Chimpomatic

Pastels/Tenniscoats

Two Sunsets

Geographic

In something of a dream team match up, Two Sunsets sees Japanese psych-folk popsters Tenniscoats team up with... Scottish psych-folk popsters Pastels - for an album of psych folk pop.

Joking aside, this is a beautiful record, meeting all expectations for a long-on-hiatus revered band like the Pastels, recently more consumed by the running of their Domino funded label Geographic.

Two Sunsets is dreamy, shoe-gazing pop that is an effortless listen, ebbing and flowing and creating a world and language of its own, although that language is not dissimilar to the work of those other occasional-Japanese-avant-garde-collaborators Damon & Naomi.

The the aptly-titled opening track, Tokyo Glasgow starts things off, while Two Sunsets is a highlight, as is the intriguingly titled closer Start Slowly We Sound Like A Loch - gently layering keyboards and sounds to build up a lush soundscape. Beautiful.

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4th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Abe Vigoda

Skeleton

Bella Union

If Vampire Weekend sound like a bunch of private school kids who lace their tales of life on campus with the exotic sounds of their worldwide travels then Abe Vigoda are their less fortunate counterparts from the state school downtown who too embarked on journeys to far off lands but decided to quit school and stay there. While there they became ensconced in the local cultures and were in turn shielded from any notion of cool and their musical need to make loud noises was bathed in age-old, sun-baked traditions, this being the result.

Since their debut Kid City, Abe Vigoda have forged their own route to musical notoriety and in the process have stumbled haphazardly across what can only be described as 'tropical punk.' Hailing from L.A. Abe Vigoda are a four piece that vacate the emerging scene that surrounds the Smell club and along with contemporaries like Mika Miko and No Age are causing quite a stir with their complete musical abandon that comes at you like a black hole that, having sucked in so many musical genres is now spewing them all out the back end in a form so unrecognisable it's thrilling.

Kid City was this band's warning shot, emerging from their camp with abrasion and venom, and having got everyone's attention has paved the way for Skeleton. Skeleton is certainly less abrasive and as a result gives room to the myriad of elements that make up their sound. Having said that it still packs a punch and though the teeth have been filed down slightly it still aims to dominate completely. From the opening moments of Dead City/Waste Wilderness there is little let up as each song is jettisoned with reckless ease. Guitarists Michael Vidal and Juan Velazquez fire off punk ditties that manage to embody their surroundings of either the steel drum of the Caribbean or the gentle melodies of South America. The mix of the hard punk sound with the warmth of these two distant elements is instantly jarring but electrifying none the less. Neither sits well together and with the under production of Vidal's muffled and inaudible vocals this should, in a sane world, be pure noise. But thank God this world is anything but sane.

Skeleton is an album very much unaware of its surroundings in musical terms but all too aware in creative and geographical terms. Unlike with their debut, Abe Vigoda have paced this album perfectly and allowed just enough space to infiltrate their 'blanket' pace to keep the listener interested. Kid City came at us like a record with so much to say and not enough time but Skeleton has more maturity but still manages to retain the sketch-book like spontaneity of their original sound. In a year where Vampire Weekend's debut and No Age's Nouns have unexpectedly delighted my hungry ears it seems all too perfect that Skeleton should fall between the two. The record rolls along like a ball of knotted shoe laces which makes it very difficult to pull out and separate individual elements - but if you stop trying and just appreciate the knot as a whole you'll see it's a pretty amazing thing.

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14th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Royal We

The Royal We

Geographic

Glasgow's The Royal We are not really from Glasgow at all. Singer Jihae Simmons moved over there from LA - imagining it to be a twee, idyllic place, inhabited by Belle & Sebastian fans and jazz cafes. Not football obsessed ship builders who go out to get drunk without a coat.

Boiling down from an initial sprawl of twenty members, the other five that stuck it out came from all parts of the UK under the guise of study, before coming together to record this debut album - The Royal We - which will also be their only album, as they are all set to move on from the brief moment that spawned them.

I say album, but at a mere twenty minutes that's a stretch. Especially as one track is a cover and another - the catchy, destined-for-use-in-adverts All The Rage - has already been released as a single. The main complaint however is not that they're exaggerating their achievement, just that we could have done with a bit more of it. On the other hand, think of it as an EP and you'll be pleased that it extends to 8 different tracks, putting the current lack of decent b-sides (even from the likes of Radiohead - once the bastion of the b-side) to shame.

Their lo-fi, garagey indie bears more than a passing resemblance to the might Electrelane, with instantly catchy tracks that are sanded down at the edges to hold them back from being too saccharine. French Legality sounds like a lost 70's Blondie demo and while it has a few nods to the 80's, it's generally not in that trendy neon way - more like the kind of band that would pop up on a teen-angst era John Hughes movie.

A great re-invention of Chris Isaak's Wicked Game rounds things off. A track whose credibility was never in doubt but can get quickly forgotten. Let's hope the same can't be said for The Royal We. R.I.P.

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22nd Nov 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet