Chimpomatic

The Album Leaf

A Chorus of Storytellers

Sub Pop

The Album Leaf’s new record ‘A Chorus of Storytellers’ is a very nice album. They’ve been recording for the last ten years and are signed to Sub Pop records, which should tell you something, although I’ve never heard of them before. Possibly because they’re so nice. You know like one of those people that you get introduced to when you meet a friend, say, outside the cinema. Who’s that with Alex, you think. You say hello, shake hands – even if it’s a girl. It feels a bit odd shaking hands with a girl but then kissing someone you don’t know is a bit odd too. They seem very nice. They don’t say much but look friendly enough and while you end up chatting to your friend they smile and laugh along with the jokes. You’ve got to go in, your film’s about to start. Plus you still need to get popcorn (mix salt/sweet of course) so you say “Nice to meet you!” and never think of that person again.

So, uh, yeah that’s this album. Warm and electronica-tinged, some vocals but mainly instrumentals. Definitely not unpleasant to listen to. Not really saying anything though. Like if you’re at a party in one of those bars where you have to shout everything although you haven’t drunk enough for the shouting to come naturally. Just as you’re thinking to yourself about how stupid it is that these places actually make you have to get pissed as a basic operating requirement. You’re about to head to the bar, or better still maybe just disappear entirely when someone says hello. You don’t even recognise them but they know your name. It’s bad enough forgetting someone’s name but forgetting their whole face is terrible. Eventually you piece it together, you ask if they’ve seen Alex, yes, he’s coming down later. Then that’s it, you’re just making excruciating small talk with someone, desperately scanning the room for one of your friends even though you hate people who scan the room, and so you’ve become something that you hate and all because this person is just nice.

Oh yeah, sorry, the album. That’s what happens. You start off listening to it – then four or five minutes later you come out of a train of thought and remember you were supposed to listening to it.

It would make good film soundtrack music. It’s melodic and courses with pleasant emotion and I can imagine Gael Garcia Bernal doing something cool up the side of sunbaked mountain with ‘A Chorus of Storytellers’ playing in the background. But I’d get someone else to write the main theme.

3/5 (Although if you’re building an Ikea wardrobe it gets 5/5)
 

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#MartyMcBrundlefly

25th Jan 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Psapp

Tiger, My Friend

Domino

This is a reissue of Psapp's 2004 debut and while it's a beautiful and thoughtfully crafted album the years and numerous TV appearances have been slightly less than kind. Originally released on the Leaf label I remember this the first time around and it slipped out the speakers like a cool drink of water. Galia Durant's effortless vocals breathe a delightful breeze over the airy percussion and glitchy electronica that guide us through this record. It evokes the washed out sunshine bliss of Stereolab with the meticulous attention to detail of Four Tet. The music skips around with playful ease while Durant's vocals sing of loneliness and disappointment. Calm Down is the best known of the bunch and is a joy from start to finish. It has the kind of rhythm and melody that if played in a shop would have customers subconsciously tapping and swaying to its seduction in a four minute consumer paradise bubble.

And that leads me on to this records misgivings. It seems a shame to even mention them as they are, in effect, out of their control - but it was someone's decision to use many of these songs on TV shows like Nip/Tuck and the OC and 3 years and a follow up album later and this debut is sounding dated and overfamiliar. There is something cringingly T-Mobile-like about this sound and as you strut around to its soundtrack the world around you takes on a sugary sweet pleasantness that just doesn't sit right. Their follow up record The Only Thing I Ever Wanted also does this re-release a disservice. It's a slightly more down-played sound and sombre in tone and while it has all the same glitchy texture and floaty vocals, it relies less on the playful element of the debut and therefore sounds like a mature, upgraded version.

It seems wrong to critisise this reissue on factors that can be largely put down to time. It is a sensitive piece of work that, at the time warmed many a heart - mine included - but it's magic has been diluted due to over-exposure and a slight dash of cynicism.

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#BC

18th Nov 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Murcof

Cosmos

Leaf

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

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

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

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

#Music
#BC

2nd Nov 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Andrew Bird

Armchair Apocrypha

Fargo

This latest album from Chicago singer-songwriter and violinist sees the guitar take more of a center position than previous works and the result is a multi-layered piece of dazzlingly original music that is a delight to listen to from start to finish. I must take this moment to warn any readers who are sensitive to over-praise but I will be saying nothing negative about this record in this review as there is nothing negative to say.

Whether he is accompanied by former band Bowl Of Fire or trading under his own name, Andrew Bird has consistently delivered music of effortless grace and though Armchair Apocrypha sees an evolution or resolution of sounds discovered in previous albums Weather Systems and 2005's enchanting The Mysterious Production Of Eggs the core beauty to this mans music remains the same.

The source of this beauty is not too easy to pin down. Musically, Bird weaves a very rich tapestry indeed. Swathes of layered and looped violin usher in jangling guitars, glockenspiel and delicate brushed drums. Thematically it's a similar story with everything from spirituality (Darkmatter) to mortality to the current political climate (Scythian Empires) being addressed but it's all cleverly disguised in a unique poetic ambiguity. But all this wouldn't be half as beguiling if it weren't for Birds voice. This is the key to this and every album previous. Bird has much to say but he's in no hurry to say it. His effortless style can shuffle along in almost spoken word (Cataracts) then can lift to soaring falsetto like a leaf in the summer breeze (Armchairs). Pretty soon you start trusting this voice and give yourself up to its warmth and when you do your heart delights in the knowledge that it could be taken anywhere at a moments notice.

One of the most beautiful songs comes in the form of a 58 second interlude called The Supine. It's deep classical symphonies with dancing finger picking delicacies are simply divine and echo the closing track Yawny At The Apocalypse, who's purely instrumental cello and violin washes ease you out of this sublime dream world. This is truly heartfelt music from an artist devoted to his art and his world and will leave you in quiet awe of just how many strings there are to this man's bow.

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#BC

16th Apr 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Windmill

Puddle City Racing Lights

2007

Judging by the longest losing streak in betting history Grandma Muxloe’s tealeaf reading powers of prediction seemed to have passed me by. Future forecasts are not my strong point.  But I can already guess with confidence your first two thoughts on listening to Puddle City Racing Lights, the debut album from Windmill.  

First up will be the question ‘haven’t we already heard this before?’  You might wonder if this is perhaps an album mislaid by Mercury Rev at some time after Deserters Songs but just before they lost themselves in a haze of pomposity.  Or maybe you’ll think to yourself  ‘cunning, this boy Windmill stumbled on a stash of out-takes from Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush sessions and has added some 21st century beats to pass them off as his own’.

Secondly you’ll have to make a decision on Windmill’s voice.  It’s a transatlantic lilt, failing to reflect his Welsh origins, which is delivered in a pitch which some might laud as ‘soaring’ but others might deride as ‘grating’.  Its not one for the tabloids to seize on in the manner with which they ripped apart Joss Stone for dropping Devon in favour of LA but it might strike you Indie kids as being an indicator of a possible lack of veracity in Windmill’s credentials.

On both counts my advice would be to ‘get over it’.  Sure, Windmill has worked with a template laid out before but give him a chance because he’s added splashes of new colour to bring it all to life once more. It's like Warhol screen-printing over familiar images – they might be the same but they are also so very different.  As to the voice, it may be an acquired taste but it shouldn’t be enough to put you off.  If it does then you lose out in the way that you would if you turned down Sienna Miller or Daniel Craig (depending on your preference - Muxloe is an equally opportunities reviewer after all) on the basis that you don’t usually go for blondes  - some people will just never be satisfied.

Rather than set his sails to capture breezes blowing down from Liverpool and Manchester or gusts up from Bristol and London, Windmill has unashamedly located his mill facing westward to America.  But that’s no bad thing as the winds whipped up across the Pond have provided more than enough energy and ideas to power a dynamo of a debut album.  The key to his appeal is that, admirably backed by The Earlies live band, he has created sound-scapes so vivid that they suck you right in.  It’s not so much like watching a film but more like slipping on a virtual reality headset.  By the time the album finished I needed to be reminded that I wasn’t actual an asthmatic Model’s Agent caught up in a Tokyo car crash. Big things, and even Mercury Prizes, have been predicted for Windmill.  I’ve checked the tea leaves but have not the faintest clue what they foretell so will not be joining some of these wilder soothsayers.  All I will say is that the boy Windmill has made a cracking start and deserves whatever plaudits come his way.

#Music
#Muxloe

25th Mar 2007 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Hotel Alexis

Goliath, I'm On Your Side

Broken Sparrow Records

Its little wonder that Hotel Alexis declare in the title of their second album that they are on the side of Goliath. The impression is that they've staked their money on the odds on favourite, preferring the safe option and letting someone else fight their battles for them. They'd be wise to take a leaf from David's book by showing just a little more of the biblical underdog's courage, conviction and cunning.

Singer/songwriter Sidney Alexis wears his influences on his musical sleeves but in trying to emulate his heroes he fails to find his own voice. It takes more than slide guitar to sound like Americana idols Sparklehorse. A 19 minute meandering drone doesn't confer Velvet Underground status. And a sense of melancholy needs to be matched by a confessional intimacy to leave an impression like Leonard Cohen, or even Bright Eyes.

All in all it's a great shame as if Hotel Alexis revealed more of themselves rather than just hinting at what's catalogued in their Itunes library they could really be something. The textured arrangements of brushed snares and folksy picking combining with studio experimentation occasionally pays lush and atmospheric dividends. The deserted funfair feel of 'Our Good Captain' is intriguing while 'The Devil knows my handle' has a 'down home' ambience masking a bleaker message but these are fleeting glances at what could have been.

At 19 minutes long 'Hummingbird' is the centre piece of this album recalling a long journey where the scenery is pleasant, as is the company, but you just don't seem to arrive anywhere. Its certainly not a road to hell but neither is it a magical mystery tour. If only they'd been brave, or curious, enough to veer off the beaten track.

On 'I'll arrange for you to fall' Alexis asks “what went wrong, what went right?” Actually referring to a name change he could have been asking for judgement on this album. The answer would have to be a bemused shrug of the shoulders. If they grow some balls like David then Hotel Alexis could be onto a winner.

#Music
#Muxloe

15th Mar 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet