Chimpomatic

Sonic Youth

The Eternal

Matador

As a teenager, once I got over the total, utter, complete sell-out of Sonic Youth moving from legendary indie labels like Homestead and SST to undeniably major label Geffen in 1990, it was obvious pretty quickly that nothing had changed for the band. While my interest seemingly waned after Experimental Jetset, a quick scan through the back-catalogue reveals that I have inadvertently absorbed every major release - and none could be described as disappointing or flat. After releasing 9 albums with the label, Sonic Youth left Geffen in 2007, before pulling the typically left-field move of releasing a greatest hits exclusively through Starbucks, then self-re-released Master Dik and finally settling with Matador for the release of The Eternal.

While The Eternal is being promoted as something of a new chapter for the band, there's no need to reset your expectations - and you're certainly in no danger of being disappointed. Early single Sacred Trickster kicks things off, before the abrasive pummel of Anti-orgasm lets you know the band have lost none of their power - or their ability to craft a catchy tune. The sing-a-long style of Leaky Lifeboat (For Gregory Corso) sits comfortably alongside the screeching rock of Calming The Snake, making for a strangely cohesive record.

Jim O'Rourke may have departed in 2005, but the open slot in the line-up made room for former Pavement bassist Mark Ibold and his contribution is note worthy here, providing a focused spine through many of the songs that the guitars swirl closely around. The best songs on the album follow the same pattern that my Sonic favourites always did: a simmering, bubbling pot of sound that harnesses the power of a storm and takes its shape as a subtly catchy leviathan. Antenna, What We Know, Malibu Gas Station - there's more than a handful of excellent tracks on here that will disappoint no one.

While 2006's Rather Ripped and Thurston Moore's own solo album have arguably moved the band into a more conventionally structured sequence of songs, it's easy to forget how much the musical landscape has shifted since the band's early, pioneering albums of the 80s. The feedback drenched sounds of Sister or Daydream Nation are now considered essential listening - due to the popularity of the 90s alternative explosion that Sonic Youth helped enable. As a result, it's easy not to appreciate how radical a custom-tuned 9.43 minute closing track like Massage The History may have once seemed.

While the girls may be commenting how good Kim Gordon's legs are for a 56 year old, I'm just happy that the band have kept their ambition and refusal to conform. It may not be so much of a new chapter, but at least The Eternal is the continuing story of an old favourite.

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9th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Odd Nosdam

T.I.M.E Soundtrack

Anticon

The veteran Anticon producer follows up 2007's Full length Level Live Wires with a collection of hip hop pieces soundtracking the Element Skateboards' film This Is My Element. Each song is tailored to fit the Element skater it accompanies and so is a slightly fractured piece of work but one that sees this beatsmith on strangely upbeat territory crafting some of the dopest beats we've every seen from him.

Famous for his work on cLOUDDEAD, Odd Nosdam is known for his droney-wash soundscapes that fit better into a sound-art category rather than hip hop. Level Live Wires did much to alter this image of him and with this as its followup we see an already awe inspiring producer evolving into something quite special.

The trademark touches are firmly in place here. His work with cLOUDDEAD was meticulously crafted and every sound was enshrouded in fuzz, haze and feedback. this is an altogether cleaner affair but the beats, whether crunching and ominous like on T.I.M.E In or delicate and floating as in Ethereal Slap, rarely travel alone and are muffled and textured with such care and attention that makes them endlessly listenable. Whereas the emphasis in the past has been on oppressive textures songs like We Bad Apples with its guitar-driven melody and the booming Trunk Bomb transform this record into an absolute stomper.

Not surprisingly these songs work best when experienced in the context in which they were created. Seeing the pop/grind/land sequence in Nyjah Huston's opening section of the Elements film happen to the deep beats of the blissful Top Rank is endlessly satisfying and when Jeremy Wray lands a ginormous ollie over some stairs right on the beak of We Bad Apples it is truly awesome. This hazy hip hop obviously doesn't suit Bam Margera's style of anarchy so an appropriately brutal piece of punk has to be drafted in for his section. Elements boast a pretty hefty line up and with people like Mike Vallely and Chad Muska in this film it can't really fail but I've never seen a skate film's soundtrack entirely composed by one producer and it really unites the film into a concise whole rather than the sum of its parts. T.I.M.E is an impressive work both on film and on record and marks the point where this producer turns a corner.

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8th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Thee Oh Sees

Help

In The Red

With John Dwyer's last offering still welcomely ringing in my ears the San Francisco band drop its followup, a worthy partner and one that accurately identifies its predecessors strengths and wisely chooses to focus on these. In all its many incarnations Dwyer's latest band has itself taken all sorts of twists and turns musically. Thee Oh Sees originally started out as an expression of Dwyer's softer side, emerging out of the raucous noise of his previous bands Pink And Brown and Coachwhips he delivered a lo fi folk sound that was somber but beautiful. Last years The Masters Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In changed all that with Dwyer expanding his formation into a wild concoction of psychedelia and gritting rockabilly garage noise. Help is nowhere near such a dramatic turn as His Masters Bedroom was and continues this sound but hacks off the fat leaving twelve solid songs and very little fillers.

Help draws straight, dark lines to both the British psychedelic rock bands like The Creation and the caveman thud of The Troggs. Dwyer's howl is very much at the forefront of this sound albeit buried by the mounting rock scuzz muscle that surrounds it. It's hard to pick standout moments on an album of this consistency but Go Meet The Seed covers this bands strengths perfectly. The chugging guitar that forms the hefty structure all the way through it is stark and basic but pounds relentlessly. The vocals are given space which is something that rarely happened in the last album but really pays off. Brigid Dawson's harmonies still shadow Dwyer's every move to great effect and juxtapose the grit of the music. This song really illustrates the growth that has occurred since the last record, it leans back and allows each element of this sound to flex. Thankfully the ragged ferocity still remains and I Can't Get No sees this expressed in all its straight up glory. It's a fraction of the length of Go Meet The Seed but crams all the elements into a short stab of simple-as-hell rockabilly joy.

Having ditched the momentary noise freakouts that occasionally rendered the last record fragmented but keeping the Cramps influence, Dwyer has created a record that seems to be a culmination of all of his previous projects and one that showcases his talents as a songwriter perfectly. His work often challenges but never takes itself too seriously, it seems to emerge with great ease and listening to it is definitely getting more pleasurable by every release. He's more prolific than most but the quality seems to rising at the same rate as the quantity.

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2nd Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Ohbijou

Beacons

Bella Union

‘Ohbijou’ (literally ‘Oh, jewel!) is a sparkling confection crafted by Canadian singer Casey Mecija and her 6-strong ensemble. 'This is what an album would sound like if it were made by your girlfriend...' was my friend’s response to a selection of songs from ‘Beacons’. Further interrogation elicited this description of his generic, ‘Girlfriend’; a sort of anti-‘Weird-Science’ concoction whose DNA profile reads ‘Highly-strung victim of Romance Trauma’. I guess he might have been picking up on the weary sighs and wistful instrumentation which give the music of ‘Ohbijou’ a low-fi, mournful sincerity.

I’m more of the opinion that this is what an album would sound like if your girlfriend were an elf. An elf, in fact, with a penchant for the songs of Feist and Kate Bush. Casey Mecija deploys a gnomic voice whose unusual timbre and fragility ultimately charmed me. Top tracks ‘Cliff Jumps’ and ‘Cannon March’ work a nice exchange between synth and strings; cellos, mandolins and keyboard. You are never quite sure what Casey is singing about but apparently she ‘pens songs wrought with the Romantic afflictions of big city life’. What I heard were alternately cheerful melodies, with bounce and verve, fine instrumentation and a gentle sparkle.

Less successful when emulating the building, orchestral crescendos of Arcade Fire, ‘Beacons’ is, for the most part, delicately spun and moving. I suspect Casey’s boyfriend isn’t worried.

 

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27th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Cryptacize

Mythomania

Asthmatic Kitty

'Mythomania' is the follow up to Cryptacize’s 2008 debut, ‘Dig That Treasure’. Nope, I don’t know what they’re on about either, however subterfuge and mysteriousness seem to be part of the ‘Cryptacize’ brief . Their sound slips between definitions; part Calexico’s brooding folk and part Nico’s vulnerable female vocals. Throw in the use of an ‘autoharp’ and there’s even a curious dash of John Barry’s ‘Ipcress File’ soundtrack to much of the album.

The songs lurch along erratically, off-beat and off the beat; you’re never quite sure where you’re being led. It starts on a high; ‘Tail & Main’ manages to be cheerful and bittersweet . ‘If I could find my way back to you’ sings Nedelle Torrisi, repeating her plaintive call over a bouncy ensemble of guitar, drums and the manic reverberations of that autoharp.
It’s an enchanting start - shame that the lyric ends up as a bit of a premonition. It’s not until late tracks ‘I’ll Take The Long Way’ and ‘New Spell’, that Cryptacize really hit the same heights. In between, the songs are varyingly successful. They stick to the same direct sound throughout; simple, naïve almost - electric guitars and echoing vocals, all bound together by Michael Carreira’s distinctive syncopation on the drums.

Mythomania is a refreshing sonic mystery, worth the time spent unravelling.

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26th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Jason Lytle

Yours Truly, The Commuter

Anti

It was a strange task indeed to review the last Grandaddy album, Just Like The Fambly Cat, knowing that it was to be their last. It was virtually impossible, armed with this knowledge, not to read every word of the record as a suicide note. It's hard to review the album in its own right and not view it in the context in which it was being presented, the full stop to a wonderful decade of music. Since that time the music scene has suffered three years without its most unashamedly romantic and yet seemingly reluctant indie hero, until now that is. Here he returns to our ears with his debut solo record and the task of reviewing a piece of work that finds Lytle at the start of a new road rather than at the end of an old one is an infinitely more joyous undertaking, and made even easier by the quality of the music in question.

Lytle's work has always danced intriguingly around a series of opposites or contradictions. There's the obvious one like a big, bearded country dude singing in such a delicate tone which, in turn, leads on to yet more trickery. In these soft tones he sings of unbridled romanticism of warm summer days, hand in hand or childhood idealism and then trashes them with stories of drunk robots or sudden bursts of feral punk rock. Thematically these contrasts have prevailed and one senses a constant struggle in Lytle between everything from art and pop, town and country, loud and quiet or past and present.

In true form the title of his solo debut is a signing off - Yours Truly. And The Commuter explains this struggle hinting at a constant state of traveling between one place and another, be that physical or emotional or forward and back. Place is a dominant theme here with much talk of "going home." the line in the opening song "I may be limping, but I'm coming home," touches on both his past experiences and what promise the future holds for him now. Back in 1997 he gave us lines like "Here I sit and play guitar, count stars, out in the country, having narrowly escaped my trip into town," from Collective Dream Wish Of Upperclass Elegance. Little has changed as we find him in a similar dichotomy. Lytle is a dreamer and his music has always vividly represented the artistic conundrum between free expression and some sort of existence in society and the rest of the world. The concept of 'home' can obviously be taken at face value having recently relocated to Montana but it could also represent a kind of comfort that he's now finding between these two artistic opposites.

The core of the Grandaddy sound is firmly in place on Yours Truly with a slightly more low-key feel to proceedings. Lytle writes simple songs about simple themes and it's in this pursuit of simplicity that he manages to create some of the most perfect songs of his career. In the liner notes there's a picture of his note pad on which is written "No more weird arrangements...not on this album!!! Very simple. Very nice. rich, Big, but with enough little fucked things." That kind of does my job for me, I couldn't have put it better. It's a lonely record, but sun drenched as always. Themes of loss prevail but hope springs forth continuously. He creates a kind of euphoric melancholia, or melancholic euphoria, depending on your state of mind. Brand New Sun swells with an almost tear jerking sense of promise as two people run headlong into the unknown with the sole purpose of change, whatever pitfalls await them they'll face it together. Birds Encouraged Him sees a character on the verge of giving up on life only to be talked out of it by the birds, this childlike vision of salvation at the hands of nature being a familiar thread.

Lytles work is so packed full of a unique kind of idealism, both innocent and jaded, that one is almost seduced into reading too much into his words. The temptation to do that on the final Grandaddy album was all too great and I don't want to do it here. Whether he's lost or has found his way home is his privilege to know but what he's given us is a wonderfully simple and endlessly beautiful piece of work and a worthy first step on this much anticipated solo journey.

Check out Lytle's notes on the album here.

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18th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Pink Mountaintops

Borderline, London

May 11th 2009

Steven McBean's Pink Mountaintops were in town in support of recent third album Outside Love - and hot from an appearance at the ATP Festival. After storming shows from the Black Mountain mothership last year, McBean is worth catching in any guise and this was no exception.

Perfectly suited to the Canadian-ski-shack-meets-Mexican-bolthole vibe of the Borderline, album opener Axis: Bold as Love opened the show, with the six-man band working as a great base for post-skater McBean (that hidden key chain is a dead give-away) to lead with his great voice. The subtle ebbing and flowing of the at-time hypnotic sounds was easy to get lost in, through tracks like Vampires, And I Thank You and Plasticman, You're The Devil - while older tracks like Sweet '69 and Single Life provided a more up-tempo element, displaying the band's wide range.

Amber Webber's vocals were sorely missed, but team stand-ins Sophie Trudeau and Sar Friedman did an admirable job - with the violins proving to be a rare secret weapon and the additional back-up vocals really filling out the bands sound. Add to that the great drumming and Black Mountain regular Matt Camirand's pounding bass and what's not to like? With the curfew police closing in, the band returned to the stage for a single encore - possible career highlight Tourist In Your Town.

In a style much like their recent album, Pink Mountaintops were laid-back, effortless and engaging - providing a (temporarily) welcome antidote to the relentless precision of big brother Black Mountain. Superior entertainment.

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13th May 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Pulling

Final special

BBC Three

Back for one final hour of drunken romance, jaw-dropping hangovers and scenes of people being superglued to the floor, Pulling is easily one of the best sitcoms we've had in years. It's hard to understand what more they had to do to get another full series commissioned - the characters are hilarious, the situations just the right/wrong side of believable and the one-liners savage. Tanya Franks, Rebekah Staton and co-writer Sharon Horgan all put in excellent performances, with Paul Kaye giving one of the best characters of his career as Karen's disastrous on/off/on/off/drunk/wasted/off/off boyfriend Billy.

Of course, now that BBC Three has morphed from the channel that gave us Nighty Night, Monkey Dust and even the early Little Britain into the home of quality entertainment like Coming Of Age or Horne & Corden, maybe it's better that it's been allowed to die a dignified death and head off into the near-perfect sitcom retirement home (Fawlty Towers was only 12 minutes long blah blah). But it's easy to imagine that Pulling could have become the female Peep Show and ran for a lot longer than just two series and this one hour special. At least it gets to wrap things up enough, and lets us wallow in the wince-worthy antics of Donna, Louise and the mighty Karen once more. 

Donna's dating a braying posho whose idea of a good time is to cover his sheets with cash; Louise is back from a trip round the world with a new loved-up hippy she can't stand, and Karen's somehow settled down with a guy who thinks women should be in the kitchen making him pies. 

It's a total testament to the madness of the modern TV world that this hasn't gone any further, but hey, at least they had the grace to let them back for one last round.

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9th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Red Red Meat

Bunny Gets Paid

Sub Pop

Being that I'm neither of a superstitious persuasion or a 9 year old boy I do not have a favourite number. If I was to do so however it would be 45. Being a history geek it resonates with 1945. It constitutes one half of the beautiful game. But really it is a happy conjunction of the fact that classic albums were moulded for the 45 minutes of space on vinyl and that 45 is the number of minutes it takes for me to walk home work. 45 minutes of blissful private head space and immersion music.
 
Working as a music reviewer can reap rich rewards and found gems have always rendered the before mentioned 45 minute walk a pleasure. Red Red Meat made it tortuous and tedious in equal measure. Bunny Gets Paid was the third of a trilogy of albums from the Chicago 'post grunge' band, first released in 1995. The omens are good as Sub Pop proclaims it as 'easily one of the high points of the entire Sub Pop catalog'. With stiff competition that is quite some accolade and prompted some excited anticipation.
 
To my mind it seems there's a perfectly adequate reason as to why Bunny Gets Paid failed to sell first time round. Because it's not that good. The necessary ingredients are all present, with fuzzy guitars and outsider ethos, but it fails to inspire. At the time it would have sounded much like everything else and sadly it stills does. There's no sense of kicking oneself and cursing 'damn how did I miss out on this first time round?'. By some accounts Red Red Meat have turned out to be quite influential but I doubt they will acquire Velvet Underground status as a band feted after the event. To be remembered as significant requires more credentials than that the band were present at the grunge banquet with the obligatory slacker attitudes and a penchant for flannel shirts.
 
Apparently what makes Bunny Gets Paid stand out is that the band decided to play around with form to create a more loose sound. They succeeded with this, whilst also jettisoning melody and coherence. It sounds like a sound check from when Beck had a devil haircut; a sound check at which he couldn't be arsed to boot. The mid nineties obsession with rejecting over-production means that there is almost no quality control. Main man Tim Rutili recalls of the record "when I bring in a song it's usually not that good until other people fuck around with it, and there was a lot of fucking around this time". Somebody should have pointed out that broths that are stirred by too many cooks get spoiled. Red Red Meat lyrics are oblique, something to normally be encouraged, but instead of prompting intrigue, reflection and personal interpretation just lead to bemusement and a shrug of the shoulders.
 
Die hard fans will be pleased to know that this release of Bunny Gets Paid is also accompanied by extras- B-sides and out-takes - but passing trade may find it all utterly tedious. I dare say a handful of listeners may love this cult offering but, much as it would pain my 1995 persona to have to hear me say so, I think Sub Pop is wrong. This is not a Sub Pop high point. 

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7th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Horrors

Primary Colours

XL Recordings

What The Horrors first album Strange House alluded to and what Primary Colours only serves to confirm is that The Horrors are in essence a pastiche band - begging, borrowing and stealing from rock n roll’s history and then repackaging and re-releasing. Re-invention should not be considered a criticism, but you could easily have expected Primary Colours to be more of the same, a method Oasis have been executing for well over 15 years. In fact, Primary Colours is very different to its predecessor, slower, measured - and where Strange House took the Goth punk of The Cramps and blended it with the sixties psychedelic weirdness of acts such as Screaming Lord Such, the influences running through this LP are altogether different.

On hearing the introduction of opening track Mirror Image, your first reaction may be that you’ve been given the wrong album. Where are the gothic organ sounds and sixties surf bass-lines? Here you’ll hear phasing, pitch-bending distortion; and may assume you have been handed a lost My Bloody Valentine album in error. Vocalist Farris Badawan’s first appearance confirms it’s the right record - but even then his performance resembles Brett Anderson with slightly larger testicles; gone is the aggressive scowl that dominates Strange House. Unfortunately this doesn’t end with the first track and while the My Bloody Valentine motif runs through most of the album, this is unfortunately no Loveless. More like a cheap market version of MBV, doing remixes of other bands: The Cure on Mirror Image, The Psychedelic Furs on Primary Colours, or Siouxsie and the Banshees on I Can’t Control Myself.

What is lacking from Primary Colours is the energy, the aggression, the uncontained vocals and the simple but effective musicianship of Strange House. No band has an obligation to be defined by genre and it would be wrong to demand it (although I‘m tempted to say any band employing the Madchester drum break employed in Do You Remember has no right to call themselves The Horrors, EMF yes, The Charlatans maybe, The Horrors no). What disappoints most is, while they were never going to be the most original band, they were at least unique. Strange House wasn’t perfect, but it was different and refreshing, best of all it sounded like the antithesis to the entire rolling basslined, high-keyed anthems that were and are still dominating the current music scene. If Strange House was The Horrors as mavericks, this is The Horrors falling back into line - if Brandon Flowers sung Scarlet Fields, it could easily be a Killers track (remixed by the counterfeit My Bloody Valentine of course).

This is not to make Primary Colours sound like an obituary, because there are some undoubted highlights. New Ice Age, despite the over production retains its energy, I Only Think Of You is strong enough to survive the Boards Of Canada treatment and the production on I Can’t Control Myself works well. Best of all is Sea Within A Sea, the epic 8 minute closer which starts like Joy Division’s No Love Lost and ends like Portisheads The Rip (unsurprising, as Portishead’s Geoff Barrow co-produces the album).

Where Strange House compelled you to throw yourself into the mosh pit, Primary Colours encourages you to stand at the back and listen with your arms firmly folded. Some may consider this progress but it could easily alienate many existing fans. It will probably get 9/10 from the NME and be described as The Horrors ‘maturing’, if that’s true it’s them reaching adolescence, talented but unsure, full of doubt and overly influenced by their friends. Somewhere there’s a great band trying to get out, but this album leaves you confused as to whether they’re a studio or live band. At some point they’re going to have to make that decision.

 

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27th Apr 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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In The Loop

(dir. Armando Iannucci)

"To walk the road of peace, sometimes we need to be ready to climb the mountain of conflict..."

Great big screen translation of TV's The Thick Of It's TV (aka Yes, Minister? Fuck The Fuck Off). The mighty Peter Capaldi returns as Malcom Tucker, the spin doctor's spin doctor in a transatlantic tale of dodgy dossiers and chicken-arsed political manoeuvres that bites into the whole Iraq build-up in a scarily convincing way. MP Tom Hollander's ambiguous statements about the possibility of war land him in trouble as he finds himself being courted by hawks and doves on either side of the Atlantic, with predictably disastrous results. 

This is a brilliant take on the madness of our modern political world, with all the usual suspects back from the TV show (some in slightly different roles which is a bit confusing, but fine after a while), and the added bonus of James Gandolfini in his first post-Sopranos role as a US army general caught up in the Washington political flak. Watch out for a decent Steve Coogan cameo too as a pissed-off area man back in the UK trying to get his wall fixed. 

It's packed with so many great one-liners and inventive insults that you start out trying to remember them all to use in conversation later, until the sheer volume of them forces you to give up and to just sit back and enjoy the barrage of language at its fullest. It's also worth pointing out that this is a British film that's not a geezer heist, a shitcom with a punfull title or written by Jane Austen.  

Giving it 4****s here in honour of the outstanding contributions to the art of swearing - it's ****ing great.  

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27th Apr 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Veils

Sun Gangs

Rough Trade

After having seen Finn Andrews perform with his unassuming ensemble at a small east end pub not so long ago it's pretty hard not to get excited about a forthcoming release by The Veils. 2006's Nux Vomica came out of nowhere and blew my mind with its ferocious intensity. It was raw when it needed to be but as smooth as silk at other times and running through it all was such profound yet compellingly humble songwriting. Sun Gangs inevitably possesses all these qualities and is a worthy followup indeed.

Described by Finn as "a very modern mixture of prayers, love letters and personal record keeping," Sun Gangs is the natural progression after Nux Vomica. It's less wild definitely and more mature as a result. And yet with maturity can often come a bloated beast, but it has resisted the temptation to grow beyond all recognition of it's past. It is epic though, and more so than Nux. The Letter with its soaring central guitar chord hints at where this record could have gone, but it's the vision of Finn that one assumes keeps this from straying into dangerous Coldplay territory and instead it remains genuinely rousing.

The quote from Finn at the start of the last paragraph says much about this writer and the work he produces. It's real and honest and delivered with such humility. This can all be seen at the live shows - as Finn stands awkwardly at the front, profoundly flattered by the very presence of the crowd in front of him and then with the first note he recedes into a zone all his own and emerges as if in a room all alone. One of the elements that makes this band stand out form others that sit in a similar genre is the varied gradation of sonic tone that is covered throughout the record's progression. They can express such unsettling intimacy on songs like the title track - as Finn, accompanied only by a piano can drip his words from his mouth right into your ear, like it was only meant for you. He can then turn on you on songs like Killed By The Boom which recollects the nasty side of this band last seen on songs like Not Yet on Nux Vomica. Instead of dripping, Finn spits every word in your face on this song with screeching guitars and hard drum action. He also says of this song which tells the tale of a mysterious character of slightly ill repute that it is "possibly about The Wire's Omar Little." I think I can speak for my colleagues here at Chimpomatic when I say, that's all the information I need.

Three Sisters channels all this aggression into a slick and damn near perfect two and a half minutes of breakneck pop, with ukulele up front and bass and lead guitar in twin formation either side it's a formidable attack and is electrifying. As it slams on the breaks abruptly it makes room for The House She Lived In which shows Finn's undying romantic side. All of this is then thrown skyward when we hear Larkspur. This is by far the longest song here and shows a side of this band that is not only unlike any other we've seen in the other songs but one that hasn't shown its head in their whole career. This is where we see the maturity of Finn after the success of Nux Vomica. This song opens up the ribcage of his sound to expose a dauntingly cavernous and hollow interior that goes on for way further than your eyes or ears can fathom. With limited lyrics it simply sits back and watches you sweat in all this space as it slowly closes in around you. When you think it's all going to explode and launch into driving guitar bliss, it does the opposite, it recedes and reveals yet more hidden chambers. It's torturous in its resistance but utterly brilliant and enough evidence alone of Finns talent and the ground that he and his band have covered since Nux Vomica.

In short Sun Gangs may not have such stand alone gems as Advice For Young Mothers To Be or Jesus For The Jugular but as a whole plays out with consistent quality and maturity. It's got it all, love, faith, life death and the fear of all the above and is presented in a package that's impossible not to believe.

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21st Apr 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Themselves

theFREEhoudini Mixtape

Anticon

Ahead of this summer's comeback album CrownsDown Themselves have dropped this 39 minute mixtape and it's free to download. If you cast your mind back to when Real Madrid ruled the football world with their dream team line up, this mixtape would be the hip hop equivalent. Featuring contributions from a host of Anticon dudes like Yoni Wolf, Sole and Pedestrian plus hip hop's alternative elite like Buck 65, Aesop Rock, Slug and Busdriver. The whole thing is also tied up in a nice little bow by Odd Nosdam who mixes it all.

But despite all the se names it's the two main players that drive this and make it a non stop bullet train of beats and rhymes. Jel's beats are heavy and come at you like a techno storm. They swirl into each other morphing and changing organically according to the MC that has stepped up. Dose One steals the show as expected with his lightning tongue flickering with lyrical brilliance. The way they have both progressed their other band Subtle is a major influence here as multi layered compositions are constructed. Programmed beats mix with regular old school as Dose's vocals shape shift from being mumbled backing texture to his twisted pixie rhymes that dart out of the texture as gleaming bullets. The mixtape format gives it a nice old school feel and each MC comes into play with great fluidity. Buck 65 gets a gloriously booming beat to play with, Aesop's deep delivery sits perfectly with Dose's high pitched voice and as Nosdam brings in Yoni Wolf the cLOUDDEAD circle becomes complete for the first time in too long and it sure feels good.

It's been ten years since this group first emerged and six since their last record and this generous 39 minutes of perfect prose is a fine return to form. Featuring the 7 original members of the Anticon collective it really sums up this labels history and their current standing as one of hip hop's finest labels. The fact that this is free makes it irrisistable, like I needed any other reason to hear these boys play again.

You can download the whole thing here (for the next 90 85 days only!) or pay out for a limited CD version that features an extra 16 minutes of audio.

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6th Apr 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Richard Swift

The Atlantic Ocean

Secretly Canadian

Firstly, I have to eat a little humble pie, for the lukewarm review of Richard Swift’s last album ‘Dressed Up For The Letdown’, which turned out to be something of a grower, sounding better and better with repeated plays.

After the unpolished garage rock of last years excellent ‘Richard Swift as Onasis’ comes his next album proper ‘The Atlantic Ocean’. Swift describes the sound as ‘Prince sitting in on John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band’ and is actually a pretty good analogy of what’s going on here, especially on the title track and ‘The Original Thought.'

However Swift is far from a one trick pony and mixes up his influences nicely; the catchy ‘The First Time’ has a touch of the Wilco about it (Swift recorded the album in their loft after meeting Jeff Tweedy on Later With Jools Holland), where as the excellent ‘Bat Coma Motown’ is pure Harry Nilsson.

A slight disappointment is that many of the best songs here already appeared on last years ‘Ground Trouble Jaw’ EP. ‘A Song For Milton Feher’ manages to be insanely catchy after only couple of bars and the closing ‘Lady Luck’, points to where Swift might be going next. With simple and soulful motown style backing, Swift demonstrate a whole other unexplored side to his vocal range.

‘The Atlantic Ocean’ is utterly listenable and cements Swift as a talent to watch, it will be interesting to see where he goes now.

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#marmot

3rd Apr 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Decemberists

The Hazards Of Love

Rough Trade

Since I first discovered this band I have been prepared to follow Captain Meloy and his magnificent vessel The Decemberists to anywhere they chose to take me. Particularly on their breakthrough album Picaresque and their (US) major label debut The Crane Wife the going wasn't always easy but endlessly rewarding. Having played the heart out of this latest offering I have arrived at a point beyond which I am not willing to follow.

The Hazards Of Love is a concept driven rock opera of sorts, inspired by a 60's recording by the same name and it's hard work to say the least. Don't get me wrong, Colin Meloy is incapable of writing anything that is devoid of rewards and there are plenty here but as a whole its sights are set way too firmly on ambition and not enough on song craft. Throughout its 17 tracks it attempts to tell the story of a fair maiden called Margaret who, after her abduction seems to be ravished by a shape-shifting demon. There's a jealous queen, a homicidal villain known as 'the rake' and a particularly disturbing tale where Meloy assumes the character of a child murderer taking out each of his kids one by one so he can be free again.

The Crane Wife marked a definite shift in the intentions of this band and I suppose an album such as this was always on the cards. After moving to a major label their sound grew to epic proportions and took their folk roots into rockier territory. This growth has come to a head with The Hazards Of Love. Running for just short of an hour each of the 17 songs blend seamlessly into one another creating a musical feel to the album. Melodies and choruses recur throughout the record which actually make you feel like you're listening to one huge bloated creation. Its ambition is beyond question but this continuous structure is tiresome.

The title track sets the scene of Margaret's temptation and subsequent abduction with typical Meloy delicacy. The first blend from this track into A Bower Scene marks the first indication that you are listening to something different from this band. Up tempo drums count it in and then after a vocal build you have the crunching weight of guitars. It's a hard rock belt in the face that you certainly weren't expecting and one that rears its mighty head more than once on this record. It makes room for the first guest spot on Won't Want For Love (Margaret In The Taiga), which features Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark. Playing the now pregnant Margaret, her sweet vocals breath blissful life and vulnerability into these hard riffs. The second of these guest appearance comes a little later with the riff-heavy The Wanting Comes In Waves. It features My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden playing the part of the Queen bartering for the soul of Margaret's beloved WIlliam. This crazy theme is the last thing you think about as the teaming of thee two voices is a delight. This is by no means the only moment of such delight, they are plentiful and none so great as on Annan Water, a tense affair built on taught strumming that builds ever so slowly and then opens up and lets Meloy's vocals expand on a gentle organ breeze then dive back into the tension once more with expert ease.

Narrative has always been at the forefront of Meloy's work. Never does his writing serve the role of mere love songs but are meticulously crafted out of antique language and expert turn of phrase. Picaresque's The Mariner's Revenge Song is one of Meloy's finest moments and shows his skill for telling a tale. The penultimate stroke on The Crane Wife lurched from one tempo to another with Led Zeppelin like confidence. In hindsight both these songs provide the blueprint for The Hazards Of Love and though many of these new songs stand equally as tall as these previous gems it's the album as a whole that I am critisising. I spend most of my time aching for a band to have the balls to stretch a song out beyond the 7 minute mark and after the first 3 songs of this record I thought my answer had come. But the constant musical stream and the convoluted and often utterly confusing narrative weigh this down and really start to grate after the half way mark. They always had a slightly fucked up Andrew Lloyd Webber feel to their creations but somehow managed to steer their ship away in time. This album embraces that side and it's infuriating as some songs in there own right are quite special, it's nearly impossible to find a fault to justify the mediocre score you see on the left. So on that note I stand here and watch this great ship sail off into the distance without me and quietly hope and pray that someday it will pass by here again and pick me up. I wish them well.

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30th Mar 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Rank Deluxe

You Decide

Fat Cat

This album sounds like a great deal of work has gone into it; the songs are interesting, the instruments are all played nice and tight, and the production sounds really full and clear, but I have to confess I'm struggling with it because of the vocals. The Rank Deluxe offer up a confident and thoughtfully crafted album full of indie rock which should, by rights, gain them a lot of attention and maybe some airplay. Once again, it's the sound of early 80's post-punk which informs the band's sound, and in the Rank Deluxe's case the influence seems to be both The Ruts and The Beat (bands with a tad more intelligence and creativity than many of their counterparts). The guitar playing stands out - a tight and schooled American approach to indie rock along the lines of Albert Hammond Jr, and the rhythm section is totally on the case with snappy disco rhythms and reggae influenced basslines. So where does it all go wrong? For me, the stumbling block is the vocals - singers Richard Buchanan and Lewis Dyer have made the decision to sing in a resolutely cockney accent, which is no doubt their own speaking voices. They both have good powerful voices, excellent range and accuracy, but the upfront nature of the glottal-stops, flattened vowels and dropped H's detract in no small way from the band's music.

I'm sure it's an approach the band must be happy with - an unambiguous declaration that The Rank Deluxe are a London band - with colours nailed securely to the mast. This may win them some fans because singing in your own accent is somehow more "real" but could limit their appeal to audiences north of Watford, or on the other side of the Atlantic. Lyrically solid, musically adventurous and sonically charged, the album has few low-spots and works better on tracks like Innocence where the cockneyisms are less emphatic and more relaxed. Basically, this is what Hard-Fi would sound like if they were any good - and one or two listens will make your mind up. I won't be listening to it much, but I have found myself humming the melody of Doll Queue all week, so they must be doing something right.

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#HarrisPilton

24th Mar 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs

It's Blitz!

Fiction

It's quite easy to compare the progression of New York's Yeah Yeah Yeahs with the progression of modern warfare, shit I compare pretty much everything to war. Their stunning debut Fever To Tell saw them engaging in hand to hand combat, homemade shanks were used to gut the opponent or simply the pounding brut force of a bleeding fist. Show Your Bones saw them retreat from the battlefield and adopt a slightly less primal approach, whereas the latest offering It's Blitz! is modern warfare in all its polished glory. There are no ground troops just long range, expertly precise strikes. The brut force kills are now a 'mission accomplished' notice on a computer screen. But the result is always the same, victory.

The last we heard from these guys was in 2007 with the EP Is Is. Since then this short bundle of goodness has become my favored item in their impeccable back catalogue. It's Blitz! isn't quite the cavalry that I thought Is Is was calling but it's still a worthy 3rd roll of the dice and one that takes them into new and rich territory. Karren O's presence still remains steadfast at the centre of their sound but the ship on which she sails has taken a new turn. The minimal crunch of guitars and belting drums have been enshrouded in detailed production and a wealth of synthesizers. The emphasis isn't on power but on depth.

Opener Zero is a massive way to reintroduce themselves. With vocals dripping in echo Karen O is up close and personal with some of the slickest production this band has ever offered. This isn't surprising seeing as TV On The Radio's Dave Sitek is at the helm. Wave upon wave of synth carry this song in directions more suited to Alison Goldfrapp or even Blondie. It's driving power pop and it's quite surprising for this band. Show Your Bones always hinted at this direction but the change has finally arrived. While this is probably the biggest tune here the remaining high points come in more subtle ways. Their ferocity is often punctuated to great effect by their anti-ballads and Skeletons is one of their finest. With grand and distant drums building on an analogue ocean of synthesizers this song sees Karen at her most breathless. Runaway is certainly one of the standout moments on It's Blitz! Introduced with the gentle plink of an old piano Karen sounds lonely among such empty sonic space. With a rumble of strings she is soon joined by the sensitive rhythm and a full orchestra. It just rises and rises on this structure like a flock of migrating birds dancing and reveling in their euphoric freedom. It's loaded with melancholy and tinged with screeching violins but is an utter joy from start to finish.

It's Blitz! is a surprise indeed. It doesn't do what other Yeah Yeah Yeahs albums have always been there to do but isn't it special when a band start to perform other functions. It's the most sensual of their releases. At times it comes way too close to Killers territory for my liking but their front woman steers it away expertly. Her voice has always done things for me but on this record I could just swim in it. They have always flirted with synthesizers but their courage to embrace it here pays off and gives the record an old school charm without sounding retro. They've grown up since Fever To Tell, who'd of thought a woman who brought us such a guttural howl could stand before us on album closer Little Shadow and ask us "will you follow me?" with such monolithic siren beauty. It's stunning and needs to be experienced.

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#BC

17th Mar 2009 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Richard Swift

The Social, London

February 26th, 2009

With a new album due in April, Richard Swift was back in the UK for a couple of dates and followed his headline show at The Borderline with this low-key show at The Social - an always-excellent venue most notable for it's intimate size and the fact that you can have a stage-side pie at a table while the band performs.

While he may bear a passing resemblance to an Indie Rock Gary Glitter, the incomparable Richard Swift can be compared only to the equally incomparable troubadour Harry Nilsson. Effortlessly bouncing between styles, there's a surprising cohesiveness to Swift's sound and with the backing of a full band, that sound was elevated to foot stomping proportions.

The brief set whistled quickly through a handful of songs from 2007's Dressed Up For The Letdown, as well as newer material from the Ground Trouble Jaw EP and this year's forthcoming new album The Atlantic Ocean. "One last song, then an encore" quipped Swift, as the band switched up a gear and barreled through the new title track "The Atlantic Ocean" and "Lady Luck", with Swift's booming voice taking on a soulful sound that is not wholly reflected on the record. Plenty of entertainment - and plenty to look forward to from this wholly unique performer.

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2nd Mar 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Beirut

March Of The Zapotec & Realpeople Holland

Pompeii Records

First of all I didn't write this review for Beirut's second album The Flying Club Cup. However at the time it was written I probably would have agreed with it. I loved the first slice of Zach Condon's sound Gulag Orkestar and eagerly awaited the followup. But on its arrival I thought it was just more of the same. Well how times change, for as I write this the Flying Club Cup remains one of the most played albums in my collection and since its release in 2007 it has become one of my most treasured listening experiences. All my initial criticisms of it have fallen away, it aims at a similar point to its predecessor but via very different routs, in fact I rarely listen to Gulag Orkestar anymore and since I saw Condon's dazzling stage show at the Roundhouse I have been hovering above the Beirut camp like a bird of prey waiting for any little morsel to emanate from its walls.

So here we have the split CD March Of The Zapotec & Realpeople Holland. Some explanation is obviously needed to shed light on this more than ambiguous title. These are 2 EP's, the first is a collection of songs Condon recorded with a 19 strong Mexican band called The Jimenez Band which he found in a town called Oaxaca who's native tongue is Zapotec. The second is the total antithesis. Before launching as Beirut Condon crafted eclectic bedroom recordings through lo-fi instruments and keyboards under the name Realpeople and Holland is a collection of 5 songs that revisit this intimate process.

Judged entirely on their own merits both these EP's are as strong as anything Condon has given us before. His ability to extract regional sounds while lacing them all up with his own unique touch is seen very much on both the EP's but particularly on March. Condon is obviously conducting the band to his own rhythm and his Balkan trademark sound prevails but squeezing through the cracks is this Mexican might in all its mournful sway. In much the same way as The Flying Club Cup oozed with Parisian nostalgia March's south American grandiosity provides a melancholic warmth to the bizarre mix. Holland is a drastic change of scale and is predominantly Condon and a synthesizer. My initial criticisms of The Flying Club Cup's lack of progression would not apply to this release and Holland would be why. Condon's work has always been steeped in regional nostalgia but Holland is about technological nostalgia. His delicate programmed beats bleep with the tinny rhythm your drama teacher was so proud of in the school play or they are awash with great swathes of electronic atmosphere reminiscent of public information broadcasts in the 70's. But then on top of this you have his live musical accompaniment and the aching vocals that describe his sound. The mix is glorious and this EP contains some of the most perfect Beirut songs to date.

I speak here of the central 2 songs, Venice and The Concubine. The former is built around a wash melody straight out of the Boards Of Canada portfolio and then joined by Condon's gentle trumpet making the first half of this song a slice pure instrumental sublimity. Then as the vocals are faded in so smoothly the song grows into near perfection. The Concubine revisits Beirut's earlier sound with accordion, trumpet and gentle percussion propping up Condon's croon. It's Beirut-by-the-book but it's awesome and great to have him back. The only problem is that it's followed by a very poor piece of instrumental Euro pop that goes on way too long and closes this EP.

The problems with this whole release arise when listening to both of these as a complete entity. They don't sound like one and should really be released totally separate from one another. Thankfully they both progress Condon's sound but I must say I am slightly disappointed once again as I really really wanted a full album. But seeing as these two will be my favorite EP's in a year's time it's not much of a criticism.

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#BC

16th Feb 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Veils

The Macbeth, London

February 5th, 2009

With a follow up to 2006 break-out Nux Vomica in the can and ready to drop in April, The Veils lined up a four night stint across London to road test the new material. We made it along to formerly-out-of-the-way pub The Macbeth in Hoxton in anticipation of catching an early airing of new songs from this great band.

Once the sub-par openers were out of the way, it was pretty clear that the packed-out crowd were here for one reason only - and the show kicked off at a lightening pace. With their recorded material, the emphasis is all on lyrics and vocal deliver, but live on stage the band were a different animal entirely. Dan Raishbrook's outstanding guitar work and cool-as-fuck bassist Sophia Burn really added another dimension to front man Finn Andrews booming band, as they hammered through very promising sounding new material, clearly building on the strengths of Nux Vomica. Old favorites weren't passed over though and Calliope!, Advice For Young Mothers and Not Yet (all available on their www as it happens) met with resounding approval.

Band or no band however, this is clearly Andrews' project - and a mid-set solo number wowed the crown, while another solo encore cemented him as a mesmerising poetic figure. He led the show with style and bumped Sun Gangs onto this year's 'most anticipated' list.

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6th Feb 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Zero Boys

Vicious Circle

Secretly Canadian

While LA, NYC and DC drew the main focus of the punk and hardcore scenes of 80's America, the Zero Boys sprouted out of Indianapolis, Indiana. With Indiana-based label Secretly Canadian re-releasing debut album Vicious Circle, the opportunity has also been taken to release History Of..., which is billed as a lost second album. The disc compiles EP Livin' In The 80's with other tracks from the time - and between them the two discs cover the entire recorded output from the bands '79-'83 period, after which they disbanded.

From the opening track, the Vicious Circle album is a pogo-tastic affair, with the title track doing away with much intro before the explosive guitar and pounding bass hammer home. Livin In The 80's provides one of the band's most memorable songs, while the sentiment of tracks like Drug Free Youth and Down The Drain is pretty clear.

Lyrically it's far from challenging - and if someone is having a "needly stuck in their brain", you can be sure they're going to be "going insane" by the end of the verse. What the lyrics do successfully though, is to transplant the aggressive sound of UK punk into a US setting - capturing a time and a place perfectly. The 'big issues' of bands like the Sex Pistols (anarchy, anti-monarchy, the usual) are translated into issues with more connection to the Repoman-loving, car fixing, skateboarding, disassociated youth of suburban Indiana. Not being able to get booze, working a nine to five and looking forward to the weekend are the hot topics here and that connection to the youth of America was a recipe for success, as the skate-punk sound exploded through the US at the start of the 80's. Bands like 7 Seconds, Youth Brigade and Black Flag developed the hardcore sound that would become such a thriving industry - creating a climate where bands like Green Day could eventually bring their punk-inspired sound into the arena-filling mainstream.

There's little notable evolution by the time we move onto the long-lost History Of album, with many of the tracks still in something of a demo form. There's actually a touch of country influence here and there which softens the sound a little - adding a nice rolling vibe to the music, making it more accessible that some of the more hardcore-leanings of a lot of the early American punk bands. The dated production let's things down a little, with some of the kick seemingly missing from the sound - where these days you would expect a solid, booming bottom end. As a document of the developing hardcore scene however, there's plenty to enjoy - and you can clearly trace the roots of many of the influential bands that evolved from this pioneering sound.

 

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2nd Feb 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Bon Iver

Blood Bank

Jagjaguwar

Hot on the heels of the masses of praise heaped on debut For Emma, Forever Ago goes this four track EP from Justin Vernon, alias Bon Iver. While Skinny Love may have become a breakout track, For Emma, Forever Ago was essentially a concept album, consistent in tone and deeply entrenched in the atmosphere of it's conception - out in the woods of Wisconsin. These additional tracks expand on that idea, but outside of the context of the complete album they seem a little lost, and with the exception of atmospheric lead track Blood Bank, none really come close to that stand alone success of Skinny Love.

That might be explained by the fact that Blood Bank was a left-over from the For Emma sessions, while the other three are post-breakthough recordings. Unless of course, there was a vocoder stashed away in that log cabin, as Vernon bravely (but unsuccessfully) attempts to reclaim the instrument from Cher on Woods.

Beach Baby is pleasant enough, while Babys repetitive multi-tracked piano gets a litlle much - but who's complaining? Any suggestion that For Emma was far from a one-off is more than welcome, as anticipation already starts to build for a follow-up proper.

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23rd Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Animal Collective

Merriweather Post Pavilion

Domino

So here it is, Animal Collective's much anticipated ninth studio album: Merriweather Post Pavilion (apparently named after their favourite venue) arrives with similar claims that greeted their previous few releases; namely that these would be proper songs, rather than the sprawling sketches that characterised their earlier work. The fact that none of the songs clock in at over six minutes, does seems to suggest a new more disciplined agenda.

Opener In the Flowers doesn't quite fit this claim; with its plodding build, it feels rather like a prelude and is slightly underwhelming. However, moving into the blissful My Girls, it all begins to make perfect sense, with Panda Bear's melodic stamp all over it and is utterly delightful. Then the stomping, playful My GIrls take things in a positively sing-a-long direction by Animal Collective's standards.

From there on in, it is apparent that the sound on Merriweather Post Pavilion has evolved markedly since Strawberry Jam, and on the whole it's a lot more accessible record. This time around their reliance on samples and loops seems to have focused them, such on the stripped back Daily Routine (Guitarist Deakin is absent from this record). Yet Animal Collective's real skill is their ability to extract melody from the strangest of places and as the album goes on it slowly seeps deep inside your head.

So whilst Animal Collective remain an acquired taste and are not ever likely ever to make something that isn't hard to categorise, Merriweather Post Pavilion is as an original, joyous and warm album that you're likely to find this year.

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#marmot

14th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Best Of 2008

HHG

It was a good year for Hip Hop with some real heavyweight contributions from the likes of Lil Wayne, The Roots and Kanye West. Q Tip came out of retirement with a great album and Atmosphere gave us the fantastic When Life Gives You Lemons Paint That Shit Gold. But ultimately these 5 rocked my world.

Albums

Why? - Alopecia
This record dropped pretty early this year but has remained a permanent fixture ever since. Building on the clever songcraft of Elephant Eyelash, Alopecia is almost too packed with ideas to fully comprehend.

Black Milk - Tronic
Just as the year draws to a close, Black Milk drops his best work yet: super tight production mixes with raw old school might to produce a hip hop classic.

The Roots - Rising Down
Thank God for George Bush or we may not have ever had a record as venomous and thoroughly pissed off as this. Leaning more on the classic hip hop than the live band, the Philly boys really delivered here although the guest MC's nearly stole the show.

The Cool Kids - The Bake Sale EP
From out of nowhere came this EP full of playful bravado and classic old school hooks. "The new black version of the Beastie Boys."

lil Wayne - Tha Carter III
The most anticipated hip hop record of the year actually made good on its promise.

Songs
The Roots - Rising Down (feat. Mos Def & Styles P)
Black Milk - Losing Out
Why? - By Torpedo Or Crohn's
Hercules & Love Affair - Blind
Lil Wayne - A Milli

Disappointments
The Mighty Underdogs
Sounded good on paper, especially with Def Jux behind them, but in reality was a pile of shit.

Subtle - Exiting Arm
It was their most commercial release and certainly promised great things. But somehow it lacked some of the quirky excitement of all of their previous work.

TV
The X Factor
That duet between Beyonce and Alexandra...nuf said.

Movies
Sex And The City (Only because I went to the World Premiere and sat near SJP and Gary Lineker, it's the only way I see movies so was the only one I saw)

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29th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Best Of 2008

Chimpovich

Music:
Not been a vintage year in terms of quantity for me. El Rey by the Wedding Present and Living on the Other side by The Donkeys got a lot of listens. I haven't yet got round to listening to You and Me by the Walkmen, but reports suggest it's as strong as we've come to expect from them. But in loose order, my standout albums of the year:

Damien Jurado - Caught in the Trees: Not convinced at first, but grew and grew and grew. Lovely stuff.
Ladyhawk - Shots: Dirty rock n roll. Brains, booze and plenty of heart
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes: Yes!
Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight: An early release and still on heavy rotation. How can someone so miserable write such catchy and rocking tunes. Some great lyrics too.

Shows:
My Morning Jacket - The Forum: as reliable as ever when playing live
Frightened Rabbit - Madame Jojos/Sala Sol: Poor in a poor venue in London. Much better and relaxed in front of about 30 people in Madrid
Damien Jurado - Moby Dick (madrid): Warm and Intimate as Winter approached
Foals - Mynt (madrid): From the rousing drum intro. Through to the guitarist playing whilst walking along the bar. The tunes rocked and they gave it their all.

TV:
Bunk, Cutty, Clay, Daniels, Rawls, Omar, Snoop, Chris, Avon etc etc etc. Just (and only just) behind a niece and nephew as my favourite thing this year.

Films:
No Country For Old Men - welcome back Brothers
Into the Wild - Dam(n) that river!

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#chimpovich

24th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Best Of 2008

chimp71

another decent year of pop culture for me, feels like there's been lots of good stuff to get into this year...

TV

The Wire (FX) - season five bowed out in great form. Still the greatest.

Mad Men (BBC4) - convincing, slowburn drama, with fascinating take on early 60s life.

Breaking Bad (FX) Engrossing suburban drug-dealing tension.

Battlestar Galactica (Sky1) - trippy, political, enigmantic, moving sci-fi with some great space battles thrown in for good measure. Don't want it to end, but I do want to find out where they're going with it.

30 Rock (Five) - made even better by Tina Fey getting rid of Sarah Palin. 

Summer Heights High (BBC3) - don't want to be rude, but seriously, did you miss this? That's so random.

Criminal Justice (BBC1) - five nights of proper drama.

Film

Waltz With Bashir - brilliantly thoughtful animation, covering memory, loss and the intensity of war.

Man On Wire - beautifully simple doc about a tightrope walk between the Twin Towers. High tension line, indeed.

Gomorrah - brutal Italian mob chaos. 

In Search Of A Midnight Kiss - lo-fi indie romance

also enjoyed: The Dark Knight, Iron Man, In Bruges, No Country For Old Men

Albums

TV On The Radio - Dear Science an album that sounds like it could only have been made in 2008.

Black Mountain - In The Future retro maybe, but totally heavy and pretty essential

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes great debut.

Bon Iver - For Emma - as was this.

Santogold - Santogold (and Top Ranking, the Diplo-Dub) - and this!

also enjoyed: Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend, Grace Jones - Hurricane, Catfish Haven - Devastator

Gigs

Black Mountain - The Scala (great just after breakfast at Glastonbury too)

Jay-Z - Glastonbury a proper big moment. His cover of Wonderwall was deft, subtle and hilarious all at the same time.

Grace Jones - Royal Festival Hall disco from another dimension. Total legend.

Justice - Somerset House huge, gut-shaking digital rock, great to see in a classic setting.

Bjork - Hammersmith Apollo - still one of the best live acts around.

Also enjoyed: Matthew Herbert Big Band - Royal Festival Hall, Radiohead - Victoria Park

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18th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Roots

The Forum, Kentish Town, London

The legendary Roots crew brought a healthy dose of their Philly flare to a cold and wet winter's night in North London on Friday as they jammed with unfailing enthusiasm for about 2 hours. They brought with them a full live band and though I searched high and wide, no sign of any turntables. For these hip hop heavyweights it's no longer the platters that matter as ?uestlove engineers the beats from his lofty drum-kit mounted high on a plinth at the back. With his afro rising like a sun from behind his drum prison the man never stopped as both his unrelenting rhythmical structure and his physical presence formed the backbone of this incredible sound. And the reason it was incredible is that it redefined what a hip hop gig could be for me.

The show was by no means perfect and there were often times when my attention wandered but never once did it conform to a typical hip hop gig. Entering the stage first was a musician clad in a glorious tuba (later referred to as Tuba Gooding Junior) his deep, booming sound filling the venue. This introduction was mesmerizing and I was transfixed from the start as all the musicians took up their positions, keyboards, rhythm guitar, bass guitar, saxophone, percussion and drums all were in place and in struts Black Thought, baseball cap, sunglasses and phat gold chain. Taking his cue from ?uestlove who belts out the Apache rhythm that forms Phrenology's greatest cut Thought @ Work, the show commences in style. They frantically blend into Get Busy from the new album and it's not until this mayhem draws to a close that we are given time to breath.

With this live formation the band provide themselves with a lot of freedom, they're not constrained by programmed or sampled drum beats and so they are able to go where they please. They are able to tail off from one track into an impromptu rendition of Jungle Boogie led by the saxophonist, or let a song amble into a mammoth duel between ?uestlove's drum-kit and the percussionist's bongo dexterity. The other effect the live band has is the removal of the MC as the central focal point. Black Thought is way more central and way more impressive on record than he is on stage. This isn't really a critism of him, he's electrifying when on a flow, but is more of an observation about a front man that is quite willing to fade into the background and let his band take center stage. Sometimes he'd even fade off his rap mid-verse so that only he could hear his own words, like he was unaware of an audience.

They clearly love playing and seemed to never stop, flowing from one song to the next. The torrent of words flooding out over such a complex mixture of sounds does ask a lot of the audience and there definitely was a lull during the middle period, as this energy is hard to maintain. Black Thought's words were often enveloped by the music making it hard to hear him and with each song undergoing major changes it was hard to recognise some of them and many favorites passed me by unnoticed. Strangely enough, it was the musical interludes like the drum battle and the awesome bass guitar solo that thrilled me the most. They displayed the band's potential to turn on a knife edge and change up the genres altogether. And that was the principle success of the night. Black Thought's gold chain was the only conventional hip hop representative present that night. I didn't feel like I was at a hip hop gig and I was glad of it. People were moving to the back where there was more space to dance. As the whole show culminated in a rapturous and frenzied rendition of one of their biggest singles The Seed and every hand was thrust into the air I felt like I was in the presence of a truly legendary crew who were really writing their own rules and breaking them as well. The skill and creativity on that stage was palpable and a wonder to behold.

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10th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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ATP Weekender Curated by Mike Patton / Melvins: The Nightmare Before Christmas

Butlins, Minehead

When ATP announced this event six months ago, I could hardly believe my luck. I make no secret of my devotion to the Melvins and all things Ipecac (Patton's label), so this weekend festival (3 hours drive away) was like a gift from the almighty. As acts got added to the lineup the ticket value seemed to increase - especially when Butthole Surfers were added to the bill - so this was an event for which my expectations were pretty high. And whaddya know? They delivered 100 percent satisfaction, a weekend of eclectic and exciting music surrounded by like-minded people. And so, amidst the spartan tat of this windswept and freezing off-season holiday stalag, people gathered from all over the world to celebrate the left-of-centre and the truly gifted, on two main sound stages and one quadrophonic rig in a smaller venue.

(The) Melvins opened up on Friday as 'Melvins 83' - bringing original drummer Mike Dillard back to revisit their punky roots. Regular Melvins drummer Dale Crover played bass for this short set and was introduced as Matt Lukin. They were great - Mike Dillard sounded really tight - a performance that he can be justly proud of.

With so much going on, there were often choices to be made between two stages - throwing up some unexpected delights and a few minor disappointments. And so, in no particular order, a few words about some of the performances that I did see.

Best thing I've seen all year award goes to Zu - Italian noise-funk trio with the HEAVIEST sound I have EVER heard. Absolutely astounding virtuoso playing with not a hint of chin-stroking introspection. Big, noisy, intelligent party music - I cannot recommend this band highly enough. Want to see the most highly drilled weirdos in the world? Then check out The Locust - falling under the vague umbrella of Math-rock, these costumed and masked humanoids deliver precision salvos of Rhythm'n'Noise. What the drummer was doing looked inhuman. Brilliant. There were some understated and beautiful performances too - notably Martina Topley Bird who has the voice of an angel and Joe Lally (Fugazi) who has the dignity of a war veteran. At the other end of the scale (ie, dignity and restraint missing) was Squarepusher. Whilst his playing and programming are faultless, the smothering fog of his gigantic ego suffocated the fun out of the room. Thanks Tom, but we can make our own minds up about when to cheer. Audience response happens naturally when the music connects with people, and the winners in this respect were Taraf De Haidouks - the most awesome gypsy band on the planet. When they played, the room became a party, and once their time onstage was finished they just carried on outside. Makes you wonder how come our own folk music is so dull. Representing the slightly looser approach to music was the amazingly messy Butthole Surfers. Who knows how wasted Gibby Haines was, but he did punctuate one song by shouting "Three fuckin' hits of MDMA!", so that might have been a clue. Pretty damn psychedelic. Another treat was country-pickin' Junior Brown - possibly the greatest stunt-guitarist you will ever hear in your life, and with a rich barritone voice like a fine matured bourbon. There was a special performance of Stockhausen's Kontakte in the quadrophonic room - mixed from the original masters by Stockhausen's sound projectionist and complimented by a pianist and percussionist on stage. The sound system was crystal clear and the crowd remained quiet and respectfully awed by the one of the original noise-masters. By contrast, "America's funny man" Neil Hamburger was trying to achieve the goal of goading the audience towards "a crescendo of boo's" as he put it. Provocatively tasteless and badly delivered jokes about Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger coupled with general abuse of audience members. I liked it - and there was one genuinely funny joke - (What's worse than Muslim Extremism? Chinese Democracy). Mike Patton himself resisted the temptation to make appearances with multiple bands, concentrating instead on orchestrating a fine performance of The Director's Cut with his band Fantomas. They played the whole album and it sounded wonderful, with Patton clearly in an excellent mood - so much so they even gave us an encore of Al Green's Simply Beautiful which Patton dedicated to "all the laydeez in the house", prompting many female screams, whistles and a general gusset-moistening.

Booby Prizes go to the following - Big Business (hampered by a blown-up bass amp, and a subsequently muddy mix), Leila (technical problems not exactly enhancing something that seemed boring in the first place), Porn (onstage intrusion by mystery drunk guitarist [turns out it was the bloke out of Mastodon] leading to aimless collapse of order), James Blood Ulmer (great voice, but guitar playing somewhere beyond loose), and White Noise (the ledgendary David Vorhaus served up softcore euro-trance which bore no reference to his early experimental works). Didn't get to see Mastodon, Isis, The Damned, Farmer's Market or Kool Keith, so sorry about that. There was only so much a person could take in, but having said that, this was still the best music festival I have ever been to. Support ATP! They rule.

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#HarrisPilton

9th Dec 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Mighty Underdogs

Droppin' Science Fiction

Def Jux

In the mid 90's and early 2000, whether going under the name Solesides or Quannum, this crew, consisting of members of Blackalicious, Latyrx and DJ Shadow, couldn't put a foot wrong and without resorting to mindless thug-rap they crafted their own brand of mindfull hip-hop that displayed an unrivaled lyrical dexterity and creativity. All their releases whether solo or collectively involved collaboration and together amassed to a group of artists forging their own way in this game and just getting stronger and stronger by the year. With the massive collaborative release Quannum Spectrum in 1999 and Blackalicious' NIA the following year they seemed to be reaching their creative peak and, in my opinion, have slowly shrunk from those heights ever since. Gift Of Gab's raps became far too conscious of their do-good nature, Lyrics Born's solo releases were almost too aesthetically pleasing and possessed little of the edge he previously exhibited and Lateef The Truth Speaker briefly shone in his Maroons project but then all but disappeared. DJ Shadow kept up his end for as long as he could but then even he had to fall and did so gloriously with The Outsider.

So that said, the thought of Gift Of Gab teaming up with Lateef again for this Mighty Underdogs project more than moistened my palette for a return to form and seeing that is was all taking place on the ever-reliable Def Jux label was further proof of an imminent comeback. Sadly this isn't the case and it really pains me to say that. My criticism of the last two Blackalicious albums, that they are far too riddled with preaching lyrics about spirituality and love, are not my criticisms here and some may argue that I am beng slightly and unfairly hard on the boys. I have been wanting them to toughen up for ages, to spit out the odd swear word and show they are human, so when they finally do, on tracks like Gunfight and Aye I cringe like my dad's trying to be cool. I don't know why but it all sounds slightly forced and fake.

Everything's in place here for a great record. Lateef's flow is as tight as it always used to be and Gab's dexterity and speed with which he delivers his lines is top notch. While not quite matching up to Quannum Spectrum's use of guests, heavyweights like MF Doom and Casual make a richer tapestry - not to mention the DJ Shadow produced UFC Remix. But the inclusion of Chari 2na, Jurassic 5's self proclaimed 'Lyrical Herman Munster,' on War Walk only highlights how this genre has moved on, leaving behind these MC's - whereas an artist like Doom seems as fresh now as he did over a decade ago. So after much agonising deliberation I deduce that the key thing missing on this record is a sense of relevance. Time, and indeed Hip Hop has moved on since their heyday and though there may well never be a couple of MCs quite like Lateef and Gab it's what they rap about here that makes them seem irrelevant. As the album title suggests it's definitely fiction that is being dropped here and their tendency to use obvious narrative concepts as the basis for many of the songs is what makes the record so awkward. Gunfight sees Lateef assume the character of a heat-packin' wild west cowboy, Ill Vacation is a jaunty little holiday song while Science Fiction is, guess what, all set in outer-space and seems to run over what sounds like the Man With Two Brains soundtrack. One of the most puzzling and cringing of these concept tracks is Aye where all the protagonists are lusting after a certain female of rather sluttish tendencies. Not only is the concept of these righteous MC's sniffing round some ho quite curious but it also reminds me of the Latyrx classic Lady Don't Tek No and I am instantly made aware of the gulf that exists between the two songs.

Hands In The Air keeps things simple and for that reason works well, no over-ambitious concepts, just the solid rhymes over simple beats and Laughing At You is a triumph for the same reasons: it stays simple. Victorious is a great way to end the record and one that comes from a retrospective angle as both MCs reflect on a triumphant career. This record is by no means bad but it's impossible to form a critique without comparing it to these guys' previous work and it's at this point that the record falls very short of the mark. This crew and all their affiliates defined an era of hip hop for me and their continued commitment to a different moral path to many artists of the genre has always been inspirational, so it pains me all the more to see them left behind. I am sure they all have a lot more to contribute but they really need to reassess what they're about before the next release.

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26th Nov 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Guns 'N Roses

Chinese Democracy

Polydor

So it's finally a reality, the album no one, least of all Dr. Pepper (that's not what a company needs in a credit crunch), thought would ever materialise. But it has and as expected it has brought with it the tidal wave of opinions that accompany every move Axl Rose makes. Listening to, and to a much greater extent, forming an opinion about Chinese Democracy is damn near impossible while employing your regular critical faculties. It's hard to compare it to previous Guns N' Roses material, seeing as their last studio album was 17 years ago and Axl is the only original member left. And Axl's dominating presence on the record is the only thing linking it to the previous work, as musically it is a different band all together and fiercely contemporary. It would be a different story if Axl had disappeared for 14 years and now reemerged with a comeback album in order to pay some bills, but as we all know that is not the case here. By all accounts he hasn't done anything else but make this record for 14 years, so to review it is like reviewing history and seeing as I am a long way from where I was 14 years ago it's hard to know if I'm disappointed in Chinese Democracy or if I lost interest in its concept a long time ago.

With this record Axl Rose reveals himself as the Colonel Kurtz of the rock world, or actually of the whole world. Lost long ago, way up the river of obsession and self-delusion, he works beyond the boundaries of reason endlessly creating things that mirror himself. In this likeness comes Chinese Democracy, drifting out of the mist from a place no man has gone, a bloated monstrosity so impressive in size and construction and displaying elements of genius but often swaying with uneasy insecurities. And like Joseph Conrad's character you stare back at him with awe, dazzled by the ambition but all the time filled with terror at the mind that could conceive of such a creation.

Excess has always followed Axl Rose both in his music and his lifestyle. Use Your Illusion was flawed, but few have managed to pull off the double album like he did back in 1991. It too was an over-ambitious project that was filled with fat, over-stuffed, gluttonous songs that aimed for the stars with every note. They often failed but it was hard to fault a band that had produced such perfect punk-rock ferocity in Appetite For Destruction only to set a rocket under all that and change forever what any fan had thought or appreciated about them before. All the signs were there that this was going to be a vastly out of proportion project. Axl has always tended towards the epic and with songs like November Rain and Estranged we saw his gigantic vision expressed, but then with songs like Coma we saw how it could all get out of hand. It's no surprise then that left to his own devices and devoid of the more direct guidance of Izzy Stradlin and Duff McKagan that Axl would be free to express his tendency to swell each song out of all proportion and cram as many elements into every second of his sound. This is the main critisism here but then it was always going to be.

Underneath the colossal weight of production you can hear some great songwriting. The title track opens the album with some force and with his Mr. Brownstone growl, Axl reinstates himself in our lives and it's good to have him back. As expected, Better is the high point of the album. It's a real powerhouse of a song and shows us how far this songwriter has brought his sound and yet at the same time shows glimpses of the feral energy that got us all hooked in the first place. It also shows how different the guitar playing is now compared to the melodic skyward playing of Slash. It's much harder on this record and the way the guitars chug with the force of a freight train on Better affirms that this is a totally different band than before. Shackler's Revenge sees the same guitar train chug but then unravels into an epileptic guitar solo the like of which this band have never provided in the past. Then there's the impressive Catcher In The Rye or the bewildering Street Of Dreams...enough...this has to stop. Having scratched the surface of what makes this record work I see before me, in my mental landscape, a vast chasm of points I feel the need to express, this must be what Axl lives with on a daily basis, and much like this records history any reviewer faces the same temptation to keep writing and writing. So with that in mind I move swiftly and brutally on to the concluding paragraph.

Ultimately, Chinese Democracy poses more questions on its arrival than it did as a myth. All the way through I find myself scratching my head in puzzlement at some of the bizarre twists and turns that Axl takes his band through. But I don't know if this confusion is down to the fact that I too am 14 years older. My formative years were spent with this band blasting in my ears and I can't say that I was chomping at the bit to get another taste. Few things on this earth are worth waiting such a long time for, except maybe actual Chinese Democracy, so now that it is here I can't say I am disappointed, all I can say is that I don't think I really like it but I do think that it's pretty good. The bright light that is Axl Rose has in no way dimmed as a result of this release, it hasn't tarnished the moments of perfection that soundtracked my younger days and all-in-all it's a very impressive event.

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24th Nov 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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