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 A lot of the URLs are now outdated and there are plenty of new sites and MySpace profiles I could add were I to find the time.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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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....

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.

Laying The Ghosts To Rest

Bruce Springsteen and The Seeger Sessions Band, Hammersmith Apollo, 8/5/06

Having already written at length on the 'We Shall Overcome' album, I was simply going to state that this was one of the most enjoyable gigs I've ever seen and leave it at that, but I've since decided further comment is necessary after all.

Back in 1975, Bruce Springsteen's first live show in the UK was heavily promoted with an advertising campaign stating 'finally London is ready for Bruce Sprinsteen'. Although the concert has since been released on both CD and DVD as part of the 30th anniversary reissue of 'Born To Run', it actually seemed that Springsteen wasn't ready for London (he considered the show a poor performance). Tonight, returing to the same venue for the first time since that fateful performance, he is in rejuvenated form.

This Seeger Sessions show worked brilliantly as much because of the audience as Springsteen himself. Mercifully, nobody seemed to have come here expecting a run through of hits, although the five original compositions in the set were rapturously received. This audience completely engaged with the traditional material, indulging in a supremely entertaining mass singalong with 'Pay Me My Money Down' at the end of the main set, and even taking Bruce by surprise when shouting back the 'blown away!' responses during the choruses of 'My Oklahoma Home'. At least partially as a result of this game participation, the show had all the righteous energy of an E Street Band performance.

Seeing Springsteen in a venue of such relative intimacy can only be described as a privelege - he remains the gutsiest performer in the business, and the gritty growl he deploys on many of these songs only adds to this. He's a superlative bandleader too, counting off the songs and directing the soloists. Yet, more remarkable still is the space he gives to the rest of the band. Lead vocals are frequently traded with wife Patti Scialfa (who leads a haunting reading of 'How Can I Keep From Singing?') and his guitarist. Soloists are encouraged to move to the front of the stage where they can bask in the glow of spotlights. There's a spirited, rough 'n' ready feel to much of the set - as Sprinsteen would have it 'the sound of music being made not just being played'.

Highlights include a savage, blistering 'Jesse James', a bluesy reworking of Nebraska's originally stark 'Johnny 99', a medley of 'Cadillac Ranch' with 'Mystery Train' and a brilliantly arranged gospel take on 'Long Black Veil'. The centrepiece of the show, however, is an altered reading of Blind Alfred Reed's 'How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?' with new verses that specifically reference Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Bruce precedes it with a rant aimed squarely at 'President Bystander'. It's a powerful moment, and one that suggests that traditional protest music, through being recontextualised, can still ring true even in these most cynical times. There's adventure as well as rediscovery going on here.

The huge band taps into gospel, folk, country, blues and New Orleans jazz traditions, drawing them all together into a wildly energetic and captivating mesh. Even the more tentative tracks from the album work well in the theatrical setting. The album recording of 'We Shall Overcome' perhaps sounds a little tentative - but here Bruce truly does manage to turn it into a prayer. Similarly, 'Eyes On The Prize' sounds like the work of a true believer.

The encore includes 'My City Of Ruins', written for his hometown of Asbury Park but then performed for New York City in the aftermath of 9/11, it has now been co-opted by New Orleans as well. In this context, it demonstrates just how neatly Springsteen fits into this songwriting tradition.

They close with a spare, intensely vulnerable reading of 'When The Saints Go Marching In', and Bruce makes this most familiar of melodies entirely his own. It's a moving end to an extraorinary concert - as I said at the start, one of the best I've ever seen.

Big Epic Round-Up Part 1

As I said before, there's just far too much to write about, 2006 proving to be another excellent year. So, without further ado...

It's great to see Hot Chip still going from strength to strength. As promising a debut as 'Coming On Strong' was, it lead to them being unfairly pigeon-holed as lightweight ironists in certain quarters, and it didn't quite manage to elevate them to commercial success. Their excellent second album 'The Warning' should change all that pretty quickly. The single 'Over and Over' has already secured cult status and is a deserved dancefloor smash. With insistent cowbells, a whole plethora of weird and wonderful synthesisers and some deceptively simple lyrics praising the power of repetition, it's as immediate and infectious a song as the band have yet made. The album doesn't attempt to repeat the trick though, instead opting for a variety and depth that 'Coming On Strong' perhaps didn't quite achieve. There is a greater emphasis on Alexis Taylor's lingering and melancholy talent for melody. 'Colours' is simple harmonically, but layers its cascading vocal parts very effectively. New single 'Boy From School' is outstanding, combining a repeating synth line with an exquisitely vulnerable melody and a typically oblique lyric. Best of all is 'Look After Me', which harks back to 'Making Tracks' from the early San Frandisco EP in its sweet appropriation of deep soul. It could easily be a cover of a William Bell or Garnet Mimms classic, so authentic does it sound. Elsewhere, the sonic invention is impressively wild - 'Careful' mixes swirling synth sounds with an assault of off-kilter beats and distorted basslines that could easily have been inspired by grime, whilst 'Tchaparian' and 'Arrest Yourself' are stuttering and delightfully unpredictable. There's still an ironic streak of humour at work (particularly on the title track), but Hot Chip's genuine appreciation for the music they appropriate (with a concurrent disdain for genre conventions) is now coming through in their recordings as much as their deliriously entertaining live shows. Consider yourselves warned.

Proving that having your music commandeered for TV fixtures such as Grey's Anatomy and The OC needn't necessarily spell artistic doom, the second album from Domino signings Psapp makes for a refreshingly playful and engaging listen. For the most part, they sound like a direct cross between Rain Dogs-era Tom Waits and the pure pop sensibilities of St Etienne. What should make for an uncomfortable combination seems to work wonders in their hands, with a whole range of peculiar rhythmic noises (often sounding like sampled pots and pans) providing the unusual background clutter for some infectious pop melodies. With song titles like 'Tricycle' and 'Hill Of Our Home', it's not entirely surprising that it's a slightly whimsical confection, but with the bouncy zest of tracks like 'Hi' and the endearing qualities of the string-laden 'New Rubbers', 'The Only Thing I Ever Wanted' is an original and bold collection.

Over the course of their short career, Grandaddy have proved a disappointingly frustrating outfit. 'Under The Western Freeway' had plenty of scuzzy charm and the whole project crystallised wonderfully with the conceptual 'Sophtware Slump' album. Unfortunately, the undoubted artistic success of that album left them nowhere else to go and third album 'Sumday' sounded more than a little tired and one dimensional. Last year's mini album 'Excerpts From The Diary Of Todd Zilla' saw them taking a step back, with satisfying results, but their final album 'Just Like The Fambly Cat' doesn't provide any clues as to how they might have escaped what turned out to be a rather stultifying chugging indie rock template. It might be an elegiac last will and testament, but I can't quite resist the conclusion that it's actually a bit dull. There are certainly great moments, particularly in the form of infectious single 'Elevate Myself' and 'Jeez Louise' but the pace is kept mainly to the mid-tempo chug or the protracted ballad. Several songs are at least a minute too long, and Jason Lytle, to these ears at least, sounds a little tired and jaded throughout. As Grandaddy's albums have effectively been solo works anyway (Lytle plays all the instruments except drums here, Grandaddy's unusual working methods perhaps providing some clues as to the source of internal frustrations), it's difficult to see how anything Lytle does in the future will escape this cul-de-sac.

I'm finding it particularly difficult to judge the acclaimed 'Everything All The Time' from Band Of Horses, mainly because it sounds pretty much exactly like My Morning Jacket circa 'At Dawn'. There's perhaps a little more jangle here, but Benjamin Bridwell is such a vocal dead ringer for Jim James, and the band do such a good job of capturing that dense country rock sound, that any listener would be hard placed to distinguish between the two bands. There's no denying that this is a supremely accomplished record. The epic 'Funeral' is powerful, 'Our Swords' rhythmically propulsive and the closing 'St Augustine' delicate and spare. It covers its ground with a quiet mastery, it's just that the ground has already been covered in pretty much exactly the same way by MMJ.

More to come...

Sometimes You Have To Look Back To Move Forwards

Even a songwriter as questing as Bob Dylan found that, in an extended period of writers' block, it was helpful to revisit the traditional songs that most inspired him in his early days. The resulting two albums 'Good As I Been To You' and 'World Gone Wrong', whilst derided for vocal deterioration and lack of original material on release, have since been (rightly) revisited as the fond recapturing of a timeless American heritage. Bruce Springsteen has now followed in his hero's footsteps, releasing 'We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions' a mere twelve months after his last solo album, the intermittently powerful 'Devils and Dust'. Springsteen has recently admitted a new awareness of his mortality, and that his life as a recording artist might be drawing to a close. Throwing caution to the wind, he now seems to have entered a new prolific period with little concern for charts or maintaining his popularity. Bloggers in the US reacted angrily - they wanted the rumoured new E Street Band album and tour and they certainly didn't want to hear an artist of The Boss' stature 'descend' to the level of 'Froggie Went A Courtin'. Hopefully, on hearing 'We Shall Overcome', they will all eat their hats. It is, plainly and simply, a brilliant record.

The emphasis on Pete Seeger is at least slightly misleading. Springsteen has avoided Seeger originals - there's no 'Turn Turn Turn', 'If I Had A Hammer' or, perhaps wisely, 'Where Have All The Flowers Gone?'. Instead, Springsteen has opted for a series of traditional American folk songs that Seeger recorded or performed and which Springsteen has clearly rediscovered through a new appreciation of Seeger's work. Invited to record the title track for a Seeger tribute album in 1997, Springsteen conceded that he knew little of Seeger's work, and this project has been slowly developing since that recording session sparked his interest. Perhaps Seeger, unjustly infamous for pulling the plug on Bob Dylan's electric set at Newport (he has since claimed he didn't object to Dylan 'going electric', simply that the ugly sound mix was obscuring his lyrics), may gain a whole new audience at the age of 87.

Springteen has assembled a huge band for this project and the sound is riotous, unhinged and celebratory. With Springsteen audibly calling out the individual solos (best moment comes with a cry of 'everybody solo!'), it is the joyous sound of music not just being recorded, but being made. All the recordings are single live takes. With Soozie Tyrell's woozy violin, gospel-tinged backing vocals and a superb dixieland horn section dominating the mix, the sound is as much New Orleans jazz as banjo-laden Appalachian country. Although Springsteen's natural resistence to provocation has perhaps directed him away from overtly political material here, many of the songs here have contemporary resonances. 'My Oklahoma Home' could easily just as much relate to New Orleans post-Katrina and Springsteen has been dedicating the Irish anti-war ballad 'Mrs McGrath' to Cindy Sheehan at recent gigs (an act likely to be more contentious with many Americans than his role in the Vote For Change tour).

Springsteen's voice is at its most commanding and varied here. He adopts a primal howl on a furious rendition of 'John Henry', a tone of sombre reflection on the title track and 'Shenandoah' and even a Waitsian gravel voice on the superb 'Erie Canal'. Behind him, the band frequently rip it up, but the live setting has allowed for plenty of variation in dynamic and texture, and as a consequence the music is far more unpredictable and exciting than the over-produced layers Brendan O'Brien concocted for 'The Rising'. It's fascinating to hear how Springsteen truly comes alive in this setting, recontextualising these songs and drawing out their magic. Even the most lightweight material (nonsense songs such as 'Old Dan Tucker' or 'Froggie...') work brilliantly because they fit in well with the overall sense of fun. Given that Springsteen is, not entirely unfairly, regarded as one of America's most earnest songwriters, the unbridled gallop of these songs, together with the unrestrained joy with which Springsteen delivers them, will be refreshing to many Sprinsteen agnostics. Best of all is a sterling version of the gospel standard 'O Mary Don't You Weep', which not only provides the obligatory inclusion of a Mary, but also clearly demonstrates Springsteen's heritage in blues, gospel and soul. He sounds completely invigorated here.

It's a bonus that the album comes with an excellent 30 minute short film about the making of the album, including some rollicking live performances. My ticket for next Monday's Hammersmith Apollo show arrived this morning. Whilst understandably focussing on standards (including some songs not recorded for this album), the show apparently includes a small clutch of Springsteen originals rearranged for the folk band. It promises to be a fanastic evening. Sprinsteen's great achievement with this project is to prove just how timeless the American folk tradition is - this music still sounds completely and utterly alive, and Springsteen has made it his own.

Christmas Is A State Of Mind

I'm so far behind with this blog that it's getting ridiculous. There's something in the region of 20-25 albums to write about now! Before I get on to them, though, it's worth a quick discussion of some excellent gigs.

Last weekend saw The Flaming Lips bring their show back to the UK, this time to play at the Royal Albert Hall, by some distance the biggest indoor venue they've performed in here. Before the show, I had wondered whether or not they would simply repeat the same old show - projections, fake blood, glove puppets and all of that. Actually, I'd neglected just how long it has been since they last toured here (perhaps the relative youth of the crowd was testament to this - they have grown in popularity markedly since the release of 'Yoshimi...'). The 'wow' factor of the Flaming Lips show has been massively amplified, now incorporating hundreds of giant balloons, streamers, ticker tape, a collection of famous superheroes and, most amusingly, an army of Santa Clauses doing battle with an army of aliens. The latter supposedly represented a conflict between the Christian religion and the Church of Scientology, with 'the Flaming Lips and all of you stuck in the middle'. It doesn't need a genius to infer from all this that the show was tremendous fun.

The Flaming Lips remain unique in being just about the only band with a major label budget to appear on stage during pre-gig soundchecks. So, whilst Steven Drozd, Michael Ivins and a new hoard of roadies and techies set up the intricate details on stage, Wayne Coyne cheered, punched the air, and deployed his wonderful contraptions that ejaculated streamers high into the air. I can't think of another band that manages to exploit the usually tedious wait between support act and main performance with such gusto.

There's always a debate about whether entertainment requires a band to be distant from their audience. Coyne proves magnificently that it's possible to be a showman and be at one with your audience. His first act is to appear on stage inside an inflatable plastic bubble and then to crawl over the audience inside it - a brilliant opening gambit that immediately wins over the crowd before a note has even been played. Once Coyne is safely back on stage, they launch into a warm and energetic 'Race For The Prize' - still a great song despite its familiarity.

There is plenty of idealist chatter throughout about how enthusiasm can save the world and the show places us in the middle of a giant cosmic war, at keeping with the concept behind both 'Yoshimi..' and new album 'At War With The Mystics'. Coyne's inability to resist sentiment reached a zenith when a Flaming Lips fan, who had been due to propose to his girlfriend at a cancelled Lips New Year's Eve show in California, was invited on stage to 'repropose' on stage at the Albert Hall. Mercifully, to save us all embarrassment, she had not changed her mind.

The only problem with all this organised fun was that the band left themselves little time to actually play their songs. In the space of a 90 minute set, they only managed to squeeze in thirteen songs, with only four selections from the new album, and one an amusing but throwaway jam involving a toy keyboard that produced farmyard animal noises. This left some of their best songs unplayed (no 'Fight Test', 'One More Robot', 'Waiting For A Superman', 'What Is The Light', 'When You Smile' or 'Lightning Strikes The Postman'), whilst some of the more ambitious new recordings have yet to be translated to live performance. I'd also like to see them return to some songs from 'Zaireeka' too. What with it being a 4-CD extravaganza and all that, it's not too easy to get to hear those songs, many of them outstanding.

That being said, the songs that were played were consistently excellent. The new songs fared particularly well, with 'The W.A.N.D.' being delivered through an electronic megaphone and new single 'The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song' already provoking a mass singalong. During the more ponderous 'Vein Of Stars', a mirrorball was lowered and the venue was drenched in stars and glittery reflections. They treat us to a consummately controlled rendition of the epic 'Spark That Bled' from 1999's 'The Soft Bulletin' and an obligatory 'She Don't Use Jelly', although the band seem to have lost none of their wide-eyed enthusiasm for this wonderfully quirky pop song. The cheesy piano singalongs which conclude 'Yoshimi...' and '...Jelly' are an absolute delight. The band have one more trick up their sleeves with the encore - a savage blast through Black Sabbath's 'War Pigs' that neatly encapsulates their obvious frustration with George W Bush's America. It sounded triumphant.

As I was getting my bag from the cloakroom at the end of the gig, I overheard a conversation containing some rather lukewarm reactions to the gig. I can perfectly understand the frustration at so few songs being played - but the idea that Wayne Coyne might be 'arrogant' struck me as somewhat strange. Here is a frontman who knows the value of putting on a good show, and making the audience an intrinsic part of that performance. It's the same trick that Bruce Springsteen has consistently pulled off over many years, simply utilising more gimmicky methods. To me, Coyne comes across as warm, humane, genial, perhaps even modest - he's acutely aware of his limitations, but still keen to achieve everything he can. We certainly need more bands like this to crossover to mainstream success.

The following day, I attended Calexico and Iron and Wine's only London show at the Forum in Kentish Town. What a wonderful evening this was - strongly reminiscent of one of those revue shows of the 1960s, where a number of artists would be involved, occasionally performing together, with the bare minimum of interruption. The stage was arranged thoughtfully, with a vast range of instruments including keyboards, marimba and other percussion, lap steel guitar and bandoneon. The backdrop was a range of projections, including the distinctive artwork that has come with both Calexico and Iron and Wine's recent releases, set against a white mesh. This made for a strangely intoxicating effect and I have to confess there were a few occasions when I was drawn more to the images at the expense of the music.

Iron and Wine kicked off proceedings with a deceptively calm performance full of subtlety and grace. I wondered if Sam Beam's quasi-whispered vocal tones would translate well to this kind of venue, but it worked pretty well, despite the painfully audible hustle and bustle at the two bars. He remains one of American music's most distinctive lyricists, frequently creating his own syntax to encapsulate his peculiar rustic world. For me, with a little more exposure, he could be part of a grand American literary tradition incorporating Walt Whitman, William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. Sadly, too few people are aware of his extraordinary gifts. Like Dylan, his songs tend to extemporise lyrical ideas through melodic repetition, and a couple of the songs perhaps drifted on a little too long. He kept things interesting through through subtle shifts in dynamics and phrasing - nuances that very few modern singer-songwriters manage to capture. Best of all were the opening 'Sodom, South Georgia' and an unnamed new song, which once past a rare moment of forgetfulness, sounded rich and full.

He then brought out a backing band, including some members of Calexico, to tackle the bluesier side of his output, including some songs from last year's 'Woman King' EP. There was a good feel for the music displayed here, although it was perhaps a little relentless, lacking the careful sensitivity of the more stripped down arrangements. It also seemed a little under-rehearsed, with a couple of gaffes, notably when the guitarist using an E-bow appeared to start one of the songs in completely the wrong key. Oops.

The first half of the show concluded with Iron and Wine and Calexico joining forces for a short set of three tracks from last year's outstanding mini album 'In The Reins'. There was a splendidly groovy 'Red Dust', a lengthy and mysterious 'Burn That Broken Bed' and a rendition of 'Prison on Route 41' every bit as powerful and compelling as the recorded version. The band sounded loose but engaged and the dusty desert sound was captured brilliantly. It certainly left me wanting a lot more.

After a short break, we were treated to a short set from Mexican singer/guitarist Salvador Doran, something both unexpecetd and immensely fulfilling. Doran has a massive, quasi-operatic voice, but uses it to perform something akin to flamenco music, with rapidly strummed guitar patterns and strange vocal popping and clicking noises. It was remarkably spirited and enervating.

Then Calexico performed a mostly captivating headlining set, drawing mainly on new album 'Garden Ruin' (which I still have to review at some point) and 'Feast Of Wire'. John Convertino's delicate and considered drumming provides not just rhythm, but texture and colour as well and whilst much has been made of the straight-ahead rock elements of the new album, the songs that stood out for me were the elegant and sensitive 'Cruel', Yours and Mine' and 'Panic Open String'. Of the older material , 'Not Even Stevie Nicks' remains one of their best songs, and it sounded particularly cinematic in live performance. A faithful rendition of Love's 'Alone Again Or' and a positively rollicking 'Crystal Frontier' bring things to an appropriately rousing conclusion.

The band make full use of their varied instrumentation, with multi-instrumentalists swapping between brass, guitar and percussion. Paul Niehaus' lap steel guitar was played to perfection throughout. Niehaus is a real talent, perhaps his only limitation being a slight (but sufficiently scary) resemblance to Edward from Royston Vasey's Local Shop. John Kell felt that some of the tunes had got buried somewhere in the middle of the set. In that Joey Burns seemed perhaps overly keen to reshape and contort the melodies in some songs, he may have a point, although my attention was held mostly by the commanding performance of a uniquely inventive band that effortlessly crosses genre divisions.

Pleasingly, Iron and Wine returned for the encore, joined once again by Salvador Doran for 'He Lays In the Reins' before delivering a sublime and haunting version of 'All Tomorrow's Parties'. All very well, and by this stage it was getting pretty late for a Sunday evening - but the only two songs left unplayed from 'In The Reins' were 'A History Of Lovers' and 'Dead Man's Will', my two clear favourites. Oh well - with such a rich display of musicianship and poetic craft on display, minor quibbles are hardly important.

Old Masters Return

Donald Fagen albums, it must be admitted, are not like buses. You wait 12 years and then you only get one, usually with a meagre 8 new songs. Still, he's certainly been busy in the years since 1993's 'Kamakiriad', reviving the Steely Dan moniker, completing several lengthy tours and recording two new highly acclaimed (and highly polished) Steely Dan albums. 'Morph The Cat' now completes a loose conceptual trilogy begun with 'The Nightfly'. It sees Fagen musing with wry glee on post 9/11 (in)security and fear and his own encroaching mortality. The juxtaposition of the personal and political is neatly engineered, and Fagen's sardonic and pointed wit remains uniquely barbarous.

Over the course of these 8 songs, Fagen addresses current preoccupations and concerns. He creates a marvellous surrealist metaphor in the title track, the cat being a peculiar feline apparition floating over New York city. It appears to provide only misleading comfort - a false sense of security. It's difficult to imagine a less responsible approach to airport security than the hilarious 'Security Joan', where Fagen relishes the prospect of being a suspected terrorist interrogated by a female security guard. On 'Brite Nitegown', Fagen describes meeting the Grim Reaper in a dream with tacit acceptance of his ultimate fate. Best of all is his sincere tribute to the late Ray Charles on 'What I Do', a song that goes some distance towards explaining Fagen's own musical heritage.

'Morph..' is unlikely to reach the unconverted, however. For those immune to the lithe, metronomically regulated funk grooves of late-period Steely Dan, this is likely to simply be more of the same. I would concede that this music could be more consistently engaging were Fagen to allow his undoubtedly excellent musicians more breathing space. Much like on Steely Dan's 'Two Against Nature' and 'Everything Must Go', there is hardly even a drum fill to break the perfectionist pulse of each track. Can this really be the same Fagen who approved the extraordinary Steve Gadd drum solo on 'Aja'? Sometimes the approach is compelling, such as on the crisp groove of 'Brite Nitegown', which casts an appropriately hypnotic spell. Other tracks ('The Great Pagoda Of Funn', 'The Night Belongs To Mona', 'Mary Shut The Garden Door'), despite some typically incisive lyrical ruminations, seem a little overlong and elusive.

Still, at its best, 'Morph The Cat' demonstrates the steely interplay between highly literate, irony-laden songs and expressive, jazz-inflected musical extrapolation that has always characterised Fagen's best work. Whilst it occasionally steps beyond the urbane territory Fagen has defined so well into refined smoothness, there's plenty of detached charm and smoky elegance to these songs. Whilst one suspects that Fagen is not in any way a spiritual man, it's hard to think of a more pithy encapsulation of the gospel-blues heritage that he playfully plunders than this epithet on Ray Charles from 'What I Do': "Well you bring some Church/but you leave no doubt/As to what kind of love you like to shout about". It's good to see Fagen maintaining his spirits in a world gone mad.

Another legend who knows much about walking the tightrope between the sacred and profane is Prince. His latest effort, '3121', comes after yet another label switch, and has been hailed as a major return to form (didn't that come with 2004's patchy-but-promising 'Musicology'). Talk of 'form' here is rather pointless - Prince can churn out disarmingly good tunes in his sleep, it's simply that he's elected to indulge his every whim in recent years, from extended improvisations on the much maligned 'NEWS' to simply recording and releasing his every breath (the 3CD 'Emancipation').

I enjoyed a rather amusing discussion with two American strangers at Oxford Circus underground station regarding the origins of this album's somewhat enigmatic title. They had the somewhat unsubtle theory that the numbers 3, 1, 2 and 1 relate to Prince's obsession with sex - a threesome, some solo action, a conventional coupling, before finally concluding that it's actually better on your own (surely a somewhat tragic and unexpected resolution to years of sexual adventure?!). Actually, it's much less interesting - it apparently relates simply to US release dates.

I'm not convinced that this is the evidence of Prince's musical resurrection. Admittedly, 'Black Sweat' is his best single for aeons, taking in some of the sounds and innovations of modern R&B (particularly the Atlanta crunk sound) and processing it all through his own distinctive vision. It is playful, uncompromising and unashamedly sexy. There are some other impressive moments here - from the moralising party vibe of 'Lolita' to the poptastically infectious 'Love', but nothing comes close to matching the questing spirit of 'Black Sweat'.

With new female protege Tamar in tow (not another Mayte, surely?), Prince indulges his penchant for very cheesy ballads (the Latin tinged 'Te Amo Corazon' and the nauseatingly titled 'Beautiful, Loved and Blessed'). There's no denying that Prince has mastered the love ballad and 'Arms Of Orion' and 'Purple Rain' stand as two exquisite examples of his peculiar genius. The ballads here may just be a step too far into saccharine territory though. They are certainly disconcertingly glossy.

The title track should provide an enticing overture for the whole project, with its lavish description of an absurd Paisley Park house party, but it actually comes across as more of the lumbering funk most clearly associated with 'Exodus'-period NPG (remember that masked White Room performance, anyone?). By the end of the album, he's also drifted towards shakier lyrical ground, forsaking the hedonistic impulses of the album's first half in favour of some rather sanctimonious philosophising. At the height of his artistic success, Prince could chart both the conflict and the overlap between the sexual and spiritual drives with consummate ease. The impression here is more that the album's massively more entertaining moments are compromises to ensure some degree of commercial success.

It seems grossly unfair to describe a Prince album as generic, given that he has arguably done more than any other modern artist to break down genre conventions. It's just that all this is ground that he has mapped out many times before. Where once it was remarkably fertile, it now appears to be in danger of running dry. The highpoints here would make for an effective mini-album that would stand as a timely reminder of Prince's talents. As a whole album though, it feels slightly queasy and uncomfortable. I can't help but feel that the now unfairly discarded 'Musicology' made for a more consistent, less ponderous and more entertaining listen.

Pick of the bunch is the secular return of soul legend Candi Staton. Still scandalously most famous here for the disco hit 'Young Hearts Run Free' and for providing the vocal sample on The Source's endlessly rehashed dance anthem 'You Got The Love', last year's compilation of her southern soul gems on the Honest Jon's label (part owned by Damon Albarn) provided a welcome opportunity to reassess her impact and achievement. The success of that release has tempted her away from the Gospel train (following in the recent footsteps of Bettye Lavette and Solomon Burke) back into the mainstream fold with 'His Hands'.

The obvious choice of producer for this project would have been the in-demand Joe Henry, whose faithful invocation of the classic soul sound would have worked well here. Instead, Staton has joined forces with Lambchop producer Mark Nevers who, whilst pulling off a similar trick, has added some of his own subtle studio trickery, most noticeably on the eerily atmospheric title track. This is one of those records that operates in its own territory, refreshingly free from the influence of any prevailing trends. The playing is stately, but also appropriately sensual. Staton's voice is arguably a little wearier now, occasionally cracking slightly - but her choice of material has made the additional vulnerability a welcome ingredient.

As well as being an accomplished writer herself, Staton is a genuinely skilled interpretative singer and she tackles material from Solomon Burke and Merle Haggard amongst others with sizzling relish. This album would be worth the entry fee alone for the astonishing title track, penned specifically for her by Will Oldham, providing yet more evidence of his status as one of the greatest living American songwriters. The hands of the title are used to invoke erotic love, domestic abuse (which Staton herself endured for many years) and the compelling spiritual love of God. Staton's performance on this track is tightly controlled, but fearsomely convincing and she adds great power to Oldham's words with her spine-tingling phrasing. It's unlikely that there will be a more overwhelming vocal performance captured this year.

It sets a high watermark that the rest of the album inevitably can't quite match, but 'His Hands' is nevertheless a consistently engrossing and rewarding listen, overflowing with gritty emotion and rousing passion.

Eureka!

Finally, See Tickets come through for me - 1 Stalls Standing ticket for Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band at the Apollo in Hammersmith on the 8th May!
It will be interesting to hear Springsteen tackle some roots, folk and gospel material in a relatively intimate venue. Why couldn't it have been this easy for the Devils and Dust tour, which I didn't manage to get to!

Urrgh

What in the name of Morrissey have they done to Uncut magazine? I know that relaunches and redesigns are considered essential to maintain interest (and sales) in the ever-shifting media landscape (or something like that) but what is this? A horribly cheesy 'Passion of Morrissey' cover with Steven Patrick himself radiating a heavenly glow; a logo clearly striving to look classy but actually looking cheap and nasty; a facsimile of the free CD behind the actual mounted CD which takes up a third of the available cover space; redesigned sections with more pictures and less text; lumbering new releases and reissues together in an 'expanded' review section (which also rips off the horrible 'top 10' idea from the Observer Music Monthly) and to top it off a supposedly improved film section which contains not even half the number of reviews as usual. It doesn't exactly leap from the shelves anymore!

A Quick Update

...So many albums to write about, so little time. So at some point in the next few weeks expect some thoughts on new albums by Grandaddy, Calexico, Semifinalists, Toumani Diabate's Symemtric Orchestra, Band Of Horses, Arthur Russell, Neko Case, Ariel Pink, Mogwai, Prince, Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins, Secret Machines, Clogs, Donald Fagen, Centro-matic, Candi Staton and Team lg.

It's been a good year so far - although it's yet to throw up a masterpiece. Some are citing the latest album from Destroyer - when the heck is it going to get a UK release?