and it is arguably a shame that we don't get to hear more of his deceptively laconic, understated delivery. I wonder whether the contrast between Toussaint's serenity and Costello's power couldn't have been better exploited. Still, that's a minor quibble when Costello delivers a song like 'Freedom For The Stallion' with such emotional clarity. The song began life as a civil rights anthem but clearly still has resonance in a modern western world where individual freedoms are persistently being curtailed in the name of combatting a terrorist enemy with that precise aim at the centre of their outlook. It's one of the album's most concise, direct and powerful moments and it's in impressive company.
Right, now we've got that out of the way we can get on to to the music. Lots to catch up on, some new stuff and some albums that have been lingering around for a while. I simply have to write something about Scott Walker's 'The Drift' - but a serious album demands some serious comment, so it will have to wait for another post now. In the meantime, here's the first stage in an attempt to get back on track.
The critical barbs are already flying for the debut album from retro girl group The Pipettes. Apparently, they are 'no more than mere pastiche' or, even worse, 'The Darkness in polka dots'. Oh piss off you pompous killjoy music critic dullards! Go back to your Razorshite and Lily Allen promos (funny that nobody seems to notice the pastiche there, isn't it?)! Of course this isn't music that's going to change the world or break any boundaries. What it is is good, healthy fun (and it's more than a little bit camp too). All fourteen songs here are crisp and ruthlessly brief; compact paens to dancefloors, school discos, sex and pretty boys, all with thunderous drums, taut rhythm guitars and immensely hummable melodies. You'd have to be extremely churlish not to accept that this is a genuinely enjoyable record - witty, charming and exhuberant. Yes, it's completely derivitive in its homage to 50s girl pop and Phil Spector production values - but the songs work because they are delivered with verve and spirit, and because the backing band have a really great feel for the style and feel of the music. It's all introduced by 'We Are The Pipettes', a refreshing blast of a theme tune. The infectious quality of the tunes is sustained throughout, even if many are now familiar from live shows or previous single releases. 'Pull Shapes' and 'ABC' are gloriously effervescent, whilst 'It Hurts To See You Dance So Well' is a marvellous inversion of all those 'I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor' type songs currently doing the rounds. It's unlikely they'll be unable to sustain an enduring career on this basis - but we should not feel guilty for enjoying it while it lasts.
It has become very easy to take The Handsome Family for granted. They've made a string of consistently excellent records bi-annually since 'Through The Trees', and their latest 'Last Days Of Wonder' is no exception. The band used to be extraordinary principally due to Rennie Sparks' bizarre, surreal and frequently verbose prose-poems, which husband Brett would labour hard to transform into equally evocative music. The lyrics on 'Last Days...' are noticeably more compact, but they have lost none of their striking imagery or mastery of allusion. As with any Handsome Family record, there are a handful of great songs here. My personal favourites are the touching, elegiac 'Beautiful William', the desperate longing of 'All The Time In Airports' (which revisits the plaintive strum of 'The Giant Of Illinois') and the more familiar gothic country stylings of 'Your Great Journey' and 'Flapping Your Broken Wings'. I'm not sure that Rennie's own attempts at singing really add much - although she had previously been almost entirely passive at a musical level. The album also tails off a bit towards the end, where the songs become less memorable. Still, a new Handsome Family album should always be embraced - maybe at some point they won't release them anymore.
One of the very best albums of 2006 so far comes from TV On The Radio, a band who continue to push themselves in exciting new directions and are becoming more adventurous with every release. 'Return To Cookie Mountain' effortlessly combines a dazzling array of influences, from twitchy modern R&B to Brian Wilson-derived vocal arrangements. Producer David Sitek creates dense, powerful atmospherics using unusual samples and striking sounds, but the strength of this record really lies in the empathetic vocal unity between singers Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone. The sound of their voices together, even when they are simply singing identical lines, is mysterious and bewitching. The album originally leaked with the full throttle, even aggressive 'Wolf Like Me' as the opening track, but the order has since been successfully revised, with 'I Was A Lover' now opening the album on an entirely more enigmatic, bewildering and enticing note. The lyrics of these songs frequently allude to war, apocalypse and devastation, but in a way that seems uniquely personal and guarded. The music veers between sweet, lingering melancholy and violent outbursts of sound, yet the tone and mood is impressively coherent. This is a record with a vision - although it is sufficiently understated to allow plenty of mystery and confusion to seep in. It's challenging, but also immediately likeable - with a warmth and obvious enthusiasm sometimes lacking in experimental music. If it's true that rhythm is currently overtaking melody as the prime feature in contemporary independent music - then this album stands apart for having both in abundance.
Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint have worked together before (Toussaint provided the expressive piano playing for Costello's 'Deep Dark Truthful Mirror' on the unfairly overlooked 'Spike' album), but the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina offered a powerful context for revisiting that collaboration across a whole disc. 'The River In Reverse' is a record well versed in the language and spirit of gospel and soul, and The Imposters, Costello's backing band, do a very honourable job of imitating the house band style of classic soul records. Costello's voice is at its grittiest here as he gamely tries to capture some of the overwhelming sweat and emotion at the heart of New Orleans' musical heritage, and he sometimes strains at notes as a consequence. The fact that some of the vocal takes are a little ragged, for me, only adds to the sense of authenticity here. Costello has earned his right to sing these songs.
The album offers rich pickings from Toussaint's illustrious catalogue, but is chiefly interesting due to some new collaborative songwriting efforts. The best of these is arguably 'Ascencion Day', based on an old Professor Longhair tune and rich in Costello's trademark kinetic wordplay. It paints a vivid picture of a day of reckoning. The title track is wordier still, and far less melodic - and sees Costello combine his penchant for a Dylan-esque ramble with some fiery blues playing. It rolls on relentlessly, much like the river bursting its flood banks. The very lack of structure and energy of the delivery adds to the song's forceful impact. More jubilant is 'International Echo', an energetic romp in homage to the global language of great music.
Of the older songs, 'Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further?' (originally written by Toussaint for Lee Dorsey) features Toussaint's only lead vocal, and it is arguably a shame that we don't get to hear more of his deceptively laconic, understated delivery. I wonder whether the contrast between Toussaint's serenity and Costello's power couldn't have been better exploited. Still, that's a minor quibble when Costello delivers a song like 'Freedom For The Stallion' with such emotional clarity. The song began life as a civil rights anthem but clearly still has resonance in a modern western world where individual freedoms are persistently being curtailed in the name of combatting a terrorist enemy with that precise aim at the centre of their outlook. It's one of the album's most concise, direct and powerful moments and it's in impressive company.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
The Existential Wanderer
Thom Yorke - The Eraser (XL Recordings)
If anyone was still in any doubt as to which member of Radiohead was in the driving seat for the much-vaunted change in direction for 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac', here is the ultimate proof. Thom Yorke's first solo album is hardly a retrenchment into the safer territory of guitar rock. It's electronic, and it covers more of the same stark, minimalist terrain Yorke first tentatively approached on tracks like 'Idioteque', 'Everything In Its Right Place' and 'Packt Like Sardines...'. It's predictably insular, full of righteous frustration and, somewhat inevitably, it reveals his talent and considerable weaknesses in equal measure.
Yorke remains at his best when he focusses on the expressive quality of his voice. The opening title track is particularly effective with its layered vocal harmonies, although it revisits the same lyrical ground covered on 'Kid A', notably the celebrity-fixated desire to disappear from public view. It also seems to directly replicate the harmonic motif from 'Everything In Its Right Place', although its less eerie and more stuttering than that most beguiling of 'Kid A' highlights. Equally impressive is 'Atoms For Peace', which, with little more than a handful of notes and a beat as a backdrop, allows the conventional but strikingly haunting melody to roam free. 'The Clock' and 'Harrowdown Hill' deploy a similar effect with skeletal basslines (played with the same extraordinary lack of technique as 'The National Anthem').
Where Yorke has been content to compromise his ideals for big publicity juggernauts for Radiohead albums, he has succeeded in keeping 'The Eraser' low-key, switching record labels and only announcing its existence a matter of mere weeks in advance of its release. It's not surprising therefore that he allows himself to indulge his tendency for whingeing. Few could begrudge Yorke his fears for the state of the modern world - but it remains deeply frustrating that he is frequently so inarticulate in expressing them. The worst offender here is 'Black Swan' (a close relation of 'I Might Be Wrong'), with its chorus simply bemoaning repeatedly that 'it's fucked up'. Thanks for that pithy insight, Thom. Some of the music also feels a little impressionistic and sketchy, and it is in these moments (particularly the somewhat tuneless 'Skip Divided'), where Yorke elects to veer into vocal abstraction.
'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac' were 'difficult' at least in part because they flitted through a wide variety of musical stylings. The rock band arrangment of 'Optimistic' was a million miles away from the opaque digitising of 'Kid A', and the piano balladry of 'Pyramid Song' didn't sit terribly comfortably with the pulsating electronica of 'Packed Like Sardines...'. If anything, 'The Eraser' goes too far in the opposite direction. It's so coherent a record that it feels a little oppressive in its completeness. It's almost as if Yorke has a process through which his songs must go, so they all end up with remarkably simlar arrangements.
It's unlikely that this gives much of a pointer as to the direction of the forthcoming Radiohead material, but it certainly gives an illuminating picture of Thom Yorke as a writer - an insular character who spends vast amounts of time ensuring that his music adheres to a cold, stark blueprint. When this musical technique is married to vocal performances with power and emotional impact - the results are stunning. Yorke has a great ear for sound, and everything here seems carefully planned and executed. It's not always possible to submit comfortably to Yorke's bleak vision though - especially as this appears to be a world with no solutions and no means of escape. There's also a lingering sense that this is simply exactly what we might expect from a Thom Yorke album - plenty of bad poetry, some haunting and strikingly beautiful vocal performances with considered and deft arrangements, but no alarms and no surprises.
If anyone was still in any doubt as to which member of Radiohead was in the driving seat for the much-vaunted change in direction for 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac', here is the ultimate proof. Thom Yorke's first solo album is hardly a retrenchment into the safer territory of guitar rock. It's electronic, and it covers more of the same stark, minimalist terrain Yorke first tentatively approached on tracks like 'Idioteque', 'Everything In Its Right Place' and 'Packt Like Sardines...'. It's predictably insular, full of righteous frustration and, somewhat inevitably, it reveals his talent and considerable weaknesses in equal measure.
Yorke remains at his best when he focusses on the expressive quality of his voice. The opening title track is particularly effective with its layered vocal harmonies, although it revisits the same lyrical ground covered on 'Kid A', notably the celebrity-fixated desire to disappear from public view. It also seems to directly replicate the harmonic motif from 'Everything In Its Right Place', although its less eerie and more stuttering than that most beguiling of 'Kid A' highlights. Equally impressive is 'Atoms For Peace', which, with little more than a handful of notes and a beat as a backdrop, allows the conventional but strikingly haunting melody to roam free. 'The Clock' and 'Harrowdown Hill' deploy a similar effect with skeletal basslines (played with the same extraordinary lack of technique as 'The National Anthem').
Where Yorke has been content to compromise his ideals for big publicity juggernauts for Radiohead albums, he has succeeded in keeping 'The Eraser' low-key, switching record labels and only announcing its existence a matter of mere weeks in advance of its release. It's not surprising therefore that he allows himself to indulge his tendency for whingeing. Few could begrudge Yorke his fears for the state of the modern world - but it remains deeply frustrating that he is frequently so inarticulate in expressing them. The worst offender here is 'Black Swan' (a close relation of 'I Might Be Wrong'), with its chorus simply bemoaning repeatedly that 'it's fucked up'. Thanks for that pithy insight, Thom. Some of the music also feels a little impressionistic and sketchy, and it is in these moments (particularly the somewhat tuneless 'Skip Divided'), where Yorke elects to veer into vocal abstraction.
'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac' were 'difficult' at least in part because they flitted through a wide variety of musical stylings. The rock band arrangment of 'Optimistic' was a million miles away from the opaque digitising of 'Kid A', and the piano balladry of 'Pyramid Song' didn't sit terribly comfortably with the pulsating electronica of 'Packed Like Sardines...'. If anything, 'The Eraser' goes too far in the opposite direction. It's so coherent a record that it feels a little oppressive in its completeness. It's almost as if Yorke has a process through which his songs must go, so they all end up with remarkably simlar arrangements.
It's unlikely that this gives much of a pointer as to the direction of the forthcoming Radiohead material, but it certainly gives an illuminating picture of Thom Yorke as a writer - an insular character who spends vast amounts of time ensuring that his music adheres to a cold, stark blueprint. When this musical technique is married to vocal performances with power and emotional impact - the results are stunning. Yorke has a great ear for sound, and everything here seems carefully planned and executed. It's not always possible to submit comfortably to Yorke's bleak vision though - especially as this appears to be a world with no solutions and no means of escape. There's also a lingering sense that this is simply exactly what we might expect from a Thom Yorke album - plenty of bad poetry, some haunting and strikingly beautiful vocal performances with considered and deft arrangements, but no alarms and no surprises.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
So Damn Good We Did It Twice
Scritti Politti, King's Cross Scala, 11/7/06
So, what would happen at Green Gartside's first official live performances for 26 years? What would the sound be like? How would he recreate his meticulous studio pop sheen? In the end, it was all rather straightforward, with a full band playing a sumptuous and well-crafted take on mostly new material, with few frills or distractions. Gartside's crippling stagefright has been long-documented, but the only signs of this tonight were some references to the complexities of some of the songs and a decidedly old fashioned orchestral music stand for lyric prompts (amusingly kept in the correct order throughout the gig by keyboardist Dave). In all other respects, he seemed refreshingly down to earth, personable - perhaps even quietly confident.
Of course, he had every reason to feel revitalised. To these ears at least, 'White Bread Black Beer' is a collection of songs every bit as good as anything in the Scritti back catalogue. It also marks a more successful intergration of hip hop and electro influences than the less subtle rap experiments of 'Anomie and Bonhomie'. Although Gartside clearly still strives for pop perfection (those sunny harmonies are a revelation), there is a delightfully skeletal, homespun quality to many of the productions that sees Gartside again make steps in exciting new directions. Gartside may not be the most animated of performers - but in a live setting it becomes clear exactly how deft an instrument his peculiar voice is - pinched and high pitched, it is a great vehicle for what appears to be a new emphasis on complex phrasing and delivery. Songs like 'Dr. Abernathy' and 'The Road To No Regret' are impressively intricate, and veer between breezy, lush introductions and crisp, verbally dense pop. Opening with single and paen to hip hop 'The Boom Boom Bap', it is immediately clear that Green is concentrating very hard over every syllable of his uniquely personal lyrics. This set sounded consistently considered and well-rehearsed.
Of the new songs 'After Six' is as infectious as pop songs come - but also characteristically clever. 'Cooking' and 'Snow In Sun' demonstrate that Gartside has rediscovered an interest in delicate rhythm guitar strum, and he uses the device effectively. Perhaps best of all was 'E Eleventh Nuts' with its driving, Bo Diddley-esque rhythm and endearing lyric ('First I hit a rock, then I hit a roll/Now I'm hitting on you!'). Perhaps the unifying characteristic of these new songs is that they all manage a neat trick of reshaping somewhat conventional influences - McCartney on 'Dr. Abernathy', the Beach Boys on 'Snow In Sun' and 'Mrs Hughes' in new and fascinating contexts.
These new contexts are illuminated further when Gartside announces that one of the effects on a song was in fact inspired by a track called 'Come Clean' by rapper Jeru The Damaja. The band then proceed to launch into a determinedly groovy and spirited cover of said rap gem. It's not the only game attempt at rapping Green tries throughout the evening - there's also an outing for his collaborating with rapper Skillz. Who else could get away with this?
There are only a handful of old songs in a set that is perhaps slightly on the short side. We get a crisp, controlled and enthusiastic rendition of 'The Sweetest Girl' and Gartside goes right back to his earliest material with 'Skank Bloc Bologna', although this rendition inevitably lacks some of the spontaneity and ragged glory of the original recording. He saves 'Wood Beez' for the encore. Although still a great pop song, it's the one moment of nostalgia in an otherwise forward thinking set, and therefore strikes something of an odd note. I found it somewhat depressing that many left bemoaning the lack of other 'Cupid and Psyche '85'-era tracks. A rapturous ovation brings the band back for a second encore, but they have run out of songs and the crowd have to make do with a repeat run through 'E Eleventh Nuts', remarkably delivered with more gusto than its initial outing.
In a sense, it's arguable that this gig took the same form as Morrissey's problematic shows in support of 'Ringleader Of The Tormentors' (and it's worth noting this as I never got round to writing a report on the Moz tour). Both acts chose to play almost all of their respective new releases, with minimal pickings from illustrious back catalogues. Yet while a 'Ringleader'-heavy Moz set sounded generic and one-dimensional, this new line-up of Scritti-Politti had vitality and variety in abundance. The focus on new material paid off handsomely here, whereas at the Moz gigs, it left me feeling that, whilst still a terrific performer, Morrissey's gigs could be much improved by more judicious song selection (or at least some appreciation of the peaks of his solo work).
Let's hope this tour is not just a one-off and that we'll be seeing more of this Scritti line-up in the future - because there is much of merit in this redeployment of a great pop heritage. After one of the peculiar hip hop interludes, Green remarks 'I don't know what I think I'm doing really'. Well, it's good to see that any sense of shame has been consigned to the past. As a wise man once said, ridicule is nothing to be scared of.
So, what would happen at Green Gartside's first official live performances for 26 years? What would the sound be like? How would he recreate his meticulous studio pop sheen? In the end, it was all rather straightforward, with a full band playing a sumptuous and well-crafted take on mostly new material, with few frills or distractions. Gartside's crippling stagefright has been long-documented, but the only signs of this tonight were some references to the complexities of some of the songs and a decidedly old fashioned orchestral music stand for lyric prompts (amusingly kept in the correct order throughout the gig by keyboardist Dave). In all other respects, he seemed refreshingly down to earth, personable - perhaps even quietly confident.
Of course, he had every reason to feel revitalised. To these ears at least, 'White Bread Black Beer' is a collection of songs every bit as good as anything in the Scritti back catalogue. It also marks a more successful intergration of hip hop and electro influences than the less subtle rap experiments of 'Anomie and Bonhomie'. Although Gartside clearly still strives for pop perfection (those sunny harmonies are a revelation), there is a delightfully skeletal, homespun quality to many of the productions that sees Gartside again make steps in exciting new directions. Gartside may not be the most animated of performers - but in a live setting it becomes clear exactly how deft an instrument his peculiar voice is - pinched and high pitched, it is a great vehicle for what appears to be a new emphasis on complex phrasing and delivery. Songs like 'Dr. Abernathy' and 'The Road To No Regret' are impressively intricate, and veer between breezy, lush introductions and crisp, verbally dense pop. Opening with single and paen to hip hop 'The Boom Boom Bap', it is immediately clear that Green is concentrating very hard over every syllable of his uniquely personal lyrics. This set sounded consistently considered and well-rehearsed.
Of the new songs 'After Six' is as infectious as pop songs come - but also characteristically clever. 'Cooking' and 'Snow In Sun' demonstrate that Gartside has rediscovered an interest in delicate rhythm guitar strum, and he uses the device effectively. Perhaps best of all was 'E Eleventh Nuts' with its driving, Bo Diddley-esque rhythm and endearing lyric ('First I hit a rock, then I hit a roll/Now I'm hitting on you!'). Perhaps the unifying characteristic of these new songs is that they all manage a neat trick of reshaping somewhat conventional influences - McCartney on 'Dr. Abernathy', the Beach Boys on 'Snow In Sun' and 'Mrs Hughes' in new and fascinating contexts.
These new contexts are illuminated further when Gartside announces that one of the effects on a song was in fact inspired by a track called 'Come Clean' by rapper Jeru The Damaja. The band then proceed to launch into a determinedly groovy and spirited cover of said rap gem. It's not the only game attempt at rapping Green tries throughout the evening - there's also an outing for his collaborating with rapper Skillz. Who else could get away with this?
There are only a handful of old songs in a set that is perhaps slightly on the short side. We get a crisp, controlled and enthusiastic rendition of 'The Sweetest Girl' and Gartside goes right back to his earliest material with 'Skank Bloc Bologna', although this rendition inevitably lacks some of the spontaneity and ragged glory of the original recording. He saves 'Wood Beez' for the encore. Although still a great pop song, it's the one moment of nostalgia in an otherwise forward thinking set, and therefore strikes something of an odd note. I found it somewhat depressing that many left bemoaning the lack of other 'Cupid and Psyche '85'-era tracks. A rapturous ovation brings the band back for a second encore, but they have run out of songs and the crowd have to make do with a repeat run through 'E Eleventh Nuts', remarkably delivered with more gusto than its initial outing.
In a sense, it's arguable that this gig took the same form as Morrissey's problematic shows in support of 'Ringleader Of The Tormentors' (and it's worth noting this as I never got round to writing a report on the Moz tour). Both acts chose to play almost all of their respective new releases, with minimal pickings from illustrious back catalogues. Yet while a 'Ringleader'-heavy Moz set sounded generic and one-dimensional, this new line-up of Scritti-Politti had vitality and variety in abundance. The focus on new material paid off handsomely here, whereas at the Moz gigs, it left me feeling that, whilst still a terrific performer, Morrissey's gigs could be much improved by more judicious song selection (or at least some appreciation of the peaks of his solo work).
Let's hope this tour is not just a one-off and that we'll be seeing more of this Scritti line-up in the future - because there is much of merit in this redeployment of a great pop heritage. After one of the peculiar hip hop interludes, Green remarks 'I don't know what I think I'm doing really'. Well, it's good to see that any sense of shame has been consigned to the past. As a wise man once said, ridicule is nothing to be scared of.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Pure Speculation
So, the announcement of the Mercury Music Prize nominations are nearly upon us again (the swanky party is on July 18th). I can't find a public copy of the longlist so this may all be a complete waste of time, but it's always fun to follow this award which so many love to hate.
This year there are some obvious choices, for better or for worse. Kate Bush's Aerial must be a surefire inclusion. It's also hard to imagine Arctic Monkeys being left off - but I'm not sure that the Lily Allen* or Razorlight albums will be released in time. Is Thom Yorke's 'The Eraser', out tomorrow, just in time? I would expect a nomination for the much feted Mystery Jets too.
Surely though, with the financial backing of EMI - we might expect a nomination for some old friends - Hot Chip, with their excellent second album 'The Warning'. If Arctic Monkeys turn out to be too obvious a choice for winner, I reckon this is a good bet (that is, if it even made the long list in the first place).
Some albums I'd like to see included:
Boxcutter - Oneiric
Burial - Burial
The whole dubstep sound has really exploded this year, with plenty of incisive commentaries in support from webzines and blogs, but a near universal neglect from the mainstream media. It can hardly be expected that the Mercury judges could catch up, but what a justification for the prize's continued existence it would be if even one of these albums were to be shortlisted. The Burial album has been sold out in every London record store where I've looked for it!
Nine Horses - Snow Borne Sorrow
A really powerful, mysterious and haunting record from an underrated talent in David Sylvian.
Scritti Pollitti - White Bread, Black Beer
A lovely collection of homespun pop songs, nimbly juxtaposing Green Gartside's penchant for sheened production with frank lyrics and a more skeletal approach to arrangement. I'm very excited about the upcoming Scritti gig at the Scala this Tuesday, particularly as I have absolutely no idea what to expect from a man who has so rarely performed live.
Andrew McCormack - Telescope
It might not be crushingly original - but this is as crisp and expressive a piano trio album as has been recorded in recent years.
Matthew Herbert - Scale
Not perhaps his most radical album, but impressive nonetheless. I would expect that it wasn't submitted for the long list though.
Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country
Sublime indie-pop of the highest order!
Broadcast - Tender Buttons
Stark, minimal and impressive.
Elbow - Leaders Of The Free World
Quality epic rock and recognition of this band's continued success.
Psapp - The Only Thing I Ever Wanted
Not sure if they count as British (one half is from California, the other from London) but this, unpalatably termed 'toytronica', is fun and inventive.
We'll see if any of these make the list. Interestingly, if last year's winner was a Brit resident in New York, can the whole thing work the other way round with Scott Walker - an American long resident in Britain? If he has dual citizenship I see no reason why not.
*While I'm at it, I'll have a rant about Ms. Allen, for she is truly awful. When will people stop buying the myth that these artists have 'made it through the internet'? Obviously her success has absolutely nothing to do with her status as 'daughter of Keith'. She may have just released the most irritating single of the year so far with 'Smile', cementing her reputation as the female Mike Skinner with a similarly woeful concoction of whining and forced rhyme schemes. Plus the polished ska-pop of the backing track is spectacularly cheesy and really nothing novel - surely Scritti perfected this kind of hybrid with 'The Word Girl' back in 1985?
This year there are some obvious choices, for better or for worse. Kate Bush's Aerial must be a surefire inclusion. It's also hard to imagine Arctic Monkeys being left off - but I'm not sure that the Lily Allen* or Razorlight albums will be released in time. Is Thom Yorke's 'The Eraser', out tomorrow, just in time? I would expect a nomination for the much feted Mystery Jets too.
Surely though, with the financial backing of EMI - we might expect a nomination for some old friends - Hot Chip, with their excellent second album 'The Warning'. If Arctic Monkeys turn out to be too obvious a choice for winner, I reckon this is a good bet (that is, if it even made the long list in the first place).
Some albums I'd like to see included:
Boxcutter - Oneiric
Burial - Burial
The whole dubstep sound has really exploded this year, with plenty of incisive commentaries in support from webzines and blogs, but a near universal neglect from the mainstream media. It can hardly be expected that the Mercury judges could catch up, but what a justification for the prize's continued existence it would be if even one of these albums were to be shortlisted. The Burial album has been sold out in every London record store where I've looked for it!
Nine Horses - Snow Borne Sorrow
A really powerful, mysterious and haunting record from an underrated talent in David Sylvian.
Scritti Pollitti - White Bread, Black Beer
A lovely collection of homespun pop songs, nimbly juxtaposing Green Gartside's penchant for sheened production with frank lyrics and a more skeletal approach to arrangement. I'm very excited about the upcoming Scritti gig at the Scala this Tuesday, particularly as I have absolutely no idea what to expect from a man who has so rarely performed live.
Andrew McCormack - Telescope
It might not be crushingly original - but this is as crisp and expressive a piano trio album as has been recorded in recent years.
Matthew Herbert - Scale
Not perhaps his most radical album, but impressive nonetheless. I would expect that it wasn't submitted for the long list though.
Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country
Sublime indie-pop of the highest order!
Broadcast - Tender Buttons
Stark, minimal and impressive.
Elbow - Leaders Of The Free World
Quality epic rock and recognition of this band's continued success.
Psapp - The Only Thing I Ever Wanted
Not sure if they count as British (one half is from California, the other from London) but this, unpalatably termed 'toytronica', is fun and inventive.
We'll see if any of these make the list. Interestingly, if last year's winner was a Brit resident in New York, can the whole thing work the other way round with Scott Walker - an American long resident in Britain? If he has dual citizenship I see no reason why not.
*While I'm at it, I'll have a rant about Ms. Allen, for she is truly awful. When will people stop buying the myth that these artists have 'made it through the internet'? Obviously her success has absolutely nothing to do with her status as 'daughter of Keith'. She may have just released the most irritating single of the year so far with 'Smile', cementing her reputation as the female Mike Skinner with a similarly woeful concoction of whining and forced rhyme schemes. Plus the polished ska-pop of the backing track is spectacularly cheesy and really nothing novel - surely Scritti perfected this kind of hybrid with 'The Word Girl' back in 1985?
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Learning How To Die
Johnny Cash - American V: A Hundred Highways
Make no mistake, this is an astounding album. Whilst it's always tempting to be cynical about posthumous releases (and I wish to make it clear from the outset that I have no desire to see Johnny Cash turned into the Tupac Shakur of country music), the overwheming power of these recordings is simply impossible to ignore. Inevitably, these final recordings made by Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin essentially offer more of the stark, neo-gothic acoustic arrangements of the previous albums in the American series. Some have complained that the song selection isn't so radical here - there's nothing as unexpected as the takes on Nine Inch Nails' 'Hurt' or Soundgarden's 'Rusty Cage'. Others have also highlighted the obvious vocal deterioration, although it's worth noting that this rarely effects pitch or phrasing. Cash's physical weakness only adds to the weight of wisdom in the face of vulnerability that characterises this collection and, for my money, this makes American V the finest album in the series so far. Here is a man still coming to terms with the death of his wife, also forced to stare his own square in the face. This being Johnny Cash of course, he doesn't even attempt to evade the issue.
Almost every track here seems weighted with thoughts of the end. On the opening 'Help Me' (written by Larry Gatlin), Cash makes an emotional plea for the strength to walk just one more mile. The arrangement has real gravitas, and the vocals (apparently recorded simply to a guide track before the musicians added their parts) are stately and dignified. On 'God's Gonna Cut You Down', Cash intones the God-fearing mantra (part of which was used by Moby for 'Run On') against a chain gang percussion track of stomps and handclaps, the performance imbued not just with righteous indignation, but also with wisdom gained through experience.
Elsewhere, the tone is more playful. Perhaps the most impressive transformation is the re-fashioning of Springsteen's 'Further On Up The Road'. On 'The Rising' it sounded dense, heavy and apocalyptic, a song paradoxically juxtaposing fear and hope for the post 9/11 world. Here, it is presented as a jaunty shuffle, Cash facing death with his 'lucky graveyard boots and smiling skull ring' as if it was something to be laughed off with a resigned shrug. It's an enticingly playful interpretation and it's difficult to imagine any other singer so completely changing the style and impact of a song. The album may well be best remembered for 'Like The 309', a similarly blackly comic song and Johnny Cash's final recorded composition. It's not a major work as 'The Man Comes Around' was, but it's warmth and humour leave a lingering impression.
Even the songs that could potentially have been mawkish end up devastatingly moving. Rod McKuen's 'Love's Been Good To Me', famously performed by Frank Sinatra, here sounds like a frankly positive interpretation of a life well lived. Don Gibson's 'Legend In My Time' could have come across as hubris in the hands of a lesser artist - but only the most churlish would deny Cash the right to enjoy his status in his final months.
Best of all are two deceptively simple takes on well-worn standards. Hank Williams' 'On The Evening Train', its story telling of a widower watching his wife's body being carried away obviously resonated strongly with Cash following June Carter's death. It makes for an uncomfortably upfront listen. Gordon Lightfoot's 'If You Could Read My Mind' is transformed from relatively lightweight middle of the road country into something weighty and significant, with Cash struggling to control his faltering vocal.
It's hard to escape the sense that American V is the sound of a man literally learning how to die, and using the standard American musical catalogue to heal his remaining wounds - dealing with those long-standing debts to God, and coping with the loneliness and sadness of life's final days. There is a staggering depth of wisdom and experience here. Even though Cash didn't write most of these words - he has left his lasting imprint on every single line. A Hundred Highways and he'd walked every last one of them. If only we could all live so well.
Make no mistake, this is an astounding album. Whilst it's always tempting to be cynical about posthumous releases (and I wish to make it clear from the outset that I have no desire to see Johnny Cash turned into the Tupac Shakur of country music), the overwheming power of these recordings is simply impossible to ignore. Inevitably, these final recordings made by Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin essentially offer more of the stark, neo-gothic acoustic arrangements of the previous albums in the American series. Some have complained that the song selection isn't so radical here - there's nothing as unexpected as the takes on Nine Inch Nails' 'Hurt' or Soundgarden's 'Rusty Cage'. Others have also highlighted the obvious vocal deterioration, although it's worth noting that this rarely effects pitch or phrasing. Cash's physical weakness only adds to the weight of wisdom in the face of vulnerability that characterises this collection and, for my money, this makes American V the finest album in the series so far. Here is a man still coming to terms with the death of his wife, also forced to stare his own square in the face. This being Johnny Cash of course, he doesn't even attempt to evade the issue.
Almost every track here seems weighted with thoughts of the end. On the opening 'Help Me' (written by Larry Gatlin), Cash makes an emotional plea for the strength to walk just one more mile. The arrangement has real gravitas, and the vocals (apparently recorded simply to a guide track before the musicians added their parts) are stately and dignified. On 'God's Gonna Cut You Down', Cash intones the God-fearing mantra (part of which was used by Moby for 'Run On') against a chain gang percussion track of stomps and handclaps, the performance imbued not just with righteous indignation, but also with wisdom gained through experience.
Elsewhere, the tone is more playful. Perhaps the most impressive transformation is the re-fashioning of Springsteen's 'Further On Up The Road'. On 'The Rising' it sounded dense, heavy and apocalyptic, a song paradoxically juxtaposing fear and hope for the post 9/11 world. Here, it is presented as a jaunty shuffle, Cash facing death with his 'lucky graveyard boots and smiling skull ring' as if it was something to be laughed off with a resigned shrug. It's an enticingly playful interpretation and it's difficult to imagine any other singer so completely changing the style and impact of a song. The album may well be best remembered for 'Like The 309', a similarly blackly comic song and Johnny Cash's final recorded composition. It's not a major work as 'The Man Comes Around' was, but it's warmth and humour leave a lingering impression.
Even the songs that could potentially have been mawkish end up devastatingly moving. Rod McKuen's 'Love's Been Good To Me', famously performed by Frank Sinatra, here sounds like a frankly positive interpretation of a life well lived. Don Gibson's 'Legend In My Time' could have come across as hubris in the hands of a lesser artist - but only the most churlish would deny Cash the right to enjoy his status in his final months.
Best of all are two deceptively simple takes on well-worn standards. Hank Williams' 'On The Evening Train', its story telling of a widower watching his wife's body being carried away obviously resonated strongly with Cash following June Carter's death. It makes for an uncomfortably upfront listen. Gordon Lightfoot's 'If You Could Read My Mind' is transformed from relatively lightweight middle of the road country into something weighty and significant, with Cash struggling to control his faltering vocal.
It's hard to escape the sense that American V is the sound of a man literally learning how to die, and using the standard American musical catalogue to heal his remaining wounds - dealing with those long-standing debts to God, and coping with the loneliness and sadness of life's final days. There is a staggering depth of wisdom and experience here. Even though Cash didn't write most of these words - he has left his lasting imprint on every single line. A Hundred Highways and he'd walked every last one of them. If only we could all live so well.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Uh! I'm Back!
...as James Brown might have put it.
Sorry to all readers for the extended hiatus - I've now changed jobs and moved flats, and some semblance of normality is starting to return.
I should really write about the Camera Obscura gig at Cargo last week, but I dare say John Kell will make a better job of it (http://www.kingofquiet.co.uk) and I want to talk about the album anyway. One particular live highlight of the past few weeks was Cambridge's free festival Strawberry Fair which, as always, was a delight, with The Broken Family Band turning in a raucous and typically sardonic headline set. Dependably brilliant though BFB were, there were two other considerable highlights. Flip Ron were a pleasing discovery, with tinges of early Pink Floyd nudging shoulders with Supergrass-esque Britpop. The onstage flowers were perhaps a little twee, but we can probably forgive them that. A solo appearance from Jim Bob, formerly one half of the unfairly maligned Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine deftly combined game nostalgia with some wryly observed new songs about the politics of school days. It was a remarkably good humoured set that thoroughly deserved its rapturpous reception. Hearing 'Bloodsport For All', 'Sheriff Fatman', 'Glam Rock Cops', 'The Only Living Boy In New Cross' et al in solo arrangements, with the synth brass excess removed (although I can't find my copy of Straw Donkey at the moment, I suspect Carter sound somewhat dated now - they probably even did at the time) was a reminder of their zestful wit and intelligence. The new School album features Chris T-T on piano, and is extremely indie-schmindie, albeit in the best possible way. Glockenspiels and even recorders can't even spoil its insightful charm.
All this talk of tweeness leads me naturally to 'Let's Get Out Of This Country', the brand new album from Glaswegian indie charmers Camera Obscura. Championed by Francis MacDonald of Teenage Fanclub and Shoeshine Records fame, they are often occused of tweeness and nearly every review of this album has begun with some kind of comparison with Belle and Sebastian. In the latter, there may be some truth, as CO's rich, ornately arranged sound, with its hints of Northern Soul stomp, is rather akin to what B&S did best before they descended into Radio 2-lite ghastliness. Still, I rather suspect Camera Obscura are better than these comparisons suggest. These songs provide a much needed blast of summery, wide-eyed romanticism and, beneath the deceptive feyness of TraceyAnne Campbell's vulnerable vocals lies an excellent ear for melody. The title track and first single 'Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken' are thrilling slices of pure pop brilliance which, like the Pipettes, draw intelligently upon early 60s and perhaps even pre-60s influences. In my parallel world 'Lloyd' would have beaten the horrendous Sandi Thom to number one. There's a mournful longing at the heart of 'Tears For Affairs' and the touching 'Country Mile' that provides balance, but the sound throughout is consistently warm and enthralling. A quietly marvellous record.
Green Gartside, a man frequently associated with the pursuit of pure pop perfection, likes to take his own sweet time. 'White Bread Black Beer' is the first Scritti Politti album since 1999's 'Anomie and Bonhomie'. Recorded solo and entirely self-produced at home, it is further evidence that the Scritti name has long ceased to be applicable to any kind of band (although there is little hint as to how it will work live in July, Gartside finally overcoming his long-crippling stagefright). 'The Boom Boom Bap', album opener and sincere paen to the delights of hip hop may be the best song Gartside has yet written, a highly polished yet strangely moving song, tightly structured and basked in a warm fuzzy glow. It certainly does far more to elucidate Gartside's enthusiasm for the genre than any of the rather forced collaborations with rappers that peppered 'Anomie and Bonhomie'. Its closing seconds see a multi-tracked Green going through the tracklist of a Run DMC album before ending with the words 'I love you still, I always well' - a disarmingly direct statement from the frequently ironic Gartside. Elsewhere, the album takes in familiar influences, from McCartney-esque shuffle on 'Dr Abernathy' to Brian Wilson-esque rising melodies on 'Snow In Sun', but these familiar sounds are fractured by Green's all encompassing production sheen. His voice remains a peculiar instrument - sweet and soft but characterised by Americanised vowels. It's an insular, London-sounding album, but with a subtle appeal that registers more on subsequent listens.
Matthew Herbert made three of my favourite albums of the decade so far with 'Bodily Functions', the big band project 'Goodbye Swingtine' and the staunchly uncompromising 'Plat Du Jour'. 'Scale' is the first album to be released under his straightforward Herbert moniker since 'Bodily Functions', and many have noted correctlythat it's his most accessible work for some time. I had expected some highly sophisticated dance pop of a similar nature to Herbert's production work for Roisin Murphy, but mercifully this is not the whole story. At its very best, Scale neatly ties up all the loose strands of Herbert's career so far. Hence, 'Moving Like A Train' incorporates weird clicking and clanging percussion, a huge, jazzy brass and string arrangements and the silkily seductive vocals of Herbert's wife Dani Sicilliano (shortly to release her second solo album). It sounds fantastic, detailed and considered without losing its toe-tapping urgency. Equally brilliant are 'The Movers and The Shakers' and the opening 'Something Isn't Right' which see Herbert conjuring subtle amalgams of his musical concerns - matching thinly veiled references to the Iraq war with solid dancefloor foundations. The album become more elusive in its middle third, and the wispy, impressionistic atmospherics make for a catatonic listening experience at times. These tracks may simply require repeated listens, and I suspect that the album has been sequenced somewhat unhelpfully with the four most upbeat and immediate songs clustered at the beginning. Still, it recovers with the thrillingly weird 'Movie Star', with multi tracked Sicilliano vocal lines demonstrating her relaxed, breathy technique. Supposedly about the distance between people, 'Scale' is arguably Herbert's least coherent album conceptually, subjugating much of the protest and righteous anger to vague pronouncements about relationships. At its best, 'Scale' is further proof of Herbert's questing ambition, which remains unrivalled.
I think I mentioned some time ago that Domino's success with Franz Ferdinand (and subseuqently Arctic Monkeys) had led them into what could almost be deemed a public service direction in recovering and repackaging lost material. We've seen this with excellent reissue packages from The Fire Engines and Orange Juice, as well as the massively belated full UK release for Neutral Milk Hotel's cult classic 'In The Aeroplane Over The Sea'. Most welcome of all these steps so far is the current campaign to reissue the entire back catalogue from sadly overlooked Australians The Triffids. The series begins with what many consider to be the band's masterpiece, 1985's 'Born Sandy Devotional'. Whilst recorded in London, the album is infused an epic, cinematic vision, and some occasionally despairing lyrics which hint neatly at the unconquerable breadth and expansive isolation of their homeland's geography. Songs like 'Estuary Bed' and 'Wide Open Road' are deeply resonant, hauntingly beautiful works which draw emotional responses without pushing any obvious buttons. There's no Richard Ashcroft style grasping for big sentiments, just the terrible flip side to the great dream of escape. Much of the album seems to dissect how huge expanses can trap and restrict as much as they can offer untapped possibilties. It's a dazzling, beautiful vision, only slightly marred by the inevitable big 80s drum sound (again - why did anyone think that big echoey snare drums sounded in any way good?). It's certainly a prime example to use as a repost to anyone who still thinks that the 80s were barren years for music - any decade which produced this and Talk Talk's 'Spirit Of Eden' has something going for it. It's always debatable how much worth to attach to the obligatory clutch of bonus tracks - this package at least avoids the pitfalls of alternate takes and skeletal demos, most of which are only valuable to obsessives and ardent collectors. Domino instead opt to rescue some tracks from the sessions not deemed unworthy of the cut for the original album, including the title track. Many of these sound stark, perhaps even unfinished, and none recapture the visionary spirit of the album proper. Inevitably they rather spoil the conceptual completeness of the original sequence - but they are an intriguing addition to the band's canon. Don't miss the equally brilliant 'Calenture' when it follows later in the year.
I bought 'Gulag Orkestar' by Beirut on a tip from Rough Trade shops and, given that they have pointed me in the direction of Sufjan Stevens and The Arcade Fire in the past, this can usually be expected to be a reliable recommendation. Once again, they seem to be on to a real winner here, as interest in this album has now even spread to the broadsheet press. It's certainly something different - there are no guitars on Zach Condon's creation, instead there are ukelelees, traditional percussion and a whole range of horns. Condon's vocals are extravagantly slurred in something of a cross between Thom Yorke and Rufus Wainwright. The combination of this against the peculiar musical backdrop is intoxicating, although it sadly renders many of the lyrics completely incomprehensible. There's something of the gypsy music made by filmmaker Emir Kusturica here - and the tone is at once bawdy, funereal and celebratory. Perhaps there's also an element of the grandiose gestures of musical theatre here too, although Condon has wisely opted to keep the music focussed rather than adding in everything but the kitchen sink. Harmonically, its mostly very simple, which allows the melodies space to breathe over the ornate arrangements and also enables a striking intimacy to cut through. Condon is just 19 years old (the little git) - this is one of the best albums of the year so far but there's surely better to come.
And there's more to come from me soon....
Sorry to all readers for the extended hiatus - I've now changed jobs and moved flats, and some semblance of normality is starting to return.
I should really write about the Camera Obscura gig at Cargo last week, but I dare say John Kell will make a better job of it (http://www.kingofquiet.co.uk) and I want to talk about the album anyway. One particular live highlight of the past few weeks was Cambridge's free festival Strawberry Fair which, as always, was a delight, with The Broken Family Band turning in a raucous and typically sardonic headline set. Dependably brilliant though BFB were, there were two other considerable highlights. Flip Ron were a pleasing discovery, with tinges of early Pink Floyd nudging shoulders with Supergrass-esque Britpop. The onstage flowers were perhaps a little twee, but we can probably forgive them that. A solo appearance from Jim Bob, formerly one half of the unfairly maligned Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine deftly combined game nostalgia with some wryly observed new songs about the politics of school days. It was a remarkably good humoured set that thoroughly deserved its rapturpous reception. Hearing 'Bloodsport For All', 'Sheriff Fatman', 'Glam Rock Cops', 'The Only Living Boy In New Cross' et al in solo arrangements, with the synth brass excess removed (although I can't find my copy of Straw Donkey at the moment, I suspect Carter sound somewhat dated now - they probably even did at the time) was a reminder of their zestful wit and intelligence. The new School album features Chris T-T on piano, and is extremely indie-schmindie, albeit in the best possible way. Glockenspiels and even recorders can't even spoil its insightful charm.
All this talk of tweeness leads me naturally to 'Let's Get Out Of This Country', the brand new album from Glaswegian indie charmers Camera Obscura. Championed by Francis MacDonald of Teenage Fanclub and Shoeshine Records fame, they are often occused of tweeness and nearly every review of this album has begun with some kind of comparison with Belle and Sebastian. In the latter, there may be some truth, as CO's rich, ornately arranged sound, with its hints of Northern Soul stomp, is rather akin to what B&S did best before they descended into Radio 2-lite ghastliness. Still, I rather suspect Camera Obscura are better than these comparisons suggest. These songs provide a much needed blast of summery, wide-eyed romanticism and, beneath the deceptive feyness of TraceyAnne Campbell's vulnerable vocals lies an excellent ear for melody. The title track and first single 'Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken' are thrilling slices of pure pop brilliance which, like the Pipettes, draw intelligently upon early 60s and perhaps even pre-60s influences. In my parallel world 'Lloyd' would have beaten the horrendous Sandi Thom to number one. There's a mournful longing at the heart of 'Tears For Affairs' and the touching 'Country Mile' that provides balance, but the sound throughout is consistently warm and enthralling. A quietly marvellous record.
Green Gartside, a man frequently associated with the pursuit of pure pop perfection, likes to take his own sweet time. 'White Bread Black Beer' is the first Scritti Politti album since 1999's 'Anomie and Bonhomie'. Recorded solo and entirely self-produced at home, it is further evidence that the Scritti name has long ceased to be applicable to any kind of band (although there is little hint as to how it will work live in July, Gartside finally overcoming his long-crippling stagefright). 'The Boom Boom Bap', album opener and sincere paen to the delights of hip hop may be the best song Gartside has yet written, a highly polished yet strangely moving song, tightly structured and basked in a warm fuzzy glow. It certainly does far more to elucidate Gartside's enthusiasm for the genre than any of the rather forced collaborations with rappers that peppered 'Anomie and Bonhomie'. Its closing seconds see a multi-tracked Green going through the tracklist of a Run DMC album before ending with the words 'I love you still, I always well' - a disarmingly direct statement from the frequently ironic Gartside. Elsewhere, the album takes in familiar influences, from McCartney-esque shuffle on 'Dr Abernathy' to Brian Wilson-esque rising melodies on 'Snow In Sun', but these familiar sounds are fractured by Green's all encompassing production sheen. His voice remains a peculiar instrument - sweet and soft but characterised by Americanised vowels. It's an insular, London-sounding album, but with a subtle appeal that registers more on subsequent listens.
Matthew Herbert made three of my favourite albums of the decade so far with 'Bodily Functions', the big band project 'Goodbye Swingtine' and the staunchly uncompromising 'Plat Du Jour'. 'Scale' is the first album to be released under his straightforward Herbert moniker since 'Bodily Functions', and many have noted correctlythat it's his most accessible work for some time. I had expected some highly sophisticated dance pop of a similar nature to Herbert's production work for Roisin Murphy, but mercifully this is not the whole story. At its very best, Scale neatly ties up all the loose strands of Herbert's career so far. Hence, 'Moving Like A Train' incorporates weird clicking and clanging percussion, a huge, jazzy brass and string arrangements and the silkily seductive vocals of Herbert's wife Dani Sicilliano (shortly to release her second solo album). It sounds fantastic, detailed and considered without losing its toe-tapping urgency. Equally brilliant are 'The Movers and The Shakers' and the opening 'Something Isn't Right' which see Herbert conjuring subtle amalgams of his musical concerns - matching thinly veiled references to the Iraq war with solid dancefloor foundations. The album become more elusive in its middle third, and the wispy, impressionistic atmospherics make for a catatonic listening experience at times. These tracks may simply require repeated listens, and I suspect that the album has been sequenced somewhat unhelpfully with the four most upbeat and immediate songs clustered at the beginning. Still, it recovers with the thrillingly weird 'Movie Star', with multi tracked Sicilliano vocal lines demonstrating her relaxed, breathy technique. Supposedly about the distance between people, 'Scale' is arguably Herbert's least coherent album conceptually, subjugating much of the protest and righteous anger to vague pronouncements about relationships. At its best, 'Scale' is further proof of Herbert's questing ambition, which remains unrivalled.
I think I mentioned some time ago that Domino's success with Franz Ferdinand (and subseuqently Arctic Monkeys) had led them into what could almost be deemed a public service direction in recovering and repackaging lost material. We've seen this with excellent reissue packages from The Fire Engines and Orange Juice, as well as the massively belated full UK release for Neutral Milk Hotel's cult classic 'In The Aeroplane Over The Sea'. Most welcome of all these steps so far is the current campaign to reissue the entire back catalogue from sadly overlooked Australians The Triffids. The series begins with what many consider to be the band's masterpiece, 1985's 'Born Sandy Devotional'. Whilst recorded in London, the album is infused an epic, cinematic vision, and some occasionally despairing lyrics which hint neatly at the unconquerable breadth and expansive isolation of their homeland's geography. Songs like 'Estuary Bed' and 'Wide Open Road' are deeply resonant, hauntingly beautiful works which draw emotional responses without pushing any obvious buttons. There's no Richard Ashcroft style grasping for big sentiments, just the terrible flip side to the great dream of escape. Much of the album seems to dissect how huge expanses can trap and restrict as much as they can offer untapped possibilties. It's a dazzling, beautiful vision, only slightly marred by the inevitable big 80s drum sound (again - why did anyone think that big echoey snare drums sounded in any way good?). It's certainly a prime example to use as a repost to anyone who still thinks that the 80s were barren years for music - any decade which produced this and Talk Talk's 'Spirit Of Eden' has something going for it. It's always debatable how much worth to attach to the obligatory clutch of bonus tracks - this package at least avoids the pitfalls of alternate takes and skeletal demos, most of which are only valuable to obsessives and ardent collectors. Domino instead opt to rescue some tracks from the sessions not deemed unworthy of the cut for the original album, including the title track. Many of these sound stark, perhaps even unfinished, and none recapture the visionary spirit of the album proper. Inevitably they rather spoil the conceptual completeness of the original sequence - but they are an intriguing addition to the band's canon. Don't miss the equally brilliant 'Calenture' when it follows later in the year.
I bought 'Gulag Orkestar' by Beirut on a tip from Rough Trade shops and, given that they have pointed me in the direction of Sufjan Stevens and The Arcade Fire in the past, this can usually be expected to be a reliable recommendation. Once again, they seem to be on to a real winner here, as interest in this album has now even spread to the broadsheet press. It's certainly something different - there are no guitars on Zach Condon's creation, instead there are ukelelees, traditional percussion and a whole range of horns. Condon's vocals are extravagantly slurred in something of a cross between Thom Yorke and Rufus Wainwright. The combination of this against the peculiar musical backdrop is intoxicating, although it sadly renders many of the lyrics completely incomprehensible. There's something of the gypsy music made by filmmaker Emir Kusturica here - and the tone is at once bawdy, funereal and celebratory. Perhaps there's also an element of the grandiose gestures of musical theatre here too, although Condon has wisely opted to keep the music focussed rather than adding in everything but the kitchen sink. Harmonically, its mostly very simple, which allows the melodies space to breathe over the ornate arrangements and also enables a striking intimacy to cut through. Condon is just 19 years old (the little git) - this is one of the best albums of the year so far but there's surely better to come.
And there's more to come from me soon....
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Stopgap
Just a quick message to say I will be posting here again very soon. Things have just been a bit hectic with recording and gigging commitments, plus trying to sort out arrangements for my new flat and new job. All should be sorted soon and I should have time to comment on all the albums I promised I'd write about in previous posts.
There's always one week in the musical year that turns out to be the big one - it seems that 29th May has been the most significant release date for albums so far in 2006 - I heartily recommend new releases from Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint, Matthew Herbert, The Handsome Family, Scritti Politti and Burial.
There's always one week in the musical year that turns out to be the big one - it seems that 29th May has been the most significant release date for albums so far in 2006 - I heartily recommend new releases from Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint, Matthew Herbert, The Handsome Family, Scritti Politti and Burial.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)