Chimpomatic

The Good, The Bad & The Queen

The Good, The Bad & The Queen

You have to admire Damon Albarn's continuing ventures into pasture new. Rather than resting on his laurels after his hugely successful Gorillaz project, he has assembled an impressive line-up of Paul Simonon (The Clash), Simon Tong (The Verve) and Afro-beat drummer Tony Allen for his new unnamed band. The single 'Herculean' was a tantilising taster of great things to come.

Although having the feeling of being a slow burner, the record fails somewhat in living up to it's impeccable credentials. That is not to say it is bad, but it drifts by in a haze rather than grabbing hold of you. Talks of this being Albarn's masterpiece are way off the mark, it has more similarities with Thom Yorke's Eraser album in being a good but not great side project.

Massive Attack did the urban / paranoid / dub thing much more convincingly ten years ago.

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29th Jan 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Pop Levi

The Return To Form Black Magick Party

Counter

Ninja Tune have always been a label full of surprises. It has stretched and flexed to accomodate the ever increasing and varied tastes of its creators, but with Pop Levi they seem to have met their match. So they created a spin-off label just for him and give us the debut offering The Return To Form Black Magick Party. Only an artist of shameless arrogance could describe their debut as a return to form - and that's exactly what we have here. Born in London, Pop laid his early musical roots in Liverpool then moved to LA in pursuit of the 'magick' that he sees at the very heart of great music. Making up one third of free-thinking, post rock trio and fellow Ninja's Super Numeri, then playing bass for Ladytron Pop decided to go it alone and released his first EP "Blue Honey" on Counter Records in September last year. Then hot on its heals he gives us this. Mark Bolan is an instant point of recognition in Pop's sound but throughout this album we see glimpses of Prince, Dylan, Hendrix and even Jack White. But as with all quality music these influences, don't in any way confuse the sound that Pop has crafted for himself. That sound isn't easily explained as it keeps on changing. There's a very hand crafted feel to it with layers of acoustic and electric guitars punctuating washes of percussion, but this all often fed through some sort of machine and the Pop Levi sound is churned out the other side.

From the opening single, 'Sugar Assault Me Now,' it's quite clear that this is the doorway to a world far removed from our own. A world of astral energy where reality and disbelief are suspended and anything is possible. The first two tracks get things started at break-neck speed with a cacophony of stabbing guitars, fuzzy bass and more than enough hand claps. Things are taken down a notch with '(A Style Called) Cryin' Chic' with its folk blues meanderings over textured percussion. 'Skip Ghetto' shows Pop's sensitive side with a beautiful dreamy, acoustic little number only to be bitch slapped once again by the most Bolan of songs 'Dollar Bill Rock'.

The whole album follows this up and down formation, painting a very rich picture of this mans talents. It's contemplative and at the same time immensely uplifting. It's relaxing and floaty then foot tappingly addictive. It can appear to be conforming to every current fashion then rejecting it all in an instant. 'The Return To Form's' listening experience is just as up and down. On the first few plays it is thrilling and refreshing but I have to admit that the constant use of repetition in the lyrics does give it an air of emptiness. But hey it's pop music and not every moment has to move you to tears. There are plenty of moving moments here but most of them are on a level totally their own. The album makes you move and it makes you want to tell people about it. It oozes so much arrogance and confidence that it can only have been conceived by an artist with a very unique outlook on making music. It was a wise move for Ninja Tune to create an environment for this man to shine - as he has a lot to say and if this debut is anything to go by he has a myriad of ways to say it.

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29th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

The King Khan & BBQ Show

What's for Dinner?

In The Red Records

Imagine if you will that it's Saturday night back in good old 1955 and you're on your way to the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance at your local high school. You've heard rumours of a scuffle going down tonight and lo and behold in the car park, amid a crowd of onlookers, lies the badly beaten body of the school geek George McFly. You walk on without pausing - because lets face it, he had it coming. Further on, you come across evidence of another more curious showdown. 5 well dressed guys lie sprawled out on the road and judging by their attire you realise that some heavy shit has just gone down. This is the remains of Marvin Berry and his Starlighters who were due to play at this dance. You ignore the frantic banging coming from the trunk of their low-rider as you race into the hall to find out who will be playing in their place. The first thing you notice is the stunned look on everyones faces as you enter the nautically decorated gymnasium - and as your eyes follow theirs to the source of this horror you know your night is over. The earlier trail of destruction could only have led to this. The stage had been overrun by Biff and his boys - the school bullies - and the sound they are making is indescribable. Popular songs from the hit parade being raped and pillaged in front of your eyes - and at top volume. Someone kicks a speaker over and a panic ensues. In the pandaemonium something hits you hard on the head and everything fades away as you fall to the ground unconscious.

The next thing you know you're in your bed at home and it's the present day. Sitting up in bed you realise that it was all a very bad dream and one you have no wish to repeat. The radio alarm clock clicks on and the sound hits you like a bolt of lightning. The music playing is loud, obnoxious, intrusive and fills your heart with dread. As the DJ announces the band as The King Kahn & BBQ Show you know that the ordeal you have just been through was no dream. That terrible night really happened, but the most terrifying thing of all was that it was still going on and this King Khan is the result of it. They had kept their sound of that night - 50's inspired pop butchery - but it had clearly gathered the grime of the last 50 years and now presented itself as a twisted mutation of Marvin Berry, the punk movement and the unquenchable hostility of those who crashed the Prom. As if that's not bad enough you find yourself quite liking it, it's catchy and as you lean over to turn it up you see that its 8.25 am. Damn! You're late for school!

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27th Jan 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Five Days

(dir. Otto Bathurst, Simon Curtis)

When a young Hertfordshire woman disappears while buying flowers, her two children also go missing - as the police and media machine spring into action.

Superior drama from the BBC and HBO. The series has the high-quality writing and acting that the BBC has recently been more than capable of producing, with the production value of an American show. This however, is a distinctly British story - with none of the (sometimes) psuedo-Americanization seen in State Within, Spooks or Torchwood.

This is a complex and well-thought out script, that unfolds the story over 5 days (one day per episode) - using the interesting device of picking non-consecutive days (1,3,28,33,79) that are pinnacle moments in the case. That allows the writers to fill in the blanks with detail and hindsight, analysing the way that a case like this effects those involved, the community, the media and the general public.

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24th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Inland Empire

(dir. David Lynch)

Another Mobius (s)trip from the dream world of David Lynch, Inland Empire pulls out from Mulholland Drive and dives off the DL DV deep-end. There's just no-one else making films like this.

Laura Dern holds it all together, in a pretty nuts performance that ranges from high-camp melodrama to neo-realism (sometimes in the same scene). It's up there with Naomi Watts's Mulholland Drive - at times you're checking it's still her because she seems so different throughout her multliple scenes. When you talk about a performance having great range, it's rarely meant in such literal terms.

In one strand, she's Nikki, an actress playing opposite Justin Theroux's Devon in On High In Blue Tomorrows, a film directed by Jeremy Irons (helped by Harry Dean Stanton), that turns out to be a remake of an ill-fated, incomplete movie called 4/7. In another, she's Sue, her character in Blue Tomorrows, who's having an affair w Theroux's character.

Early on, in a tabloid TV interview with Dern's real-life mother (and Wild At Heart co-star) Diane Ladd, she's warned to avoid womaniser Devon's on-set reputation. This is where it all starts to melt into itself, as if both Sue and Nikki are dreaming each other.

Throw in a Polish version of their reality (the original version of the film?), a group of prostitutes hanging out and occasionally bursting into choreographed dance numbers, a bunch of hardware-obsessed circus folk, cameos from Grace "Sarah Palmer" Zabriskie, Julia Ormond, William H Macy, Mary Steenburgen and Lynch himself (Bucky the lighting guy!) and a sitcom starring three rabbits (voiced by Laura Harring, Naomi Watts, and Scott Coffey and based on Rabbits, a 2002 Lynch short), and you've got a classic, unhinged, pure Lynch experience. Baffling, engrossing, funny, dark and moving all at once. It's made all the more exciting by being shot on DV - you get the feeling it's given him a fresh perspective on Lynchland, and suggests that it's a medium that's finally getting an aesthetic of its own.

Inland Empire probably won't win over any new fans, but if you've ever wanted your very own red room, it's a winner.

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23rd Jan 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Snowden

Anti-Anti

Jade Tree

There is an episode of Father Ted, where a drunken Father Jack gets stuck in a cupboard with the world's most boring priest. I was reminded of that scene whilst listening to 'Anti-Anti' from Atlanta's Snowden. Not that I had an urge to down a bottle of Toilet Duck and swear at nuns - it's just that after a few listens I was sapped of any will to write about it.

It's not the songs themselves, which are nicely played and put together. It's more singer Jordan Jeffares' monotone voice that does it. He sounds so bloody bored and miserable, it is as if he himself can't wait for the songs to end. Of course there's nothing wrong with misery, as the Emo hordes will no doubt pasionately concur and which their obvious inspirations - Interpol - do particularly well. But whereas Interpol's songs work on building layers of atmosphere, the Snowden tunes are more punchy and direct and Jeffares' vocal sits moodily on top of it all - like a pissed off teenager at a family function.

In isolation it's fine, I heard title track "Anti-Anti" before the rest of the album - and was immediately taken by it. It's probably the most upbeat and easily the strongest on here. To be honest there's not a bad track as such, obviously a lot of thought has gone into it and the music itself is interesting, working best in 'Counterfeit Rules' and 'Stop Your Bleeding', where the tempo is kept relatively high.

But as a whole, its just too mopey for me. To cheer him up, I might buy Jeffares some helium ballons before he records the next album, which even if they don't lift the mood should lift his voice a touch.

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23rd Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Yo La Tengo

Live Session EP

Matador Records

The on-form Yo La Tengo deliver a nice live set to complement their recent studio release. Great renditions of "Pass The Hatchet" and "The Weakest Part" are accompanied by Arthur Lee cover "Lucy Baines" and surf-rock jam "El Es Gay".

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22nd Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Benjy Ferree

Leaving The Nest

Domino

As 2006 drew to a close the music scene typically turned in on itself and pumped out endless retrospective compilations to distract us while the new release section of the record stores were replaced with 'Best Of 2006' rundowns. I have never understood the January blues syndrome as this month welcomes the return to form of new music and late December's creative droubt comes to an end. After such thirsty times any relief is welcomed but it is all the more rare when it tastes as sweet as 'Leaving The Nest.' This is the debut album by Domino's new boy Benjy Ferree and it's sure to be a quiet classic.

Ferree's biography reads like any cv and has very little to do with music making. After pursuing a passion for cinema he moved to California and ended up being a nanny to various Hollywood big hitters including David Lynch. The acting thing never seemed to happen and after many sing-song sessions with the kids he realized he possessed a certain talent for song writing. Encouraged by Fugazi's Brendan Canty, Benjee set about compiling his debut work.

This potted history is important when you hear the album. It oozes class but also humility. The songs seem almost improvised and sound like work produced from the innocent mind of someone who never intended to be doing this. 'In The Countryside' starts things off on a refreshingly upbeat note as the lyric "So happy hands all in the air" is repeated with a jaunty swagger. You would be forgiven for assuming that such sugary sweet lyrics could only be the work of a musician hell bent on bogus, loved-up, pop stardom (two words: Magic Numbers,) but that's the great thing about this album. It is happy music, if I can be so sweeping, but not overwhelmingly so, and it's genuine. The compositions are simple and lo-fi and having established these loose perameters Ferree allows his sound to go where it pleases. 'The Desert' is classic Ben Folds with its light melody, 'Private Honeymoon' evokes the hollow, emptyness of Jeff Buckley and 'Leaving The Nest' recalls the mighty Jack White.

While these comparisons - and a good few others - will inevitably spring to mind, Ferree's sound remains his own. 'Leaving The Nest' is a culmination of natural talent, experience and a totally honest love of music. I predict great things for this guy and thank him sincerely for starting 2007 off on such a high.

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18th Jan 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Hot Fuzz

(dir. Edgar Wright)

Big Cops. Small Town. Moderate Violence.

Decent enough attempt to replicate the success of Shaun Of The Dead from the Spaced crew, turning their attention to the cop buddy genre. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost wisely stick to their established roles (uptight straightman who needs to chill out a bit/ slightly dimmer slacker), the script's pretty tight, and it plays out the uzis in Middle England joke to a fairly satisfying conclusion.

Maybe it's the weight of expectation, or the fact that it's pretty similar to shows like Suburban Shootout, but somehow it's a slightly disappointing experience. Despite being consistently funny, tightly shot and not too long, it's somehow more lightweight than SOTD. Even though the rom part of the romzomcom equation was buried in the background, it did give the whole story a little more momentum, and the stuff w Pegg and stepdad Bill Nighy was nicely judged. Here, they touch on another failed romance for Pegg's over-achieving "Policeman Officer", and then don't go back to it. Instead the emotional frame is him learning to get on w Frost's chilled out plod, via a large collection of Point Break/ Bad Boys II DVDs.

Another solid cast of Britcom actors includes Jim Broadbent, Timothy Dalton, Adam Buxton, Paddy Considine, Edward Woodward, Kevin Eldon, Olivia Colman, Alice Lowe etc as well as lots of "hey it's that guy" cameos - Bill Nighy, Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan etc.

More a DVD/Pizza flick than a bigscreen outing, really. Not bad, and it's good to see a modern British film that just sets out to entertain without being in period costume etc - just all a bit predictable somehow.

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18th Jan 2007 - 5 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Rocky Balboa

(dir. Sylvester Stallone)

We revisit Rocky who is now running a modest restaurant but in need of one more challenge.

Not the worst big-name follow-up that we will see this year.

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17th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait

(dir. Douglas Gordon and Philippe Pareno)

Video artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Pareno's cinematic portrait of Zidane proves even more poignant post-World Cup final and his dismissal for head butting Materazzi. Numerous cameras are fixed on the great man for the full 90 minutes of a Spanish league match in 2005. This results in a hypnotic portrayal as a brooding, demigod like figure, whilst lesser mortals scurry about around him - Beckham, Raul, Ronaldo et al.

This melancholic and existential atmosphere is enhanced with the stunning sound design (muffled television commentary, quotes from Zidane himself concerning childhood and memory, kids playing in the street in Marseilles) and the understated yet excellent soundtrack from Mogwai. At half time we are shown news and events that have occurred around the World on that day, adding to the poignancy.

Zidane's dour, almost bank expression proves to be a fascinating canvas - a sense of foreboding inner emotion builds throughout.

I won't give away the ending but the game builds to dramatic effect. Fascinating.

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16th Jan 2007 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Sufjan Stevens

Songs for Christmas

Rough Trade

Even though a fan, I let out a slight groan at the prospect of a five CD Christmas boxset. Rather suprisingly this is a fascinating window into Mr. Steven's progression over the last five years. Presented chroniclogically, it showcases his growing strength as a songwriter and progression in his sound. There are some great songs here to boot: 'Come On! Let's Bogey to the Elf Dance!', 'That was the Worst Christmas Ever!', 'Get behind Me Santa!' and 'Christmas in July' are all up there with his strongest work.

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16th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

I See A Darkness

Domino

Will Oldham's first album under his Bonnie 'Prince' Billy moniker has proved to be his defining work. The seminal 'I See a Darkness', later covered by Johnny Cash, is here in all it's glory - but is equalled by the beautiful 'A Minor Place' and 'Nomadic Revery' amongst others. In fact there is not a dud on the entire album. A sombre masterpiece.

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16th Jan 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet