Depeche Mode, Wembley Arena, 3/4/06
It seems like Depeche Mode are one of those juggernaut bands who are always touring (the Rolling Stones of 80s bands) but in reality Mode tours roll around relatively infrequently. This latest mammonth world jaunt in support of last year's well received 'Playing The Angel' album brought them back to the UK for the first time in five years.
As ever, last night's show at Wembley Arena (still an unpleasantly gargantuan venue, but the rebuild has at least made some attempt to improve the stolid atmosphere) was a spectacle. The stage set featured giant silver pods, behind which the keyboards, synths and computers were cleverly concealed, presumably to hide the fact that Andy Fletcher still appears to do absolutely nothing for the majority of their performances. Hanging from the stage was a strange silver spacecraft message displaying key lyrics and predictable Mode words (pain, suffering, love, angel, sex, death). One has to get passed the occasional clunkiness of Martin Gore's lyrical preoccupations to enjoy a Mode show - and no doubt this element of the stage design pleased the residual goth element of the fanbase. The visuals were sparer than last time round, mainly focussing on cleverly treated images of the band's performance, with occasional interjections (peculiar images of naked women and shots from the band's justly revered video output).
Dave Gahan remains the band's strident visual focus, completely uninhibited in his camp, slightly sleazy onstage antics. He's clearly been practising his Freddie Mercury moves too - prancing about the stage with mic stand swinging. The stage set includes a catwalk into the crowd (have they been watching AC/DC shows?) which Gahan struts down with rampant showmanship, and no sense of irony whatsoever. He knows how to entertain the crowd, letting them do most of the work on the choruses of the best known hits ('Enjoy The Silence' and 'Personal Jesus' particularly). When he does bother singing, he demonstrates his growing vocal stature too - his voice sounding stronger and his range more commanding with each new Mode project. Significantly, he has finally been allowed to make a songwriting contribution by the notoriously controlling Gore - and his two efforts performed tonight ('I Want It All' and 'Suffer Well') are standouts among the newer material, bolstered by some relentlessly pounding live drums. Gahan is such a potent presence on stage that the set inevitably sags a little when Gore takes over lead vocal duties - although the piano and vocal encore of 'Shake The Disease' provided some welcome respite from the electro-industrial sturm und drang. Gore's selections mostly play to his strengths - and 'Home' is reworked with an inventive synth string-laden arrangement. New track 'Macro' is no less of a howler in a live setting though - its lyrics lurching uncomfortably towards self parody.
Predictably the set list concentrated on the new material (mercifully the far superior first half of the album) and the 1989 classic 'Violator', from which all four singles are played with a gusto that suggests the band have not lost interest in them yet. The crowd already seem to have embraced the new songs, with 'John The Revelator' and 'Suffer Well' particualarly well received. This tour has surprised with its shift away from the darker recent material in favour of some well-worn eighties classics. 'Ultra' and 'Songs Of Faith And Devotion' are given only cursory glances with jsut one and two songs selected respectively (still no 'Barrel Of A Gun'! No 'It's No Good'?!?!) but instead we get a deliriously enjoyable encore including 'Just Can't Get Enough' and one of the defining songs of the 80s 'Everything Counts'. Earlier, we were treated to a tremendously attacking version of 'A Question Of Time' and a potent 'Behind The Wheel'.
At these shows, it's hard to believe that the Mode are a band constantly at dispute between records, so strong is the camaraderie on stage, not least the playful campness of the relationship between Gore and Gahan (taken to an hilariously cheesy extreme on the closing ballad 'Goodnight Lovers'). The tagline for this tour has been 'Pain and Suffering in Various Countries'. Gore and Gahan can try and be as dark and foreboding as they like - but they can't hide the fact that this show was all about good, clean fun.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Friday, March 17, 2006
Collaborate Or Die?
2006 already appears to be the year of the collaboration - only a few months in and we've already seen plenty of co-operative efforts in a variety of genres. Occasionally you get collaborative projects which bring out the very best in both acts involved (last year's Iron and Wine and Calexico pairing rejuventated the work of both acts), whereas sometimes they simply feel like enforced artistic compromises. Certainly, one of the most tedious interview questions that Saturday morning TV presenters always use to keep vacuous pop stars talking is 'so who would you like to collaborate with?'. When a tediously predictable answer is given, the presenter often tries to generate excitement with a 'oooh - you heard it here first, perhaps we can get them together' or another similar remark. How dull.
Yet sometimes collaborations have real merits, and the pairings between celebrated independent artists rarely seem to gain a comparable level of attention from indie communities and the media. How else to explain the absurd absence of the Calexico/Iron and Wine project from all the major UK end of year lists? How else to explain the perversely indifferent reviews greeting 'The Brave and The Bold', a meeting of the glorious musical minds of Tortoise and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy? It's a comfortingly natural combination - although the dense analogue synths and jazz leanings of Tortoise do provide a refreshingly unfamiliar context for Will Oldham's well-worn and perpetually cracking vocals. 'The Brave and The Bold' is a pretty audacious title for an album, particularly when it's that most unfashionable and unpopular beast - a covers album. Yet this is no straightforward record - there are some peculiar song selections, ranging from the devoutly uncool (Elton John's 'Daniel', not necessarily a surprise when Oldham has previously covered R Kelly) to the predictably arty (Devo's 'That's Pep!'). It's undoubted highlight is an absolutely superb reworking of Bruce Springsteen's 'Thunder Road'. Most commentators have bemoaned the fact that the heady rush, Spector-esque excess and sheer bravado of Springsteen's original have been jettisoned here in favour of something more elusive. Well, good. There's no point in covering a song note for note - and Oldham here finds an inherent melancholic desolation beneath all the posturing. He bends the melody and produces a desparation and sadness that the Springsteen of Nebraska, Tom Joad and Devils and Dust would no doubt approve of. Behind him, Tortoise slow the song down to a Crazy Horse thud and pad out the sound with a range of analogue synth flourishes. Clarence Clemons' familiar cascading saxophone melody is retained at the song's climax, but is reworked as a minor key lament. If all cover versions could be this clever, then the art of song interpretation would still be alive and well.
Elsewhere, The Minutemen's 'It's Expected I'm Gone' is transformed from spiky attack to restrained avant-drone, the take on 'That's Pep!' best demonstrates Tortoise's rhythmic sophistication and Oldham's delivery of Richard Thompson's 'Cavalry Cross' is deeply felt and sympathetic, his occasional ironic smokescreen thoroughly cleared. This album works so well because it makes an eclectic song selection sound bizarrely logical and because, unlike Oldham's covers of his own material on the 'Greatest Palace Music' collection, there's no wilful perversity here, just sheer intelligence and genuine enthusiasm for the material.
The Scottish Arts Council have generously funded a joint project from former Belle and Sebastian member Isobel Campbell and former Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan. 'Ballad Of The Broken Seas' plays true to its title, with a meticulously crafted atmosphere and tension, recreating the sound of sea shanties and murder ballads so that it sounds traditional in the most evocative of ways. The arrangements are frequently superb, with the tremulous strings of 'The False Husband' and the propulsive percussion of 'Saturday's Gone' being particular highlights.
Still, there's no denying that something is missing here. The obvious comparisons with the work of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra have already been made - but they do Lee and Nancy something of a disservice. Whilst Campbell's delicate, slightly sinister vocals (she rarely rises above a whisper here) ought to work well with Lanegan's threatening drawl, there is rarely any kind of chemistry between the two. This may well be a product of Lanegan recording vocals in LA, with Campbell mostly recording her parts in Scotland. This kind of process occasionally yields inspired results, the best example probably being the Postal Service project, where Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello from Dntel worked separately to produce a collaborative work with greater impact than anything recorded by their respective bands. It hasn't yielded such impressive results here though. Some of the songs seem tentative, or perhaps even strangely unfinished. 'It's Hard To Kill A Bad Thing' for example is elegant and beautiful, and its wistful theme could have been developed into an excellent song. As an instrumental interlude however, it feels like mere filler. The waltzes ('Dusty Wreath' and '(Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me?') don't quite achieve the tension to which they clearly aspire, the former being somewhat soporiphic and the latter suffering badly from mismatched vocal parts.
Whilst this album reveals more with every listen, and it's satisfying to here Lanegan move away from his drug preoccupied lyrics, this lacks the stylistic diversity of his best solo work. The uniformity of pace and mood becomes a little stifling over the space of an entire album and, on the whole, the songs are not memorable enough to render it anything more than a pleasant curio. Clearly, there are pitfalls as well as virtues in transferring these projects from theory to reality.
Apparently, Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris have been working on the duets that comprise 'All The Roadrunning' in their spare time over the last seven years. If it really has been that long, it's an interesting possibility that it may have been Knopfler who encouraged Harris to pursue her songwriting muse so late in her career with the sublime 'Red Dirt Girl' and 'Stumble Into Grace' albums. There feels to me like there's still another great album left in Harris to round out a masterful trilogy and perhaps the most frustrating thing about 'All The Roadrunning' is that it delays that project probably by at least another couple of years. Still, this is still a meeting between two heavyweight singer-songwriters and, pleasingly, it has a good deal of merit, despite a tendency to drift into bland, over-polished productions.
The voices of Knopfler and Harris would not seem like the most comfortable of matches on paper. Knopfler has always had a laid back, half spoken delivery, whilst Harris' voice is one of the most distinctive and idiosyncratic in the country idiom (you can hear her influence now in the work of Iris DeMent). Yet, in recent years Harris has tempered her tendency to flick unpreditably between different vocal registers, and she sounds remarkably at ease here. Knopfler has also altered his style slightly but perceptibly - he sounds smoother and more considered here, and inhabits the country idiom with sympathetic understanding and genuine enthusiasm for the music. Initial reviews have complained that Harris is too frequently 'relegated' to providing harmony vocals, but this neglects the fact that she is the greatest living female harmony singer in this genre. To me, she seems to sing a fair amount of lead here anyway.
The songs here deal with long term romance, family life, domestic contentment and disappointment. A certain twee sentimentality pervades (of the kind that Iris DeMent captured more convincingly and with more variety on 'My Life') but doesn't smother the carefully contrived feel of the songs. None are quite as remarkable as any of the songs Harris penned for her last two albums (10 of the 12 are Knopfler compositions), but they are rarely anything less than pleasant. For the most part, Knopfler resists the urge to add lengthy virtuosic guitar solos into the mix, instead opting for intervening phrasing that neatly complements the vocal lines. There is an applealing range of pace - the title track has an endearing lilt, whilst 'This Is Us' is bristling rockabilly. Best of all is 'Rollin' On', with its slight hint of reggae rhythms, and the clear influence of Harris' 'Stumble Into Grace' album arriving at just the right time. On 'Red Staggerwing', Knopfler and Harris trade lines with genuine chemistry. Some may find all this a little too mawkish for comfort - but familiarity with the idiom suggests that the sincerity is not misplaced.
Some moments are nice enough - but the arrangements fail to take them anywhere particularly exciting. 'I Dug Up A Diamond' has a sweet melody, but Knopfler's delivery is so dry as to sound faintly disinterested. Throughout, the album suffers from errors of judgement in the production. The drum sound has been processed in that thoroughly distasteful eighties way, so that every snare beat sounds slightly artificial and is engineered to precisely the same volume. What drummer actually plays like this and what drum kit ever sound this way? Muso drummer objections aside, this is a satisfying and enjoyable album that doesn't quite achieve the kind of alchemy of which a combination of this kind of talent should be capable. It sounds genuine and carefully contrived - even if in its attempt to run 'all the road' it too often settles for staying in the middle.
Slipping quietly out with almost no fanfare is 'Born Again In The USA', the wittily titled second album from US indie supergroup Loose Fur, comprised of Jeff Tweedy and Glen Kotche from Wilco and the ubiquitous Jim O' Rourke. The first Loose Fur album remains one of the most criminally under-appreciated album of the decade so far - an ingeniously funny and explorative take on the traditional rock idiom. 'Born Again...' doesn't quite repeat the same trick, although it has plenty of zest and intelligence. O' Rourke's characteristically perverse humour provides what, for many, will be a most welcome counterpoint to Tweedy's tendency for 'woe-is-me' seriousness (in fact, even Tweedy lightens up a bit here) and Kotche's drumming contributions are ceaselessly unorthodox and inventive. The title hints at evangelism, and some of the songs here strike at the manipulating tendencies of fudamentalist religious perspectives with wry and pithy skill. Best of these is the supremely mordant 'The Ruling Class', which imagines a reborn Jesus in modern day America.
Musically, it's less oblique than Wilco's 'A Ghost Is Born' and arguably less considered too. It probably owes less to the recent Wilco albums than to O' Rourke's solo material, particularly the mix of wistful acoustic balladry and crunching riffage found on 'Insignificance'. There's plenty of that 70s harmonised lead guitar sound that adds a muso quality to the mix and which also renders the album marvellously unfashionable. The playing is undulating and unpredictable and the whole album has a sense of unbridled fun - any sense of pressure completely alleviated.
A rather different collaboration appears in the form of 'My Flame Burns Blue', a recording of a live concert performed by Elvis Costello with the Metropole Orkest. This excellent live album serves as a useful summary of Costello's work outside the guitar-dominated sound for which he is most well known, particularly his occasional dabbling in formal composition. More importantly, it also provides an essential rebuke to those critics who dismiss him for exploring different genres and approaches. This performance comes across neither as stuffy nor pretentious - at its best, it has a spontaneity not usually associated with arranged band music and benefits from some considered and effective reworkings of familiar material.
The material for this set has been thoughtfully selected, ranging as it does from rarely performed selections from the Attractions/Imposters repertoire to commissioned compositions for orchestras and music festivals. It opens with the relentless, roaring 'Hora Decubitas', Costello's own attempt to provide lyric and melody for a work by Charles Mingus. It also sees Costello attempting to get to grips with the horror and confusion of 9/11, which he does with considerably more subtlely than many others have managed. The title track also refashions the work of a legendary jazz composer - Billy Strayhorn - with appropriately powerful results.
The concert also captured a near-perfect balance between humour and emotional clarity. The latter is most clearly on display during a carefully controlled and powerful rendition of 'Favourite Hour', a song from the underrated 'Brutal Truth' album describing the build up to an execution. Similarly 'Speak Darkly, My Angel' and 'Almost Ideal Eyes' are characterised by depth and conviction. Elsewhere, both singer and band sound like they are having tremendous fun. The Metropole Orkest may be the only jazz big band with a string section, but this doesn't mean they lend themselves to the lachrymose. They have an Ellingtonian swing of the the highest order. All this comes to the fore on the intricate, highly entertaining arrangement of 'Clubland', which ignores convention in buckling unpredictably between sections covering entirely different rhythmic approaches. Also, the goofy take on 'Watching The Detectives' (delivered in the style of a seventies cop show theme) brings new light to one of Costello's most well known songs.
It's arguable that the arrangements sometimes become busy and over-complicated. In this light, it's striking that one of the most successful performances is 'Episode Of Blonde', where the Orkest cherry pick elements of the original arrangement that were played on guitar and reproduce them as piercingly accurate staccato brass interventions. The experiment mostly works comfortably, however, and Costello is in fine voice throughout. He sounds entirely comfortable fronting this substantial band and rarely ever sounds strained or hesitant. He really inhabits this alternative approach to his material. Costello recently said of Bettye Lavette that she was someone not content to stay within her comfort zone but was always pushing herself into new territory. That he has applied the same criteria to himself should be cause for celebration rather than cynical sniping. It's hard to believe that there will be a more comprehensively enjoyable live album this year.
Gnarls Barkley is neither a person, nor a character in a children's TV series. It is in fact a collaboration between producer du jour Dangermouse and singer/rapper Cee-Lo Green. Both have produced remarkable material on their own - Dangermouse with his infamous mash-up of The Beatles and Jay-Z, Green with his outstanding 2004 album 'Cee Lo Green Is The Soul Machine'. Their 'St Elsewhere' album is a stunning meeting of minds - and one of the most audacious and fascinating albums to break through into the pop mainstream in a long time.
Whereas most hip hop and R&B albums clock in at 70+ minutes and tend to suffer from indulgent interruptions in the form of skits and pointless instrumental jams, 'St. Elsewhere' is crisp and admirably brief. Predictably, production trickery abounds, from the playful manipulation of pitch and speed on the beserk 'Transformer', to the sleek hip hop atmospherics of 'Feng Shui'.
'St. Elsewhere' covers a bizarre and unusual range of genres, but Green's powerful vocals prove adept in a variety of contexts, from the soulful howling of the title track to the existential confusion of 'Just A Thought'. On the single 'Crazy', his nuanced vocals help create a timeless atmosphere, in spite of the obvious studio intervention. It's sublime. 'St. Elsewhere' is radically unpredictable, even taking in an entirely unexpected refashioning of The Violent Femmes' 'Gone Daddy Gone' which, if anything, amplifies the stark energy of the original. It even works when Dangermouse elects to put far too much into the mix. The opening 'Go Go Gadget Gospel' is a confounding mess of parping brass and layered vocals. It shouldn't work, but somehow it ends up making perfect sense.
Both artists seem to have brought their expertise to the project, and the credible artistry of both has arguably been enhanced rather than merely sustained by this challenging and highly enjoyable work.
Yet sometimes collaborations have real merits, and the pairings between celebrated independent artists rarely seem to gain a comparable level of attention from indie communities and the media. How else to explain the absurd absence of the Calexico/Iron and Wine project from all the major UK end of year lists? How else to explain the perversely indifferent reviews greeting 'The Brave and The Bold', a meeting of the glorious musical minds of Tortoise and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy? It's a comfortingly natural combination - although the dense analogue synths and jazz leanings of Tortoise do provide a refreshingly unfamiliar context for Will Oldham's well-worn and perpetually cracking vocals. 'The Brave and The Bold' is a pretty audacious title for an album, particularly when it's that most unfashionable and unpopular beast - a covers album. Yet this is no straightforward record - there are some peculiar song selections, ranging from the devoutly uncool (Elton John's 'Daniel', not necessarily a surprise when Oldham has previously covered R Kelly) to the predictably arty (Devo's 'That's Pep!'). It's undoubted highlight is an absolutely superb reworking of Bruce Springsteen's 'Thunder Road'. Most commentators have bemoaned the fact that the heady rush, Spector-esque excess and sheer bravado of Springsteen's original have been jettisoned here in favour of something more elusive. Well, good. There's no point in covering a song note for note - and Oldham here finds an inherent melancholic desolation beneath all the posturing. He bends the melody and produces a desparation and sadness that the Springsteen of Nebraska, Tom Joad and Devils and Dust would no doubt approve of. Behind him, Tortoise slow the song down to a Crazy Horse thud and pad out the sound with a range of analogue synth flourishes. Clarence Clemons' familiar cascading saxophone melody is retained at the song's climax, but is reworked as a minor key lament. If all cover versions could be this clever, then the art of song interpretation would still be alive and well.
Elsewhere, The Minutemen's 'It's Expected I'm Gone' is transformed from spiky attack to restrained avant-drone, the take on 'That's Pep!' best demonstrates Tortoise's rhythmic sophistication and Oldham's delivery of Richard Thompson's 'Cavalry Cross' is deeply felt and sympathetic, his occasional ironic smokescreen thoroughly cleared. This album works so well because it makes an eclectic song selection sound bizarrely logical and because, unlike Oldham's covers of his own material on the 'Greatest Palace Music' collection, there's no wilful perversity here, just sheer intelligence and genuine enthusiasm for the material.
The Scottish Arts Council have generously funded a joint project from former Belle and Sebastian member Isobel Campbell and former Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan. 'Ballad Of The Broken Seas' plays true to its title, with a meticulously crafted atmosphere and tension, recreating the sound of sea shanties and murder ballads so that it sounds traditional in the most evocative of ways. The arrangements are frequently superb, with the tremulous strings of 'The False Husband' and the propulsive percussion of 'Saturday's Gone' being particular highlights.
Still, there's no denying that something is missing here. The obvious comparisons with the work of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra have already been made - but they do Lee and Nancy something of a disservice. Whilst Campbell's delicate, slightly sinister vocals (she rarely rises above a whisper here) ought to work well with Lanegan's threatening drawl, there is rarely any kind of chemistry between the two. This may well be a product of Lanegan recording vocals in LA, with Campbell mostly recording her parts in Scotland. This kind of process occasionally yields inspired results, the best example probably being the Postal Service project, where Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello from Dntel worked separately to produce a collaborative work with greater impact than anything recorded by their respective bands. It hasn't yielded such impressive results here though. Some of the songs seem tentative, or perhaps even strangely unfinished. 'It's Hard To Kill A Bad Thing' for example is elegant and beautiful, and its wistful theme could have been developed into an excellent song. As an instrumental interlude however, it feels like mere filler. The waltzes ('Dusty Wreath' and '(Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me?') don't quite achieve the tension to which they clearly aspire, the former being somewhat soporiphic and the latter suffering badly from mismatched vocal parts.
Whilst this album reveals more with every listen, and it's satisfying to here Lanegan move away from his drug preoccupied lyrics, this lacks the stylistic diversity of his best solo work. The uniformity of pace and mood becomes a little stifling over the space of an entire album and, on the whole, the songs are not memorable enough to render it anything more than a pleasant curio. Clearly, there are pitfalls as well as virtues in transferring these projects from theory to reality.
Apparently, Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris have been working on the duets that comprise 'All The Roadrunning' in their spare time over the last seven years. If it really has been that long, it's an interesting possibility that it may have been Knopfler who encouraged Harris to pursue her songwriting muse so late in her career with the sublime 'Red Dirt Girl' and 'Stumble Into Grace' albums. There feels to me like there's still another great album left in Harris to round out a masterful trilogy and perhaps the most frustrating thing about 'All The Roadrunning' is that it delays that project probably by at least another couple of years. Still, this is still a meeting between two heavyweight singer-songwriters and, pleasingly, it has a good deal of merit, despite a tendency to drift into bland, over-polished productions.
The voices of Knopfler and Harris would not seem like the most comfortable of matches on paper. Knopfler has always had a laid back, half spoken delivery, whilst Harris' voice is one of the most distinctive and idiosyncratic in the country idiom (you can hear her influence now in the work of Iris DeMent). Yet, in recent years Harris has tempered her tendency to flick unpreditably between different vocal registers, and she sounds remarkably at ease here. Knopfler has also altered his style slightly but perceptibly - he sounds smoother and more considered here, and inhabits the country idiom with sympathetic understanding and genuine enthusiasm for the music. Initial reviews have complained that Harris is too frequently 'relegated' to providing harmony vocals, but this neglects the fact that she is the greatest living female harmony singer in this genre. To me, she seems to sing a fair amount of lead here anyway.
The songs here deal with long term romance, family life, domestic contentment and disappointment. A certain twee sentimentality pervades (of the kind that Iris DeMent captured more convincingly and with more variety on 'My Life') but doesn't smother the carefully contrived feel of the songs. None are quite as remarkable as any of the songs Harris penned for her last two albums (10 of the 12 are Knopfler compositions), but they are rarely anything less than pleasant. For the most part, Knopfler resists the urge to add lengthy virtuosic guitar solos into the mix, instead opting for intervening phrasing that neatly complements the vocal lines. There is an applealing range of pace - the title track has an endearing lilt, whilst 'This Is Us' is bristling rockabilly. Best of all is 'Rollin' On', with its slight hint of reggae rhythms, and the clear influence of Harris' 'Stumble Into Grace' album arriving at just the right time. On 'Red Staggerwing', Knopfler and Harris trade lines with genuine chemistry. Some may find all this a little too mawkish for comfort - but familiarity with the idiom suggests that the sincerity is not misplaced.
Some moments are nice enough - but the arrangements fail to take them anywhere particularly exciting. 'I Dug Up A Diamond' has a sweet melody, but Knopfler's delivery is so dry as to sound faintly disinterested. Throughout, the album suffers from errors of judgement in the production. The drum sound has been processed in that thoroughly distasteful eighties way, so that every snare beat sounds slightly artificial and is engineered to precisely the same volume. What drummer actually plays like this and what drum kit ever sound this way? Muso drummer objections aside, this is a satisfying and enjoyable album that doesn't quite achieve the kind of alchemy of which a combination of this kind of talent should be capable. It sounds genuine and carefully contrived - even if in its attempt to run 'all the road' it too often settles for staying in the middle.
Slipping quietly out with almost no fanfare is 'Born Again In The USA', the wittily titled second album from US indie supergroup Loose Fur, comprised of Jeff Tweedy and Glen Kotche from Wilco and the ubiquitous Jim O' Rourke. The first Loose Fur album remains one of the most criminally under-appreciated album of the decade so far - an ingeniously funny and explorative take on the traditional rock idiom. 'Born Again...' doesn't quite repeat the same trick, although it has plenty of zest and intelligence. O' Rourke's characteristically perverse humour provides what, for many, will be a most welcome counterpoint to Tweedy's tendency for 'woe-is-me' seriousness (in fact, even Tweedy lightens up a bit here) and Kotche's drumming contributions are ceaselessly unorthodox and inventive. The title hints at evangelism, and some of the songs here strike at the manipulating tendencies of fudamentalist religious perspectives with wry and pithy skill. Best of these is the supremely mordant 'The Ruling Class', which imagines a reborn Jesus in modern day America.
Musically, it's less oblique than Wilco's 'A Ghost Is Born' and arguably less considered too. It probably owes less to the recent Wilco albums than to O' Rourke's solo material, particularly the mix of wistful acoustic balladry and crunching riffage found on 'Insignificance'. There's plenty of that 70s harmonised lead guitar sound that adds a muso quality to the mix and which also renders the album marvellously unfashionable. The playing is undulating and unpredictable and the whole album has a sense of unbridled fun - any sense of pressure completely alleviated.
A rather different collaboration appears in the form of 'My Flame Burns Blue', a recording of a live concert performed by Elvis Costello with the Metropole Orkest. This excellent live album serves as a useful summary of Costello's work outside the guitar-dominated sound for which he is most well known, particularly his occasional dabbling in formal composition. More importantly, it also provides an essential rebuke to those critics who dismiss him for exploring different genres and approaches. This performance comes across neither as stuffy nor pretentious - at its best, it has a spontaneity not usually associated with arranged band music and benefits from some considered and effective reworkings of familiar material.
The material for this set has been thoughtfully selected, ranging as it does from rarely performed selections from the Attractions/Imposters repertoire to commissioned compositions for orchestras and music festivals. It opens with the relentless, roaring 'Hora Decubitas', Costello's own attempt to provide lyric and melody for a work by Charles Mingus. It also sees Costello attempting to get to grips with the horror and confusion of 9/11, which he does with considerably more subtlely than many others have managed. The title track also refashions the work of a legendary jazz composer - Billy Strayhorn - with appropriately powerful results.
The concert also captured a near-perfect balance between humour and emotional clarity. The latter is most clearly on display during a carefully controlled and powerful rendition of 'Favourite Hour', a song from the underrated 'Brutal Truth' album describing the build up to an execution. Similarly 'Speak Darkly, My Angel' and 'Almost Ideal Eyes' are characterised by depth and conviction. Elsewhere, both singer and band sound like they are having tremendous fun. The Metropole Orkest may be the only jazz big band with a string section, but this doesn't mean they lend themselves to the lachrymose. They have an Ellingtonian swing of the the highest order. All this comes to the fore on the intricate, highly entertaining arrangement of 'Clubland', which ignores convention in buckling unpredictably between sections covering entirely different rhythmic approaches. Also, the goofy take on 'Watching The Detectives' (delivered in the style of a seventies cop show theme) brings new light to one of Costello's most well known songs.
It's arguable that the arrangements sometimes become busy and over-complicated. In this light, it's striking that one of the most successful performances is 'Episode Of Blonde', where the Orkest cherry pick elements of the original arrangement that were played on guitar and reproduce them as piercingly accurate staccato brass interventions. The experiment mostly works comfortably, however, and Costello is in fine voice throughout. He sounds entirely comfortable fronting this substantial band and rarely ever sounds strained or hesitant. He really inhabits this alternative approach to his material. Costello recently said of Bettye Lavette that she was someone not content to stay within her comfort zone but was always pushing herself into new territory. That he has applied the same criteria to himself should be cause for celebration rather than cynical sniping. It's hard to believe that there will be a more comprehensively enjoyable live album this year.
Gnarls Barkley is neither a person, nor a character in a children's TV series. It is in fact a collaboration between producer du jour Dangermouse and singer/rapper Cee-Lo Green. Both have produced remarkable material on their own - Dangermouse with his infamous mash-up of The Beatles and Jay-Z, Green with his outstanding 2004 album 'Cee Lo Green Is The Soul Machine'. Their 'St Elsewhere' album is a stunning meeting of minds - and one of the most audacious and fascinating albums to break through into the pop mainstream in a long time.
Whereas most hip hop and R&B albums clock in at 70+ minutes and tend to suffer from indulgent interruptions in the form of skits and pointless instrumental jams, 'St. Elsewhere' is crisp and admirably brief. Predictably, production trickery abounds, from the playful manipulation of pitch and speed on the beserk 'Transformer', to the sleek hip hop atmospherics of 'Feng Shui'.
'St. Elsewhere' covers a bizarre and unusual range of genres, but Green's powerful vocals prove adept in a variety of contexts, from the soulful howling of the title track to the existential confusion of 'Just A Thought'. On the single 'Crazy', his nuanced vocals help create a timeless atmosphere, in spite of the obvious studio intervention. It's sublime. 'St. Elsewhere' is radically unpredictable, even taking in an entirely unexpected refashioning of The Violent Femmes' 'Gone Daddy Gone' which, if anything, amplifies the stark energy of the original. It even works when Dangermouse elects to put far too much into the mix. The opening 'Go Go Gadget Gospel' is a confounding mess of parping brass and layered vocals. It shouldn't work, but somehow it ends up making perfect sense.
Both artists seem to have brought their expertise to the project, and the credible artistry of both has arguably been enhanced rather than merely sustained by this challenging and highly enjoyable work.
Monday, March 06, 2006
At War With Their Instincts?
Ever since they truly surpassed themselves with a pair of humane masterpieces in 4-disc freakfest 'Zaireeka' and the more accessibile 1999 triumph 'The Soft Bulletin', The Flaming Lips have had the unenviable task of keeping up with themselves. Though their last album 'Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots' was richly enjoyable, its bleepy production values caused it to sound rather of its time, while its two immediate predecessors remain incontrovertibly timeless. For the long-awaited 'At War With The Mystics', the band promised a return to a more organic sound. This is something they have largely delivered, but without diminishing the emphasis on production trickery and unusual arrangements. At its best, 'At War...' is fascinating and hypnotic, but it's also the least accessible and most schizophrenic Flaming Lips album for some time.
'At War...' cannot quite decide if it wants to be a purposeful regression back to the days when The Lips were quirky pop outsiders, or whether it wants to retain the meticulously crafted ambition of 'Yoshimi...'s' more melancholy moments. There are certainly familiar (and frequently unfashionably proggy) themes here - mortality, the overwhelming mystery of life, magic, wizards - but an over-arching concept is perhaps harder to discern. Uncut magazine, yet to print a full review, are already hailing it as the perfect encapsulation of Gram Parson's theory of 'cosmic American music'. After several listens, the album's peculiar splendour starts to reveal itself - but the sublime and emotive highlights are much more elusive than, say, 'Waitin' For A Superman' or 'Fight Test'.
There are some fine pop moments, which may be close relatives of Beck-doing-Prince on 'Midnight Vultures'. 'The WAND' is probably the best of these - ushered in by admirably fuzzy bass and a uniquely rousing chorus chant. 'Free Radicals' is rhythmically inventive, and offers the shock of Wayne Coyne attempting a seventies soul falsetto. 'It Overtakes Me' is great, uncharacteristically minimal and with another deceptively simple fuzz bass groove. Despite these, the opening 'The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song', with its wry analysis of the trappings of power, may well be the only obvious choice of single. Even this delivers a much starker sound.
This being a Flaming Lips album, it also contains its fair share of widescreen epics. The best of these is the double whammy of 'The Sound Of Failure/It's Dark...Is It Always This Dark', six or so minutes of music which luxuriate in a rich variety of sound textures. It's brilliantly arranged, with entrancing synths and endearing twangy guitars. Its bound to be a firm fan favourite as well, with its sly pop culture references to Britney and Gwen. 'Vein Of Stars' captures that familiar Lips melancholic uncertainty, but with greater emphasis on acoustic guitar strumming than in the past. The album's centrepiece, and least immediate track is 'My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion', a grandiose and emotive track that feels perhaps a little calculated in its intentions.
On 'Mr. Ambulance Driver' and closing track 'Goin' On', the album's sonic ideas are crystallised into compact epics. Wayne Coyne's voice is strangely muted on both, and the melodies are subtle, but both tracks are quietly touching. The latter provides a sophisticated closing note for the album and both tracks provide a satisfying escape from the more self-conscious expansiveness found elsewhere.
It's undeniably pleasing to hear the band moving away from the now over-familiar dynamics that characterise their work with producer Dave Fridmann - for the most part, the thunderous drums seem to have been consigned to the past. Most of 'At War...' is typically ambitious, robust and impressive - and it represents an admirable challenge to the rest of the rock mainstream. There are few other bands who follow their muse quite as doggedly as The Flaming Lips whilst simultaneously managing to sustain a still expanding audience. That it doesn't quite cohere into an innately brilliant whole as 'The Soft Bulletin' did is more a product of the band having too many ideas than too few.
Whilst many have already remarked that Morrissey sounds almost content on 'Ringleaders Of The Tormentors', this album places him in a remarkably similar position to that of The Lips, and sees him dealing with similar concerns (particularly a preoccupation with mortality). 'You Are The Quarry' not only re-established his pre-eminence but also elevated him to performer in Britain's enormodomes (why does Morrissey in Earl's Court still seem like an uncomfortable idea - despite the artist's undoubted cultural importance?) and as a consequence Morrissey now once again has to deal with the weight of expectation. He has certainly faced the challenge directly this time, relocating to Rome and drafting in Tony Visconti as producer, as well as an extra guitarist and songwriter in the shape of Jesse Tobias, perhaps hoping to produce something yet more ambitious and striking.
For those of us who feel the treatment handed out to Moz around the time of 'Southpaw Grammar' and 'Maladjusted' was somewhat unjustified (both albums had their merits), the pre-release hype hailing 'Ringleader...' as his very best work may well appear slightly nauseating. Even with its child choirs, portentous timpani and Ennio Morricone collaborations, it's not quite the fully-fledged Morrissey masterpiece some commentators have predicted. Like most of his other albums, the material is a mite variable. There is certainly one absolute positive, however - and that is that Morrissey is without a doubt in his best voice here and has clearly been striving hard to overcome his limited vocal range, without sacrificing a shred of his persona or character in the process. As a result, even the more generic tracks here have real bite.
The thematic focus on contentment and a newfound sexual forthrightness are probably founded mostly on 'At Last I Am Born', the album's dramatic closer. It's a brilliant song, enhanced by spaghetti western twang and military drum beats. It describes a liberation from the shackles of 'guilt because of the flesh', but not without some characteristically deadpan irony ('I used to think that time accentuates despair...but now I don't actually care!'). It's certainly a more inclusive and affecting finale than 'You Know I Couldn't Last', the extended whinge that concluded '...Quarry'.
Nevertheless, those that dismiss Morrissey as a tedious whinger (and therefore miss his humour!) will probably not be converted by most of 'Ringleader...'. 'The Youngest Was The Most Loved' is yet another song about a cherished child turning into a violent killer. It's crisp, and bolstered by a triumphant chorus, complete with slightly grating Italian child choir ('There is no such thing in life as normal!') but doesn't really deliver anything we haven't heard before. The album's other superb highlight, 'Dear God Please Help Me' discusses a range of sexual frustrations with determined frankness ('there are explosive kegs between my legs!'...ouch!), including being propositioned by someone of the same sex ('then he motions to me with his hand on my knee/Dear God did this kind of thing happen to you?') before concluding with 'spreading your legs with mine in between'. That the gender of the spreadee is not entirely clear will no doubt attract some familiar murmurings regarding Morrissey's sexuality, but this is all beside the point. 'Dear God...' is one of his most dramatic and intensely rendered performances and musically, it shows admirable restraint by holding back on the volume and producing an arrangement which swells rather than soars.
Elsewhere, there is a thunderous opener, 'I Will See You In Far Off Places', which makes rather more comfortable deployment of modern production values than the tepid synth strings and Dido-bongos of '..Quarry''s more frustrating moments. It's not particularly elaborate lyrically, but it has a nice line in contrasting bombast and foreboding with the promise of the 'far off places'. It's one of those list songs, essentially. First single 'You Have Killed Me' is Morrissey at his most infectious, and it already sounds like a pithy classic - with all the literate qualities we have come to expect from Moz. It namechecks Pier Paolo Pasolini ('Pasolini is me/Accatone, you'll be') before going on to reference Visconti (presumably Luchino, although it's amusing to note the more immediate presence of producer Tony) and Anna Magnani in the second verse. The lyrical theme is skeletal and characteristically stretched to complete the song, but it works well in this case. The chorus is innately hummable, and introduces vocal harmonies, something not usually heard on a Morrissey song and further evidence of his recent vocal development.
'On The Streets I Ran', 'I Just Want To See The Boy Happy', 'The Father Who Must Be Killed' and 'In The Future When All's Well' are crunchy rockers, with rather less musical depth than pre-release hype has suggested. Morrissey's vocals are full of conviction and brio, though, and the songs certainly rattle along. The latter particularly carries a weighty punch, although I can't help but suspect it's songs like this which lead people to dismiss Morrissey's band as workmanlike, usually unfairly.
The lingering impression of the album though is harboured in its slower-paced, more blatantly grandiose statements. 'Life Is A Pigsty' starts superbly, with a droning synth pad, off-kilter piano and loosely funky drum beat, initially sounding completely unlike anything Morrissey has attempted before. The melody meanders somewhat though, and the song then gives way completely to a more predictably epic sound. It's impressive, but perhaps all a little unmoving. 'I'll Never Be Anyone's Hero Now' is a frank lament, with a brilliant vocal performance that more than compensates for the slightly clunky arrangement.
'Ringleader...' comes complete with all the necessary constituents of a great Morrissey album, right down to song titles which border on self parody. Its highlights are commanding, and some of the best songs of the solo Morrissey canon. It doesn't quite sustain its qualities for its entire duration though. Whilst it largely dispenses with the more trivial production flourishes of '..Quarry' (and also with that album's propensity for pot shots at rather obvious targets), it doesn't quite attain the rather grand heights to which it so clearly aspires. The preoccupations with sex and death certainly add different (if not entirely new) dimensions to Morrissey's poetic oeuvre, but there is also a nagging sense that since his period of exile, some of his distinctively British social satire has been lost. This may well be explained by those accusations of racism following Finsbury Park and 'The National Front Disco', but if there's a next time, it would be great if he could couple his now indisputably iconic persona with some more witty observations again.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Shaking Hands With The Avant Garde
This collaboration between legendary drummer Steve Reid (who has worked in such varied contexts as Miles Davis' last major recording band on the 'Tutu' album and session sticksman for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas) and electronic maverick Kieran Hebden (Four Tet, Fridge) is a mouth watering prospect. Hebden leant some electronic effects to Reid's excellent 'Spirit Walk' album last year, and this album is the result of just one day's session between the two. As the somewhat gushing sleevenotes are pained to point out - this is all live, with no overdubs or retakes. Laptop improvisation can be stiflingly emotionless and sterile - but Reid's inventive drumming, which places the emphasis much more on sound and texture than virtuosic technique, provides much of the human warmth here. It's fascinating to hear an album which is almost entirely devoid of melody, yet sounds so compelling and enticing.
The obvious reference point is the jazz tradition from which Reid comes, and which Hebden so obviously adores - the 'spiritual jazz' model of John and Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Yusuf Lateef and, especially, Sun Ra. Reid's combinations of atmospheric bells and quietly grooving insistence captures this tradition effortlessly and, for the most part, Hebden has found the sounds to match. The least effective moments come when Hebden seems to use samples of the kind of squawking saxophone you might expect to hear on a late period John Coltrane record - this technique seems a little regressive and obvious. Yet, it's kept to a relative minimum, and particularly on the lengthy final track, the two seem to have found an integration that is instinctive and insightful, Hebden producing some unusual and hypnotic electronic sounds.
Both musicians are brave enough to take their ideas and extrapolate them, and whilst the three lengthy tracks do indeed switch between styles, the rhythms and sounds are given plenty of time to settle and they certainly become transfixing. This will be a completely alien world for those weaned on commercial rock and pop - but it is a world full where intelligent ideas, feel and emotion need not be mutually exclusive.
Then there's 'Drum's Not Dead', the third album from Liars and already one of the most uncompromising and extraordinary albums of 2006. It's not as if this has ever been a band to shirk pretensions or affectations (just look at their penchant for lengthy album titles) but the major transformation they underwent with their last full-length ('They Were Wrong So We Drowned') succeeded in alienating a substantial portion of their fanbase. Still, it was a much more original prospect than their more generic debut and those that stuck with the band will now consider themselves amply rewarded.
'Drum's Not Dead' is an exotic and highly unusual album - a near continuous barrage of sound incorporating primitive, duelling drumming and droning guitar effects. Threading it all together is unfathomably tall singer Angus Andrew's bizarre falsetto, and a concept involving two characters, Drum and Mt. Heart Attack, that I've yet to really get my head around. Still, the last album was all about witches, so that shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to the initiated.
Musically, it's not too far away from the noise experiments of early Animal Collective (circa 'Spirit They've Gone...'), but it's less folksy and much denser. Whilst it occasionally achieves passages of eerie calm, much of the album is menacing and uncomfortable. The twin attack of 'A Visit From Drum' and 'Drum Gets A Glimpse' makes for the album's high point, the relentlessly pounding drums beating out some kind of frightening portent. Quite what it's all about is anybody's guess, but it provides a perverse and irrational thrill.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Comedy and Music Do Mix!
A new album from The Broken Family Band is always cause for rejoicing - all the more so in the case of 'Balls' because it represents a welcome regression from the polite and polished production of 'Welcome Home Loser' back to the raw country-punk sound they have so well defined for themselves. In this era of restrictive record company schedules, this band are thrillingly prolific and, even though they are arguably yet to produce the consistently outstanding album they are so clearly capable of, they've written more great songs in their five year career than most bands manage in double that time.
We might as well get the criticism out of the way first - 'Balls' yet again seems to suffer from the sequencing problems that have muted the impact of previous BFB albums. Recent live shows have promised some raucous and aggressive material for this album and it doesn't disappoint. Yet, the rougher, noisier tracks are all concentrated in the first half of the album, from the brilliantly unhinged 'You're Like A Woman' through to the rampant 'I'm Thirsty'. Only the spectacularly demented take on Leonard Cohen's 'Diamonds In The Mine' and the (perhaps irritatingly) jaunty 'Michelle' break the more melancholy preoccupations of the album's second half. This is not to suggest that the second half of 'Balls' is weak (it actually contains some of the band's most affecting songs), but the album might have made for a more fulfilling listen if the contrast between the two tempos were not so marked.
Still, the band is certainly on top form here, and 'Balls' represents another small but accomplished step towards gathering a wider audience. That it achieves this without the hints at compromise the band made on 'Welcome Home Loser' makes it feel special. This is their best attempt thus far at capturing their live sound on disc.
Despite my earlier comments, it's also one of their more diverse records. There's the fatalistic slow stomp of 'It's All Over', the mournful 'Alone In The Make Out Room' (with a wonderful performance from special guest Piney Gir of the Scha-La-Las, perhaps playing Tammy to Steven Adams' George Jones) and even hints at the more dirgey, mysterious lo-fi sound of Adams' solo project in the elusive 'I See How You Are'. Adams is on dependably barbarous form lyrically, with 'You're Like A Woman' and 'The Booze and The Drugs' particularly good examples of his savage wit.
It's a blistering record - full of rollicking, propulsive rhythms and deceptively vulnerable melodies. It takes an audacious band to give their album such a laughable title and get away with it. Note too that there's no exclamation mark - this is as dry and forthright as humorous songwriting gets.
Are BFB familiar with Sparks perhaps? This most undervalued of bands also released an album called 'Balls' a few years back. They now return with their latest full-length 'Hello Young Lovers' which, suprisingly and pleasingly, seems to have come with a barrage of new industry interest and press fascination. There was even a feature about them on Newsnight a couple of weeks ago! Ron Mael still looks like Hitler more than his intended Charlie Chaplin and, more disturbingly, Russell Mael seems to increasingly resemble Wee Jimmy Krankie (check out the photos on the inlay card - it's true).
'Hello Young Lovers' takes the high-camp, mock-operatic preoccupations of their masterful 'Lil Beethoven' album to new extremes, adding some hilarious heavy metal distorted guitars and even the odd bit of clattering percussion. It's not as austere as it's predecessor - but it shares its characteristically ingenious songwriting. Sometimes they stretch their ideas a little too far and many of the tracks here could have benefited from some more ruthless pruning. Still, there's plenty of richly ironic charm on display here.
The opener 'Dick Around' is brilliant - flitting schizophrenically between styles and tempos and establishing its own distinctively madcap approach. Similarly, the barmy 'As I Sit Down To Play Organ in the Notre Dame Cathedral' and '(Baby Baby) Can I Invade Your Country?' benefit from audacious and peculiar arrangements, like musical theatre without the forced emotion and unconvincing earnestness. The latter is essentially the Sparks corruption of the Star Spangled Banner, creating a thinly veiled satire of American foreign policy through innuendo-laden lyrics. It's marvellous but, inexplicably, some of the hilarious lyrics of a version that appeared on a free CD with Word Magazine seem to have been excised from this version.
They can do simple ideas just as brilliantly though - from the single 'Perfume' which is basically just a list of fragrances, each verse ending with the caveat 'but you don't wear no perfume/That's why I want to spend my life with you'. 'Metaphor' dissects the age old notion that reciting poetry makes for a good seduction techinique. It also sounds like cheerleading ('chicks dig dig D-I-G metaphors!').
Any album this reliant on ornate, florid arrangements and highly unfashionable synth strings should not work - but it does. 'Hello Young Lovers' is everything great pop music should be - infectious, hilarious, shameless and deeply silly.
Monday, February 20, 2006
A Weekend Hard On The Hearing
Tilly and The Wall/Emmy The Great/Frankie Machine/The Long Beach
Attack! Attack! at the Buffalo Bar – 19th Feb 2006
Blimey - I've been out three times in as many nights. That hardly happens these days! A great night at Bosh! at the Barfly on Friday (with a rousing, spirited performance from Roll Deep), Union at ULU on Saturday (with the excellent reggae/hip hop hybrid Nullbug) and finally this superb night at the Buffalo Bar in Highbury. What a great event. Four artists of consistently engaging quality, DJs spinning a mind boggling variety of great music (Smog, Annie, Prince and, ahem, Bon Jovi all featured), quick changeovers between the artists – it’s just a shame that the venue doesn’t serve any decent beer. The good folks at Exercise 1 Recordings assembled a really great line-up for this one, with new Moshi Moshi signings Tilly and The Wall topping the bill. All the acts were different and highly individualistic - but presenting them at the same event seemed logical and considered, rather than the usual ragbag of mediocrity you tend to find at small-ish London venues.
I have to concede that opening act The Long Beach didn’t do all that much for me. I suspect it was something to do with their penchant for aggressive strumming of amplified (and frequently distorted) acoustic guitars, along with some slightly grating and earnest vocals. There was probably plenty to admire in these songs, but there seemed to be a fair bit of over-emoting smothering it all.
Thank goodness then for Frankie Machine, guitarist for MJ Hibbett’s Validators and excellent songwriter in his own right, bringing some poise, wit and subtlety to the occasion. These songs are delicate and tender, yet also wise and sympathetic. It was probably inevitable that the crowd would talk through his quietly compelling set, as the emphasis was very much on the ‘quiet’ – but this should do nothing to detract from a performance that was both considered and warm.
It’s somewhat ridiculous that this was the first live performance I’ve managed to catch from Emmy The Great, an associate of Jeremy Warmsley and outstandingly imposing singer-songwriter. This is love-it-or-hate-it-stuff: Quirky, elaborate and highly tangential prose poems delivered in a voice that oscillates unpredictably between something soothing and bitingly harsh. Naturally, I loved it! Emmy’s quirky demeanour on stage (an individual dress sense, right down to the classic gym plimsoles and a tendency to lean towards the microphone awkwardly to emphasise certain elements of the lyrics) adds to the overall impression that she could easily earn her place in the pantheon of Great British eccentrics. There are elements of the insularity of Kate Bush or Bill Fay, but she avoids pretension by achieving a quirkiness which seems natural rather than hard-won and also through deploying some ingratiating humour. One song has a lyric which goes something like ‘I was doing alright/Until you came and spoiled it/Every time I see you/I have to rush to the toilet/I don’t know if it’s love or just a stomach disorder…’ If that’s not audacious enough, she goes on to rhyme disorder with ‘aorta’! This was genuinely one of the most striking and powerful performances from a singer-songwriter I’ve seen in recent years, even if she was in a hurry to get off stage to see the headliners. She’s about to go on tour with Euros Childs – definitely one not to miss!
Tilly and The Wall are apparently associates of Conor Oberst and the whole Saddle Creek scene, but they reject his frustrating excesses with something much more whimsical. It’s the sort of thing that works very well in small doses, and tonight it would have been churlish to resist their appealing mix of Phil Spector girl-pop, high school cheerleading, childlike wonder and tap dancing. Yes – tap dancing! There’s no drummer on stage, but plenty of intricate rhythmic invention nonetheless. Whilst this could so easily have been a gimmick too far, it probably avoided the band from becoming yet another lightly chugging indie act. It all felt a little frivolous for sure, but delightfully so, and these infectious, enervating songs made for a neat contrast to the introspection of the support acts. Were there enough room in the somewhat cramped venue, they would certainly have got the crowd dancing. They maintained a high level of energy throughout, and although much of the album got an airing – the new songs seemed to be the most memorable, hinting that there may be a future in the long term for this charming and highly entertaining band.
Attack! Attack! at the Buffalo Bar – 19th Feb 2006
Blimey - I've been out three times in as many nights. That hardly happens these days! A great night at Bosh! at the Barfly on Friday (with a rousing, spirited performance from Roll Deep), Union at ULU on Saturday (with the excellent reggae/hip hop hybrid Nullbug) and finally this superb night at the Buffalo Bar in Highbury. What a great event. Four artists of consistently engaging quality, DJs spinning a mind boggling variety of great music (Smog, Annie, Prince and, ahem, Bon Jovi all featured), quick changeovers between the artists – it’s just a shame that the venue doesn’t serve any decent beer. The good folks at Exercise 1 Recordings assembled a really great line-up for this one, with new Moshi Moshi signings Tilly and The Wall topping the bill. All the acts were different and highly individualistic - but presenting them at the same event seemed logical and considered, rather than the usual ragbag of mediocrity you tend to find at small-ish London venues.
I have to concede that opening act The Long Beach didn’t do all that much for me. I suspect it was something to do with their penchant for aggressive strumming of amplified (and frequently distorted) acoustic guitars, along with some slightly grating and earnest vocals. There was probably plenty to admire in these songs, but there seemed to be a fair bit of over-emoting smothering it all.
Thank goodness then for Frankie Machine, guitarist for MJ Hibbett’s Validators and excellent songwriter in his own right, bringing some poise, wit and subtlety to the occasion. These songs are delicate and tender, yet also wise and sympathetic. It was probably inevitable that the crowd would talk through his quietly compelling set, as the emphasis was very much on the ‘quiet’ – but this should do nothing to detract from a performance that was both considered and warm.
It’s somewhat ridiculous that this was the first live performance I’ve managed to catch from Emmy The Great, an associate of Jeremy Warmsley and outstandingly imposing singer-songwriter. This is love-it-or-hate-it-stuff: Quirky, elaborate and highly tangential prose poems delivered in a voice that oscillates unpredictably between something soothing and bitingly harsh. Naturally, I loved it! Emmy’s quirky demeanour on stage (an individual dress sense, right down to the classic gym plimsoles and a tendency to lean towards the microphone awkwardly to emphasise certain elements of the lyrics) adds to the overall impression that she could easily earn her place in the pantheon of Great British eccentrics. There are elements of the insularity of Kate Bush or Bill Fay, but she avoids pretension by achieving a quirkiness which seems natural rather than hard-won and also through deploying some ingratiating humour. One song has a lyric which goes something like ‘I was doing alright/Until you came and spoiled it/Every time I see you/I have to rush to the toilet/I don’t know if it’s love or just a stomach disorder…’ If that’s not audacious enough, she goes on to rhyme disorder with ‘aorta’! This was genuinely one of the most striking and powerful performances from a singer-songwriter I’ve seen in recent years, even if she was in a hurry to get off stage to see the headliners. She’s about to go on tour with Euros Childs – definitely one not to miss!
Tilly and The Wall are apparently associates of Conor Oberst and the whole Saddle Creek scene, but they reject his frustrating excesses with something much more whimsical. It’s the sort of thing that works very well in small doses, and tonight it would have been churlish to resist their appealing mix of Phil Spector girl-pop, high school cheerleading, childlike wonder and tap dancing. Yes – tap dancing! There’s no drummer on stage, but plenty of intricate rhythmic invention nonetheless. Whilst this could so easily have been a gimmick too far, it probably avoided the band from becoming yet another lightly chugging indie act. It all felt a little frivolous for sure, but delightfully so, and these infectious, enervating songs made for a neat contrast to the introspection of the support acts. Were there enough room in the somewhat cramped venue, they would certainly have got the crowd dancing. They maintained a high level of energy throughout, and although much of the album got an airing – the new songs seemed to be the most memorable, hinting that there may be a future in the long term for this charming and highly entertaining band.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
The Calm After The Storm
Brad Mehldau Trio - The Barbican Hall 13/2/06
The Gossip - Cargo 11/2/06
The Gossip - Cargo 11/2/06
For all the rapturous acclaim he frequently receives, I've struggled to appreciate Brad Mehldau (the otherwise rational John Fordham has just given one of the dates on this tour a five star review in The Guardian). Most baffling of all is the fact that he is hailed as an innovator for tackling popular songs, when more inventive acts such as The Bad Plus are often regarded with suspicion for taking a similar approach, albeit with much less reverence for the material. Still, with a ticket given to me as payment in kind for a couple of recording sessions, I went to this show determined to keep an open mind. Sadly, I remain unconvinced.
A handful of impressive moments peppered this set from this new trio (drummer Jeff Ballard has joined Mehldau and bassist Larry Grenadier during the past twelve months). Mehldau certainly has a talent for drawing out every last breath of musicality from his unorthodox repertoire. Although it started tentatively, the opening take on Nick Drake's 'Day Is Done' swelled to something approaching majesty, without resorting to ratcheting up the volume. The furious, fast-paced take on Radiohead's 'Knives Out' was curiously effective, although it largely dispensed with the nervous, reflective mood of the original. Ballard sustained some rigorous hard-bop style swinging, which almost directly opposed Mehldau's audacious stretching of the melody and fluid, elegant improvising. It made for a striking contrast. Best of all was the new interpretation of Soundgarden's 'Black Hole Sun' - a piece of music that, for me at least, could easily have felt stilted through over-familiarity. The trio handled it adroitly though, turning it from sludgy rock ballad into something both limber and haunting.
Still, it's difficult to see why Mehldau is frequently placed at the very vanguard of contemporary jazz. Much of his playing tonight seemed defiantly classicist - rooted much more in the conservatories of Central and Eastern Europe than the jazz clubs of New York City. This is a criticism that has been levelled against Keith Jarrett in the past - and more recently against the new wave of contemplative piano trios led by Esbjorn Svensson and Tord Gustavsen. Yet whilst Svensson and Gustavsen achieve a meditative calm, Mehldau's playing feels limited by formalism and conceptual theory. There's little spirituality or soul to be found in tonight's set. The worst culprits are Mehldau's own nameless compositions, which meander in fairly sleepy and aimless fashion.
The most exploratory musician on stage was drummer Jeff Ballard, who seemed determined to display the whole gamut of possible sounds from the drum kit. He tapped on stands, played the rims and even dispensed with sticks altogether, using the kit as a set of hand drums. This could frequently be compelling, but often to the detriment of the music, particularly when the trio drifted between a plethora of different ideas, often failing to establish a coherent mood or feel before trying something else. The encore of McCartney's 'She's Leaving Home' veered off at several tangents, with Ballard somewhat pointlessly switching between three different tambourines and disrupting the stately rhythm in the process. It probably didn't help that, despite their longstanding acceptance within the jazz canon, McCartney's compositions do not necessarily benefit from this kind of academic exposition. All the lingering melancholy of the original seemed to have been sidelined in Mehldau's needlessly florid arrangement. The band worked much better when they settled on a sustained and cohesive exploration of a single idea - such as on 'Knives Out' or the closing minutes of 'Day Is Done'. Such moments were sadly not frequent enough to enliven what was mostly an unenlightening performance. Whilst there was plenty to admire in this trio's control and dynamic subtlety, there was also little to really inspire or move.
Whilst Mehldau's trio maintained a rigorously stately demeanour, Saturday's performance from The Gossip could not be gutsier. Similarly, whilst Mehldau was studied, this was in keeping with the untutored, DIY ethos of punk. Swigging whisky and denouncing the evil machinations of the mainstream music industry at every opportunity, singer Beth put in a splendidly shameless performance which was almost magnetic in its intensity. Subtlety is not really this band's strong point, but then that's not really what they're about, and this show at Cargo was drenched in sweat resulting from a primal blues fever.
The band produce a frightful noise from a bare bones line-up of just guitar, drums and vocals (although there is a switch to bass for the delightfully groovy 'Listen Up' - More Cowbell!). The pace is pretty much relentless, although balance is provided by the exquisitely soulful 'Coal To Diamonds', which demonstrated a more considered side to Beth's vocal delivery. Particularly awesome was a brisk and taut performance of the title track from new album 'Standing In The Way Of Control' and a barnstorming 'Yesterday's News', with Beth performing from within the audience.
It was all riotously entertaining, if a little brief (in keeping with the mercilessly concise nature of their recorded output) and very pleasing to see an old friend from school days (Irene Revell) getting credit from the band for organising the Ladyfest tour that first brought them to the UK.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Hyperbole, Eccentricity and Rapture
2006's first releases offer rich pickings and opportunities for debunking media myths.
We're only a few weeks into the year, but already there's plenty to get through. Given that many commentators have decided the album of the year already, we might as well start with what may be the most hyped album released during my lifetime. The mainstream media (especially the broadsheet newspapers, who are for once as guilty as the NME) have outdone themselves by constructing an exquisite paradox around The Arctic Monkeys. The critical orthodoxy states that here is a band who made it big purely via the internet, almost in spite of the media's existence as a form of control over who makes it big and who languishes at the bottom of the pile. By suddenly latching on to this new 'trend' in the music industry, the papers can now claim to be hitting the mark with their ludicrous claims that the monkeys are the finest British band since The Smiths (or even since The Beatles in some cases). Barely two days old, 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' (what a horribly cumbersome attempt at a Morrissey-esque title) was last week proclaimed the fifth best British album ever made by the NME and promptly sold 300,000 over the counter copies (nearer 400,000 if online sales join the equation) to become the fastest selling British debut album ever.
What absolute piffle! First, the idea that internet networking is about to undermine the machinations of the industry is more than a little fanciful. Successful bands have always worked from a 'bottom-up' approach anyway - what reputable record label is going to sign a band before they can demonstrate a substantial grassroots following. This is how it has been with Arctic Monkeys - they secured a deal with independent Domino (on the back of Franz Ferdinand, a label truly skilled in marketing new acts) because their strong local fanbase was beginning to go national, with people downloading tracks from their website and My Space profile. The internet has facilitated the ease with which bands can promote themselves, hence the meteoric speed of this band's rise, but it has not dramatically altered the process, or given power to fledgling bands over and above the marketing might of the industry.
Critics are right to identify potential here, particularly in the band's taut, crisp playing and instinctive knack for a catchy riff. Alex Turner's talents as a lyricist have been much remarked upon, and his thick Sheffield dialect is pleasingly refreshing, although those reviewers portraying him as the first charismatic singer/lyricist to come from the city must have short term memories - Jarvis Cocker or Phil Oakey anyone? There's impressive phrasing and quality narratives here, most notably in 'Riot Van' and its tale of excessive arrest, set to a surprisingly sensitive arrangement. Latest number one 'When The Sun Goes Down' also deals with prostitution and the gritty realities of urban life with some deft wordplay. Turner is even better when he's at his most straightforward, such as on 'Mardy Bum' ('you're argumentative, and you've got the face on').
However, anyone who thinks this album is among the top ten British albums of all time must have a truly miserable record collection. Turner's lyrics may be intelligent, but they are part of a long tradition of observational songwriting in this country, dating back at least as far as Ray Davies and more recently espoused by the likes of Morrissey, Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker and, when he can be bothered, Pete Doherty. There's nothing particularly novel and certainly nothing revolutionary about this approach. Whilst Turner's lyrics obviously speak directly to much of the music buying demographic (disaffected teenagers and twentysomethings), they are steadfastly parochial, and show little interest in a world beyond underage drinking and aggressive nightclub bouncers. As Bruce Springsteen once wisely observed, bands need to grow up with their audience, and it will be the ultimate challenge of this band's longevity as to whether or not they have the ability and commitment to do that.
Musically, this is also a collection of borrowings not from original sources, but from recent modish and mostly derivitive acts - the effective duelling guitars of The Libertines and the heavy distortion and relentless chugging of The Strokes stand out as the most obvious influences. It's not offensive, and given some chance at development it might yet even be fleetingly thrilling - but surely some of our young bands must have more ideas than this? This is very much a case of Whatever People Say I Should Adore, That's What I Resist.
Another hyped band actually going some way towards delivering on their promise are those highly eccentric residents of Eel Pie Island, Mystery Jets. Their debut album, 'Making Dens', due out in early March, is substantially better than the Arctic Monkeys' effort. It has all the predictable elements of a classic British indie gem - spiky, angular riffs sit happily alongside jangly arpeggios. Yet there's so much more that is distinctive and intriguing about this band, not least the fact that one member's father is also part of the band and the massive full throttle assault of their thunderous drums.
Like the Monkeys, there's plenty of lyrical wit and wisdom on display, and a predeliction for the narrative approach. 'Alas Agnes' tells the somewhat tragic story of a boy who falls for a transvestite, going to the extreme lenghts of having a 'backstreet operation' only to find that he has been dumped for a 'prettier muse'. Musically, it rollicks along with a quasi-military beat most closely resembling the stylings of The Decemberists. It's brilliantly entertaining.
There's also a real variety of sounds and styles informing the music here. The lengthy 'Horse Drawn Cart' begins by drawing from the well of 60s folk and psychedelia, particularly Syd Barrett or early Pink Floyd. It ends with a layered wall of vocal melodies in an almost funereal epic rock trudge. 'Soluble In Air' is more strummy, but with an impressive lightness of touch and a peculiar drum sound not far from the plank-of-wood approach Blur famously deployed on 'Tender'. 'You Can't Fool Me Dennis' and 'The Boy Who Ran Away' are superbly quirky pop songs, the former zipping along on a series of taut riffs and intricate percussion. Both make successful use of the band's penchant for exhuberant vocal harmonies.
Their extraordinary debut download-only single 'Zoo Time' mercifully also features here, and it sits surprisingly comfortably with the rest of the material. It's a brisk and totally unhinged mesh of clattering drums, staccato guitar and atmospheric synths. The insistent rhythmic chanting ('Zoo Time! Zoo Time! Zoo Time!) is completely irresistible though, and helps the track in its bid to merge the avant garde and the truly accessible.
'Making Dens' succceeds in moving forwards by looking back, and its off-kilter dynamics and unrestrained enthusiasm are infectious. For this band, there really is no idea dismissed as too daft - you wouldn't be surprised if even the kitchen sink had been thrown into this intoxicating mix.
Sometimes a record comes along that makes any kind of objectivity remarkably difficult. Such is the way with 'The Greatest', the brand new album from Cat Power, recorded in Memphis with the backing band once famously employed by Hi Records, home of the legendary Al Green and Ann Peebles. This is a similar indulgence to that arranged by Frank Black for his 'Honeycomb' album last year. Whilst that album saw Black produce the best material he had mustered for some time, it didn't reach the rapturous heights Chan Marshall scales here. She has not tempered her inherent vulnerability for this release, and wisely plays to her strengths with a series of deeply melancholic, slow-paced songs dominated by her deceptively simple piano lines. Marshall and the band share their different ideas effortlessly, and the band (particularly the legendary Mabon and Leroy Hodges on guitar and bass respectively) back Marshall's sensual, elusive melodies with instinctive subtlety.
The first six tracks here are quite wonderful, and some of the most delicate and beautiful music I have heard in some time soon. The opening title track is languid and tinged with brittle defeat. Marshall's phrasing is drawn out and expressive. It is immediately spellbinding. 'Living Proof', like many of the tracks here builds on a repeated piano hook, eventually adding brass and rolling along on the lightest of rhythms. 'Lived In Bars' is one of those comfortingly familiar songs that sounds as old as the hills yet also invigoratingly fresh. It has a genuinely timeless quality. 'Could We' is seductive and slinky, whilst 'Empty Shell' is mournful and full of sadness. On 'Wille', it sounds like Marshall really has developed an understanding for a form of American folk music - and here she has a direct link back to classic blues and spiritual music.
Marshall's strength here is not to shy away from simplicity. There is no attempt whatsoever to blind the listener with science. Instead, Marshall distills the very essence of the emotions she is trying to capture. So even when that is a remarkably obvious sentiment, such as on 'Could We' ('could we take a walk/could we have a talk in the afternoon), she imbues the song with a longing and lush romanticism that is proudly unfashionable. So, even though she is delving deep into musical history here, Marhsall still occupies her own enchanting musical space. It's hard to think of another modern songwriter who could produce something as strikingly beautiful as 'Islands' or as haunting as the title track.
It's possible that the uniform pace and lingering melancholy cause the album to drag a little in its final third. I certainly feel less compelled to return to the concluding two or three tracks, which seem to lack the unique charm of the best tracks here. 'After It All' again displays Marshall's love of the blues, but it basically lingers around one chord and never really pulls away from safe territory. Some variety is built into the album due to the greater prominence of the guitar on 'Hate' and 'Love and Communication' , but they seem more stark and less graceful, perhaps better located on a different album. Still, these are minor criticisims, and 'The Greatest' is a profoundly affecting and haunting work that lingers long in the memory.
We're only a few weeks into the year, but already there's plenty to get through. Given that many commentators have decided the album of the year already, we might as well start with what may be the most hyped album released during my lifetime. The mainstream media (especially the broadsheet newspapers, who are for once as guilty as the NME) have outdone themselves by constructing an exquisite paradox around The Arctic Monkeys. The critical orthodoxy states that here is a band who made it big purely via the internet, almost in spite of the media's existence as a form of control over who makes it big and who languishes at the bottom of the pile. By suddenly latching on to this new 'trend' in the music industry, the papers can now claim to be hitting the mark with their ludicrous claims that the monkeys are the finest British band since The Smiths (or even since The Beatles in some cases). Barely two days old, 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' (what a horribly cumbersome attempt at a Morrissey-esque title) was last week proclaimed the fifth best British album ever made by the NME and promptly sold 300,000 over the counter copies (nearer 400,000 if online sales join the equation) to become the fastest selling British debut album ever.
What absolute piffle! First, the idea that internet networking is about to undermine the machinations of the industry is more than a little fanciful. Successful bands have always worked from a 'bottom-up' approach anyway - what reputable record label is going to sign a band before they can demonstrate a substantial grassroots following. This is how it has been with Arctic Monkeys - they secured a deal with independent Domino (on the back of Franz Ferdinand, a label truly skilled in marketing new acts) because their strong local fanbase was beginning to go national, with people downloading tracks from their website and My Space profile. The internet has facilitated the ease with which bands can promote themselves, hence the meteoric speed of this band's rise, but it has not dramatically altered the process, or given power to fledgling bands over and above the marketing might of the industry.
Critics are right to identify potential here, particularly in the band's taut, crisp playing and instinctive knack for a catchy riff. Alex Turner's talents as a lyricist have been much remarked upon, and his thick Sheffield dialect is pleasingly refreshing, although those reviewers portraying him as the first charismatic singer/lyricist to come from the city must have short term memories - Jarvis Cocker or Phil Oakey anyone? There's impressive phrasing and quality narratives here, most notably in 'Riot Van' and its tale of excessive arrest, set to a surprisingly sensitive arrangement. Latest number one 'When The Sun Goes Down' also deals with prostitution and the gritty realities of urban life with some deft wordplay. Turner is even better when he's at his most straightforward, such as on 'Mardy Bum' ('you're argumentative, and you've got the face on').
However, anyone who thinks this album is among the top ten British albums of all time must have a truly miserable record collection. Turner's lyrics may be intelligent, but they are part of a long tradition of observational songwriting in this country, dating back at least as far as Ray Davies and more recently espoused by the likes of Morrissey, Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker and, when he can be bothered, Pete Doherty. There's nothing particularly novel and certainly nothing revolutionary about this approach. Whilst Turner's lyrics obviously speak directly to much of the music buying demographic (disaffected teenagers and twentysomethings), they are steadfastly parochial, and show little interest in a world beyond underage drinking and aggressive nightclub bouncers. As Bruce Springsteen once wisely observed, bands need to grow up with their audience, and it will be the ultimate challenge of this band's longevity as to whether or not they have the ability and commitment to do that.
Musically, this is also a collection of borrowings not from original sources, but from recent modish and mostly derivitive acts - the effective duelling guitars of The Libertines and the heavy distortion and relentless chugging of The Strokes stand out as the most obvious influences. It's not offensive, and given some chance at development it might yet even be fleetingly thrilling - but surely some of our young bands must have more ideas than this? This is very much a case of Whatever People Say I Should Adore, That's What I Resist.
Another hyped band actually going some way towards delivering on their promise are those highly eccentric residents of Eel Pie Island, Mystery Jets. Their debut album, 'Making Dens', due out in early March, is substantially better than the Arctic Monkeys' effort. It has all the predictable elements of a classic British indie gem - spiky, angular riffs sit happily alongside jangly arpeggios. Yet there's so much more that is distinctive and intriguing about this band, not least the fact that one member's father is also part of the band and the massive full throttle assault of their thunderous drums.
Like the Monkeys, there's plenty of lyrical wit and wisdom on display, and a predeliction for the narrative approach. 'Alas Agnes' tells the somewhat tragic story of a boy who falls for a transvestite, going to the extreme lenghts of having a 'backstreet operation' only to find that he has been dumped for a 'prettier muse'. Musically, it rollicks along with a quasi-military beat most closely resembling the stylings of The Decemberists. It's brilliantly entertaining.
There's also a real variety of sounds and styles informing the music here. The lengthy 'Horse Drawn Cart' begins by drawing from the well of 60s folk and psychedelia, particularly Syd Barrett or early Pink Floyd. It ends with a layered wall of vocal melodies in an almost funereal epic rock trudge. 'Soluble In Air' is more strummy, but with an impressive lightness of touch and a peculiar drum sound not far from the plank-of-wood approach Blur famously deployed on 'Tender'. 'You Can't Fool Me Dennis' and 'The Boy Who Ran Away' are superbly quirky pop songs, the former zipping along on a series of taut riffs and intricate percussion. Both make successful use of the band's penchant for exhuberant vocal harmonies.
Their extraordinary debut download-only single 'Zoo Time' mercifully also features here, and it sits surprisingly comfortably with the rest of the material. It's a brisk and totally unhinged mesh of clattering drums, staccato guitar and atmospheric synths. The insistent rhythmic chanting ('Zoo Time! Zoo Time! Zoo Time!) is completely irresistible though, and helps the track in its bid to merge the avant garde and the truly accessible.
'Making Dens' succceeds in moving forwards by looking back, and its off-kilter dynamics and unrestrained enthusiasm are infectious. For this band, there really is no idea dismissed as too daft - you wouldn't be surprised if even the kitchen sink had been thrown into this intoxicating mix.
Sometimes a record comes along that makes any kind of objectivity remarkably difficult. Such is the way with 'The Greatest', the brand new album from Cat Power, recorded in Memphis with the backing band once famously employed by Hi Records, home of the legendary Al Green and Ann Peebles. This is a similar indulgence to that arranged by Frank Black for his 'Honeycomb' album last year. Whilst that album saw Black produce the best material he had mustered for some time, it didn't reach the rapturous heights Chan Marshall scales here. She has not tempered her inherent vulnerability for this release, and wisely plays to her strengths with a series of deeply melancholic, slow-paced songs dominated by her deceptively simple piano lines. Marshall and the band share their different ideas effortlessly, and the band (particularly the legendary Mabon and Leroy Hodges on guitar and bass respectively) back Marshall's sensual, elusive melodies with instinctive subtlety.
The first six tracks here are quite wonderful, and some of the most delicate and beautiful music I have heard in some time soon. The opening title track is languid and tinged with brittle defeat. Marshall's phrasing is drawn out and expressive. It is immediately spellbinding. 'Living Proof', like many of the tracks here builds on a repeated piano hook, eventually adding brass and rolling along on the lightest of rhythms. 'Lived In Bars' is one of those comfortingly familiar songs that sounds as old as the hills yet also invigoratingly fresh. It has a genuinely timeless quality. 'Could We' is seductive and slinky, whilst 'Empty Shell' is mournful and full of sadness. On 'Wille', it sounds like Marshall really has developed an understanding for a form of American folk music - and here she has a direct link back to classic blues and spiritual music.
Marshall's strength here is not to shy away from simplicity. There is no attempt whatsoever to blind the listener with science. Instead, Marshall distills the very essence of the emotions she is trying to capture. So even when that is a remarkably obvious sentiment, such as on 'Could We' ('could we take a walk/could we have a talk in the afternoon), she imbues the song with a longing and lush romanticism that is proudly unfashionable. So, even though she is delving deep into musical history here, Marhsall still occupies her own enchanting musical space. It's hard to think of another modern songwriter who could produce something as strikingly beautiful as 'Islands' or as haunting as the title track.
It's possible that the uniform pace and lingering melancholy cause the album to drag a little in its final third. I certainly feel less compelled to return to the concluding two or three tracks, which seem to lack the unique charm of the best tracks here. 'After It All' again displays Marshall's love of the blues, but it basically lingers around one chord and never really pulls away from safe territory. Some variety is built into the album due to the greater prominence of the guitar on 'Hate' and 'Love and Communication' , but they seem more stark and less graceful, perhaps better located on a different album. Still, these are minor criticisims, and 'The Greatest' is a profoundly affecting and haunting work that lingers long in the memory.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Whose Space?!
I know I'm behind the times on this one, but I've only in the past couple of months discovered the joys of networking site My Space. For those blog readers out there who can also be found there, here are some recommended URLs from artists who have featured here, or no doubt will in the near future.
Hot Chip (http://www.myspace.com/hotchip)
Elysian Quartet (http://www.myspace.com/elysianquartet)
Bishi (http//www.myspace.com/bishi)
Colonel Bastard (http://www.myspace.com/colonelbastard)
Jeremy Warmsley (http://www.myspace.com/jeremywarmsley)
Tom Rogerson (http://www.myspace.com/tomrogerson)
Paris Motel (http://www.myspace.com/parismotel)
Veto Silver (http://www.myspace.com/vetosilver)
Um (http://www.myspace.com/ummusic)
Applicants (http://www.myspace.com/applicants)
Screamer On The Hill (http://www.myspace.com/screameronthehill)
Adrian Roye (http://www.myspace.com/adrianroye)
Twisted Charm (http://www.myspace.com/twistedcharm)
Bosh! at the Barfly (http://www.myspace.com/boshclub)
Last but not least, two of my own projects:
Unit (http://www.myspace.com/unitmusic) - 'Funk-inflected post-punk' according to Time Out's listings - for once a surprisingly accurate description
Maladaption (http://www.myspace.com/maladaption) - Jazz/Rock fusion
Some web commentators have reacted with suspicion over News International's recent announcement that they will be launching a UK version of the site and working closely with ITV's flagship music show CD:UK to promote new acts. The nerves are understandable - traditionally My Space has interfered very little in how its users make use of it, simply responding to requests for new functions wherever possible. Essentially, bands have been able to use it to promote themselves - now News International plans to exert a little more selective editorial influence. We'll see what the results are - and whether any of these acts make it on to CD:UK as a result!
Hot Chip (http://www.myspace.com/hotchip)
Elysian Quartet (http://www.myspace.com/elysianquartet)
Bishi (http//www.myspace.com/bishi)
Colonel Bastard (http://www.myspace.com/colonelbastard)
Jeremy Warmsley (http://www.myspace.com/jeremywarmsley)
Tom Rogerson (http://www.myspace.com/tomrogerson)
Paris Motel (http://www.myspace.com/parismotel)
Veto Silver (http://www.myspace.com/vetosilver)
Um (http://www.myspace.com/ummusic)
Applicants (http://www.myspace.com/applicants)
Screamer On The Hill (http://www.myspace.com/screameronthehill)
Adrian Roye (http://www.myspace.com/adrianroye)
Twisted Charm (http://www.myspace.com/twistedcharm)
Bosh! at the Barfly (http://www.myspace.com/boshclub)
Last but not least, two of my own projects:
Unit (http://www.myspace.com/unitmusic) - 'Funk-inflected post-punk' according to Time Out's listings - for once a surprisingly accurate description
Maladaption (http://www.myspace.com/maladaption) - Jazz/Rock fusion
Some web commentators have reacted with suspicion over News International's recent announcement that they will be launching a UK version of the site and working closely with ITV's flagship music show CD:UK to promote new acts. The nerves are understandable - traditionally My Space has interfered very little in how its users make use of it, simply responding to requests for new functions wherever possible. Essentially, bands have been able to use it to promote themselves - now News International plans to exert a little more selective editorial influence. We'll see what the results are - and whether any of these acts make it on to CD:UK as a result!
Friday, January 20, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
Hotly Anticipated Records For 2006
It looks likely that 2006 will be another great year, with the early part of the year already promising some treats. I'm hoping for some great debut albums from some of the great new acts to break through in 2005 - The Pipettes, The Long Blondes, Twisted Charm perhaps, but there's no word on any full length releases from these acts as yet. Here are some of the confirmed releases that look most exciting.
In January, Cat Power returns with an album recorded with the legendary Hi Records rhythm section, backing band to Al Green and Ann Peebles among others. It sounds like a fascinating combination. Another peculiar, but perhaps more predictable collaboration comes with the covers album promised from Tortoise and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. 'The Brave and The Bold' features radically deconstructed versions of Elton John's 'Daniel' and Bruce Springsteen's 'Thunder Roads' amongst other less ubiquitous choice cuts. The Gossip return with 'Standing In The Way Of Control' and tour the UK in February. The sadly underrated Clearlake release third album 'Amber'. Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis ventures out alone with 'Rabbit Fur Coat'.
Not much confirmed for February yet, but a highlight is definitely the new album from the prolific In League With Paton favourites The Broken Family Band. I've already got a copy of this - a review will follow shortly. Apparently not an official follow-up to 'Surrounded in Silence', but more of a stop-gap, 'Security Screenings' is the latest project from Prefuse 73. Animal Collective's Paw Tracks imprint continues in its valiant quest to issue the complete home-recorded works of the wonderful Ariel Pink. 'House Arrest' promises to be his best yet. Erstwhile New Pornographer Dan Bejar returns in his Destroyer guise for 'Destroyer's Rubies'. After the outstanding 'Your Blues', this is one of the albums I'm most looking forward to in 2006. There's also a new record from OutKast, which will no doubt save hip-hop for a while.
In March, there are some absolute gems from the other side of the pond. Quasi return with 'When The Going Gets Dark'. Their last LP, 'Hot Shit', divided opinion somewhat. The increasingly bizarre Liars release third LP 'Drum's Not Dead', which may well be excellent. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have a lot of expectation to live up to when they release 'Show Your Bones'. Former Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan joins forces with Isobel Campbell to release 'Ballad Of The Broken Seas'. The inevitable Lee HAzlewood/Nancy Sinatra comparisons are already becoming somewhat tiresome. Most exciting of all is the return of Loose Fur, the collaboration between Glen Kotche and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and Jim O'Rourke. 'Born Again In The USA' surely can't be anything other than superb. Neko Case returns with 'Fox Confessor Brings The Flood' - no doubt more along the reverb drenched lines of recent studio efforts. Back in Britain, it will be impossible to avoid the return of Morrissey, who releases his brilliantly titled 'Ringleader Of The Tormentors' and also promises a massive UK tour, about which I am tremendously excited. Moz claims not to be a performer, which is of course nonsense - he is just about the best performer in the business.
April brings the long-awaited 'At War With The Mystics' by The Flaming Lips. It can't really be better than The Soft Bulletin - but let's hope it won't irritate as much as the worst bits of Yoshimi... Also, Calexico are back with 'Garden Ruin', which will no doubt be dependably controlled. I'm lucky enough to be seeing both acts live over the weekend of the 22nd-23rd April.
There are also lots of vaguely promised record which as yet do not have confirmed release dates. Toronto's finest gay indie types The Hidden Cameras return with 'Awoo', which may well up the silliness factor at the expense of the sensitive. Also, there's new records from the likes of Grandaddy, The Shins, Sonic Youth, TV On The Radio.
There are some long-awaited releases to look forward to. Solo albums from Steely Dan's Donald Fagen don't come around that often (the last was in 1994), but when they do, they are always full of fascinating ruminations and biting insight. 'Morph The Cat' should be an unmissable slice of wry irony set to perfectly constructed lounge backings. Now signed to 4AD, there's a new album scheduled from Scott Walker, although it would not surprise me if his reclusive tendencies lead to this being delayed. It's hard to believe, but the gap between Portishead albums has now stretched to nine years - it sounds like their third will finally arrive in 2006.
In a completely different style, the return of The Lemonheads reminds us only that The Lemonheads were always a revolving cast of musicians. This is not a reunion as such but rather the first recorded output from the new 'heads line-up Evan Dandon took on tour last year. Obviously the solo album didn't sell enough records then. It also looks as if The Notwist will finally release a follow-up to the exquisite 'Neon Golden'. Surely, this is the year for AC/DC to come back with the long-promised 'Strap It On'.
Prince looks set to return on another major label contract with '3121', which may or not be good. Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields has finished his album of original Show Tunes and it will be released in April.
Most exciting hip-hop release looks certain to be the new album from Cannibal Ox, a band who previously announced their split only to immediately reform again. If it retains some of the menace and grit of their masterpiece 'The Cold Vein', it will be a definite top 10 contender by the end of the year. Further underground contenders come from two wunderkinds of modern music - Patrick Wolf, who is currently hard at work on 'The Magic Position', his third album in as many years and Khonnor who will follow up the beguiling 'Handwriting' this year.
In jazz, look out for new albums from Chick Corea and Roy Hargrove particularly. No doubt the F-IRE collective will continue their tremendous momentum - hopefully with a full - length from Jade Fox.
Watch this space for the first reviews of 2006 - coming very soon!
In January, Cat Power returns with an album recorded with the legendary Hi Records rhythm section, backing band to Al Green and Ann Peebles among others. It sounds like a fascinating combination. Another peculiar, but perhaps more predictable collaboration comes with the covers album promised from Tortoise and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. 'The Brave and The Bold' features radically deconstructed versions of Elton John's 'Daniel' and Bruce Springsteen's 'Thunder Roads' amongst other less ubiquitous choice cuts. The Gossip return with 'Standing In The Way Of Control' and tour the UK in February. The sadly underrated Clearlake release third album 'Amber'. Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis ventures out alone with 'Rabbit Fur Coat'.
Not much confirmed for February yet, but a highlight is definitely the new album from the prolific In League With Paton favourites The Broken Family Band. I've already got a copy of this - a review will follow shortly. Apparently not an official follow-up to 'Surrounded in Silence', but more of a stop-gap, 'Security Screenings' is the latest project from Prefuse 73. Animal Collective's Paw Tracks imprint continues in its valiant quest to issue the complete home-recorded works of the wonderful Ariel Pink. 'House Arrest' promises to be his best yet. Erstwhile New Pornographer Dan Bejar returns in his Destroyer guise for 'Destroyer's Rubies'. After the outstanding 'Your Blues', this is one of the albums I'm most looking forward to in 2006. There's also a new record from OutKast, which will no doubt save hip-hop for a while.
In March, there are some absolute gems from the other side of the pond. Quasi return with 'When The Going Gets Dark'. Their last LP, 'Hot Shit', divided opinion somewhat. The increasingly bizarre Liars release third LP 'Drum's Not Dead', which may well be excellent. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have a lot of expectation to live up to when they release 'Show Your Bones'. Former Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan joins forces with Isobel Campbell to release 'Ballad Of The Broken Seas'. The inevitable Lee HAzlewood/Nancy Sinatra comparisons are already becoming somewhat tiresome. Most exciting of all is the return of Loose Fur, the collaboration between Glen Kotche and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and Jim O'Rourke. 'Born Again In The USA' surely can't be anything other than superb. Neko Case returns with 'Fox Confessor Brings The Flood' - no doubt more along the reverb drenched lines of recent studio efforts. Back in Britain, it will be impossible to avoid the return of Morrissey, who releases his brilliantly titled 'Ringleader Of The Tormentors' and also promises a massive UK tour, about which I am tremendously excited. Moz claims not to be a performer, which is of course nonsense - he is just about the best performer in the business.
April brings the long-awaited 'At War With The Mystics' by The Flaming Lips. It can't really be better than The Soft Bulletin - but let's hope it won't irritate as much as the worst bits of Yoshimi... Also, Calexico are back with 'Garden Ruin', which will no doubt be dependably controlled. I'm lucky enough to be seeing both acts live over the weekend of the 22nd-23rd April.
There are also lots of vaguely promised record which as yet do not have confirmed release dates. Toronto's finest gay indie types The Hidden Cameras return with 'Awoo', which may well up the silliness factor at the expense of the sensitive. Also, there's new records from the likes of Grandaddy, The Shins, Sonic Youth, TV On The Radio.
There are some long-awaited releases to look forward to. Solo albums from Steely Dan's Donald Fagen don't come around that often (the last was in 1994), but when they do, they are always full of fascinating ruminations and biting insight. 'Morph The Cat' should be an unmissable slice of wry irony set to perfectly constructed lounge backings. Now signed to 4AD, there's a new album scheduled from Scott Walker, although it would not surprise me if his reclusive tendencies lead to this being delayed. It's hard to believe, but the gap between Portishead albums has now stretched to nine years - it sounds like their third will finally arrive in 2006.
In a completely different style, the return of The Lemonheads reminds us only that The Lemonheads were always a revolving cast of musicians. This is not a reunion as such but rather the first recorded output from the new 'heads line-up Evan Dandon took on tour last year. Obviously the solo album didn't sell enough records then. It also looks as if The Notwist will finally release a follow-up to the exquisite 'Neon Golden'. Surely, this is the year for AC/DC to come back with the long-promised 'Strap It On'.
Prince looks set to return on another major label contract with '3121', which may or not be good. Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields has finished his album of original Show Tunes and it will be released in April.
Most exciting hip-hop release looks certain to be the new album from Cannibal Ox, a band who previously announced their split only to immediately reform again. If it retains some of the menace and grit of their masterpiece 'The Cold Vein', it will be a definite top 10 contender by the end of the year. Further underground contenders come from two wunderkinds of modern music - Patrick Wolf, who is currently hard at work on 'The Magic Position', his third album in as many years and Khonnor who will follow up the beguiling 'Handwriting' this year.
In jazz, look out for new albums from Chick Corea and Roy Hargrove particularly. No doubt the F-IRE collective will continue their tremendous momentum - hopefully with a full - length from Jade Fox.
Watch this space for the first reviews of 2006 - coming very soon!
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Honorable Mentions
I would have included the following two albums in my albums of the year, were they readily available commercially. It can, however, only be a matter of time before these acts achieve the success they deserve.
Tom Rogerson's self-titled debut album was recorded in New York with members of The Bad Plus (a major coup for a new musician if ever there was one!) and is a highly creative and intuitive improvised work. Tom can currently be seen playing piano with Jeremy Warmsley's backing band the LMNOPs, but the song-based approach of that music is really no preparation for this abstract, yet intensely focussed work. There is feeling as well as science in Tom's unpredictable compositions.
'Halcyon Days', the first proper album from Colonel Bastard is as enjoyable a pop album as I've heard all year. Wonderfully quirky pop songs with a distinctively British sensibility - well removed from the tiresome scenesters which seem to dominate the British independent secto at the moment. Anyway, things move in cycles and, regardless of how terrible they are, it seems likely that the Kaiser Chiefs may reignite interest in this sort of approach in 2006. To order the album, go to http://www.colonelbastard.com
Tom Rogerson's self-titled debut album was recorded in New York with members of The Bad Plus (a major coup for a new musician if ever there was one!) and is a highly creative and intuitive improvised work. Tom can currently be seen playing piano with Jeremy Warmsley's backing band the LMNOPs, but the song-based approach of that music is really no preparation for this abstract, yet intensely focussed work. There is feeling as well as science in Tom's unpredictable compositions.
'Halcyon Days', the first proper album from Colonel Bastard is as enjoyable a pop album as I've heard all year. Wonderfully quirky pop songs with a distinctively British sensibility - well removed from the tiresome scenesters which seem to dominate the British independent secto at the moment. Anyway, things move in cycles and, regardless of how terrible they are, it seems likely that the Kaiser Chiefs may reignite interest in this sort of approach in 2006. To order the album, go to http://www.colonelbastard.com
Singles Of The Year 2005
I can't really be bothered to do a precise or comprehensive list of singles - or even decide on the very best. So here, in no particular order, are some of the singles I most enjoyed in 2005.
The Pipettes - Dirty Mind
The Long Blondes - Appropriation By Any Other Name
The Priscillas - Gonna Rip Up Your Photograph
Twisted Charm - London Scene?
Twisted Charm - Broken Girl
Hot Chip - Barbarian EP
Jeremy Warmsley - 5 Interesting Lies EP
Clor - Love and Pain
Teenage Fanclub - It's All In My Mind
Rachel Stevens - So Good
Rachel Stevens - I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)
Arcade Fire - Cold Wind
Animal Collective- Grass
Animal Collective and Vashti Bunyan - Prospect Hummer
Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure
British Sea Power - Please Stand Up
Broken Family Band - Happy Days Are Here Again
Girls Aloud - Biology
Jackson and His Computer Band - Rock On
Kate Bush - King Of The Mountain
Roots Manuva - Colossal Insight
Jamie Lidell - Multiply
LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk Is Playing At My House
Daft Punk - Robot Rock
Juan Maclean - Tito's Way
Antony and the Johnsons - Hope There's Someone
Charlotte Church - Call My Name
Common - The Corner
Spoon - I Turn My Camera On
Pussycat Dolls - Don't Cha
McFly - Ultraviolet
White Stripes - My Doorbell
Gorillaz - Dare
Sleater Kinney - Entertain
Pure Reason Revolution - Bright Ambassadors Of Morning
Depeche Mode - Precious
Elbow - Forget Myself
Broken Social Scene - Ibi Dreams Of Pavement
Magnolia Electric Co. - Hard To Love A Man
Sugababes - Push The Button
My Morning Jacket - Off The Record
Broadcast - America's Boy
Four Tet - Smile Around The Face
Caribou - Yeti
Bloc Party - Two More Years
Gorillaz - Dare
Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc
Gorillaz - Dirty Harry
Low - California
Patrick Wolf - The Libertine
Ciara - Goodies
Missy Elliott - Teary Eyed
Missy Elliott - Lose Control
M83 - Don't Save Us From The Flames
The Pipettes - Dirty Mind
The Long Blondes - Appropriation By Any Other Name
The Priscillas - Gonna Rip Up Your Photograph
Twisted Charm - London Scene?
Twisted Charm - Broken Girl
Hot Chip - Barbarian EP
Jeremy Warmsley - 5 Interesting Lies EP
Clor - Love and Pain
Teenage Fanclub - It's All In My Mind
Rachel Stevens - So Good
Rachel Stevens - I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)
Arcade Fire - Cold Wind
Animal Collective- Grass
Animal Collective and Vashti Bunyan - Prospect Hummer
Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure
British Sea Power - Please Stand Up
Broken Family Band - Happy Days Are Here Again
Girls Aloud - Biology
Jackson and His Computer Band - Rock On
Kate Bush - King Of The Mountain
Roots Manuva - Colossal Insight
Jamie Lidell - Multiply
LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk Is Playing At My House
Daft Punk - Robot Rock
Juan Maclean - Tito's Way
Antony and the Johnsons - Hope There's Someone
Charlotte Church - Call My Name
Common - The Corner
Spoon - I Turn My Camera On
Pussycat Dolls - Don't Cha
McFly - Ultraviolet
White Stripes - My Doorbell
Gorillaz - Dare
Sleater Kinney - Entertain
Pure Reason Revolution - Bright Ambassadors Of Morning
Depeche Mode - Precious
Elbow - Forget Myself
Broken Social Scene - Ibi Dreams Of Pavement
Magnolia Electric Co. - Hard To Love A Man
Sugababes - Push The Button
My Morning Jacket - Off The Record
Broadcast - America's Boy
Four Tet - Smile Around The Face
Caribou - Yeti
Bloc Party - Two More Years
Gorillaz - Dare
Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc
Gorillaz - Dirty Harry
Low - California
Patrick Wolf - The Libertine
Ciara - Goodies
Missy Elliott - Teary Eyed
Missy Elliott - Lose Control
M83 - Don't Save Us From The Flames
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
The In League With Paton Albums Of The Year 2005
Finally it’s here – the end-of-year megapost, a couple of days late. Sorry for that. Before we start counting down the big 75, it’s worth mentioning that I’ve given time to well over 100 albums this year, and there are plenty of worthy efforts that I haven’t managed to find space for here. There are also some honorary mentions – records I think should probably be in this list but that I simply haven’t managed to listen to properly yet – John Prine, Ellen Allien, Keith Jarrett, Wayne Shorter, Vitalic, Gang Gang Dance, Wilderness,
75. BROKEN FAMILY BAND – Welcome Home Loser
Well there has to be a number 75, but I can’t help feeling a little cruel propping up the list with BFB. As a collection of songs, ‘Welcome Home Loser’ was their strongest set yet, including a number of live favourites that perhaps suffered only from over-familiarity. The production was crisp and (perhaps too) clean, and the trademark Steven Adams dry wit remained on top form.
74. EST – Viaticum
More stadium jazz from Esbjorn Svensson’s hugely popular trio. It’s arguably closer to chamber music than jazz, with Svensson’s limited talents at improvising meaning that it’s more about atmosphere and mood than thrilling extemporising. ‘Viaticum’ was elegantly restrained and very cerebral, but also touching.
73. LOU BARLOW - Emoh
This would be an easy one to overlook, if only because Lou Barlow is such a self-deprecating character. ‘Emoh’ may well be his least assuming album to date, but it’s also one of his best, with strong songs mostly left uncluttered and free of the wilful sabotage sometimes exerted by Sebadoh or Folk Implosion. The melodies are lush and carefully charted, and Barlow’s understated vocal delivery remains one of pop’s most forlorn voices, brilliant at expressing the frustration and confusion he writes about so well.
72. RACHEL STEVENS – Come And Get It
No I’m not joking. It’s really a great shame that both record company and artist seemed to have lost faith in this pure pop gem by the time it was finally released. It’s much more than the usual collection of great singles and slushy filler, and every bit the equal of Annie’s ‘Anniemal’. It’s just a little bit less cool to admit to liking it.
71. MU – Out Of Breach
If most people were grimly fascinated by the Michael Jackson trial, it’s safe to say that Mu was more likely enraged. Her shrieking on ‘Stop Bothering Michael Jackson’ may be the most impassioned sound of the year. With hysterical ravings almost entirely devoid of melody, and a very uncertain grasp of the English language, Mu remains a violently compelling voice. Together with Maurice Fulton’s awesome, relentless percussion-dominated production, she produced an album that was captivating and terrifying in equal measure.
70. JOHN CALE – Black Acetate
Although it was a bit of a strange mix of genres, ‘Black Acetate’ provided plenty of evidence that Cale is still full of ideas, as well as absorbing some very modish new influences and inspirations. He can cover spiky guitar pop as well as the more forward-thinking soulful electronic material. This is a cerebral set that also has an urgency and immediacy absent from, say, the more ponderous Brian Eno album also released this year.
69. JACKSON AND HIS COMPUTER BAND – Smash
The stuttering, glitchy French approach to modern day disco was back with a bang with the slapdash cut and paste brilliance of Jackson. He possibly had the shortest attention span in modern music but from this, he crafted something edgy and thrilling. He also demonstrated a strong sense of humour, and therefore avoided confrontation without results, although his pulverising live shows were something else entirely.
68. LAURA VEIRS – Year Of Meteors
Unfairly dismissed as a move towards more conventional territory, ‘Year Of Meteors’ continued Veirs’ songwriting preoccupations with elements and natural phenomena, maintaining her distinctive sense of awe and wonder whilst developing her melodic gifts. Less abrasive than previous works, but no less fascinating, it is the eerie, evocative work of a maturing songwriter..
67. RUFUS WAINWRIGHT – Want Two
Really an album of 2004, but not afforded a release date in Britain until well into 2005. The vagaries of record company schedules made Rufus work hard to promote two albums he had intended to release as one – but the distance between them made the differences between the two Want albums appear even starker. Where the former was ornate, lavish and occasionally excessive – Want Two is reflective, dramatic and elegant.
66. SOUTH SAN GABRIEL – The Carlton Chronicles
A concept album about a cat? It sounds like a disastrous trip to planet whimsy, but it actually works rather well. This is mostly because Will Johnson (who also records as Centr-O-Matic and under his own name) has a great control of sound and atmosphere. This is an album that can be taken in humorous spirit, but which also contains songs that are delicate, warm and touching.
65. M83 – Before The Dawn Heals Us
Well, it wasn’t exactly a match for the stunning ‘Dead Cities…’ album, but exactly what is? At least M83 didn’t settle for sticking to the same formula. ‘Before The Dawn Heals Us’ seemed to push their progressive elements to the fore, occasionally even resembling the regal pomp of Pink Floyd. When added to their more electronic leanings, this made for a distinctive and powerful combination.
64. FOUR TET – Everything Ecstatic
Whilst not Kieren Hebden’s absolute best work, it still seems inexplicable that this inventive and entertaining record has been left off almost all the major end of year lists. His preoccupation with dense layered percussion (which looks set to be continued in his work with the Steve Reid Ensemble) came to the fore, and ‘Everything Ecstatic’ is an insistent, intensely rhythmic concoction.
63. SPOON – Gimme Fiction
Britt Daniel’s Spoon have produced a remarkably consistent and enjoyable body of work, and ‘Gimme Fiction’ is a dependable collection of quirky guitar pop. Much of this album is raggedly infectious and it’s a shame that the band have been relatively neglected in this country. I’d take this over the banal and infuriating chav-pop of Hard-Fi any day of the week.
62. GIRLS ALOUD – Chemistry
Oh, you love it really. They remain the only decent thing to have come from the vacuous world of reality TV, and this album, surely likely to be their last, will also stand as their enduring legacy. This is disposable, playful pop music, brilliantly produced by Brian Higgins’ Xenomania team, with elements lovingly pinched from the likes of Giorgio Moroder and The Human League. Do the girls really have any talent? Frankly, who cares – they deliver the frequently hilarious lyrics with such shameless gusto that it doesn’t matter at all.
61. DEPECHE MODE – Playing The Angel
Martin Gore was at his most OTT on ‘Playing The Angel’, but even a slightly substandard Mode album is better than most on offer from British bands in 2005 (is anyone seriously suggesting that Arctic Monkeys can work on this level?). This one is especially notable for the introduction of Dave Gahan as songwriting force, and his contributions stand up remarkable well, capturing the same dark, introspective ground as Gore, but arguably in this case, with greater control and success. For me, this album suffered a little from looking backwards, as it mostly retread the sounds and themes of ‘Violator’. Ben Hillier added a few new production tricks, however, and at its best, ‘Playing The Angel’ retained the dynamism that only seems to emerge when this remarkable band set aside their differences and collaborate.
60. THE SINGING ADAMS – Problems
It takes a while to make its impact, but in spite of (or perhaps because of) its lo-rent, lo-fi production values and gritty, forthright lyrics, ‘Problems’ is actually a superb record. There is nothing superfluous here, and Steven Adams’ wry, vulnerable songs are given the necessary space to breathe. Guest appearances from Gill Sandell and Piney Gir add depth and flavour, and the incorporation of what sounds like the influence of folk song is particularly effective.
59. SHARON JONES AND THE DAP KINGS – Naturally
It wasn’t such a great year for R&B in the nu-beats sense, but 2005 saw a real resurgence in the gritty, original, live R&B set-up, with a spectacular return from Bettye Lavette and the continued second life of Solomon Burke. One of the most impressive releases was this superbly swampy, passionate set of danceable classic soul grooves that could set dancefloors alight. ‘Naturally’ is a sensual, primal feast of urgency and energy.
58. SAGE FRANCIS – A Healthy Distrust
I am simply baffled as to why this has not appeared on any of the major end of year lists. It’s one of the year’s most creative hip hop albums, not least for the inspired collaboration with Will Oldham on ‘Sea Lion’, but for its skilful demolition of some of rap’s established clichés and conventions. Its eerie sounds and confrontational performances both disorientate and thrill.
57. SOLOMON BURKE – Make Do With What You’ve Got
He’s so large that he’s barely able to walk but the great man can certainly still sing. There are few living soul artists with this level of power and control, as well as a remarkable subtlety of phrasing. Perhaps it comes from his preaching as much as his singing, but Solomon Burke is a true mass communicator. If I was a little apprehensive that Don Was might produce too glossy a production, my reservations proved largely unfounded. It’s certainly crisper than the earthier ‘Don’t Give Up On Me’ collection, but the song selection is just as inspired. A superbly gritty take on The Band’s ‘It Makes No Difference’, a slinky delivery of Bob Dylan’s ‘What Good Am I?’ are just a couple of the tremendous highlights.
56. BJORK – Drawing Restraint 9
Will Oldham has been getting around a bit in 2005 – and his bizarre contribution to Bjork’s soundtrack to her film director husband Matthew Barney’s latest work may be his strangest work yet. It’s fitting, then, that this is also one of Bjork’s most peculiar and challenging works to date. Mostly instrumental, but occasionally featuring some wordless, intoxicating vocals, it sounds like a modern-day approach to Eastern European folk music and indicates that Bjork is as adept a composer and musical director as she is songwriter and performer. She is forging new and exciting paths with every move she makes – and is in every sense a true artist.
55. THE JUAN MACLEAN – Less Than Human
One of many great records to emerge from the DFA staple, ‘Less Than Human’ manage to generously borrow references from a wide range of sources, including the powerhouse funk of Funkadelic/Parliament, the robotic punk-funk disco stylings of mentors LCD Soundsystem and the pulsating synths of Giorgio Moroder. The result was an intoxicating brew, and one of the year’s best party albums.
54. WILCO – Kicking Television
It would be so tempting to make this a top 10 album, such is its compelling quality. Having made ‘A Ghost Is Born’ my album of the year above The Arcade Fire last year, I will however resist the temptation. It’s been a good year for live albums – but this is comfortably pick of the bunch, capturing the current Wilco line-up at what may well be the peak of their powers. The later, more adventurous material predictably dominates the set, although a crunching ‘Misunderstood’ and a cathartic ‘A Shot In The Arm’ sound entirely comfortably alongside the rest. The spindly, intricate playing of Nels Cline adds an improvisatory spirit to the band’s sound – which is integrated surprisingly effectively with Jeff Tweedy’s more conservative leanings. The album captures the same contrast between propulsive energy and self-absorbed reflection that made ‘A Ghost Is Born’ so fascinating, but turns it into something more immediate and threatening. Not just kicking television, but kicking everyone else into touch.
53. ALASDAIR ROBERTS – No Earthly Man
Alasdair Roberts’ distinctive (and prolific) refashioning of the Scottish folk tradition continued apace with this mysterious and foreboding collection of murder ballads. Roberts has always seen Will Oldham as his mentor, but Oldham’s very presence here makes his influence more overt. Previously a more benign factor, he now imposes a slightly murky and sinister edge to the textures of the music. Roberts’ voice is becoming more assured, and he inhabits these songs with a peculiarly hypnotic charm.
52. LAURA CANTRELL – Humming By The Flowered Vine
There’s very little that’s in any way modern about Laura Cantrell – but in an age where people fall all too easily for the phoney innovations of an M.I.A., it’s refreshing to hear her timeless and traditional approach. It might mean disaster in the hands of a lesser artist, but Cantrell has such an instinctive feel for this old-time music and the results are natural and effortless. She is a very restrained and un-showy singer, and it is through this approach that she captures some of the tensions and heartaches inherent in the country tradition. She impresses both as a writer and as an interpreter, something few can manage these days.
51. BLOC PARTY – Silent Alarm
75. BROKEN FAMILY BAND – Welcome Home Loser
Well there has to be a number 75, but I can’t help feeling a little cruel propping up the list with BFB. As a collection of songs, ‘Welcome Home Loser’ was their strongest set yet, including a number of live favourites that perhaps suffered only from over-familiarity. The production was crisp and (perhaps too) clean, and the trademark Steven Adams dry wit remained on top form.
74. EST – Viaticum
More stadium jazz from Esbjorn Svensson’s hugely popular trio. It’s arguably closer to chamber music than jazz, with Svensson’s limited talents at improvising meaning that it’s more about atmosphere and mood than thrilling extemporising. ‘Viaticum’ was elegantly restrained and very cerebral, but also touching.
73. LOU BARLOW - Emoh
This would be an easy one to overlook, if only because Lou Barlow is such a self-deprecating character. ‘Emoh’ may well be his least assuming album to date, but it’s also one of his best, with strong songs mostly left uncluttered and free of the wilful sabotage sometimes exerted by Sebadoh or Folk Implosion. The melodies are lush and carefully charted, and Barlow’s understated vocal delivery remains one of pop’s most forlorn voices, brilliant at expressing the frustration and confusion he writes about so well.
72. RACHEL STEVENS – Come And Get It
No I’m not joking. It’s really a great shame that both record company and artist seemed to have lost faith in this pure pop gem by the time it was finally released. It’s much more than the usual collection of great singles and slushy filler, and every bit the equal of Annie’s ‘Anniemal’. It’s just a little bit less cool to admit to liking it.
71. MU – Out Of Breach
If most people were grimly fascinated by the Michael Jackson trial, it’s safe to say that Mu was more likely enraged. Her shrieking on ‘Stop Bothering Michael Jackson’ may be the most impassioned sound of the year. With hysterical ravings almost entirely devoid of melody, and a very uncertain grasp of the English language, Mu remains a violently compelling voice. Together with Maurice Fulton’s awesome, relentless percussion-dominated production, she produced an album that was captivating and terrifying in equal measure.
70. JOHN CALE – Black Acetate
Although it was a bit of a strange mix of genres, ‘Black Acetate’ provided plenty of evidence that Cale is still full of ideas, as well as absorbing some very modish new influences and inspirations. He can cover spiky guitar pop as well as the more forward-thinking soulful electronic material. This is a cerebral set that also has an urgency and immediacy absent from, say, the more ponderous Brian Eno album also released this year.
69. JACKSON AND HIS COMPUTER BAND – Smash
The stuttering, glitchy French approach to modern day disco was back with a bang with the slapdash cut and paste brilliance of Jackson. He possibly had the shortest attention span in modern music but from this, he crafted something edgy and thrilling. He also demonstrated a strong sense of humour, and therefore avoided confrontation without results, although his pulverising live shows were something else entirely.
68. LAURA VEIRS – Year Of Meteors
Unfairly dismissed as a move towards more conventional territory, ‘Year Of Meteors’ continued Veirs’ songwriting preoccupations with elements and natural phenomena, maintaining her distinctive sense of awe and wonder whilst developing her melodic gifts. Less abrasive than previous works, but no less fascinating, it is the eerie, evocative work of a maturing songwriter..
67. RUFUS WAINWRIGHT – Want Two
Really an album of 2004, but not afforded a release date in Britain until well into 2005. The vagaries of record company schedules made Rufus work hard to promote two albums he had intended to release as one – but the distance between them made the differences between the two Want albums appear even starker. Where the former was ornate, lavish and occasionally excessive – Want Two is reflective, dramatic and elegant.
66. SOUTH SAN GABRIEL – The Carlton Chronicles
A concept album about a cat? It sounds like a disastrous trip to planet whimsy, but it actually works rather well. This is mostly because Will Johnson (who also records as Centr-O-Matic and under his own name) has a great control of sound and atmosphere. This is an album that can be taken in humorous spirit, but which also contains songs that are delicate, warm and touching.
65. M83 – Before The Dawn Heals Us
Well, it wasn’t exactly a match for the stunning ‘Dead Cities…’ album, but exactly what is? At least M83 didn’t settle for sticking to the same formula. ‘Before The Dawn Heals Us’ seemed to push their progressive elements to the fore, occasionally even resembling the regal pomp of Pink Floyd. When added to their more electronic leanings, this made for a distinctive and powerful combination.
64. FOUR TET – Everything Ecstatic
Whilst not Kieren Hebden’s absolute best work, it still seems inexplicable that this inventive and entertaining record has been left off almost all the major end of year lists. His preoccupation with dense layered percussion (which looks set to be continued in his work with the Steve Reid Ensemble) came to the fore, and ‘Everything Ecstatic’ is an insistent, intensely rhythmic concoction.
63. SPOON – Gimme Fiction
Britt Daniel’s Spoon have produced a remarkably consistent and enjoyable body of work, and ‘Gimme Fiction’ is a dependable collection of quirky guitar pop. Much of this album is raggedly infectious and it’s a shame that the band have been relatively neglected in this country. I’d take this over the banal and infuriating chav-pop of Hard-Fi any day of the week.
62. GIRLS ALOUD – Chemistry
Oh, you love it really. They remain the only decent thing to have come from the vacuous world of reality TV, and this album, surely likely to be their last, will also stand as their enduring legacy. This is disposable, playful pop music, brilliantly produced by Brian Higgins’ Xenomania team, with elements lovingly pinched from the likes of Giorgio Moroder and The Human League. Do the girls really have any talent? Frankly, who cares – they deliver the frequently hilarious lyrics with such shameless gusto that it doesn’t matter at all.
61. DEPECHE MODE – Playing The Angel
Martin Gore was at his most OTT on ‘Playing The Angel’, but even a slightly substandard Mode album is better than most on offer from British bands in 2005 (is anyone seriously suggesting that Arctic Monkeys can work on this level?). This one is especially notable for the introduction of Dave Gahan as songwriting force, and his contributions stand up remarkable well, capturing the same dark, introspective ground as Gore, but arguably in this case, with greater control and success. For me, this album suffered a little from looking backwards, as it mostly retread the sounds and themes of ‘Violator’. Ben Hillier added a few new production tricks, however, and at its best, ‘Playing The Angel’ retained the dynamism that only seems to emerge when this remarkable band set aside their differences and collaborate.
60. THE SINGING ADAMS – Problems
It takes a while to make its impact, but in spite of (or perhaps because of) its lo-rent, lo-fi production values and gritty, forthright lyrics, ‘Problems’ is actually a superb record. There is nothing superfluous here, and Steven Adams’ wry, vulnerable songs are given the necessary space to breathe. Guest appearances from Gill Sandell and Piney Gir add depth and flavour, and the incorporation of what sounds like the influence of folk song is particularly effective.
59. SHARON JONES AND THE DAP KINGS – Naturally
It wasn’t such a great year for R&B in the nu-beats sense, but 2005 saw a real resurgence in the gritty, original, live R&B set-up, with a spectacular return from Bettye Lavette and the continued second life of Solomon Burke. One of the most impressive releases was this superbly swampy, passionate set of danceable classic soul grooves that could set dancefloors alight. ‘Naturally’ is a sensual, primal feast of urgency and energy.
58. SAGE FRANCIS – A Healthy Distrust
I am simply baffled as to why this has not appeared on any of the major end of year lists. It’s one of the year’s most creative hip hop albums, not least for the inspired collaboration with Will Oldham on ‘Sea Lion’, but for its skilful demolition of some of rap’s established clichés and conventions. Its eerie sounds and confrontational performances both disorientate and thrill.
57. SOLOMON BURKE – Make Do With What You’ve Got
He’s so large that he’s barely able to walk but the great man can certainly still sing. There are few living soul artists with this level of power and control, as well as a remarkable subtlety of phrasing. Perhaps it comes from his preaching as much as his singing, but Solomon Burke is a true mass communicator. If I was a little apprehensive that Don Was might produce too glossy a production, my reservations proved largely unfounded. It’s certainly crisper than the earthier ‘Don’t Give Up On Me’ collection, but the song selection is just as inspired. A superbly gritty take on The Band’s ‘It Makes No Difference’, a slinky delivery of Bob Dylan’s ‘What Good Am I?’ are just a couple of the tremendous highlights.
56. BJORK – Drawing Restraint 9
Will Oldham has been getting around a bit in 2005 – and his bizarre contribution to Bjork’s soundtrack to her film director husband Matthew Barney’s latest work may be his strangest work yet. It’s fitting, then, that this is also one of Bjork’s most peculiar and challenging works to date. Mostly instrumental, but occasionally featuring some wordless, intoxicating vocals, it sounds like a modern-day approach to Eastern European folk music and indicates that Bjork is as adept a composer and musical director as she is songwriter and performer. She is forging new and exciting paths with every move she makes – and is in every sense a true artist.
55. THE JUAN MACLEAN – Less Than Human
One of many great records to emerge from the DFA staple, ‘Less Than Human’ manage to generously borrow references from a wide range of sources, including the powerhouse funk of Funkadelic/Parliament, the robotic punk-funk disco stylings of mentors LCD Soundsystem and the pulsating synths of Giorgio Moroder. The result was an intoxicating brew, and one of the year’s best party albums.
54. WILCO – Kicking Television
It would be so tempting to make this a top 10 album, such is its compelling quality. Having made ‘A Ghost Is Born’ my album of the year above The Arcade Fire last year, I will however resist the temptation. It’s been a good year for live albums – but this is comfortably pick of the bunch, capturing the current Wilco line-up at what may well be the peak of their powers. The later, more adventurous material predictably dominates the set, although a crunching ‘Misunderstood’ and a cathartic ‘A Shot In The Arm’ sound entirely comfortably alongside the rest. The spindly, intricate playing of Nels Cline adds an improvisatory spirit to the band’s sound – which is integrated surprisingly effectively with Jeff Tweedy’s more conservative leanings. The album captures the same contrast between propulsive energy and self-absorbed reflection that made ‘A Ghost Is Born’ so fascinating, but turns it into something more immediate and threatening. Not just kicking television, but kicking everyone else into touch.
53. ALASDAIR ROBERTS – No Earthly Man
Alasdair Roberts’ distinctive (and prolific) refashioning of the Scottish folk tradition continued apace with this mysterious and foreboding collection of murder ballads. Roberts has always seen Will Oldham as his mentor, but Oldham’s very presence here makes his influence more overt. Previously a more benign factor, he now imposes a slightly murky and sinister edge to the textures of the music. Roberts’ voice is becoming more assured, and he inhabits these songs with a peculiarly hypnotic charm.
52. LAURA CANTRELL – Humming By The Flowered Vine
There’s very little that’s in any way modern about Laura Cantrell – but in an age where people fall all too easily for the phoney innovations of an M.I.A., it’s refreshing to hear her timeless and traditional approach. It might mean disaster in the hands of a lesser artist, but Cantrell has such an instinctive feel for this old-time music and the results are natural and effortless. She is a very restrained and un-showy singer, and it is through this approach that she captures some of the tensions and heartaches inherent in the country tradition. She impresses both as a writer and as an interpreter, something few can manage these days.
51. BLOC PARTY – Silent Alarm
I spent most of the year thinking that this would remain firmly in the year’s most overrated category – but I think I may be in for a rethink. The band’s sound is relentless and captivating, and largely dominated by the interaction between Kele Okereke’s yelping vocals and Matt Tong’s brilliant, off-kilter drumming. It’s perhaps a little limiting, and they could do with deploying a more melodic approach if the impact is not to dwindle very quickly. But for now, ‘Silent Alarm’ was a treat – a dense, discomforting soundtrack to urban paranoia.
50. TEENAGE FANCLUB – Man-Made
A long-awaited return for the select few who still follow them ardently, ‘Man-Made’ broke little new ground for The Fannies, but simply consolidated their mastery of sun drenched harmony pop. It was perhaps a little less immediate than previous albums and whilst the production of John McEntire didn’t change the band’s sound radically, it did embellish it with new subtleties and textures, particularly on Raymond McGinley’s ‘Only With You’. It reveals new depths with every listen, and is a comfortably warm and familiar work.
49. CARIBOU – The Milk Of Human Kindness
Formerly known as Manitoba, Dan Snaith was forced to revise his trading name after legal action from Handsome Dick Manitoba, a clumsy attempt at self-publicity that only served to raise the profile of the artist on the receiving end of the action. ‘The Milk Of Human Kindness’ moves further away from the minimal electronica of Snaith’s debut, and furthers the clattering percussion and Krautrock inspired minimal harmony of ‘Up In Flames’. It lacks the shock of the new that its predecessor provided, but it’s mercilessly concise and consistently thrilling nonetheless.
48. IMMACULATE MACHINE – Ones And Zeroes
This one hasn’t been officially released in the UK yet, but I’m really hoping someone will pick it up for distribution as it is a masterful and well paced collection of crisp power pop, with infectious melodies and carefully crafted harmonies. There’s no bassist, but the interaction of explosive drumming and jagged guitar lines certifies that this needn’t be a limiting factor. This is as good a set of pop songs as I’ve heard in 2005.
47. BETTYE LAVETTE – I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise
If it’s good enough for Elvis Costello, it certainly ought to be good enough for me. This remarkable comeback album sees soul legend LaVette benefit from the same Joe Henry production treatment that worked so well for Solomon Burke. This is a collection of songs from unexpected sources – all female. LaVette tackles songs from such disparate writers as Sinead O’ Connor, Leonard Cohen collaborator Sharon Robinson, Lucinda Williams, Fiona Apple and Joan Armatrading. She leaves her own personal stamp on each song, sounding gutsy and determined throughout, but also demonstrating precise control over her expressive phrasing.
46. TORD GUSTAVSEN TRIO – The Ground
Tord Gustavsen’s trio are ploughing the same soft, atmospheric ground as EST, but with arguably more emotion and musical quality. This music manages to be stirring without resorting to anything more than muted dynamics, and its subtlety has a cumulative charge.
45. BROADCAST – Tender Buttons
Now brutally chopped to a mere duo, Broadcast’s loss of band members necessitated a more taut, fearsomely minimal sound. ‘Tender Buttons’ delivered this and more – a direct and intense blast of motorik insistence. It doesn’t have the same level of sheer beauty as ‘Ha Ha Sound’, but then it’s coming from a completely different place, so that doesn’t really matter.
44. BOARDS OF CANADA – The Campfire Headphase
If it’s not quite a classic on the level of ‘Music Has The Right…’ then that’s probably only because familiarity breeds contempt. Repeated listens do reveal new levels of interest in that well-ingrained BoC sound, not least the introduction of live instrumentation, which works surprisingly well. This time, it’s more blissful than sinister though, and ‘The Campfire Headphase’ may lull you into a false sense of security.
43. CHRIS T-T – 9 Red Songs
Chris T-T remains one of the most endearing songwriters at work and even though this is a righteous politically charged album full of anger and bitterness, it still finds room for reflection and all round good humour. T-T’s observational writing has never been more incisive, and simply on a musical level, with its intricate and considered arrangements, this is his best album to date.
42. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – Devils and Dust
‘Devils and Dust’ inevitably suffers a little from unfavourable comparisons with ‘Nebraska’ and ‘The Ghost Of Tom Joad’, the other two ‘acoustic’ Springsteen records and twin pillars of his output so far. ‘D & D’ does try something a bit different, however, mixing stripped back meditative storytelling with very basic rockers that don’t sound a million miles away from the much maligned ‘Human Touch’ and ‘Lucky Town’. At its best (‘Long Time Comin’, ‘Maria’s Bed’, ‘Reno’, ‘Black Cowboys’) it proves that Springsteen’s instinctive understanding and sympathy for his characters remains his hard-won quality, and his manipulation of narrative is still questing.
41. VASHTI BUNYAN – Lookaftering
It could hardly be called long-awaited, as hardly a word has been mentioned about Vashti Bunyan in the intervening 28 years between ‘Just Another Diamond Day’ and this new album. It’s really only the patronage of new folk acts such as Animal Collective and Devendra Banhart that has opened the door for her return. ‘Lookaftering’ is full of warm, humane reflection on love, domestic life and family – and Bunyan’s exquisitely vulnerable voice has been one of the most precious and beautiful sounds of 2005. Max Richter’s understated production sustains a captivating aural glow. Magnificent.
40. DOVES – Some Cities
Doves continued to push their epic sound to the limit on ‘Some Cities’, a dense and compelling record that again utilised all their talents in the recording studio. Their sound is intelligently engineered, but not at the expense of energy and feeling, and ‘Some Cities’ captures both with tremendous success.
39. KONONO NO. 1 – Congotronics
It must have been odd for Kinshasa’s premier band to suddenly be hailed as a new phenomenon, having been performing in their hometown for decades. Still, hipster upstarts and world music aficionados alike couldn’t get enough of this extraordinary collection – in which the traditional likembe finger piano is amplified and distorted to create a sound that is both inspiring and terrifying in equal measure. This relentless apocalyptic groove could be extended and extemporised at great length without ever becoming boring. It shows the origins of modern dance music.
38. DAVE HOLLAND BIG BAND – Overtime
Dave Holland is a musician that always seems to find new methods and approaches, and one whose considerable talent shows no signs of diminishing. ‘Overtime’ is a big band album that captures precisely the colossal thrill of big band music – it is aggressive, punchy and also serious fun. Like Matthew Herbert’s recent big band project, it also proves that such a move need not necessarily signify regression. For Holland, this is a captivating and successful side-step.
37. BLACK DICE – Broken Ear Record
I can’t really comment on the apparent consensus that this is Black Dice’s least significant record to date, as it’s my first real encounter with the band. To these ears, it represents a convincing and brave exploration of the possibilities of noise, and it’s structures and sounds are located miles away from anything in mainstream music. It can’t even really be aligned very easily with the rest of DFA’s output. It sounds genuinely industrial – not like the rather spurious musical genre, but in its emphasis on sound collage above melody, it is music for machines made by humans.
36. SMOG – A River Ain’t Too Much To Love
‘A River..’ continued Bill Callahan’s drift away from the unconventional drones of ‘Rain On Lens’ towards something more accessible, although it was a much more enigmatic and opaque collection of songs than the relatively chipper ‘Supper’ album. Like much of Callahan’s best work, its droll irony and misanthropic edge require some work – but once familiar with the dry Callahan stylings, these songs are striking, humorous and frequently incisive. The traditional musical backdrop eschewed virtuosity, but also went beyond a standard Americana template into something more challenging and, ultimately, more rewarding.
35. JUSTIN QUINN’S BAKEHOUSE – Before I Forget
One of many excellent releases from the much feted F-IRE Collective in 2005, ‘Before I Forget’ was arguably a little more conventional than Polar Bear or Acoustic Ladyland, but it had a more slippery and elusive charm of its own. The playing is beautifully fluid and sometimes exhuberant, but mostly it is the lush, impressionistic mood that stands out most.
34. COCOROSIE – Noah’s Ark
This was a sublime, exotic and deeply compelling album, with the slightly nasal, pinched sound of the Cassidy sisters’ voices combining effortlessly with a bewildering array of bizarre instrumentation. It sounded like electronic folk music – in thrall to natural melodies and sounds, but processed through a more modern, anything-goes approach. Even an appearance from the execrable Devendra Banhart couldn’t spoil it.
33. LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – LCD Soundsystem
After two volumes of DFA compilations and several cult singles, the LCD Soundsystem album could easily have been an anti-climax. Mercifully, it delivered on almost every level – with plenty of the driving future new wave disco we’d come to expect, as well as some more melodic surprises to sustain the interest. The fact that it came with a bonus CD collating all the non-album singles was a real bonus. Together – the two discs make for a minor classic. The real test, however, will be James Murphy’s next move. This is music that could quickly become tired and it would be a shame for ideas of this quality to be relegated to a passing fad. How will Murphy develop the LCD sound?
32. DANGERDOOM – The Mouse and The Mask
In an otherwise barren year for American hip hop, there was however no doubting that a collaboration between Dangermouse, legendary producer of the Jay-Z meets The Beatles Grey Album bootleg and rapper extraordinaire MF Doom would be anything other than excellent. It’s not quite as audacious as Doom’s Madvillain collaboration with Madlib – and in many ways, the approach is surprisingly old-school. Nevertheless, the demented wordplay is thrilling and there are many intriguing sounds and heavy beats for sheer enjoyment value. Many of the cartoon references that form the concept behind the album may be lost on British audiences, but the album stood up on a musical level alone.
31. LOW – The Great Destroyer
Another of the year’s most cruelly underrated albums, ‘The Great Destroyer’ saw Low beefing up their sound without losing any of the emotive magic of the instinctive harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker. The music was still deceptively basic – with pounding skeletal and rhythms and simple melodies, but it was carried on a new wave of vital urgency and clarity.
30. MY MORNING JACKET – Z
The new line-up of My Morning Jacket remained expansive in their sound and approach, but also broadened their musical palette to feature greater reliance on keyboards and rhythms. Some hyped this rather ridiculously as a trek into R & B production territory. Whilst it wasn’t such a major volte-face as that, it certainly suggested that this line-up of the band may have even more potential than the original model (that is, at least, if they can stop cancelling tour dates). With John Leckie on board as producer, some of the band’s strongest songs to date were transformed into mysterious and fascinating soundscapes, whilst still leaving plenty of space for straightforward rocking out. The streamlined brevity of the album also helped – this no longer felt like it could be stifling admonition masquerading as an epic – it was all the qualities of the epic in a more concise and manageable format.
29. PATRICK WOLF – Wind In The Wires
If Kate Bush’s ‘Aerial’ was the sound of domestic contentment, ‘Wind In The Wires’ was the sound of discontent – the need to escape the claustrophobia of the city and forge a new home. In discarding some of the more frustratingly adolescent themes of ‘Lycanthropy’, Patrick Wolf more than fulfilled that album’s promise, crafting an album of elegant musicality and powerful songwriting.
28. ISOLEE – Wearemonster
‘Wearemonster’ is a dance album that maintains rigorous adherence to the beat but goes way beyond brainless repetition. There are so many ideas pulsing through this superb album, many of them combined into the same track. Each track develops, shifts and mutate, whilst always anchored by an infectious bass line or hook. Numerous ideas are then filtered in and out of the mix, and the results are both subtle and intoxicating.
27. THE BAD PLUS – Suspicious Activity?
Not only do some critics in the jazz world continue to view The Bad Plus as a threat, but many still doubt their musicality. After this, their fourth highly inventive, questing release, surely the doubters must now be silenced. This is a piano trio – but it sounds absolutely unlike any kind of conventional piano trio. Nor do they take their cues from the modern variants – the ethereal atmospherics of EST or Tord Gustavsen don’t feature here at all. It’s a furious, intricate and virtuosic music, but with a sturdy and powerful groove at its core. Mostly focussing on original compositions, ‘Suspicious Activity?’ showcases the writing talents of all three members, and their ingenious polyrhythmic structures are at their most muscular here. It’s a strident, compelling work of dexterity and vigour.
26. KING CREOSOTE – Rocket DIY/KC Rules OK
The prolific Kenny Anderson compiled some of his best songs written between 1988 and 2004 on to two albums in 2005. ‘Rocket DIY’ was recorded in the frail lo-fi, homespun approach that will be familiar to fans of ‘Kenny and Beth’s Musakal Boat Rides’. ‘KC Rules OK’ was recorded in collaboration with The Earlies and also featured backing vocals from a former Fence Collective member, one KT Tunstall – who has now either sold-out or transcended her mentor’s limited appeal depending on your position. I’d opt for the former, as it’s a less conventional, and frequently more touching collection, although ‘KC Rules OK’ is often neatly arranged too.
25. OKKERVIL RIVER – Black Sheep Boy
This is a really great album, and in almost any other year would surely have graced my top 10. A conceptual song cycle inspired by the Tim Hardin song of the same name, it covers the tempestuous torment of unrequited love in a harsh prose-poetry that still manages to sound incisive and dignified, even in its more envious and furious moments.
24. ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI – WORN COPY
Thanks to Animal Collective’s excellent Paw Tracks label, we are in the midst of a continuing programme to bring the extraordinary music of Ariel Pink to wider attention. If anything, ‘Worn Copy’ was even better than last year’s ‘Doledrums’. With some of the rough edges smoothed a little, this elusive, home-recorded gem sounds a little like a lo-fi ‘Pet Sounds’. Pink’s methods may be untutored, but the results are as euphoric and symphonic as composed music. This is pop as blissful rapture, and Pink remains isolated in his own unique space.
23. ERIN McKEOWN – We Will Become Like Birds
What on earth leads the UK press to be so apathetic towards this remarkable songwriter? Whilst many monthlies were happy to fall for the feverish publicity surrounding the return of the unbearably pretentious Fiona Apple, this infinitely more interesting and creative record was completely overlooked. It successfully integrated a greater mastery of the studio into her sound and this provided an even greater contrast with her more rootsy solo live shows. The songs were loosely linked around the theme of freedom – a fashionable buzz word for many in the War on Terror, addressed with sympathy and understanding by the delectable Ms McKeown.
22. M WARD – Transistor Radio
An album that invokes the spirit of classic American radio and bemoans its decline into formatted commercial tedium. It’s also perfectly romantic, with a keening and bittersweet spirit at its core. M Ward clearly has a real love and understanding of the American songwriting tradition – but with ‘Transistor Radio’, he has made a strong claim to be an integral part of that tradition’s continual development.
21. PAT METHENY – The Way Up
Reviews that seemed completely astounded by the fact that Pat Metheny had composed one lengthy ‘suite’ of music seemed to neglect the strong tradition of composition in jazz. This was a work that looked more to the long compositions of Duke Ellington and George Russell than the free improvisation of Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane. Yet, Metheny’s music was spacious and elegant and left plenty of room for his expressive and sometimes expressionist playing. His collaborator Lyle Mays was an equally potent force, his layered keyboard textures providing the music with its rich and evocative atmosphere. Another major achievement in an illustrious musical career.
20. SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE – School Of The Flower
Taking hints from the folk rock of Fairport Convention and the psychedelia of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd but transporting all these ideas into a more unfamiliar and austere space, ‘School Of The Flower’ was one of 2005’s most bewitching albums. It’s an oddly graceful and enchanting record that rewards with repeated plays.
19. SLEATER KINNEY – The Woods
Here, Sleater Kinney largely abandoned the fervent political stance of ‘One Beat’ and moved back into more personal territory. Musically, however, this was full of righteous anger and unrestrained aggression. ‘The Woods’ is a noisy, thrashing and frequently chaotic beast, but it remains in tune with the corrupted primal blues that has inspired all of Sleater Kinney’s best music. When it returns to a more conventional melodic approach, it does so with aplomb, and the songs always shift gear in unexpected places. Its visceral impact was impossible to resist.
18. POLAR BEAR – Held On The Tips Of Fingers
Some preferred this to its sister album from Acoustic Ladyland and I can almost see why. The deployment of Leafcutter John on electronics makes for some disorientating and innovative atmospherics, whilst the music itself races through many genres and cultures, even incorporating a kind of klezmer march. As one might expect from Seb Rochford, a remarkably talented drummer-composer, it’s rhythmically inventive, but in the duelling saxophones of Mark Lockheart and Pete Wareham, there is also melodic dexterity as well. There is a real understanding of jazz music history on display here – as well as a vigorous desire to propel the music into the future.
17. MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO – What Comes After The Blues
For a while, it seemed that Jason Molina was unstoppable, with three successive masterpieces in ‘Didn’t it Rain’, ‘Magnolia Electric Co.’ and ‘Pyramid Electric Co.’. But then came the perplexing name change and ‘Trials and Errors’ an unfortunately bombastic album that obscured Molina’s song writing gifts beneath numerous Neil Young-esque guitar solos and sludgy playing from the rhythm section. It didn’t bode well. Yet, some of the songs from that release appear in studio form here, in markedly better versions, Molina’s inherent vulnerability wisely restored. Many of the songs are more accessible than their predecessors, without losing Molina’s distinctive edge. This is a beautiful album, full of longing and passion and it stands up well in Molina’s increasingly illustrious catalogue.
16. NEW PORNOGRAPHERS – Twin Cinema
This Canadian indie-pop supergroup found real ambition in ‘Twin Cinema’, an album with a refreshingly dirty, live sound but featuring wonderfully quirky songs that veer in all sorts of unexpected directions. The band are never content to blandly strum, or maintain the same relentless feel – instead, we get savage punctuations, inventive harmony and highly infectious tunes. The titles and lyrics remain a little arty and their meaning largely impenetrable – but with songs this immediate and thrilling, that didn’t really matter. At last, they are starting to emerge from the shadow of Neko Case and come into their own as a band, so much so that they can tour without her and it doesn’t even matter too much!
15. BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY AND MATT SWEENY – Superwolf
After the rather one dimensional ‘Master and Everyone’ and the wilfully perverse re-recorded ‘Greatest Palace Music’ album, Will Oldham shedded his recently acquired layers of disguise to record his most direct, savage and impressive work since ‘I See A Darkness’. His lyrics are at their most uncomfortable and probing here, although much of the credit should go to collaborator Matt Sweeney for writing such elegiac and expressive music.
14. ELBOW – Leaders Of The Free World
Whilst many critics inexplicably fawned over the faux-U2isms of Coldplay’s ‘X&Y’, they risked missing the real deal here. Elbow have been honing that epic sound over the course of three brilliant albums now – and this one may top the lot. It’s their most cohesive and confident work to date, without sacrificing any of the evocative emotion of the best parts of ‘Asleep In The Back’. The sound is remarkably crisp, and Guy Garvey’s incisive dry wit and careful command of melody lead the charge.
13. KATE BUSH – Aerial
After twelve years, was ‘Aerial’ a reaffirmation of La Bush’s singular talent, or an introspective disappointment? Well, it’s frustrating certainly, but its eccentricities are also an intrinsic part of its appeal. Musically, it’s insanely ambitious even when at its most restrained, and a handful of the songs (‘Nocturne’, ‘The Coral Room’, ‘Pi’, ‘King Of The Mountain’, ‘How To Be Invisible’, ‘Aerial’) are the work of an artist on a completely different level from everyone else.
12. SUFJAN STEVENS – Illinois
Such an ambitious gesture could always expect to top the end of year polls, and the success of Sufjan Stevens’ magnum opus has only been marred by a numbing predictability. To my ears, ‘Michigan’ is still the better work – it’s less twee and has more space and depth. Everything on ‘Illinois’ sounds like an attempt to master a big American sound – and mostly it works remarkably well. Stevens remains a humane and compassionate writer, grappling with the both the big themes of American national history, and the experiences particular to his chosen locality. Stevens had immersed himself in folklore, literature and ideas to produce some of the most intelligent music of the year.
11. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE – Feels
Is this the sound of Animal Collective becoming conventional? Well, it’s hardly verse-chorus-verse stuff, but there is perhaps a more melodic approach to be found amidst the endearing yelping and hypnotic psychedelia. Animal Collective’s sound harks back to the most primitive of folk music, but also sounds fresh and modern. It’s unhinged and occasionally difficult, but the very wildness of the sound makes it all the more enticing. They also sound pretty much like nothing else around right now.
10. THE BOOKS – Lost and Safe
After two albums of music that refuses to respect genre conventions, The Books continued their progressive journey. In some respects, ‘Lost and Safe’ is a kind of song cycle, with a greater emphasis on words and melody than previous releases. Yet, it’s still the impressive way they integrate samples and found sounds into their beguiling textures that is most fascinating. ‘Lost and Safe’ was their most coherent statement yet and, in its own quiet and unassuming way, a genuinely radical statement.
09. NINE HORSES – Snow Borne Sorrow
Daniel from Unit described this to me as ‘a bit like Nick Cave if he got a bit more funky’. I’m not sure funky is quite the right word – it’s more almost atmospheric jazz really, but I take the point. A lingering melancholy pervades this album and it is suffused with guilt and regret. It is sublimely evocative, and very well produced. David Sylvian is among those 80s survivors who have gone on to occupy their own space, well away from prevailing trends or critical opinion. This is one of his best works yet.
08. ROOTS MANUVA – Awfully Deep
In a largely disappointing year for hip-hop, this record stood out by a country mile. There are few others in the genre working at this level. Taking ideas and approaches from a number of genres to create a dizzying conflation, ‘Awfully Deep’ sounded like very little else around. Added to this was Roots Manuva’s refusal to bow to lyrical conventions, documenting his own, increasingly paranoid life experience with wry wit and ingenuity. Whilst there are plenty of American musical influences on display here, this showed a British hip-hop artist avoiding the mock-American clichés of some of his contemporaries. A brazenly honest record full of conviction and intelligence.
07. JAMIE LIDELL – Multiply
A digital Jamiroquai or a genuine nu soul genius? Well, probably neither at this stage, although ‘Multiply’ sounded better with every listen and gave every suggestion that Jamie Lidell has a very promising future. Many of the production ideas were more inventive than the ‘white boy soul’ tag suggests, and Lidell’s voice does indeed capture a more modern take on the music of Sam Cooke, Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett.
06. BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE – Broken Social Scene
A slight hint of a backlash seemed to be building in some circles, but for most, Broken Social Scene’s follow-up to their classic ‘You Forgot It In People’ satisfied on most levels. This was a denser sound, but one that also frequently took the band back to their contemporary rock roots (hence the driving energy of ‘Fire Eye’d Boy’ and chiming Sonic Youth-esque guitars of ‘7/4 (Shoreline)’). With scores of musicians contributing, there were a real range of ideas on display, and the unconventional song structures took the music in increasingly unexpected directions.
05. BILL FRISELL – East/West
There have been numerous ‘Americana’ albums fawned over by the monthly music press this year, but the best in this rather spurious genre arguably came from a jazz guitarist. Bill Frisell has worked hard over a long period in demolishing tired genre conventions. Yet, throughout his experiments with country and the popular songbook, his distinctive sustained and looped guitar sound remains the one resolutely consistent factor. This live album provided a particularly potent context for that sound, with Frisell performing in two trios, luxuriating in a plethora of American musical culture. The music is gloriously expansive, performed with subtle appreciation and reverence or gritty enthusiasm, depending on the demands of the material.
04. IRON AND WINE + CALEXICO – In The Reins
In this real meeting of minds, two of the most interesting among the acts often banded together in the ‘alt country’ genre produced their best and most interesting work. The lyrics of Sam Beam echoed the big western spaces of writers such as Cormac McCarthy, but also captured the compacted family narratives of Bruce Springsteen. His delicate vocals and understated melodies helped distil the essence of his brilliant prose-poetry. Calexico’s musical backdrop captured the spirit of border music, with plenty of intricate detail and intelligent musicianship. A wonderful record – and the joint tour that reaches the UK in April 2006 should be a treat.
03. MATTHEW HERBERT – Plat Du Jour
Abandoning his big band, Matthew Herbert produced a bizarre form of musique concrete with his new project, constructed almost entirely from samples of food products and industrial food processes – from the sounds of Battery chickens to the ingeniously ludicrous reconstruction (and destruction with a tank) of the dinner prepared for George Bush and Tony Blair by Nigella Lawson. Mostly instrumental, it was a less accessible and more uncompromising project than his production work for Roisin Murphy and Dani Siciliano, which may explain its absence from most end of year polls. For those who kept an open mind, ‘Plat du Jour’ worked both as thrilling musical concoction and as impassioned political polemic. These two elements also combined effortlessly together, with Herbert’s sampling at its most imaginative. This was a geopolitically aware and utterly crucial musical document.
02. ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS – I Am A Bird Now
There’s probably little to say about this that hasn’t been said already – but this album of torch ballads dealing with gender confusion was one of the most moving and elegant albums in ages. Antony’s voice certainly takes on board some standard theatrical influences but the much-vaunted comparisons with Nina Simone do have some substance. He also had the power to convey extraordinary feeling as well as a mastery of vibrato technique. The piano led arrangements captured the vulnerability at the heart of Antony’s songs. It's success was completely unexpected and represented a real triumph for outsider music.
01. ACOUSTIC LADYLAND – Last Chance Disco
‘Last Chance Disco’ stood out in 2005 not just for its remarkable quality, but also for its willingness to embrace a diverse range of musical styles and approaches, rejecting the conventional belief that lifestyle choices and narrow interests must dictate music tastes. Some have been frustrated by the recent regeneration of interest in British jazz, particularly from some sources that have generally preferred to ignore that there has been any kind of worthwhile jazz scene in Britain. Yet, the wave of interest which now centres around the F-IRE Collective and Tomorrow’s Warriors surely cannot be a bad thing, especially when it produces music with this much fiery invention.
50. TEENAGE FANCLUB – Man-Made
A long-awaited return for the select few who still follow them ardently, ‘Man-Made’ broke little new ground for The Fannies, but simply consolidated their mastery of sun drenched harmony pop. It was perhaps a little less immediate than previous albums and whilst the production of John McEntire didn’t change the band’s sound radically, it did embellish it with new subtleties and textures, particularly on Raymond McGinley’s ‘Only With You’. It reveals new depths with every listen, and is a comfortably warm and familiar work.
49. CARIBOU – The Milk Of Human Kindness
Formerly known as Manitoba, Dan Snaith was forced to revise his trading name after legal action from Handsome Dick Manitoba, a clumsy attempt at self-publicity that only served to raise the profile of the artist on the receiving end of the action. ‘The Milk Of Human Kindness’ moves further away from the minimal electronica of Snaith’s debut, and furthers the clattering percussion and Krautrock inspired minimal harmony of ‘Up In Flames’. It lacks the shock of the new that its predecessor provided, but it’s mercilessly concise and consistently thrilling nonetheless.
48. IMMACULATE MACHINE – Ones And Zeroes
This one hasn’t been officially released in the UK yet, but I’m really hoping someone will pick it up for distribution as it is a masterful and well paced collection of crisp power pop, with infectious melodies and carefully crafted harmonies. There’s no bassist, but the interaction of explosive drumming and jagged guitar lines certifies that this needn’t be a limiting factor. This is as good a set of pop songs as I’ve heard in 2005.
47. BETTYE LAVETTE – I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise
If it’s good enough for Elvis Costello, it certainly ought to be good enough for me. This remarkable comeback album sees soul legend LaVette benefit from the same Joe Henry production treatment that worked so well for Solomon Burke. This is a collection of songs from unexpected sources – all female. LaVette tackles songs from such disparate writers as Sinead O’ Connor, Leonard Cohen collaborator Sharon Robinson, Lucinda Williams, Fiona Apple and Joan Armatrading. She leaves her own personal stamp on each song, sounding gutsy and determined throughout, but also demonstrating precise control over her expressive phrasing.
46. TORD GUSTAVSEN TRIO – The Ground
Tord Gustavsen’s trio are ploughing the same soft, atmospheric ground as EST, but with arguably more emotion and musical quality. This music manages to be stirring without resorting to anything more than muted dynamics, and its subtlety has a cumulative charge.
45. BROADCAST – Tender Buttons
Now brutally chopped to a mere duo, Broadcast’s loss of band members necessitated a more taut, fearsomely minimal sound. ‘Tender Buttons’ delivered this and more – a direct and intense blast of motorik insistence. It doesn’t have the same level of sheer beauty as ‘Ha Ha Sound’, but then it’s coming from a completely different place, so that doesn’t really matter.
44. BOARDS OF CANADA – The Campfire Headphase
If it’s not quite a classic on the level of ‘Music Has The Right…’ then that’s probably only because familiarity breeds contempt. Repeated listens do reveal new levels of interest in that well-ingrained BoC sound, not least the introduction of live instrumentation, which works surprisingly well. This time, it’s more blissful than sinister though, and ‘The Campfire Headphase’ may lull you into a false sense of security.
43. CHRIS T-T – 9 Red Songs
Chris T-T remains one of the most endearing songwriters at work and even though this is a righteous politically charged album full of anger and bitterness, it still finds room for reflection and all round good humour. T-T’s observational writing has never been more incisive, and simply on a musical level, with its intricate and considered arrangements, this is his best album to date.
42. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – Devils and Dust
‘Devils and Dust’ inevitably suffers a little from unfavourable comparisons with ‘Nebraska’ and ‘The Ghost Of Tom Joad’, the other two ‘acoustic’ Springsteen records and twin pillars of his output so far. ‘D & D’ does try something a bit different, however, mixing stripped back meditative storytelling with very basic rockers that don’t sound a million miles away from the much maligned ‘Human Touch’ and ‘Lucky Town’. At its best (‘Long Time Comin’, ‘Maria’s Bed’, ‘Reno’, ‘Black Cowboys’) it proves that Springsteen’s instinctive understanding and sympathy for his characters remains his hard-won quality, and his manipulation of narrative is still questing.
41. VASHTI BUNYAN – Lookaftering
It could hardly be called long-awaited, as hardly a word has been mentioned about Vashti Bunyan in the intervening 28 years between ‘Just Another Diamond Day’ and this new album. It’s really only the patronage of new folk acts such as Animal Collective and Devendra Banhart that has opened the door for her return. ‘Lookaftering’ is full of warm, humane reflection on love, domestic life and family – and Bunyan’s exquisitely vulnerable voice has been one of the most precious and beautiful sounds of 2005. Max Richter’s understated production sustains a captivating aural glow. Magnificent.
40. DOVES – Some Cities
Doves continued to push their epic sound to the limit on ‘Some Cities’, a dense and compelling record that again utilised all their talents in the recording studio. Their sound is intelligently engineered, but not at the expense of energy and feeling, and ‘Some Cities’ captures both with tremendous success.
39. KONONO NO. 1 – Congotronics
It must have been odd for Kinshasa’s premier band to suddenly be hailed as a new phenomenon, having been performing in their hometown for decades. Still, hipster upstarts and world music aficionados alike couldn’t get enough of this extraordinary collection – in which the traditional likembe finger piano is amplified and distorted to create a sound that is both inspiring and terrifying in equal measure. This relentless apocalyptic groove could be extended and extemporised at great length without ever becoming boring. It shows the origins of modern dance music.
38. DAVE HOLLAND BIG BAND – Overtime
Dave Holland is a musician that always seems to find new methods and approaches, and one whose considerable talent shows no signs of diminishing. ‘Overtime’ is a big band album that captures precisely the colossal thrill of big band music – it is aggressive, punchy and also serious fun. Like Matthew Herbert’s recent big band project, it also proves that such a move need not necessarily signify regression. For Holland, this is a captivating and successful side-step.
37. BLACK DICE – Broken Ear Record
I can’t really comment on the apparent consensus that this is Black Dice’s least significant record to date, as it’s my first real encounter with the band. To these ears, it represents a convincing and brave exploration of the possibilities of noise, and it’s structures and sounds are located miles away from anything in mainstream music. It can’t even really be aligned very easily with the rest of DFA’s output. It sounds genuinely industrial – not like the rather spurious musical genre, but in its emphasis on sound collage above melody, it is music for machines made by humans.
36. SMOG – A River Ain’t Too Much To Love
‘A River..’ continued Bill Callahan’s drift away from the unconventional drones of ‘Rain On Lens’ towards something more accessible, although it was a much more enigmatic and opaque collection of songs than the relatively chipper ‘Supper’ album. Like much of Callahan’s best work, its droll irony and misanthropic edge require some work – but once familiar with the dry Callahan stylings, these songs are striking, humorous and frequently incisive. The traditional musical backdrop eschewed virtuosity, but also went beyond a standard Americana template into something more challenging and, ultimately, more rewarding.
35. JUSTIN QUINN’S BAKEHOUSE – Before I Forget
One of many excellent releases from the much feted F-IRE Collective in 2005, ‘Before I Forget’ was arguably a little more conventional than Polar Bear or Acoustic Ladyland, but it had a more slippery and elusive charm of its own. The playing is beautifully fluid and sometimes exhuberant, but mostly it is the lush, impressionistic mood that stands out most.
34. COCOROSIE – Noah’s Ark
This was a sublime, exotic and deeply compelling album, with the slightly nasal, pinched sound of the Cassidy sisters’ voices combining effortlessly with a bewildering array of bizarre instrumentation. It sounded like electronic folk music – in thrall to natural melodies and sounds, but processed through a more modern, anything-goes approach. Even an appearance from the execrable Devendra Banhart couldn’t spoil it.
33. LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – LCD Soundsystem
After two volumes of DFA compilations and several cult singles, the LCD Soundsystem album could easily have been an anti-climax. Mercifully, it delivered on almost every level – with plenty of the driving future new wave disco we’d come to expect, as well as some more melodic surprises to sustain the interest. The fact that it came with a bonus CD collating all the non-album singles was a real bonus. Together – the two discs make for a minor classic. The real test, however, will be James Murphy’s next move. This is music that could quickly become tired and it would be a shame for ideas of this quality to be relegated to a passing fad. How will Murphy develop the LCD sound?
32. DANGERDOOM – The Mouse and The Mask
In an otherwise barren year for American hip hop, there was however no doubting that a collaboration between Dangermouse, legendary producer of the Jay-Z meets The Beatles Grey Album bootleg and rapper extraordinaire MF Doom would be anything other than excellent. It’s not quite as audacious as Doom’s Madvillain collaboration with Madlib – and in many ways, the approach is surprisingly old-school. Nevertheless, the demented wordplay is thrilling and there are many intriguing sounds and heavy beats for sheer enjoyment value. Many of the cartoon references that form the concept behind the album may be lost on British audiences, but the album stood up on a musical level alone.
31. LOW – The Great Destroyer
Another of the year’s most cruelly underrated albums, ‘The Great Destroyer’ saw Low beefing up their sound without losing any of the emotive magic of the instinctive harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker. The music was still deceptively basic – with pounding skeletal and rhythms and simple melodies, but it was carried on a new wave of vital urgency and clarity.
30. MY MORNING JACKET – Z
The new line-up of My Morning Jacket remained expansive in their sound and approach, but also broadened their musical palette to feature greater reliance on keyboards and rhythms. Some hyped this rather ridiculously as a trek into R & B production territory. Whilst it wasn’t such a major volte-face as that, it certainly suggested that this line-up of the band may have even more potential than the original model (that is, at least, if they can stop cancelling tour dates). With John Leckie on board as producer, some of the band’s strongest songs to date were transformed into mysterious and fascinating soundscapes, whilst still leaving plenty of space for straightforward rocking out. The streamlined brevity of the album also helped – this no longer felt like it could be stifling admonition masquerading as an epic – it was all the qualities of the epic in a more concise and manageable format.
29. PATRICK WOLF – Wind In The Wires
If Kate Bush’s ‘Aerial’ was the sound of domestic contentment, ‘Wind In The Wires’ was the sound of discontent – the need to escape the claustrophobia of the city and forge a new home. In discarding some of the more frustratingly adolescent themes of ‘Lycanthropy’, Patrick Wolf more than fulfilled that album’s promise, crafting an album of elegant musicality and powerful songwriting.
28. ISOLEE – Wearemonster
‘Wearemonster’ is a dance album that maintains rigorous adherence to the beat but goes way beyond brainless repetition. There are so many ideas pulsing through this superb album, many of them combined into the same track. Each track develops, shifts and mutate, whilst always anchored by an infectious bass line or hook. Numerous ideas are then filtered in and out of the mix, and the results are both subtle and intoxicating.
27. THE BAD PLUS – Suspicious Activity?
Not only do some critics in the jazz world continue to view The Bad Plus as a threat, but many still doubt their musicality. After this, their fourth highly inventive, questing release, surely the doubters must now be silenced. This is a piano trio – but it sounds absolutely unlike any kind of conventional piano trio. Nor do they take their cues from the modern variants – the ethereal atmospherics of EST or Tord Gustavsen don’t feature here at all. It’s a furious, intricate and virtuosic music, but with a sturdy and powerful groove at its core. Mostly focussing on original compositions, ‘Suspicious Activity?’ showcases the writing talents of all three members, and their ingenious polyrhythmic structures are at their most muscular here. It’s a strident, compelling work of dexterity and vigour.
26. KING CREOSOTE – Rocket DIY/KC Rules OK
The prolific Kenny Anderson compiled some of his best songs written between 1988 and 2004 on to two albums in 2005. ‘Rocket DIY’ was recorded in the frail lo-fi, homespun approach that will be familiar to fans of ‘Kenny and Beth’s Musakal Boat Rides’. ‘KC Rules OK’ was recorded in collaboration with The Earlies and also featured backing vocals from a former Fence Collective member, one KT Tunstall – who has now either sold-out or transcended her mentor’s limited appeal depending on your position. I’d opt for the former, as it’s a less conventional, and frequently more touching collection, although ‘KC Rules OK’ is often neatly arranged too.
25. OKKERVIL RIVER – Black Sheep Boy
This is a really great album, and in almost any other year would surely have graced my top 10. A conceptual song cycle inspired by the Tim Hardin song of the same name, it covers the tempestuous torment of unrequited love in a harsh prose-poetry that still manages to sound incisive and dignified, even in its more envious and furious moments.
24. ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI – WORN COPY
Thanks to Animal Collective’s excellent Paw Tracks label, we are in the midst of a continuing programme to bring the extraordinary music of Ariel Pink to wider attention. If anything, ‘Worn Copy’ was even better than last year’s ‘Doledrums’. With some of the rough edges smoothed a little, this elusive, home-recorded gem sounds a little like a lo-fi ‘Pet Sounds’. Pink’s methods may be untutored, but the results are as euphoric and symphonic as composed music. This is pop as blissful rapture, and Pink remains isolated in his own unique space.
23. ERIN McKEOWN – We Will Become Like Birds
What on earth leads the UK press to be so apathetic towards this remarkable songwriter? Whilst many monthlies were happy to fall for the feverish publicity surrounding the return of the unbearably pretentious Fiona Apple, this infinitely more interesting and creative record was completely overlooked. It successfully integrated a greater mastery of the studio into her sound and this provided an even greater contrast with her more rootsy solo live shows. The songs were loosely linked around the theme of freedom – a fashionable buzz word for many in the War on Terror, addressed with sympathy and understanding by the delectable Ms McKeown.
22. M WARD – Transistor Radio
An album that invokes the spirit of classic American radio and bemoans its decline into formatted commercial tedium. It’s also perfectly romantic, with a keening and bittersweet spirit at its core. M Ward clearly has a real love and understanding of the American songwriting tradition – but with ‘Transistor Radio’, he has made a strong claim to be an integral part of that tradition’s continual development.
21. PAT METHENY – The Way Up
Reviews that seemed completely astounded by the fact that Pat Metheny had composed one lengthy ‘suite’ of music seemed to neglect the strong tradition of composition in jazz. This was a work that looked more to the long compositions of Duke Ellington and George Russell than the free improvisation of Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane. Yet, Metheny’s music was spacious and elegant and left plenty of room for his expressive and sometimes expressionist playing. His collaborator Lyle Mays was an equally potent force, his layered keyboard textures providing the music with its rich and evocative atmosphere. Another major achievement in an illustrious musical career.
20. SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE – School Of The Flower
Taking hints from the folk rock of Fairport Convention and the psychedelia of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd but transporting all these ideas into a more unfamiliar and austere space, ‘School Of The Flower’ was one of 2005’s most bewitching albums. It’s an oddly graceful and enchanting record that rewards with repeated plays.
19. SLEATER KINNEY – The Woods
Here, Sleater Kinney largely abandoned the fervent political stance of ‘One Beat’ and moved back into more personal territory. Musically, however, this was full of righteous anger and unrestrained aggression. ‘The Woods’ is a noisy, thrashing and frequently chaotic beast, but it remains in tune with the corrupted primal blues that has inspired all of Sleater Kinney’s best music. When it returns to a more conventional melodic approach, it does so with aplomb, and the songs always shift gear in unexpected places. Its visceral impact was impossible to resist.
18. POLAR BEAR – Held On The Tips Of Fingers
Some preferred this to its sister album from Acoustic Ladyland and I can almost see why. The deployment of Leafcutter John on electronics makes for some disorientating and innovative atmospherics, whilst the music itself races through many genres and cultures, even incorporating a kind of klezmer march. As one might expect from Seb Rochford, a remarkably talented drummer-composer, it’s rhythmically inventive, but in the duelling saxophones of Mark Lockheart and Pete Wareham, there is also melodic dexterity as well. There is a real understanding of jazz music history on display here – as well as a vigorous desire to propel the music into the future.
17. MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO – What Comes After The Blues
For a while, it seemed that Jason Molina was unstoppable, with three successive masterpieces in ‘Didn’t it Rain’, ‘Magnolia Electric Co.’ and ‘Pyramid Electric Co.’. But then came the perplexing name change and ‘Trials and Errors’ an unfortunately bombastic album that obscured Molina’s song writing gifts beneath numerous Neil Young-esque guitar solos and sludgy playing from the rhythm section. It didn’t bode well. Yet, some of the songs from that release appear in studio form here, in markedly better versions, Molina’s inherent vulnerability wisely restored. Many of the songs are more accessible than their predecessors, without losing Molina’s distinctive edge. This is a beautiful album, full of longing and passion and it stands up well in Molina’s increasingly illustrious catalogue.
16. NEW PORNOGRAPHERS – Twin Cinema
This Canadian indie-pop supergroup found real ambition in ‘Twin Cinema’, an album with a refreshingly dirty, live sound but featuring wonderfully quirky songs that veer in all sorts of unexpected directions. The band are never content to blandly strum, or maintain the same relentless feel – instead, we get savage punctuations, inventive harmony and highly infectious tunes. The titles and lyrics remain a little arty and their meaning largely impenetrable – but with songs this immediate and thrilling, that didn’t really matter. At last, they are starting to emerge from the shadow of Neko Case and come into their own as a band, so much so that they can tour without her and it doesn’t even matter too much!
15. BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY AND MATT SWEENY – Superwolf
After the rather one dimensional ‘Master and Everyone’ and the wilfully perverse re-recorded ‘Greatest Palace Music’ album, Will Oldham shedded his recently acquired layers of disguise to record his most direct, savage and impressive work since ‘I See A Darkness’. His lyrics are at their most uncomfortable and probing here, although much of the credit should go to collaborator Matt Sweeney for writing such elegiac and expressive music.
14. ELBOW – Leaders Of The Free World
Whilst many critics inexplicably fawned over the faux-U2isms of Coldplay’s ‘X&Y’, they risked missing the real deal here. Elbow have been honing that epic sound over the course of three brilliant albums now – and this one may top the lot. It’s their most cohesive and confident work to date, without sacrificing any of the evocative emotion of the best parts of ‘Asleep In The Back’. The sound is remarkably crisp, and Guy Garvey’s incisive dry wit and careful command of melody lead the charge.
13. KATE BUSH – Aerial
After twelve years, was ‘Aerial’ a reaffirmation of La Bush’s singular talent, or an introspective disappointment? Well, it’s frustrating certainly, but its eccentricities are also an intrinsic part of its appeal. Musically, it’s insanely ambitious even when at its most restrained, and a handful of the songs (‘Nocturne’, ‘The Coral Room’, ‘Pi’, ‘King Of The Mountain’, ‘How To Be Invisible’, ‘Aerial’) are the work of an artist on a completely different level from everyone else.
12. SUFJAN STEVENS – Illinois
Such an ambitious gesture could always expect to top the end of year polls, and the success of Sufjan Stevens’ magnum opus has only been marred by a numbing predictability. To my ears, ‘Michigan’ is still the better work – it’s less twee and has more space and depth. Everything on ‘Illinois’ sounds like an attempt to master a big American sound – and mostly it works remarkably well. Stevens remains a humane and compassionate writer, grappling with the both the big themes of American national history, and the experiences particular to his chosen locality. Stevens had immersed himself in folklore, literature and ideas to produce some of the most intelligent music of the year.
11. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE – Feels
Is this the sound of Animal Collective becoming conventional? Well, it’s hardly verse-chorus-verse stuff, but there is perhaps a more melodic approach to be found amidst the endearing yelping and hypnotic psychedelia. Animal Collective’s sound harks back to the most primitive of folk music, but also sounds fresh and modern. It’s unhinged and occasionally difficult, but the very wildness of the sound makes it all the more enticing. They also sound pretty much like nothing else around right now.
10. THE BOOKS – Lost and Safe
After two albums of music that refuses to respect genre conventions, The Books continued their progressive journey. In some respects, ‘Lost and Safe’ is a kind of song cycle, with a greater emphasis on words and melody than previous releases. Yet, it’s still the impressive way they integrate samples and found sounds into their beguiling textures that is most fascinating. ‘Lost and Safe’ was their most coherent statement yet and, in its own quiet and unassuming way, a genuinely radical statement.
09. NINE HORSES – Snow Borne Sorrow
Daniel from Unit described this to me as ‘a bit like Nick Cave if he got a bit more funky’. I’m not sure funky is quite the right word – it’s more almost atmospheric jazz really, but I take the point. A lingering melancholy pervades this album and it is suffused with guilt and regret. It is sublimely evocative, and very well produced. David Sylvian is among those 80s survivors who have gone on to occupy their own space, well away from prevailing trends or critical opinion. This is one of his best works yet.
08. ROOTS MANUVA – Awfully Deep
In a largely disappointing year for hip-hop, this record stood out by a country mile. There are few others in the genre working at this level. Taking ideas and approaches from a number of genres to create a dizzying conflation, ‘Awfully Deep’ sounded like very little else around. Added to this was Roots Manuva’s refusal to bow to lyrical conventions, documenting his own, increasingly paranoid life experience with wry wit and ingenuity. Whilst there are plenty of American musical influences on display here, this showed a British hip-hop artist avoiding the mock-American clichés of some of his contemporaries. A brazenly honest record full of conviction and intelligence.
07. JAMIE LIDELL – Multiply
A digital Jamiroquai or a genuine nu soul genius? Well, probably neither at this stage, although ‘Multiply’ sounded better with every listen and gave every suggestion that Jamie Lidell has a very promising future. Many of the production ideas were more inventive than the ‘white boy soul’ tag suggests, and Lidell’s voice does indeed capture a more modern take on the music of Sam Cooke, Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett.
06. BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE – Broken Social Scene
A slight hint of a backlash seemed to be building in some circles, but for most, Broken Social Scene’s follow-up to their classic ‘You Forgot It In People’ satisfied on most levels. This was a denser sound, but one that also frequently took the band back to their contemporary rock roots (hence the driving energy of ‘Fire Eye’d Boy’ and chiming Sonic Youth-esque guitars of ‘7/4 (Shoreline)’). With scores of musicians contributing, there were a real range of ideas on display, and the unconventional song structures took the music in increasingly unexpected directions.
05. BILL FRISELL – East/West
There have been numerous ‘Americana’ albums fawned over by the monthly music press this year, but the best in this rather spurious genre arguably came from a jazz guitarist. Bill Frisell has worked hard over a long period in demolishing tired genre conventions. Yet, throughout his experiments with country and the popular songbook, his distinctive sustained and looped guitar sound remains the one resolutely consistent factor. This live album provided a particularly potent context for that sound, with Frisell performing in two trios, luxuriating in a plethora of American musical culture. The music is gloriously expansive, performed with subtle appreciation and reverence or gritty enthusiasm, depending on the demands of the material.
04. IRON AND WINE + CALEXICO – In The Reins
In this real meeting of minds, two of the most interesting among the acts often banded together in the ‘alt country’ genre produced their best and most interesting work. The lyrics of Sam Beam echoed the big western spaces of writers such as Cormac McCarthy, but also captured the compacted family narratives of Bruce Springsteen. His delicate vocals and understated melodies helped distil the essence of his brilliant prose-poetry. Calexico’s musical backdrop captured the spirit of border music, with plenty of intricate detail and intelligent musicianship. A wonderful record – and the joint tour that reaches the UK in April 2006 should be a treat.
03. MATTHEW HERBERT – Plat Du Jour
Abandoning his big band, Matthew Herbert produced a bizarre form of musique concrete with his new project, constructed almost entirely from samples of food products and industrial food processes – from the sounds of Battery chickens to the ingeniously ludicrous reconstruction (and destruction with a tank) of the dinner prepared for George Bush and Tony Blair by Nigella Lawson. Mostly instrumental, it was a less accessible and more uncompromising project than his production work for Roisin Murphy and Dani Siciliano, which may explain its absence from most end of year polls. For those who kept an open mind, ‘Plat du Jour’ worked both as thrilling musical concoction and as impassioned political polemic. These two elements also combined effortlessly together, with Herbert’s sampling at its most imaginative. This was a geopolitically aware and utterly crucial musical document.
02. ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS – I Am A Bird Now
There’s probably little to say about this that hasn’t been said already – but this album of torch ballads dealing with gender confusion was one of the most moving and elegant albums in ages. Antony’s voice certainly takes on board some standard theatrical influences but the much-vaunted comparisons with Nina Simone do have some substance. He also had the power to convey extraordinary feeling as well as a mastery of vibrato technique. The piano led arrangements captured the vulnerability at the heart of Antony’s songs. It's success was completely unexpected and represented a real triumph for outsider music.
01. ACOUSTIC LADYLAND – Last Chance Disco
‘Last Chance Disco’ stood out in 2005 not just for its remarkable quality, but also for its willingness to embrace a diverse range of musical styles and approaches, rejecting the conventional belief that lifestyle choices and narrow interests must dictate music tastes. Some have been frustrated by the recent regeneration of interest in British jazz, particularly from some sources that have generally preferred to ignore that there has been any kind of worthwhile jazz scene in Britain. Yet, the wave of interest which now centres around the F-IRE Collective and Tomorrow’s Warriors surely cannot be a bad thing, especially when it produces music with this much fiery invention.
It’s been called ‘punk jazz’ because of bandleader and saxophonist Pete Wareham’s fascination with the raw, untamed ethos of Iggy Pop and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. This term has been used before, though, in reference to the work of legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius, and it’s easy to forget that Acoustic Ladyland are as much in thrall to a modern, improvisatory jazz tradition as they are to the methods of rock. The playing on this album therefore has the furious urgency of The Stooges, but also the theatrical musicality of Charlie Parker and the creativity of Miles Davis. Wareham also references Nico and Olivier Messiaen, determined to cast his net as wide as possible whilst creating a refreshing and energising musical hybrid of his own. Whilst their debut ‘Camouflage’, in its reworkings of Jimi Hendrix material, was fascinating, this is something else entirely and it’s very exciting indeed. If the term ‘acoustic’ in the band’s name implies an approach that is polite and respectful, the music contained here was anything but ‘acoustic’.
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