Chimpomatic

DJ Mayonnaise

Still Alive

Anticon

Worry not, dear reader, this is not a record by some cheeky mix master who constructs tracks using annoyingly frequent samples of the word 'mayonnaise.' No, despite the daft name, Chris Greer has formed an intelligent, beat heavy collection of progressive instrumental hip hop. Eight years on from his debut 55 Stories, Still Alive shows a more grown up Mayo. While displaying a firm grasp of the scratch n' sample technique his new work takes a refreshingly expansive look at the instrumental scene. All too often this scene pumps out albums that sound more like collections of DJ tools with endless beat variations going nowhere, but Mayo has embraced the art of composition with this record and the songs spread out wonderfully forming the narrative of a coherent album.

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#HHG

2nd Nov 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Murcof

Cosmos

Leaf

Music is more often than not, an accompaniment to life rather than life itself. Unlike cinema, music is rarely given our full attention and is what we enjoy while doing something else. Putting your foot down on the open road is made all the more special with Free Bird in your ears or making sweet love to a beautiful woman is made even sweeter if you stick on the new Jamie Foxx LP, but I can't think of a single thing that would or should accompany anything by the mexican electronic maestro Murcof. His work is so subtle that even breathing would serve as a distraction. Since his debut master stroke Martes, Fernando Corona has painstakingly crafted the most emotive and complex electronic constructions and with this his 3rd record he still seems to stand alone in his field.

Less is more with this guy as he erects vast, cavernous soundscapes that surround and envelope you. The infinite emptiness of his sound becomes your world and then, as he drops a pin close to your ear, all your senses stand to attention and you enter a whole new listening experience. He nurtures his rhythms out of the slightest and most delicate sounds, the crackle of vinyl seems like background warmth but soon evolves into beat, accompanied by feint bleeps it tip toes over broad swathes of strings and deep blue percussion. Martes was his masterpiece indeed - a near perfect album it was like listening to the purest maths. It featured expertly sampled classical arrangements that were refracted and sliced with stunning accuracy. The follow up, Rememberanza, was a similar affair. Textural groundwork was painstakingly laid out before us as almost non existent beats were coaxed from what sounded like an orchestra of marching insects. The difference here was the minimal dependance on sampled music as Fernando Corona composed his own string arrangements and the same is seen here on his latest composition Cosmos.

With the opening Cuero Celeste and the following Cielo we see things continue on from where Corona left us 5 years ago. But then with Cosmos 1 things take a drastic turn and Murcof never looks back again. His work has always claimed to describe the physical landscape of his homeland Mexico but from this point on it's clear that a grander intention is being adopted. As the beats fade away in favour of brooding strings the listener takes a gulp as a sound so awesome rises from the dust. This is no longer the depiction of rolling Mexican vistas but the soundtrack to the birth of planets. At an average running time of 9 minutes each the next 4 tracks evolve slowly but surely into compositions of such magnitude that if you've taken my earlier advice of giving this your undivided attention you may want to be careful that you're not buried under this ever rising mass.

It's a daring and focused departure for this musician. He is definitely a man with his eye on his art and this is another uncompromising album. His recent work with film scores is showing its worth here as he moves his music way beyond mere songs into something more ethereal. Since 2004's Utopia EP this was always the direction Corona was heading and Cosmos is an impressive end result but in this grandeur I can't help longing for the delicate crackle of his insect orchestra from days of old and Cosmos does away with this all too swiftly for my liking as if the artist can't wait to move on to bigger plains. You can hardly criticize a musician for this but his earlier sound was so special this new world will take a lot of getting used to.

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#BC

2nd Nov 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Pela

Anytown Graffiti

Great Society

You can look down the mouthwatering list of releases set for a year ahead and form a pretty good idea of what's in store. This year we have certainly had our fair share of expected treats but when an album like Pela's debut Anytown Graffiti pops up off the radar the treat is even more sweet to the taste. Pela are 4 guys from Brooklyn and together they make deep, heartfelt music that rises on mesmeric rhythms and soars with front man Billy McCarthy's frenzied, earnest vocals.

I must confess, I first fell in love with The National during their 2005 release Alligator, then tracked through their back catalogue fueling my addiction and desperately making up for lost time. Although I missed their 2005 EP All The Time I feel to be joining Pela from the ground floor and it feels good. The National comparison is also apt as Pela's blend of emotional song writing and rich compositions evokes Matt Berninger's light touch and sensitivity. Musically they are both drummers bands and the constant, driving rhythm here forms the structure with all manner of instruments hitching a ride.

As the military drum roll of Waiting On The Stairs counts us in McCarthy's pent up howl sounds raw and unkempt against the tight and minimal music. The album highlight comes early in the form of Lost Of The Lonesome. It's a sparse, hollow song that slowly opens up to a chiming, pastoral rock anthem. The lyrics tell of loneliness and love flailing in hopeless desperation and McCarthy's delivery reflects this perfectly. Their first ep was a more gentle affair than this and Anytown Graffiti shows a remarkable maturity already since 2005 with their sound rising to a more confident scale while also maintaining the soft gentleness of their earlier work. The Trouble With River Cities and the beautiful Your Desert's Not A Desert At All both reflect this sensitivity and display a compellingly understated melancholia.

Like The National, Pela's songs are full of ambiguities and wonderfully emotive lyrics that evoke strange and surreal imagery. An uneasy feeling of struggle to comprehend this modern life is very much present here but nothing is spelled out. In this thematic haze lurks paranoia, confusion and sadness but also a deep romanticism that holds this album high on its shoulders. It's a huge album but will never tell you so. It will just keep dropping hints with every listen. So here we are on the ground floor, who knows how high this thing goes but the views already pretty good from here so I'm in it for the long haul. Going up?

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#BC

29th Oct 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Failure To Launch

(dir. Tom Dey)

A confusing blend of your typical Matthew McRomcomaughey movie mixed in with a bit of Dr Dolittle and even the Truman Show. Not as bad as Death Proof of course - but obviously a long way from Wooderson, man.

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#CSF

29th Oct 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Death Proof

(dir. Quentin Tarantino)

Tarantino's 5th movie has many similarities to his first, the classic Reservoir Dogs. It is truly one of a kind, you will grimace and wince all the way through, you will have never seen anything like it and as it finishes you will be left with the same jaw-dropping disbelief. But... there is one slight difference. Death Proof is one of a kind because you will be hard pushed to summon to the front of your mind a movie this bad, you will grimace out of boredom or acute irritation and the disbelief you are left with is how you could willingly let a jumped up prick like Tarantino into your home to rob you of two hours of your life. They are precious two hours, you could pick your toe nails right down till they bleed, you could spend it watching Blair Witch 2 or reruns of Joey, anything would be more productive than this.

From start to finish this film is a fake, and I know that Tarantino has based his career on rip offs but that used to be a strength, clever and intelligent emulation of subversive genres was what he did best but he's really over stayed his welcome with Death Proof, like a friend who you let stay on your couch for one, maybe two great nights out but now you find has been there for years, eaten all your food, slept with your wife and is still telling the same boring jokes. The writing was on the wall after Kill Bill, another tired piece of self indulgence, but at least that seemed tongue-in-cheek enough to get away with it. Death Proof is like watching an A-level film class where the student sites Tarantino as his all-time favorite film maker ever in the whole world ever. It's like watching a bunch of semi-hot-but-not-really chics talking like a Tarantino character because he is, like, the best director in the whole history of directors in the whole world ever. It's like someone released the out-takes of Death Proof by mistake, the hours and hours of snappy, clever-as-my-fucking-arse-hair dialogue that was never used as it had nothing to do with anything. This is why the world invented editors.

I'm trying to describe in detail the shortcomings of this film to justify my hatred because after all, it's not enough to say you hate a piece of art without providing back up for your views but like a police officer or counselor trying to get details out of a trauma victim my mind is blank. I have no details in my head, just emotion, all consuming irritation. If I was to be mugged on my way home tonight, slugged in the gut and all my worldly possessions stolen I would still hobble away more satisfied than I felt after Death Proof. If I was to be in a car accident and all my memory erased except for the Police Academy movies I would consider myself blessed that the mighty Lord above didn't leave me with any recollection of Death Proof.

If anyone disagrees with my views on this film then I'm sorry but you're a brain dead moron who thinks Tarantino is, like, the best film maker in the whole history of film making in the whole world ever. We have a comments facility on this site so if you want a fight then step up bitch.

#Film
#BC

25th Oct 2007 - 9 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Ween

La Cucaracha

Schnitzel

Long standing cult favourites Ween have taken an unusually long four years between albums, and following 2003's Quebec - which featured some of their best music so far - La Cucaracha had become highly anticipated. As a taster, Ween delivered the five track Friends EP, which marked a low-tide mark for the adventurous band. Seemingly having run out of styles to be inspired by, they dredged the world of eurodisco for inspiration - with little success. Thankfully La Cucaracha gets the band firmly back in the land of the living.

The title tells all, and the light hearted opener Fiesta sets the scene for a party record before Blue Balloon gets things moving along in jovial style. It's a great song, but it's left-field vocal delivery has the effect of making you feel like the band will be laughing at you later. The hideous Friends has been totally re-recorded since the EP making it far more palatable - and with tracks like Object and Spirit Walker we get Ween at their mildly more serious best.

Woman and Man is the most successful track, doing classic rock like only Ween can. And Santana or course - to whom the track owes it's heaviest debt. Again, lyrically their tongue is deep in cheek - with the Adam and Eve lyrics taking themselves far less seriously that other retro rockers like Wolfmother. Lyrics are soon a thing of the past however, as the song stretches out into a fantastic ten minute twin guitar epic.

Your Party wraps things up with some atmospherics and sound effects making a brief suggestion that there was some sort of concept going on here. It may be one of the bands more cohesive records, with a far less wandering style between tracks - but while I would love an album compiled exclusively of their classic rock variety it seems that maybe the up and down roller coaster is what's needed in order to take the band up to the higher peaks that the best moments of albums Chocolate & Cheese or White Pepper reached.

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#CSF

22nd Oct 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

To Rococo Rot

ABC123

Domino

Hey Marketing guys! When you're finished stamping on puppy-dogs minds or slapping ginger orphans or whatever you do during your lee-sure time, consider how cool you're going to look when you recommend this teutonic art-bleep as the soundtrack to your next german or swedish automotive commercial. You know, not as alienating as Aphex, not as sappy as Zero7. And there ends the recommendation. Not really a concept album but conceptual in it's, err, conception or something. This is the music you get when you make the shapes of Helvetica font letters on certain types of music software, and boy does it sound like it. I'm all for art and conceptual performance in music but this falls squarely between the planks of entertainment (right plank) and art (left plank) - plunging sadly into the basement of disinterest.

To Rococo Rot should know better. This is hardly typical of their recent output, and was probably a lot of fun to do, but friends - it just ends up as average sounding noodlectronica. So, come on you lot, back to your real instruments and key-changes. I mean, it's quite pretty and everything, but this so-called music of the future is sounding a bit dated now.

By the way, if you have a really shit car, you could always try driving whilst playing this to see if it fools your mind into thinking you're having a highly engineered autobahn type experience. Do let us know if this turns out to be the case.

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#HarrisPilton

22nd Oct 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Radiohead

In Rainbows

Radiohead's 7th album will forever be referred to as much for its content as the method by which it greeted our hungry ears. On 10th October we were literally 'given' the first morsels from this truly unique band since 2003's Hail To The Thief, but that wasn't the only great thing about that day. As a youngster I can remember the magical feeling that came with the arrival of a long awaited album. You would count down the days until it was released trapped in a glorious, internet-free vacuum of anticipation and speculation. Then when the day finally came the first thing on your mind was getting to that shop and claiming your copy, nothing else mattered in those days.

Fast forward to the present day and things have changed considerably. You rarely need to wait for anything now - leaks or promos arrive in your iTunes like it ain't no thang, and anyway even if you are waiting for something to be released by the time you get it your head is already littered with countless 'expert' opinions that it's hard to form your own. Well, last Wednesday we were all equal. Currently label-less, Radiohead took control of their property and gave it to everyone at the same time - no leaks, no promo copies and therefore no opinions. We were all free to make up our minds, not only on how valuable it was to us but what we thought of it. I felt a twinge of that magic return last week as I downloaded my copy and it's stayed with me throughout every play of In Rainbows.  I remember where I was on the release of pretty much every Radiohead album and Wednesday 10th of October was a special day indeed.

So, in the democratic spirit with which this record was released it seems fitting to apply such ideals to its scrutiny. So here are some Chimps early takes on the whole In Rainbows thing, and it ain't law it's just, like, their opinion man... - BC

People who have protested for years to me about Radiohead, have been approaching me recently saying; ‘Have you heard the new Radiohead album?  It’s Great!’

It is great indeed, a popularity that has not been the result of any concessions made by the band. ‘In Rainbows’ is beautiful, challenging and yes, repeat it, uplifting. It is the end of a sometimes lonely journey that has led them through the hinterland of ‘Kid A’, ‘Amnesiac’ and the not-to-be-ignored solo project by Thom Yorke last year; ‘The Eraser’. 

‘In Rainbows’ would not the subtle and lushly layered album it is without those earlier explorations, masterfully combining the art of melody (which the band claimed to forsake after ‘OK Computer) and laptop experimentation.  The ten songs are underpinned by Phil Selway’s tight framework of drumming and percussion, a structure which allows us to really appreciate the wonder of Yorke’s flying voice.

I heard that Muse were ‘the new Radiohead’.  That crown is still taken.  Indefinitely.  Enjoy the moment.

I paid 8 quid by the way.  A sum arrived at after several phonecalls, a lot of deleting,
re-entering and inner moral debate.

- LG - 5 Stars

Stand out tracks are Nude and All I Need. Yorke's vocals act as such a powerful instrument. Radiohead's best moments as a band come when they achieve the perfect balance between explosion and quiet - and this album isn't quite up on the explosive stuff. With these songs having being written and recorded over time, it feels the album lacks the cohesion of their finest releases.

The band should be commended for their release strategy, as the music industry certainly needs re-modelling. Having said that, it's any easy risk to take when you're seven albums deep on the back of millions in sales. Quite how it might work for new musicians I'm not so sure.

£3 and 3.5 stars - CJ

More than any other recording artist, one feels one should react to a new Radiohead album in the same manner one might to the unveiling of a controversial piece of contemporary art. One must try to connect with what one hears on a much deeper, esoteric level.
 
It is unquestionably, and unequivocally, a piece of Art. Beautifully challenging, not just to the individual listening, but on a far higher plane it is pointing the gun; the finger; the stick not only at the music industry, but society as a whole. In accessing the album the conch is passed to the world and is asked: What is music worth? What is art worth?
 
One parted with £4, as one is tight and would have bought it in the sales. (Though one wishes one had paid one pound as that would have made for a better punch line). - Locochimpo

The release of this album was an absolute bolt from the blue. Everyone knew album seven was past due, but no-one could have predicted a release this radical. As CJ mentions, it's a no-brainer when you're 70 millions albums deep in sales - and realistically it is not a suitable model for 99% of the bands out there. Why not just forget your worries about piracy and still release a CD? The labels don't have any problems knocking very recent releases by the likes of Kasabian or Kings of Leon down to £3 in HMV, so they're obviously covering their costs.

I've never had a problem either downloading music for free or paying for it if it's good. In fact I'm a conscientious thief, often stockpiling copies of albums I've downloaded, or shelling out £30 for a shoddy live box - as compensation for someone giving me a copy of a studio release.

The bottom line these days however is that CDs are fast becoming a thing of the past. I have shelves and shelves (or boxes under the bed these days) of CDs that have literally never been played on a CD player. They arrive, get ripped to digital and then filed away. Sleeve notes might get skimmed over on the way home. Radiohead have a always put great stock in their artwork, and I have a couple of the limited editions album's with Stanley Donwood's artwork. They're under the bed too.

I'd love to get the £40 discbox, but realistically it's not what I really want - as I'm not going to hang it on the wall like some sort of pseudo art collector. I want the music, and I'd most likely shell out the extra just to get the extra tracks. I plumped down £3 for the download and will pony up for the CD when it lands (hopefully) next year some time, just for the extra music. Promise.

And what of the music? I loved Hail To The Thief and saw it as a climax to their progressive work on Kid A and Amnesiac. I'm glad Thom Yorke's diverted his tinkering to his far-from-satisfactory solo record and put a bit of welly back into this, but it does feel some what incohesive in places, sagging a bit in the middle. Minor nit-picking though. It's a new Radiohead album and it's better than 90% of what's been around recently.  - CSF - 4.5 Stars

The start and finish of a Radiohead album have been a along fascination of mine. Having made some of the best music of this and the last century Radiohead have always had an annoying habit of chucking in the odd duff song towards the mid way point of an album then another at the end. OK Computer, Amnesiac and Hail To The Thief are definitely top heavy but I can't put the same claim on In Rainbows. This is one of the most consistent albums they've made.

Like Kid Amnesiac's wailing trumpets the new sound for this year is the blues guitar and its presence on 15 Steps is a great contrast to the stuttering electronics. Bodysnatchers was a stand-out powerhouse at last years live shows with the dirtiest riffs we've heard for years and Reckoner and House Of Cards have an excellent direction-less quality, maintaining the same beat and tempo throughout both songs in their own way suggest that they could go on for ever. Which leads me on to the main complaint, length. The album itself seems very short and many of the songs end way too abruptly.

But finally they get the ending right. Kid A could end so well if it wasn't for Motion Picture Soundtrack but a lot of the others start to tail off from about track 6. Jigsaw Falling Into Place is a future classic and one of the finest songs on this record but the spooked out lethargy of Videotape gives a powerful sense of finality to the album. All in all this one of the most complete pieces of work from Radiohead in years. You can hear every album they've made in this one including Pablo Honey and it still works. - BC - 4.5 Stars

The first listen of In Rainbows for me was an instant connection - it just sounded better than anything else I've heard for ages. There's an aura of confidence, of a band sitting back and enjoying playing together, the sound of people with something to say and the skills to say it.

Don't know if I've remembered this correctly, but I'm sure there was an episode of Later... once where Billy Corgan was on with Zwan (his post-Pumpkins project) and you could tell he really thought he'd changed the face of music etc again - and then you could see that vision crumbling while he watched Radiohead - who really had. (Almost as good as the time Dylan played Donovan one of his new songs.) The other thing I always remember about them was seeing them play Victoria Park in 2000, and just being amazed at how they'd managed to get so many people to listen to really out-there, avant-garde rock - and absolutely love it.

They just seem ahead of the game somehow - yes they've got record collections filled with Aphew Twin and Autechre - but it's translating that into rock and singalongable songs that makes them work so well. Love the ballads on this one - House Of Cards is as close as I think I've ever heard them get to a love song. Stormers like 15 Step and Bodysnatchers are huge. There's a real sense of them having taken the experiments of the past and learned how to incorporate them without trying so hard this time round, leaving it all feeling like complete, fully formed collection. You somehow want to inhabit this album - or maybe just hear it loud and live. Personally, I like the fact it's concise - it's one of the few albums this year where I've wanted to listen to it altogether, in order - and then go back to the beginning again.

To pull all this off, and then top it with the added "hey we know it's 2007" move of all the download/boxset options makes them feel connected to the world we've all found ourselves in. Totally agree with BC above - it does feel special to let everyone get it at the same time. As someone who grew up waiting months, sometimes a year for albums to be shipped out to the colonies from England, it's weird to click and instantly get stuff these days - does feel like this has somehow put some of the excitement and fun back into music. Would love to know how the experiment's done - real drag it's not chart eligible, but maybe that's all pointless and irrelevant now too... C71 - 4.5 Stars

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#Chimpomatic

19th Oct 2007 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet