Chimpomatic

Menomena

Friend And Foe

City Slang

Friend And Foe is the debut UK release for avant-garde US trio Menomena and it could just be the most interesting indie rock record since TV On The Radio's Return To Cookie Mountain. This is actually their third album and it presents itself as an amalgamation of various musical experiments. It is clear that there is no real leader in this band and that as a whole the group is packed full of ideas each wanting a shot at the title. Vocal duties are shared from one song to the next and musically it's all over the place. But what makes this record so rare is that instead of being the groups undoing, all this fragmentation serves to enrich the sound and actually becomes the uniting force running through everything.

Multiple vocalists is normally a recipe for disaster in my opinion. The listener will undoubtedly warm towards one sound and then reject the rest. Not the case here and the result is a musical spectrum that spans the afore mentioned TV On The Radio as in the opening track Muscle'n Flo, The Flaming Lips (Wet And Rusting) and even a touch of Folk Implosion (Air Aid). But though these comparisons may present themselves they are by no means the lasting talking point about this record. It is thrilling to hear an album that offers you so much choice from the minimal and rhythmical Weird to the astral bliss of My My not to mention the chaos of The Pelican, a whiskey soaked bar room brawl of a song that pounds its heart out until finally collapsing into a heap of crashing cymbals and screeching guitars.

Musically there is so much to sink your teeth into here but once you've found out a thing or two about this band you'll see that they stand alone in their complete vision of creating a record. The wall-of-sound music is painstakingly crafted using a complicated series of improvised loops that are recorded and arranged using a computer program developed by one of the band members Brent Knopf called Deeler. Though this computer manipulation is hardly recognizable in the finished product the bands meticulous attention to detail is glaringly obvious, shown also in the cover art designed by Craig Thompson, acclaimed creator of the graphic novel Blankets. This features a tangled mesh of drawings that change and evolve throughout the multiple permutations available depending on whether the CD is in the case or in the player.

Though fascinating, all this only serves as a bonus to the music itself. This is a band dedicated to their craft and it shows in every second of the record. Friend And Foe is the crowning achievement in the bands history and will take some skill to top but I am in no hurry to see what they do next as I feel I've only scratched the surface of this wonderful creation.

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#BC

24th Aug 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Super Furry Animals

Hey Venus!

Rough Trade

Staying true to their name, SFA’s 8th studio album and first for new label Rough Trade, Hey Venus!, is a collection of warm, fuzzy and reliable tracks from these Welsh indie stalwarts.

Recorded by Broken Social Scene producer David Newfield, it comprises 12 multi-layered tracks, that range from the Primal Screamish rock stomp opening of The Gateway Song, more than a hint of epic Elvis Costello (Run-Away), the almost horizontally laidback and beautiful (The Gift That Keeps Giving), a gaggle of funky fuzzed up rockers (Noo Consumer, Into The Night, Baby Ate My Eightball) to Carbon Dating, which wouldn’t be out of place on a 60’s UK Film soundtrack (probably Get Carter). 

All these are tied loosely around a single concept, explained by the band themelves in their open-lettered brief to Japanese artist Keiichi Tanaami, as they sought his services for the album’s artwork.(see comments). Whilst varied, no song strays too far from the pyschedelic-pop flock, resulting in an album that sounds like a well-behaved and focussed Flaming Lips.

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#chimpovich

23rd Aug 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Devastations

Yes, U

Beggars

Devastations are three Berlin based Australians whose last album, “Coal”, was well received far and wide. Now they’re back with their third full length offering - “YES, U”.
 
The album is a sparse, sinister affair full of dark corners and bad moods. Vocalist/bassist Conrad Standish, guitarist/vocalist Tom Carlyon, and drummer Hugo Cran prove skilful in building up moody and broody songs, all the while maintaining an intensity without it ever boiling over – I refer the reader to exhibits a and b: “The Saddest Sound” and “The Pest”.
 
The best bits are when they layer on feedback and white noise over their slow beats and drawled vocals - such as on ‘Oh My, Oh Me’ and ‘Misericordia’. However, I’ll have to confess that I lost interest on a couple of numbers when they take us back to the 80s with some slowed down bontempi organ beats (‘Black Ice’ and ‘As Sparks Fly Upwards’).
 
There are obvious comparisons that can be made with Nick Cave, which is no bad thing. I saw a live performance from the big man a couple years back. He blew me away with a depth and intensity that’s never seemed captured on the recordings I’ve heard. I’ve a feeling the same might be said for the Devastations.
 
While not suited to all moods or occasions (I’m thinking family parties, sunny days or gittin’ it on with a lover), on the whole this is a good album that’s a bit of a ‘grower’ (if you know what I mean, which I’m sure you all do).

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#Locochimpo

23rd Aug 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Spoon

The Borderline, London

Although pretty shattered from a heavy day's work setting up a new field office, some of team chimpomatic still made it down to The Borderline to see favourites Spoon on their second date in London - having played Cargo the night before. The Borderline is a great little venue, and it was nice to see a lack of both fashionistas and cameras in the crowd, just the relatively few Londeners who seem to be aware of this great band.

The songs from the new record fitted comfortably into the live show, with Rhythm and Soul, Don't Make Me A Target and The Underdog interspersed with songs from various older albums - Beast and Dragon Adored and Everything Hits At Once being some of my all-time favourites.

Singer Britt Daniel cut his hand on a guitar string at one point, prompting a bit of chit chat which loosened things up while both hand and guitar were repaired, before cranking straight back into it. The sound at the venue is also worth noting, for once getting the balance of volume and clarity absolutely perfect. The band sounded beefy but you could pick out each instruments' contribution so clearly they seemed to each have their own speaker.

There was something lacking in the show that held it back from being a classic... and all I can think is that all their songs are good to the same level. There was no boring bits, making for no obvious high points. Some of their tracks crank up like they are going to spiral into a ten minute jam, but often they are around the same length, and around the same tempo. Without some of the effects that the records employ, some of the moodier songs are brought down a notch - but where you might expect a solo acoustic version for something like I Summon You you get the full band working the song, bringing it up a notch but taking something away. I'm not sure if that's a criticism of not, and if it is I don't know what the answer would be.

Bottom line is that this is a great band, with a huge back catalogue of great songs that are likely to never disappoint live.

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#Gig
#CSF

22nd Aug 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Bourne Ultimatum

(dir. Paul Greengrass)

FIELD OPS REPORT 22/08/07

SUBJECT: BOURNE ULTIMATUM, THE

INTEL: BOURNE, JASON (AKA DAMON, MATT) RETURNS. CRUNCHES HIS WAY THROUGH PARIS, LONDON, TANGIERS, NYC. SUBJECT STILL SUFFERING MEMORY LOSS, BUT REGAINING SOME SENSE OF FORMER IDENTITY.
AGENT PARSONS, NICKY (AKA STILES, JULIA) IS DESIGNATED DRIVER;
ROSS, SIMON (AKA CONSIDINE, PADDY) A GUARDIAN JOURNALIST W VALUABLE CONTACTS - TENSE UNDERCOVER OPS AT WATERLOO STATION, LONDON;
CIA DEPUTY DIRECTOR VOSEN, NOAH (AKA STRATHAIRN, DAVID) HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITIES.

ANALYSIS: ASSIGNMENT DELIVERS. FIGHTING TECHNIQUES SEEM TO HAVE IMPROVED; MO-PED SKILLS UP TO SPEED; DIRECTION FRENETIC BUT FLUID.

YOUR MISSION (AND WHY WOULD YOU CHOOSE NOT TO ACCEPT IT?): MAKE CONTACT ASAP.

OVERANDOUT

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#chimp71

22nd Aug 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Kinski

Down Below It's Chaos

Sub Pop

Like a hit-man's shot to the head, silenced through a pillow, Kinski's third album hits the target with muffled ferocity. Deep, wooly guitars rumble and thunder their way through this album sometimes accompanied by minimal vocals or simple melody but often just push forward with pounding drums as their only guide.

I would like to say that opening track Crybaby Blowout was the song that accompanied a certain 'special move' in the game Mortal Kombat where, on tapping a secret sequence of buttons your character shouted CRYBABY BLOWOUT! and rapid-fire-sucker-punched your opponent in the gut for 3.48 minutes. Sadly, it's not - but you get the gist of the awesome power with which this album opens.

And it's this power that is persistently present throughout the record whether it's with driving instrumental muscle-flexing or subdued vocal melodies. The vocals play an important part with Kinski adding much needed variety to the songs but ultimately it's the purely instrumental tracks that really drive this record. Boy, Was I Mad! is a brooding slow starter that never really seems to threaten anything but then opens up into a ferocious cacophony of thrashing guitars and crashing drums while Child Had To Catch A Train is Kinski at their best, with hard riffs backed up by whirling keyboard melodies. Whenever the band tries to show a more sensitive side like on Plan, Steal, Drive the menacing undercurrents of far off trouble creep up until before you know it you're surrounded by swirls of thumping guitars.

This may all sound quite predictable and it could easily be if handled by less competent bands but you must remember, like The Terminator, this is what Kinski do, this is all they do and they absolutely will not stop until you're dead...satisfied.

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#BC

21st Aug 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Shearwater

Palo Santo (Expanded Edition)

Matador Records

For those slackers who missed 2006's dazzling fourth album by Shearwater, Matador are here to save your bacon with a pimped-up re-release consisting of 2 discs and new deluxe packaging featuring some stunning artwork. Palo Santo is the bands first album where Jonathan Meiburg assumes full vocal duties and the result is a grander, more rounded sound that sees them rise like a phoenix from the thick melancholy that engulfed their earlier work. This isn't to suggest that this isn't melancholy. The record is inspired by the life of Warhol muse Nico so it isn't going to be a bag of laughs but while they keep to the icy chill that has become their trademark Palo Santo serves up many moments of awesome grandeur only hinted at on previous records.

Formed in 2001 by Meiburg and Will Sheff, Shearwater was meant to be a vehicle for the quieter songs penned by the two musicians while working on their principle collaboration, Okkervile River. But after the addition of new multi-instrumentalists Shearwater soon grew way beyond initial intentions and Palo Santo is their crowning glory.

La Dame Et La Licorne opens the album and actually mirrors the career of this band quite nicely. It creeps into view with Meiburg's frail, quivering voice barely audible but gradually swells to thumping piano and howling declarations. And this sets us up for Red Sea, Black Sea, one of the albums many highlights. This takes no time to pound with all its heart on the galloping rhythm that dominates this song. It's these moments of real muscle that make this record pull away from the bands back catalogue and race forward with renewed energy and confidence. Seen again in White Waves' gritty electric guitar and Seventy Four, Seventy Five's pounding piano. Having said that, there's still plenty of room for the feather-light delicacy of the title track and the achingly beautiful Failed Queen where hollow landscapes are created with sparse acoustic guitar and the frail musings of Meiburg.

This element is explored in more depth on the second disc where we get demo versions of four of the original tracks. These are drastically stripped down renditions showing the extent to which this vocalist can vary his delivery. Having seen the heat of this voice on the first CD we now get the drifting whisper like a feint trail of smoke from a newly extinguished flame. There are also 4 new songs on this bonus disc including a cover of Skip James' Special Rider Blues.

This is an expansive album from a band who started from humble beginnings but are now evolving into a great rock outfit. Shearwater have always fitted into a tradition of songwriting that seems to capture the great American landscape in all its sparse, lonely beauty but with Palo Santo they have started to evoke the power and strength of this landscape and this refurbishment only serves to enhance that.

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#BC

20th Aug 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Mansbestfriend

Poly.Sci.187

Anticon

I must admit, I've had this record for some time now but I guess I've been putting off writing any kind of review for it so I could savour that honeymoon period you get with an album before you commit your opinion to words. It's a blissfully pure period where you can react to something as special as this without having to say why. And I don't intend to say too much about why this record is so special so if you haven't heard it you're gonna have to just take my word for it.

Mansbestfriend is an alias of Anticon co-founder Sole (Tim Holland) and since 2004's The New Human Is Illegal, his first release under this name, it was clear that he had a different agenda here. The alias aims to serve the production side of Sole's talents and although the debut still contained the hard-hitting rap style that dazzled fans under his own name it was released on the largely electronic Morr Music label. So with poly.sci.187 you get the feeling that this is Sole getting about as close as he can get to his ideal. It's virtually all instrumental and it's a production master-class of the type that I never would have thought possible by such a pioneer of underground hip hop.

I say it's instrumental, but that's not entirely true. It's definitely the sound of a rapper who's got tired of his own voice so instead he has filled the songs with a whole variety of vocal samples that all serve to express the heavy political viewpoint of this man. The album opens with a quote from the famous anarchist Emma Goldman and from there we get all manner of sound-bites from a young boy pleading for peace in his homeland of Lebanon to a curious vintage recording of Wheel Of Fortune broadcasting live from the New Orleans Superdome. All of this is smothered in the richest production since Boards Of Canada. Each beat is gently coaxed out of organic textures and surrounded by all sorts of fuzz and static. It has a melancholic nostalgia that is both unsettling and strangely comforting like looking at old film footage of your grandparents as children. It's this duality that makes it so special. It can wrap you in its wooly static warmth but while you're in there you get a pretty disturbing image of the world past and present.

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#HHG

20th Aug 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

2 Days In Paris

(dir. Julie Delpy)

More Parisian walking and talking from Julie Delpy in a lowkey romcom that mines similar territory to Richard Linklater's Before Sunset/Sunrise diptych.

Adam Goldberg (who's got a great cameo in Entourage season 3.2) takes over from Ethan Hawke on American dude in Europe duties. He's much more angsty, apparently allergic to Paris; and as they're two years into their relationship, rather than two hours, there's more focus here on the compromises couples play out rather than the initial flush of an all-night chat.

The set-up is that they've been on holiday in Venice, and are stopping off in Paris to meet her parents - played by Delpy's real-life parents, French actors Albert Delpy and Marie Pillet. They bump into her old friends - and lovers - in a series of scenes that escalate in a believable, subtle fashion. The language barrier is used well, with at least a third of the script in French, preempting a shift in their power balance that serves as a catalyst for them to take stock of where they're at.

It's dry, funny and occasionally farcical, but played out as a realistic take on mid-30s dating. Confident direction, a real feel for Paris, and great performances from all bring the sharp script together, occasionally touching a Woody Allen 70s/80s vibe.

Not to be confused with 1 Night In Paris.

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#chimp71

13th Aug 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Dragons

B.F.I.

Ninja Tune

You owe me a debt of gratitude.  In reviewing ‘BFI’, I have saved you from losing a precious forty-five minutes of your existence to the misery of phonic drivel. ‘BFI’, short for ‘Blue Forces Intelligence’ is an album by The Dragons, recorded in 1970 and released for the first time this month by Ninja Tune.

The pre-release hype describes the ‘Great Story’ that lies behind the album’s creation: The three brothers Dragon, (Doug, Daryl and Dennis) are unveiled as a trio of tripped-up surfer-dudes living in Malibu and working furiously after-hours to record their ‘psychedelic soul/ rock masterpiece’.  I mean that says is all doesn’t it.  If you weren’t getting the heebie-jeebies from the album title, then surely the proposal of a ‘psychedelic soul/ rock masterpiece’ sends you screaming for your Spinal Tap box set.

Anyhow, these ‘multi-instrumentalist sons of a symphony conductor and an opera singer’, have a great deal of trouble selling their album to a label.  Which is strange really since you’d have thought an album as morale-crushingly average as this would have found a use in some Vietnam-era Abu Ghraib, destroying the resistance of its Viet Cong inmates.

The three DD’s get disillusioned because all these straight record execs, keep telling them their ‘spacey and weird, but also funky’ album is utter crap. They lope off into session work and, if you believe the myth, they all go on to be in the Beach Boys backing band.  And  ‘you can kind of hear that in their own sound’, as the press would have you believe. Yeah, ‘kind of’ being crucial to how you interpret that statement.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong and maybe it’s the reason that Brian Wilson has spent a good chunk of his life monumentally depressed, off his face on psychotropic drugs and hearing voices in his head.  All of them presumably repeating, ‘Hey Brian, isn’t it strange how you can hear that way-out Dragons sound behind some of the most inspired and uplifting masterpieces of the Beach Boys?!  Kind of’.

37 years later and the source of all this horror, the BFI master-tapes, lie quietly pulsating in rightful oblivion in the basement of Dennis Dragon’s home.  Hidden, that is, until the day that Kev of DJ Food gives him a call and, ‘being a fan of all possible food-based puns’, asks if he can include the track ‘Food for my soul’, on a future ‘Solid Steel’ mix for Ninja tunes.  And there you have it, as if at the opening of the musical Ark of the Covenant, we must look away from the eruption of screaming demons and evil sonic harpies pouring forth from the speakers.  All because of a love of food-based puns. 

‘BFI’, represents everything that went wrong musically in the late sixties and seventies; bloated ambition, walls of over-layered instrumentals, swelling chorals and pretentiousness disguised as a trippy careless, ease.  The album reeks of musical shop-lifting with its cod-Doors allusions and could have done with a strong editorial hand in order to stop other parts sounding like a BBC sound effects tape; ‘Doctor Who/ 60’s psychedelica’.  If you press me I’ll say the first two songs lead you into a false sense of security, and ‘Mercy Call’, the ninth track, does serve its purpose by providing some relief from the misery.  However, other than that, the rest sounds like a struggle between Count Dracula and Austin Powers, wrestling for control of the Hammond organ.

Sifting through the compressed layers of dire lyrics on ‘BFI’ produces a few gems, but none shares the pertinence of; "I can’t believe that hate is real".  Well Dragons, it is - and you too, reader, can share in this mind blowing revelation by popping on The Dragons and sampling a little of this ‘lost classic of psych-whimsy, Westcoast sexiness and serious musical chops’.

#Music
#LG

13th Aug 2007 - 5 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Munich

(dir. Steven Spielberg)

Following the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the Israeli government assemble a covert unit to track down and assassinate those they deem responsible. Totally disconnected from their country and their families the mission leads the group into dark territory, leading many of them to question what they are doing.

The era of the film is superbly recreated, through the photographic style - which is highly reminiscent of genre films like The Conversation or The French Connection. Spielberg uses retro zooms and deftly choreographed cameras and action to set the set the scene, provide tension and re-create the shooting style of the era. When did zooms become a no-no exactly? A hugely detailed scene outside a busy airport is made to seem as though the camera crew just turned up in '71 on a regular day and started rolling. It's subtle and easily overlooked, but superbly done.

Unfortunately the slow-pacing, unclear plot and lack of narrative that was often a hallmark of the 70's has also been lovingly created.  While of course I have no problem with films taking their time, I like to see that time put to good us. While there's nothing that could have obviously been dropped, things seem to happen with little build up and the time between doesn't always fill out the details. Then again, back in the 70's we didn't need any explanation for why the Ruskies were the bad guys - they just were.

Ciaran Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, Geoffrey Rush and Daniel Craig all put in solid performances, but it's Eric Bana's film and he convincingly portrays the patriot torn between right and wrong.

#Film
#CSF

12th Aug 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet