Chimpomatic

The Cool Kids

The Bake Sale EP

XL Recordings

Here we have 2 teenagers from Chicago rocking fly gold chains and cheap NWA type sports hats, who assume a pastiche of a bygone era of 80's hip hop so brazenly that you'll question why you love it so much, but love it you will. Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish give us their debut release The Bake Sale EP, a ten track collection of stripped down, minimal beats that form the sturdy foundation for their well crafted rhymes that cover girls, bikes and breakfast cereal and all that lies in between. The english language is expertly broken down into a series of syllables that are piled on top of one another like kids building blocks. The simplicity of their delivery and subject matter disguise their complex arrangements forcing multiple plays and before you know it this EP will be under your skin.

Opener What Up Man opts for the spoken beat with rhythm being formed of the words tick, tick, clap, tick, tick, bass. It's like a DIY, Ikea flat-pack song that unfolds and dazzles with its blatant simplicity. Lead single 88 taps the retro vein with shameless confidence as does Gold And A Pager which takes its lead lyric from Ice Cubes NWA line "Fuckin' with me cause I'm a teenager, with a little bit of gold and a pager." With the deep clap beats this tune is methodical and clinical in its delivery but while assuming this plodding pace you can really take your time to marvel at the complexity of this groups writing. Bassment Party takes its influence from a Miami Bass rhythm and picks up the pace perfectly but still refrains from over complicating things.

"We're the new black version of the Beastie Boys," claim this band and that group's album Paul's Boutique is certainly brought to mind here. This ain't rocket science, it's clever, but humble about it - which makes for a dazzlingly simple album that while nodding blatantly to the past comes across as effortlessly now. Hip hop bands that take their influence from the old school tread a perilous road that soon runs out of steam. We all love the old school but it evolved for a reason and the Cool Kids inject enough of their own contemporary ideas into their sound to separate their fate from the likes of Jurassic 5. The Bake Sale is a refreshing debut indeed and one that will surely be on this reviewer's top 5 list come Christmas.

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19th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Everything's Gone Green

(dir. Paul Fox)

ThinkFilm

Post-Generation X slacker Ryan gets home to find his girlfriend and her brother moving him out of her apartment. When his father claims to have won $4.2 million on the lottery, he quits his job before realising the mistake. Luckily the Lottery Bureau hires him as a writer for "Winners" magazine and after meeting hot set-designer Ming things start to look up. However, when his parents get involved in a grow-op and he starts money-laundering for golf-course designer Bryce, life gets a little tricky.

Surprisingly engaging comedy from Douglas Coupland, transferring the un-transferrable nature of his novels onto the big screen, by writing one specifically for the big screen, even if much of it was previously covered in Coupland's book JPod (the grow-op, the Hongcouver non-influx). Here, the constant ironic nods and stream of consciousness writing assimilate nicely into the plot without ever seeming forced, and all the usual issues are covered: consumerism, aspiration, relationships, life direction... and it all comes together nicely.

The actual boards of Canada seem to have had quite a bit to do with this too - and it's an easy choice for them. While poking fun at Vancouver's flexible qualities as a film location the city is a strong silent character in the film, coming across like a pretty laid back place - which being in South-West Canada seems like a sunnier version of North-West America. The best-of-Canada soundtrack is also well worth checking out, with the likes of Black Mountain and Caribou.

The best thing about it though, is it's just like reading a new Coupland book - and it only takes 95 minutes.

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7th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Dark Knight

(dir. Christopher Nolan)

Harrowing. Searching. Compelling. If only Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight stopped there we could have possibly emerged from the Greater Union cineplex on Sydney’s George Street unscathed.

But Nolan wields his artform masterfully and knows his audience only too well - even when we don’t ask for more, he knows we want more and he delivers.

To watch Dark Knight is to undergo a cinematic interrogation. And it’s unsettling from the outset to confront not just the many questions Nolan is asking – good vs evil, right vs might, ambition vs reality and the many vs the few – but also the way in which he is asking them.

From the gritty opening frames of a bank heist you get the feeling Nolan has jumped into the trench right alongside you and that’s a pretty ballsy statement of claim from the guy who knocked out the flawless Batman Begins. Blockbuster sequels too often become cinematic comfort food. Nolan could have gotten away here with dishing up more of the same and most of us would have still come away pretty happy... y’know, a bit of moody darkness against the backdrop of some dazzling special effects, a couple of explosions and the odd menacing baddie... anything that erodes the travesty of Michael Keaton’s vaudevillian portrayal of Batman.

Instead, like so many of the characters in this film Nolan has turned his back on the easy option. The results are mind blowing and along the way he has produced a film every member of an entire generation wishes they could have made.

Believe the hype, Heath Ledger’s Joker will go down in history as one of the greatest silver screen performances and it’s almost a subconscious reflection of one of this film’s powerful recurring themes, the many vs the few, given the richness of the cast. Nonetheless it’s rare to see an entire cast come so totally to grips with a screenplay and deliver it in unison. Ledger, Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Nuff said.

It’s almost as if Nolan and his gang realised early on just how potent a brew they had on their hands. As this flick tears through its paces they start to pull off tricks, twists and turns simply because they can. And it works. When Batman swoops to deliver swift justice to a Chinese fugitive in Hong Kong, it’s Caesar Pelli’s 88-storey IFC that looks as if it was created as a prop for this flick and not as the most astounding skyscraper in a city of astounding skyscrapers.

Treading through the many reviews (this one included) that have emerged in the whitewater of Dark Knight’s release around the world one thing becomes clear – words alone are simply not enough to describe what occurs during a tumultuous two and half hours on screen. In any event, anyone who has seen it will be deeply affected in one way or another. Do yourself a favour and waste no more time trying to decipher what they’re trying to tell you. Pad up, get yer helmets on and get yourself a good seat.

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#BigE

17th Jul 2008 - 4 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Ratatat

LP3

XL Recordings

LP3 is the follow up to 2006's Classics and unlike its predecessor it was recorded in a very short space of time. Mike Stroud and Evan Mast recorded LP3 at Old Soul Studios, a large old house in a the small town of Catskill in upstate New York, and this change of venue has had a significant effect on the Ratatat sound, sort of. Though the core qualities remain intact there is a much fuller emphasis on keyboards and live instrumentation rather than programmed beats. All this is layered over their trademark swathes of synths and complex beat arrangements to form a rich tapestry indeed. The problem is, all this occurs in the first half of the album and is soon forgotten by the time we get to the end.

Mi Viejo uses delightful percussion over delicate guitar conjuring images of mysterious far off lands and as it plays out with a bongo drum solo it fades into Mirando, another complex amalgamation of swirling organs and rich percussion. Whereas Classics relied on guitar as its main sound, LP3 embraces a much wider array of musical instruments and sources from the hand-clap-like beat of Imperials to the skipping piano of Brulee. These touches raise the first half from the rest and see them standing proud as beacons of a way forward.

The beats do occasionally slip into synthesized obscurity that often flattens the record out and forces many of the songs into the background. Instrumental bands such as this have to work hard to raise each song from the sea of beats that sits stagnant below and without doing this many of these songs can slip by unnoticed. Songs like Dura and Shempi are well crafted but fail to move the sound on from the other albums and while retaining a core sound across records is admirable if little is brought to the table in terms of new thought, an unmemorable 40 minutes can slip by quite easily. I am not saying that is the case here but the key points where the listener is alerted all seem to happen in the first half with the rest of the record trailing off into mediocrity. The same guitar/organ swirl permeates nearly every song and threatens to bury all the delicate complexities that delight during the early stages. By the time we get to the album closer Black Heroes the band themselves seem bored and ready to finish which is in direct contrast to how they started, both on this record and their career in general.

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11th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

White Denim

Workout Holiday

Full Time Hobby

My apologies for the late arrival of this review but the sheer workload that is piled on me from this site means I tend to stop listening to a record once the review is done, and I really didn't want to stop listening to this. It seems as far as indie music is concerned all the ideas these days are coming from the US and arriving hot on the heals of the recent No Age record, White Denim's Workout Holiday not only reinforces this perception but positively hammers the point home.

Having been stuck in my car with only this CD for company, Workout Holiday has literally been thoroughly road tested and due to the nature of this listening experience I started formulating some driving metaphors in my head. One of the most exciting features of this band is what I call their 'gear shift' capabilities and by that I mean their penchant for ditching an idle pace for a sudden and electrifying upshift. So I started comparing this record to the experience of, as a youngster, trading your crappy 1 litre MG Metro for a one-time-only excursion down the road in your dads car. But then comparing this band to a high performance dad-car couldn't be further from the truth, I would have to leave that to a Metallica album. No, White Denim is more like getting into the same piece-of-shit Metro with the rusty body-work, decrepit brakes and highly questionable frame, only to find someone has switched your 1 litre engine for a super hybrid piece of engineering complete with flux capacitor that runs on plutonium.

Workout Holiday is highly charged, punk-infused rock that knows no boundaries or limitations. It comes from the Austin, TX trio following their 2007 debut 7" EP Lets Talk About It. It features 4 tracks from the EP which is slightly disappointing, but has become one of the most exciting records to bombard my eager ears for some time. White Denim walk the precarious line between genius and utter chaos, with each song fooling you into thinking it has no clue where it's going. It's ramshackle guitar chords race headlong into the distance with the makeshift rhythm section struggling to keep up, and the vocals erratically punctuating this mess when and where they feel like it. The result is an electrifying run of songs, no two alike, that never end where they start and this unpredictability seems to catch you out every time, making each listen a unique experience.

The EP tracks still form some of the strongest of these 12. Both Lets Talk About It and the following track Shake Shake Shake follow similar structures with furious, guitar driven first halves being taken down a notch at the midway point for an emerging instrumental ending that constantly threatens to finish but, as if with shear enthusiasm, keeps going and going. Sitting changes the pace with a bar-room singalong that sees singer James Petralli opening the vocals like Anthony And The Johnsons. It's a jaunty little number and the most conventional on the album.

Mess Your Hair Up seems to embody this band perfectly. It's opening section is a pretty non-descript mess of buried vocals, but as the mess gets thicker the feint screech of a guitar chord rises from the bog and takes the song off into unforeseen territory. As usual the band seem to be enjoying this change-up so much that they keep it going, reinventing different drum patterns just as the song should be finishing. Towards the end of the record comes a late heavyweight in the form of Don't Look That Way At It. Opening with a sound as erratic as a bucket of marbles being poured over a guitar, it sets up a bubbling cacophony of noise that trickles along at a steady pace, it maintains this complex and crammed formation until the midway point where the fuel injectors kick in The deep drums suddenly give way to crashing snare and cymbal and the complex guitar arrangements are smoothed out to driving chords. It's impressive to say the least.

The two instrumental songs here, Look That Way At It and WDA, sound less like conscious decisions to give space to the record and more like a band who are making things up as they go along and are way too into their instruments to bother with vocals, which may be in there somewhere but have been long buried beneath the ever mounting layers of sound. And this goes some way to describe this album. Each song stumbles into the other and the record just delivers idea after idea without becoming precious about any. They'll set up an impressive first half then tear it down like reckless hooligans. And here lies the diamond in this rough album. A better record may well crop up this year but I doubt if I will see such a reckless approach to an album. As one idea is discarded for another you get the impression that this liberation comes from a knowledge that there are more to follow. You get to the end of the album and instead of wanting to rewind you want to hear the next record, but as this isn't possible you'll have to settle for back to back plays. Highly recommended.

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10th Jul 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Tell No One

(dir, Guillaume Canet)

Based on Harlan Coben's novel, Tell No One (or Ne le dis à personne as they say in France) follows the story Alex Beck, whose wife is murdered. Eight years later he finds himself implicated in another murder, when suddenly he receives an email - apparently from his dead wife.

Harlan Coben is is known for his twisting story-lines and surprisingly the novel is seamlessly transposed from the US to Paris - making for a quintessentially French film. The French seem to be hitting all the right notes with this kind of plausible thriller recently - from Caché to 36 Quai des Orfèvres. It's a solid piece of work which is genuinely thrilling and mysterious, while eschewing much of the Hollywood attention-grabbing antics that Brit films go for - focusing instead on a good story, good script and good acting. That's not to say it doesn't have any style, as it's very well directed with a some thoughtful camera work in all the appropriate places, as well as some superbly edited set pieces. Dustin Hoffman-alike François Cluzet is convincing in the thoroughly confused lead role and a nicely worked sub-plot ties some suburban Parisian gang-bangers to great effect.

At the end of the day there's maybe a twist too far, but in an age of unwarranted pyrotechnics and fanfare this is an old-fashioned thriller that comes thoroughly recommended. 

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17th Jun 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Silver Jews

Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea

Drag City

It's been over two and a half years since David Berman last flung open the doors to his much coveted mental closet of worldly wisdom and on that occasion he left us with tales of "a place past the blues I never want to see again," and threatening to take "a hammer to it all." A rare tour accompanied the release of Tanglewood Numbers but then the doors were fastened shut once more and the world was lonely again. With these terminal words left ringing in our ears what were we to expect from the followup to Tanglewood's dark vista?

Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea sees a few returning members for a tried and tested Silver Jews line up in the form of Tony Crow, Brian Kotzur and the twin-ax attack of Peyton Pinkerton (Natural Bridge) and William Tyler (Bright Flight) who all join Berman and wife Cassie who, as usual, provides warmth and texture to much of the background space. In tone and content it's a fascinating addition to the puzzle that Berman has been relentlessly and stubbornly crafting since this band's conception in 1989. It stands alone from any other Jews album in terms of its relationship with the world and provides us with a valuable insight into this artist's shift in consciousness. And a shift is exactly what Lookout Mountain marks but, as might be expected with Berman, it's not the shift one would expect. Berman's opinions, beliefs, outlooks and observations remain firmly the same and provide the linking trail back to the other records, but it's Berman's viewpoint on these things that has changed. The world according to the Silver Jews has always been described through its minutiae, in all its tragic detail, but there is a sense of resolution in these songs that breathes new life into their whispering lungs. Instead of bitterness or anger there is a newfound tenderness for our culture but instead of emerging as celebration this tenderness brings with it feelings of pity. Berman's resolution acknowledges this pity and where his previous albums would leave it there, Lookout Mountain strives for a sense of warning. Where previous albums posed questions, this sixth addition provides the answers.

"What was not but could have been, was my obsession way back when./ Now I just remember this, what is not but could be if." And so this seismic shift is seen in full glory in the first verse of the opening song. The statement of lack remains in place but the gaze is turned forward to the future and a new feeling of hope is introduced. With the economic delivery of a Japanese Haiku poem, Berman relays his wisdom with mono-syllabic accuracy in this opener and with it a multi-faceted, new vernacular is born. But this look to the future is no unconditional march into greener pastures. Berman's new hope is full of lament for the past. The future as seen in Suffering Jukebox has no place for the past that Berman once belonged to. It tells of this sad machine in a "happy town, over in the corner breaking down." Could this machine be Berman himself, trying to impart a wisdom to a world that is happy enough without it? Or it could it be a comment on music's place in our society too preoccupied with the "cult of number one"? After-all, the jukebox, though neglected, is "all filled up with what other people need." Is this money or music itself?

This is echoed on Strange Victory, Strange Defeat when Berman talks of all the "handsome grandsons in these rock band magasines," and asks "what have they done with the fat ones, the bald and the goateed?" This song revisits a songwriting method that is well tested. Berman has a unique ability to describe man's follies by way of the absurd and often using animals, be it a "kitten from Great Britain" or as seen here, "Squirrels imported from Conneticut, just in time for fall." This song tells of a squirrel uprising against what Berman calls "a nightmare world of craven mediocrity." With wife, Cassie in assistance the squirrels call out "We're coming out of the black patch! / We're coming out of the pocket! / We're calling into question / such virtues gone to seed!" This is a reference to an Emerson quote in which he describes Fashion as a "Virtue gone to seed." So Berman is mounting an uprising against this new culture of seeming victories that ultimately end in "strange defeats." It's a culture that promises to be a lot more fun but as Berman asks, "how much fun is a lot more fun? / Not much fun at all."

Lookout Mountain also sees Berman assume a new style of writing in the form of a greater reliance on narrative. The first person shifts to the third with his observations being played out by a myriad of protagonists in far fetched and highly entertaining stories. This is seen most notable in the centerpiece of the record San Francisco B.C. It tells the story of a failed relationship that leads to all sorts of drama including Mafioso QVC operators, jewelry heists and murder mystery. It's one of the first time Berman's expert turn-of-phrase has been put to such a use and you hang on his every word for gems like "he came at me with some fist cuisine." It's the best brawl description since "a can of whoop-ass." With slightly less success and complete with seagull noises, Party Barge employs the same grasp of narrative and together they seem to allow Berman an added freedom that he had only ever enjoyed by putting animals in human situations. The characters are never that far removed from Berman himself and almost represent different facets of his complex character.

The record ends in a way no other has done before and in this ending the great Silver Jews shift is complete. We Could Be Looking For The Same Thing is a love song first of all, but a love song that only Berman could have written. In lines like "We could belong to each other / If you're not seeing anyone," we see Berman's ability to juxtapose the ultimate with the intimate, destiny with monotony. But it also sets up a love story from the point of view of two people at a later and more resourceful stage in their lives where they haven't so much downgraded their hope, but have become more realistic in their search for destiny. With this in mind, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea is Berman accepting the faults of this existence but seeming more comfortable with their existence. In tone and content this record acts as a removal from the bad in society while still acknowledging that it exists for other people. It almost represents a truth that someone can emerge the other side and still be intact. In this respect it's a triumphant record but in a very realistic way. At just over half an hour it is more compact or concise. It comes from a less fragile place than his previous writings and displays this artist's unique and all too rare respect and appreciation for language. If society is indeed seen and experienced through the critical eyes of our artists then Berman is an essential addition.

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28th May 2008 - 4 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

The Last Shadow Puppets

The Age of the Understatement

Domino

Recalling the likes of Scott Walker and Phil Spector, The Last Shadow Puppets are a side project from chief Arctic Monkey Alex Turner and Miles Kane of lesser-known Wirral locals The Rascals. Simian Mobile Disco's James Ford plays drums as well as reprising the production role he took on last year's Favourite Worst Nightmare.

Inspired by that late 50's / early 60's sound, the band employ lavish strings, rich melodies and a sweeping grandeur that places them well away from the Arctic Monkeys' spikey, contemporary sound. Off to a flying start, the title track sets up the scenario - with Turner and Kane's harmonious vocals galloping along to the accompanyment of furious strings. Lyrically less of a first-person affair than the Monkeys, steering away from the minutiae of teenage life in Sheffield for a more subtle style of big screen story-telling. There's still room for Rock amongst all this orchestration however and many songs recall the early electric era of 7" singles - barely topping 3 minutes on most tracks. Highlights like Standing Next To Me and Only The Truth sum the approach up perfectly, doing away with long intros and getting straight to the full-blown matter at hand.

It's a fun listen, but at the end of the day it's a concept stretched a little too far. The similarity between Turner and Kane's voices does little to add much distinction between tracks and while it's by no means an offensive listen I just find my attention drifting towards the end. Finale The Time Has Come Again brings things back into focus however, with a suitably sweeping climax as the soft acoustic intro is embellished by the twin vocals and a rising orchestral arrangement.

In an age of mega marketing and struggling record sales, Turner has maintained steadfast integrity, shirking the expected mainstream and sticking to his guns. This is an unusual release, but one that is strong, original and superbly produced. A far cry from the Hoxton infested lo-fi 80s revivalist output that a lot of hyped bands seem to be trying for these days.

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8th May 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Tapes 'n' Tapes

Walk It Off

XL Recordings

Like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the success story of Tapes 'N Tapes was born amidst the constant hum of the blogosphere. Their 2006 debut The Loon came out to rapturous praise with its infectious pop hooks and set up quite some expectation for their next move. CYHSY's answer to this expectation was with two fingers as they delivered Some Loud Thunder, a difficult and curious followup that stubbornly refused to accommodate the strengths that may have arisen from their debut. By hiring the producer of Some Loud Thunder, Dave Fridmann, TnT seem to be only too aware of these comparisons and though the result is not the same they too have delivered a curious sophomore effort.

From the outset it's clear this Minneapolis 4 piece intend to raise the stakes as Le Ruse screeches in to view and Josh Grier's vocals ride a wave of crashing cymbals and calamitous riffs. The increased might in the music and venom in the vocal delivery is an instant plus point but all this is shrouded in a curious muffled production that you instantly start to doubt your equipment. The opening track on Some Loud Thunder had me perplexed in the same way to the point where I now find it unlistenable. Headshock shows the same underproduction with the bass line that thunders at the chorus threatening to obliterate any recognition that might have come with the melody. Blunt does the same thing as it builds to a deafening concoction of drums and driving guitars and as you strain to hear the rumbling bass line your patience starts to fray.

Though this lo-fi quality lurks in pretty much every corner of this record the more melodic numbers manage to escape its blight. The slow-to-build Time Of Songs chimes with a wonderful clarity with Grier's melancholic mumble "I'll pull you from the bottom and i'll leave you on the floor." Say Back Something is a welcome break with it's down-tempo strums while Lines shuffles along at an uncharacteristically lazy pace until the military rhythm and taught guitars start to build to Grier's repeated vocal, "Over lines." This song sees an intelligent structure that is sometimes lacking in other songs like the slightly limp wristed Anvil.

But pretentious production aside, two of the strongest tracks on the record come in the form of Hang Then All and the album closer The Dirty Dirty. Hang Them All shows this bands ability to deliver a hook. It's a tense whirlwind of a song full of swirling organ and clipped, punchy guitars. As is often the case in this record Grier's tight lipped vocals build things to a head with the rousing, repeated chorus bringing the song to a rapturous close. Walk It Off is an exciting run and no matter how trying the going is you'll be glad you stuck it out when you get to The Dirty Dirty. It's the longest song on the album and it takes this band into new territory. Rumbling guitars and relentless drums give it a steady, driving pace which never lets up. Grier's vocals are deadpan and refuse to rise above the tone set by the rhythm. The song actually goes nowhere and continues at this formation until eventually fading out making it a questionable choice for the final track, but as questions were heavily on the agenda from the start here it seems a fitting way to finish.

The introduction of pillar after pillar of load-bearing riffs makes this follow-up a brave step forward. It's not breaking down any new musical frontiers but expands on the strengths of their debut nicely ...but just as I start to get excited about it the question of production undoes it's trousers and urinates on my fire. Bands like The Wedding Present recorded some of their best works with obvious production deficiencies but now that technology has improved their sound has benefitted enormously. As with CYHSY, this band have everything at their fingertips and with such credits as Mogwai and Mercury Rev to his name, Dave Fridmann is a master of his craft - so the insistence on this lo-fi style smacks of pretension and ultimately drags this otherwise promising and gutsy record down.

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7th May 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Flight Of The Conchords

Flight Of The Conchords

Sub Pop

The novelty comedy record is a tricky path to tread. It's fun on your initial saunter, then maybe again with a friend it might still hold some of the same appeal, but soon after these initial promenades, this little path will rarely be trodden again. This can't, however, be said for Sub Pop's most genius release to date. The HBO series Flight Of The Conchords told the story of 2 musicians from New Zealand, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement who, with the (mis)guidance of their agent Murray, go to New York to try and make it big. In the all too short half hour episodes they usually treated us to a couple of songs that really had little to do with the plot but were a sheer joy to behold. Dealing with such complex themes as ATM charges, racist fruit sellers or supernatural visits from bygone era David Bowie, the songs took on a myriad of musical genres and were never short of hilarious. Knowing that the songs came first and HBO built the series around their narrative makes this album even more valid and having just completed my 27th listen it's still as sharp as ever.

Not only is the comedy album a tough gig, but to take these songs out of the context in which they were originally experienced (i.e. the elaborate fantasy settings Bret and Jermain found themselves in in their made-up rock n roll success story), really puts their audio comedy to the test. The result is a deeper appreciation of their writing. Each song is so loaded with gags that in this format one is able to marvel at nugget after nugget of well crafted comedy. Hiphoppopotamus Vs. Rhymenoceros was an early favorite on the show and it retains its title here. With lines like Jemaine's "Yeah sometimes my lyrics are sexist but you lovely bitches and hoes should know I'm trying to correct this." and when, after Bret's statement, "other rappers diss me, saying my rhymes are sissy, why? Why? " Jemaine interjects, " be more constructive with your feedback," you start to marvel at how these two white Kiwis manage to totally ridicule a whole hip hop genre so charmingly. Other highlights include Jemaine, on Think About It, pondering the state of the world where slave kids are forced to make sneakers but the sneakers don't seem to get any cheaper, exclaiming at the top of his voice: "What are your overheads?" or the binary solo on the fabulous Robots. It's hard to pick a favorite but Business Time hits the spot every time. The phrase for letting your lover know when it's time to make "sweet weekly love" must soon find its way into the dictionary, and after making enough love for two... minutes what better way to end it than to tell your partner "business hours are over baby." 

The problem I've found with this isn't its lack of repeated listen appeal but its potential to ruin just about every genre of music there is. Its spot-on parodies and razor-sharp observations will serve as a kiss of death to the afore mentioned hip-hop genre, Serge Gainsbourg, Dance Hall Ragga, Kraftwerk, The Pet Shop Boys and most certainly David Bowie. Since the TV show I've found it hard to listen to the final minute of Radiohead's Down Is The New Up, due to its striking similarities to these guys. But the destruction and ridicule of pop history is a small price to pay, so I urge you all to succumb to Bret and Jemaine's "groovitational pull" and check this out.

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1st May 2008 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Why?

Alopecia

Anticon

Returning from the recent staff snowboard trip I stopped off at San Francisco's Amoeba Records and picked up my copy of Why?'s Alopecia. It seemed a fitting place to purchase this Bay Area artist and so with that and a few other missing pieces to the Anticon puzzle I embarked on the 10 hour return journey to London. Maybe it was the severe lack of sleep, or the numerous injuries that plagued my aged body - but on returning home I was all set to hit the Chimp office with a rather disappointing review of this record. After the few disjointed play-throughs on the plane, this follow up to 2005's delightful Elephant Eyelash lacked it's predecessors energy and edge. It seemed to be a pale and overproduced shadow of the work achieved by Yoni Wolf in the past.

So having started this relationship on the sunny Californian shores it took a prolonged 2 hour traffic jam on a rainy Thursday night on the A3 for the love affair to begin. Anticipating a half-hour journey, this was the only CD on my person and after about 4 back-to-back plays this record stared me square in the face with astonishing honesty and made me ashamed of the thoughts I had formed in my pitiful mind. Yoni Wolf's transformation from lo-fi, underground hip-hop to melodic indie-pop seemed to be near completion on the recent Hollows EP and I guess my initial disappointment was wrapped up in that fact. I have always been in favor of this transformation as throughout Wolf's work with either cLOUDDEAD or Reaching Quiet his gift for a melody was always there but under used and during the first half of Alopecia it is heavily exploited.

Alopecia is made up of two halves and most of the deal makers occur in the latter part of the record. From the outset it's obvious that the production has never been slicker. Wolf has always been the figurehead of a lo-fi, homemade sound but things have changed. The Vowels Pt. 2 kicks off proceedings with short, plodding steps and it's clear this hike in production quality is being put to good use. This shiny, crystal clear melody loosely glosses over the dark themes that run through this record. Sex and death is pretty much it, making Alopecia far more twisted than its predecessor. Lines like "faking suicide for applause in the food court of malls" are the norm here not to mention, "sucking dick for drink tickets and the free bar of my cousins Bar Mitzvah." Death usually relates to Yoni's own demise and is always delivered in rosy, tongue-in-cheek candy wrappers. Fatalist Palmistry begins "I sleep on my back cos it's good for the spine and coffin rehearsal.

Wolf's vocal range is what makes his work so listenable. He can go from the low, shuffling rap of Good Friday to the nasal melody of These New Presidents and his writing is so surreal, bustling with imagery and so meticulously pronounced that your ear is forced to attempt to decipher each verse but rarely succeeds . On the unnerving Simeon's Dilemma Wolf assumes the role of a stalker and describes his obsession with a certain female by way of high pitched singing tones which makes the content even more cringeworhty.

As heard on the recent EP, The Hollows carries the weight here with a rarely heard increase in volume by means of grinding guitars and crescendo vocals. The Fall Of Mr. Fifths marks the turning point of the record. It's way more in line with Wolf's earlier Anticon work with rapid delivered spoken verse and surrounded by textural atmosphere. A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under continues the spoken verse with rain-drop-like keyboards trickling down around it, it's a simple and all too short piece of work but emerges as one of the finest moments on the record. The other comes in the form of By Torpedo Or Crohn's. This was the other stand out track on the EP with a remix by Dntel, but this version is slower and allows much needed room to truly appreciate Wolf's art.

It's an art that is second to none and the distance this band have come is astonishing. Though darker in tone Alopecia is a definite progression from the airy Elephant Eyelash. Its another step to the honing of their direction and it's quite rare to see a band with direction these days. Wolf crams so many ideas into every breath of this record that it will take a lifetime to uncover it all. The shame I feel at my early judgement now serves as a reminder of the depth and complexity of this album, to not like it is to not get it i'm afraid.

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#HHG

11th Apr 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Sea Wolf

Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low

Dangerbird

This is the debut EP from LA based singer/songwriter Alex Church, produced by Phil Ek (Built To Spill, The Shins). Recorded partly in the studio and partly in Church's living room, this collection of 5 songs captures the warmth of a homemade recording but can swell with beautiful confidence when mixed with complex orchestration. Church's vocals have an intimate feel that recalls vintage Fence releases but though many of the songs have a melancholic theme of loss the overall feeling is one of affection and honesty. Musically there is a rich blend of delicate guitars and washes of cello that create a satisfying mix of foggy folk with uplifting pop melodies. The result is simple and effective, captivating and entirely genuine and really whets the appetite for the full length album Leaves In The River.

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#BC

29th Mar 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Breeders

Mountain Battles

4AD

Started as a side project spin-off from both the Pixies and the Throwing Muses, The Breeders' first album Pod snuck out without too much fanfare. After Pixies-riffers Nirvana exploded the Alternative music scene, the groundswell built - and thanks to a string of great singles, second album Last Splash hit the mainstream. Part time Pixie Kim Deal became a full-time Breeder and with Tanya Donnely's departure she was now clearly in charge. Progress slowed. With the Breeders now becoming a day job, another side project was needed to get things going and the GBV-influenced Amps hit the spot.

With The Amps essentially re-branding back to the Breeders, Title TK marked a return in 2002 with some critical accclain (certainly from me), but as the pace dropped back to a crawl album four didn't seem likely. With absence making the heart grow fonder, the extended hiatus that The Breeders have found themselves on has done less to little to lower expectations from the band and with the Pixies barnstorming reunion still fresh in the mind those expectations must seem astronomical, so it was with some surprise that the band's website announced new material late last year.

So what's the result? Another Breeders album. Probably not their best, perhaps not their worst - but it's a welcome return, with many individual highlights. While Mountain Battles may be a title more suitable for a Led Zeppelin comeback, it highlights a notable theme through the record and opener Overglazed sets the bar high with a slow building call-to-arms that is crying out for a Viking clad video to accompany it. Night of Joy is a beautiful masterpiece, building a complex mood with little other than a subtle chord progression and reapeating, simple lyrics ....delivered in Deal's unique style. We're Gonna Rise continues both the evocative mood and the theme ("Light hits my shield"), followed by a track that actually seems to be sung in Orc - although title German Lessons might suggest otherwise. Here unfortunately we hit one of my all time pet hates - foreign language singing (David Gedge, you know who you are).

In this case the second language strangely illustrates the magic formula that Kim Deal seems to find when she hits the mark. The minimal lyrics of Night of Joy convey all their emotion through her singing style, adding weight to the words through tone and repetition - but when singing in a second language, not of that emotion comes across, leaving nothing but slightly cold words. Don't even get me started on 'epic' Spanish language track Regalame Esta Noche.

Re-visiting something you clearly get a bit sick of is a thankless task, and with the album never really hitting the highs of those few opening tracks again it could be argued that The Breeders have never in fact had a bonifide classic. As their raft of great EP's, covers, b-sides and alternate versions stand testament, The Breeders were always most successful as a singles band and in many ways, nothing has chnaged. There's no Cannonball or Safari here, but Overglazed leads the charge into a string of great tracks, while Night of Joy is as good as anything they have done.

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#CSF

26th Mar 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Youthmovies

Good Nature

Drowned in Sound

Youthmovies are an Oxford based quintet put together by Al English and Foals founding member Andrew Mears. After a series of well received EPs comes their debut album Good Nature, a distillation of the band’s various incarnations and the long graft of touring and festival playing.

The band cites King Crimson, Steve Reich and Sonic Youth as their official influences but there’s a lot going on in here and straightening out some kind of musical heritage is pretty pointless. In today’s musical landscape of retro-mania it’s refreshing to find myself perplexed and this is both the band’s strength and stumbling block.

There’s innovation aplenty here, songs that build and fragment, tease and frustrate; shifting from squalls of guitar, brass and heavy drumbeat to sudden, becalmed stillness. 8 minutes is a long time though and Youthmovies don’t shy away from extending their template of alternating (often conflicting) musical movements over such lengths. The effect is idiosyncratic and unpredictable but can be tedious in the same measure.

At it's most successful, on tracks like If You’d Seen A Battlefield, the band concede that melody is not a bad thing. The music slips between cascading guitars and rhythm driven brass, then erupts into a baroque guitar crescendo. It’s exciting. But the band’s habit of reducing lyrics to short phrases, repeated like mantras, expose a problem and in this particular song - a dangerous truth. ‘It’s not going well and it’s not going badly, it’s just going’, repeats Andrew Mears and he’s got a point.

Something for the Ghosts begins a 9-minute run by mesmerising you; shifting from wistfully repeated lyrics to tumbling guitar chords and building drumbeats. In many of these tracks, the changes of tempo and pace can become exhausting and ultimately a bit aimless. Here the song avoids becoming fractured and drives on, building ominously and with a kind of savage determination. It’s a shame then, when it hits the closing lines; ‘Motorway crash-barriers make me feel like we’re going to crash’. It’s not just that the words claim a kind of minimalist, poetic potency which is clearly beyond them but that in their delivery, Mears once again veers the sound dangerously close to Bloc Party territory.

Youthmovies tackle the label of prog-rock head on in their promotional material, then kind of do a little shimmy to avoid it sticking. They declare that it’s only ‘prog-rock’ to the ‘initiated’ but then spend the album trying to convince you that ‘progressive’ isn’t ‘a dirty word’. They’re right it isn’t and Good Nature does manage to get you onside. But equally they’re wrong to suggest there’s nothing pretentious about the swelling bombast and lyrical misjudgement which occasionally undermines the album. 6 tracks in, Good Nature hits it's stride and the journey’s well worth going on. There’s plenty more to come from Youthmovies I’m sure.

#Music
#LG

13th Mar 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Health

Health

American noise-rock is alive and well in the form of HEALTH, a Californian band who have established a cool reputation in their native LA by playing a lot of free gigs. Well, you've got a couple of choices when you go down the noise rock route - punky songs with walls of effected sound or arty sonic experimentation, with the latter being the more difficult to pull-off without sounding pretentious and willfully difficult.

I'm glad to report, then, that HEALTH manage the experimental side of things very well indeed. Sustained notes of pitched-up guitar drone happily alongside scratchy electronica while powerful patterns of drums boom from the reverb. There's not much in the way of traditonal song form, but the music is not lost or meandering - it's very focused and singular in it's approach, the sonic qualities and arrangements of note clusters given equal relevance to vocal sounds or sparse melodies. There are bursts of complex rhythmic exchanges, rather like a garage band in the style of Fantomas. The lyrics are mostly abstract and the vocals function as an alternative sound texture, which under the circumstances is exactly the right thing to do. Not for the faint-hearted or sweet-toothed, but for the open-minded this is a bit of a gem.

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#HarrisPilton

9th Mar 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Mountain Goats

Heretic Pride

4AD

If you've ever come in contact with our hip hop reviewer HHG you'll know it's probably not something you want to happen on a daily basis. He knows his stuff but he's a snob and thinks hip hop's the only music, not to mention his uncontrollable temper and borderline chauvanism. He's a valid member of the Chimp team but most of us here try not to have much to do with him for reasons already mentioned. So you can imagine my disappointment when his hulking frame approached me in the Chimp canteen one day last year. Standing there stinking of weed he asks, " Yo, Bear dude, who the fuck is this John Darnielle?"

Turns out his narrow field of musical experience was momentarily widened when The Mountain Goats frontman guest starred at the end of the recent Aesop Rock album. Much as I resent Darnielle for inadvertently bringing me into contact with my skunk soaked colleague it's clear that last years collaboration has opened the flood gates on Darnielle's own sphere of musical experience and brought out a thrilling surge in volume, tempo and excitement to this bands work.

Darnielle has always expressed a masterful penchant for storytelling, in few words he can evoke oceans of emotion, the slightest turn of phrase and he can explain a feeling or situation that you've been trying to pin down your whole life. When we last saw him he was struggling with solitude in the aftermath of a breakup in 2006's desolate Get Lonely. It's clear from the first drum stick count ins that the volume has picked up here but don't think for a minute that Darnielle is using this volume to express a new found lust for life. He might have addressed his romantic troubles since Get Lonely exclaiming in the album opener "I am coming home to you" but he follows it "with my own blood in my mouth." This new surge in musical arrangements serves more to express his heightened sense of fear and impending doom. The sorrow from 2006 has grown into taut anguish. On Lovecraft In Brooklyn he admits, "I woke up afraid of my own shadow, like genuinely afraid."

At the heart of this record lurks paranoia, tension and violence seen most effectively in the two songs that form the records backbone both in form and theme. In The Craters On The Moon builds with tight, drumbeat like guitar strums and heightened strings to a thunderous crescendo while Lovecraft In Brooklyn is a switchblade-wielding powerhouse prediction of death and destruction. This is contrasted in songs like Autoclave and the delicate So Desperate, which both show this songwriters continuing vulnerability.

Whether he's gently plucking, violently thrashing or soaring on great orchestral waves this record shows a refreshing array of musical expertise. How To Embrace A Swamp Creature employs sparkling jewels of instrumentation that glisten around Darniell's lyrics like looming rocks in the dazzling sunlight. Another reason for this renewed rise in tempo could be that Darnielle has more company on this record. Get Lonely was a stark portrayal of a man alone while here we have complex string arrangements (San Bernardino) and airy female vocals (Marduk T-Shirt Men's Room Incident) all joining together to create a far richer landscape than the ones inhabited in the past. This is undoubtedly The Mountain Goats most accessible record to date but it sacrifices none of the qualities that made the other albums. Darnielle is a very human song writer, weather he's using himself as the subject or creating complex characters to play out his view of this experience we call life he casts a light over this experience and though this reveals things we don't want to see they serve to enlighten us and inform us that little bit more about the human condition.

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#BC

26th Feb 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Aidan John Moffat

I Can Hear Your Heart

Chemikal Underground

‘Fuck.. Cock.. Shag.. Willie’; it’s all there in ‘I can hear your heart’.  A fine distillation of the Scottish lexicon or, alternatively, the Scot’s default reaction to life; swearing.

After Moffat’s introductory voice over, explaining the concept behind the two-part album, ‘Poop’ and ‘Loop’ [Poop, a short story and Loop?????], it all starts ominously enough.  A growling voice intoning, ‘I can hear your heart’, which a first listen had me convinced was saying; ‘I can hear you fuck’.

My mishearing turned out to be a premonition of what was to come.  A kind colleague suggested playing the album over dinner with my girlfriend, an experience I will not be repeating.  I don’t know which level of hell Moffat will be consigned to after this album, but I guess he’ll be nursing a few exotic STDs amidst the flames; Think of Tom Waits crossed with Rab C Nesbitt and Michael Douglas.  Pre the treatment he received for his addiction to sex.

It’s not entirely accurate to call this an album, more a collection of poems, accompanied by music.  And it’s not entirely accurate to evoke the traditional idea of poems either when what we’re dealing with is a kind of urban ode to casual sex and squalid romance.  Moffat is the inebriated protagonist, guiding us across the streets of a Glasgow slicked in alcohol.  There’s (frequent) cheating on his girlfriends; borderline sex with a minor; bagpipes; music hall sing-alongs and collapsed nights in bus shelters.  There are threesomes; dirty panties: prank phone-calls and an expose of racist abuse.  Involving a lot of racist abuse.  It ain’t pretty.  In fact, like last night’s dirty ashtray, I don’t see myself returning to this collection enthusiastically. 

On the other hand it is occasionally very funny, structurally imaginative and the orchestral sampling is often mesemeric in a manner reminiscent of Moffat’s alter ego, Lucky Pierre.  These gentle musical themes make a poignant contrast to Moffat’s potty mouth as he mournfully lists last night’s soiled conquests and there are glimpses of real tenderness and loss gleaming amidst the horrors of his tale.

Overall it’s a nihilistic experience.  When Moffat finds himself doing a lugubrious cover of Springsteen’s ‘A Hungry Heart’, you are glad of the musical coherence.  But it didn’t leave me begging for more.

Three stars?  Again?  For swearing.  Three stars for swearing.

#Music
#LG

14th Jan 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Harrisons

No Fighting In The War Room

Melodic

Clearly, the challenge to anyone reviewing (or listening to) The Harrisons' debut album will be to not think of the Arctic Monkeys. Thing is, it's spikey, indie guitar music with a bit of a dancefloor edge sung in a Sheffield accent and peppered with the Yorkshire flavoured lyrics. How's that NOT going to sound like the Arctic Monkeys?

Unfortunately this puts the Harrisons very much in the shadow of their more famous counterparts - however good the songs might be, they're just not as original or as tight as the AM's brand of New Yorkshire. Believe me, this is not merely lazy journalism - check it out for yourself and add your comments if you don't think it sounds like the Monkeys.

But where Alex Turner and co have brought a snappiness and progressive edge to their sound, the Harrisons fall on traditional indie songwriting and rhythms which end up being several stops short of original. I don't think this will hold them back too much - already established with the NME crowd and getting radio sessions, I'm sure they'll do okay, but if spikey indie pop is your thing you might be better off waiting for the next Young Knives album.

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#HarrisPilton

7th Jan 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Best of 2007

Harris Pilton

Top 5 Gigs

1. Beastie Boys - Roundhouse, Chalk Farm
2. Melvins - Patronaat, Haarlem, NL
3. Fu Manchu (and Valient Thorr) - Underworld, Camden
4. Steely Dan - NIA, Birmingham
5. Prince - 02, Docklands

Top 5 Albums

Love's Miracle by Qui as my fave album of the year. I didn't hear it until it had been released a while so missed the boat on a review. But it's a corker...very original, complex, anguished, not an easy listen.

Beyond that, it's a hard one...not because there was so much choice, but because in real terms nothing released this year replaced older releases in my regular playlists. I must be the only music reviewer on the planet not to have heard (or attempted to hear) the Radiohead album. Not that I'm anti-Radiohead or anything, I just didn't go out of my way to hear it.

So, even the bands who released albums which I like didn't really release anything truly classic this year. I should give honourable mentions to Big Business for their album Here Comes The Waterworks (very original), and Fu Manchu for We Must Obey (not very original, but totally rocking), and Beastie Boys' The Mix-Up, which I did play more than any other new album this year.

Top 5 tracks (listened to this year, but not released this year)

1. Skull of a German - Jesus Lizard
2. Velouria - Pixies
3. The Warden - The Cows
4. Get on Down - Eddie Harris
5. Blood Witch - Melvins

Top 5 movies

Also not a good area for me. Only went to movies twice as far as I can remember. The Simpsons movie (which I thought was really poor) and Transformers, which impressed me with its humour and bludgeoning special effects. I expect I would have liked the new David Cronenberg film, and maybe even Lynch's Inland Empire, but I couldn't be arsed to go and see them. Will probably go see the new Wes Anderson next week (again, if I can be arsed). For me, the audio visual entertainment of the era is video games - hence...


Top 5 Games

1. Call of Duty 4
2. The Orange Box (half life 2 etc)
3. Guitar Hero II
4. Bioshock
5. Medal of Honour Airborne

#Music
#HarrisPilton

20th Dec 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Best of 2007

CSF

2007 has been a great year for music. The internet is finally paying off, with dozens of bands hitting the global mainstream through grass roots word of mouth and diy publicity. But it's not just the new boys bringing out the good stuff, with most of my current favourites putting out new records.

Wilco's Sky Blue Sky was a mild disappointment next to A Ghost Is Born, but was still a great album and an even better live show - but while the Kings Of Leon's Because of the Times started the year on a high their live show cut things down to size. The Beastie Boys instrumental Mix Up was a low-key release, but they still delivered the goods live - way past expectations. Band of Horses surprise second album didn't quite hit the highs of Everything All Of The Time, but their live show was barnstorming - proving they've only just got started. Arcade Fire also followed up their debut with an outstanding second album, and Eddie Vedder went semi-solo with his soundtrack for Sean Penn's movie Into The Wild.

Radiohead's In Rainbows has to get a special mention for the world's biggest band's adoption of guerilla marketing, genuinely lighting a fire under the record industry like only a massive band 7 albums deep could do.

Led Zeppelin are the clear winner in terms of stars, but I think it's fair to say that Best Of's don't qualify, so my top five albums of 2007 are:

5. Blonde Redhead - 23
Probably the only surprise in my list - for me certainly - Blonde Redhead's 23 found the low-key indie band hitting their stride and turning in a richly rewarding album.

4. Electrelane - No Shouts, No Calls
After getting their instrumental callings out of the way with Axes, Electrelane returned and surpassed the sound of The Power Out for their fourth album.

3. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Spoon's sixth album matched it's conceptual title with a mix of complex songs and catchy pop. Nice to interview them too.

2. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Daft Punk Is Playing At My House always struck me as catchy but superficial, and the lead single from LCD's second album - North American Scum - did little to change my mind. Repeat listening peeled back the layers however and Get Innocuous! or All My Friends are unbeatable. Their 45 minute megamix makes for a great bonus track too.

1. The National - Boxer
After finding their feet with third album Alligator, The National turned things up a notch with the superb Boxer. Eschewing the bombast of hits like Secret Meeting, the album is dark and rich - so layered that it takes several listens to even break open.

Gigs
Some pretty good gigs this year too:

Wilco - Shepherd's Bush Empire
A long time coming. With their new squad Wilco could hardly be a better live band.

Beastie Boys - Brixton Academy
After the dismal 1999 Wembley show, the Beasties seemed destined to stay mainstream - but a self-initiated return to their roots has paid off nicely. Still got Time Time To Get Ill.

Black Mountain - Cargo
While still notably nostalgic in sound, these retro rockers blew the socks of Cargo with their forthcoming album In The Future. See next year's best-of list for more info.

Movies
Disturbia - Great modern spin on Rear Window
Bourne Ultimatum - A solid finale to the modern Bond
Knocked Up - Perfectly capturing the stupid antics of a group of friends.
Jesse James - Not up their with Mallik of Leone, but Andrew Dominick's second feature was a grand attempt.
Zodiac - Although long and flawed, David Fincher's 70's epic was an entertaining ride.

TV
Curb Your Enthusiasm - Still cracking me up, six seasons in.
Flight Of The Conchords - Guaranteed entertainment from the Kiwi troubadors.
Entourage - Aspirational TV from Ari, Drama and the crew.

Biggest Disappointments
Kings of Leon live - While the 'seats' were the problem, this band seemed out of proportion for their sound and style.
Death Proof - the worst film I have possibly ever seen. Seriously.

#Music
#CSF

20th Dec 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Best of 2007

R.Hammerstein

Albums
1. Feist - The Reminder
2. Von Südenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions
4. Burial - Untrue
3. Efterklang - Parades
5. Pole - Steingarten

Gigs
1.  Prince - O2
2.  Spank Rock - Bestival
3.  Vetiver - Spitz
4.  Animal Collective - Astoria 2
5.  Bat for Lashes - Bestival

Tracks
1.  Yeasayer - Forgiveness
2.  The Cinematic Orchestra - To Build A Home
3.  Wilco  - Impossible Germany
4.  Animal Collective - For Reverend Green
5.  Leona - Bleeding Heart

Films
1.  Eastern Promises
2.  This Is England
3.  The Lives of Others
4.  Zodiac
5.  Climates

TV
1.  30 Rock
2.  Flight Of The Conchords
3.  The Street (final episode)
4.  Boy A
5. 

#Music
#R.Hammerstein

18th Dec 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Wu-Tang Clan

8 Diagrams

Bodog

Six years on and one Dirty Bastard down and the Clan are back. 8 Diagrams, Wu-Tang Clan's 5th studio album was long in the making and comes with the expected dose of controversy and talking points you'd imagine from this group. Leading up to the release of 8 Diagrams Raekwon stirred things up with a much publicised interview where he openly critisised producer RZA for the direction he was taking the group and accused him of being a "hip-hop hippie." Then like a bunch of bickering little girls Ghostface Killah weighed in protesting the timing of the record which was due to be released at the same time as his own The Big Doe Rehab. It's clear from the first listen of this record that Raekwon and Ghostface Killah don't know shit. RZA might have taken the Wu sound in a more subtle direction but in doing so he's created one of the hip-hop albums of the year.

Since their first release Enter The Wu (36 Chambers) way back in 1993, The Wu Tang Clan quickly established their own unique sound and all the many solo projects that followed have only served to elaborate on this. RZA, with his fingers in many pies would never have been content to continue this progression so despite the twittering of a few back-benchers he's rejected the hard-hitting beats of old and painstakingly crafted a record dripping in mood. It's a dark, reflective and densely produced piece of work that uses strings, guitar, live instrumentation and more soul vocals than ever before. It has no clear single and will alienate many die hard Wu fans but RZA's new, introvert style of sound provides richer pastures for his band of merry MC's.

Campfire kicks things off with a beat that oozes through your speakers like molasses, while Get Them Out The Way Pa is smoother than any Wu sound you've heard. This easing off the heavy beat pedal doesn't soften the impact that this group have been keen to cultivate but lets it sink in slower and more profoundly than before. The thick, plodding beats and rich instrumentation shifts the emphasis away from violence to menace and fear. So when the big guns do come out they are sharper than ever. Rushing Elephants and Unpredictable are the proud figureheads of this record and inject a sense of urgency with their apocalyptic beats and epic heist-movie horns. The production goes from minimal to claustrophobically complex and the MC's raise the tempo with furious spitting. Unfortunately this tempo is not maintained and throughout the middle section you start to think that maybe RZA's critics had a point. The beats start to go from brooding to just plain soft and the focus on melody and singing comes dangerously close to diluting the Wu ethos. Gun Will Go embodies this perfectly - it counts itself in with a rhythm that promises greatness then is smoothed over with soft melody and the`tantalisingly old school snare simply fades away.

Thankfully, RZA is anything but self indulgent and always has a plan. He cleverly manages to steer his crew out of this slow patch and they emerge triumphant, in fact he starts by going solo over a slow jazz background in Sunshine then continues to bring this album back to the dark side with steady cuts like Weak Spot and and Tar Pit. The late O.D.B's presence is definitely felt on this record with the tribute song Life Changes and the closing track 16th Chamber.

8 Diagrams is certainly not what you'd expect from a group such as this after a 6 year absence but who needs another thugged-out beat-fest? These guys created this genre so who better to lead us out of it into a new dawn? Thankfully this is no sunrise and the gloom still hangs heavy over Clan territory. 8 Diagrams might not be as head on as albums like 36 Chambers, but it's weight will eventually seep through and it will, in time, emerge as one of the hip-hop albums of 2007.

#Music
#HHG

18th Dec 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Bobb Trimble

Iron Curtain Innocence / Harvest Of Dreams

Secretly Canadian

Growing up in the Worcester, Massachusetts suburb of Northborough, Bobb Trimble was a teenager listening to the likes of Pink Floyd, Queen, Bowie and The Beatles. Trimble began recording music and became known amongst Worcester's 'Wormtown' scene of the late 70's/Early 80's and went on to self-release these two records in miniscule quantities.

The records quickly became obscure, but an unauthorised re-issue by British label Radioactive kept them alive. With the rise of the internet, Ebay trading was taking the albums up to the $1500 mark and the time appeared right for an official re-release by Secretly Canadian.

Bobb Trimble's songs are deceptively complex - layering stings, multiple guitars, bass and vocals with ahead-of-their time samples and effects. His vocal's are strangely most reminiscent of Naomi Yang and the highlights of the album hit the same tone and atmosphere as some of Damon & Naomi's best work - although Trimble's multi-layered production is a long way from their stripped down sound. Iron Curtain Innocence sees Bobb merely finding his stride. When The Raven Calls is the highlight - a 6 and a half minute song, that cuts in on a guitar solo, giving you an idea of it's scope.

The relative commercial failure of 1980's Iron Curtain Innocence did nothing to stop Bobb Trimble's music and by 1982 he was back with an even more complex and multi-layered album. Harvest Of Dreams finds him with even bigger, more ambitious ideas. Take Me Home Vienna is a haunting, ghostly masterpiece while Another Lonely Angel is like a piece of lost 60's history. Paralyzed is the most memorable track however, cooking up a mesmerising, unforgettable sound that seems near impossible to describe.

That rich, layered sound is let down by the poor treatment of time, which gives away the original release date of these albums - 1981 and 1982 respectively. While they have been remastered as well as can be expected, the fact is that these days anyone with a computer can release a studio quality album, but back in the analog days getting an album out at all was an achievement - and an achievement that Trimble financed on his own. Not so much lo-fi and certainly not low in ambition, just low budget. These arrangements deserved the big screen treatment to fully express how much details there is in these songs - as like an Arthur Lee for the 80's Trimble is a true lost treasures, rightfully resurrected.

#Music
#CSF

6th Dec 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Sunset Rubdown

Random Spirit Lover

Jagjaguwar

With their third album Sunset Rubdown present you with 2 options. (A) You could buy the album and listen to it a lot of times or (B) You could attach a balloon to a hose pipe, turn on the tap as far as it could go and put your face close to the ever expanding sack of tension. The result would be the same except for one difference. With option (B) you would get a more than refreshing blast in the face as the balloon bursts showering you with water. With option (A) the balloon would burst every 30 seconds and instead of a torrent of water pouring out, great birds of prey would launch forth from their captivity showering gold dust from their outstretched wings on any one lucky enough to witness this magical splendor.

Random Spirit Lover tests the elastic limits of both the album as a structure and your listening patience. It is crammed full of the most complex and intricate music heard since their last record and by building tension constantly it looks you square in the eyes and asks "how much are you willing to take?" Spencer Krug is the tour de force behind this project and it was his exquisite turn of phrase that dazzled in last years Shut Up I Am Dreaming. This time it's the grand musical arrangements that sweep you up in their daunting majesty and carry you away to lands never seen by the human eye. The songs give a fleeting glance to convention hinting at chorus and verse but bleed into one-another so completely that it would be impossible to separate this record into singles.

From the word go The Mending Of The Gown comes out of the blocks at an alarming pace. and the pounding piano and screeching guitar do their best to keep up with Krug's impatient vocals that tumble out like a rapid stream of consciousness. The songs are crammed with more instruments than are healthy and with multi layered vocals an all-encompassing wall of sound is created. This is where the listener can easily become overwhelmed but the album is cleverly paced with just enough pauses in this sound barrage to keep you onboard, like the opening drum/vocals on The Courtesan Has Sung. This slight glimpse of space makes the monstrous guitar that welcomes back the wall of sound seem even more thrilling.

Krug's work is always high drama and this album more than most has an unquestionable theatricality to it. His lyrics are steeped in antique narrative and invoke wild, fairy-tale imagery of magicians and courtesans or riding around on leopards throwing dead birds in the air. But with the addition of the music Random Spirit Lover is more akin to an opera both in its scale and ambition and in the fact that quite often you don't have clue what is going on and frequently think about leaving. And this time will come for us all believe me. The first prong of this attack is with the arrival of Colt Stands Up, Grows Horns. It is obviously the stories dream sequence where all rules are forgotten and the song descends into an unbearable spiral of synthesizers that never let up. And they continue through the next track like a nightmarish approach of madness. Thankfully the albums crowning glory rises triumphantly from this hell like a winged savior. The Taming Of The Hands That Came Back To Life is is the song to bring this record back to life. It;s a galloping, sword wielding knight riding into adversity. But sadly its bravery is soon overcome by Trumpet, Trumpet, Toot! Toot! Having been kept at bay for so long the fierce wall of sound returns bigger and fiercer than ever. It's wrath quashes our brave Knight into dust as the sound swells to terrifying levels and the entire structure of this record is threatened more than ever.

As you can see this music brings out the drama in us all and that is why it is such a special thing. It's like a girlfriend you just can't stay with but have to make yourself leave. It's a high maintenance ball buster that sometimes you just want to strangle but its ability to thrill at a moments notice and to transport you to far off places makes it virtually impossible to dismiss. It wont be the one you'll settle down with but it will claim a place in your heart forever.

#Music
#BC

6th Dec 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Various Artists

I'm Not There [Music From The Motion Picture]

Columbia

As a soundtrack for his forthcoming Bob Dylan movie I'm Not There, director Todd Haynes has assembled an impressive array of musicians young and old to provide cover versions and re-workings of their favourite Dylan tracks.

Much like the Wylde Rattz project for Hayne's previous rock biopic Velvet Goldmine, supergroup "The Million Dollar Bashers" (featuring Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley, Nels Cline and Tom Verlaine among others) back many of the singers, and were put together to bring some cohesiveness to the album. As a cohesive album however, I'm Not There fails conclusively. Clocking in at a whopping 160 minutes, the jam-packed double CD is simply far too long - eclipsing the sprawling White Album and making Red Hot Chili Pepper's 2006 opus Stadium Arcadium seem like a couple of bonus tracks.

Taken as a collection of individual tracks however, the album provides a wealth of ammo for the mixtape masses with more than a few silver bullets in the arsenal. With such great material in the hands of these artists it would have been a tragedy for this album to be a faliure, but cover songs have always been a hit or miss affair - with the artists often taking one of two methods of attack when approaching the material. The most effective method here seems to be the straightforward approach, letting the bands own sound soak through the material. Sonic Youth's understated cover of I'm Not there is a highlight, as are Steven Malkmus' multiple contributions adding only a few restrained theatrics to produce some of his best work.

Black Keys provide one successful modernisation with their fuzz metal version of The Wicked Messenger, but The Hold Steady's version of Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window tries too hard to fit Dylan's square song into the band's story-telling style of a round hole. Not to mention Sufjan Steven's overblown theatrics, which make Ring Them Bells (what else?) smugly saccharine. Eddie Vedder's All Along The Watchtower would make for a live concert highlight, but it sounds pretty straightforward here  - as does Cat Power's solid, but karaoke-like cover of Stuck Inside of Mobile - following Dylan's version down to the tiniest vocal shift, in a way that even he refuses to do in his live show.

Some minor disappointments come from artists who have covered Dylan's work so well previously - such as Pearl Jam's version of Masters Of War or Jim James' superb Billy 4. Jim James covers Goin' To Acapulco on this album, which is a mild let-down when My Morning Jacket could have done a blistering version of something like Hurricane - particularly after they so perfectly blended their own heavy rocking style into Freebird in the woeful Elizabethtown movie.

For all of this, it's the breadth of Dylan's songwriting that is the star of the show - with 70's cowboy-era Dylan coming out particularly well. Calexico's multiple contribution's provide much of that, as do Los Lobos' spirited break for the border with Billy 1. It's when the musicians' really grasp the spirit of the songs that things really work - and while Cat Power's uninspired rendering illustrates Dylan's occasionally drawn out verses, John Doe's version of Pressing On and Ramblin' Jack Elliot's guitar picking on Tom Thumb's Blues provide a celebration of the music itself, rather than just the lyrics.

34 tracks picked from Dylan's catalogue of literally hundreds is in itself quite an achievement, resulting in an album so dense that it's taken me an extra week just to get to grips with it all. If it was actual Dylan versions it might be up their with Mothership in this year's best of (disqualified on a best-of technicality). And in fact, since hearing this album I have drawn up such a playlist, which is working out nicely.

#Music
#CSF

20th Nov 2007 - 2 comments - 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.

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#BC

2nd Nov 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Iron & Wine

The Shepherd's Dog

Sub Pop

The wind of change rarely blows through the lonely, mid-west town of Iron & Wine and when it does it's a soft, gentle breeze that leaves as quickly and as quietly as it approached. This has never been a bad thing as there has always been more than enough warmth to feed off in this barren land. But with The Shepherd's Dog the wind is picking up, ever so slightly, and as it passes through it leaves behind a renewed freshness. Following on from 2004's Our Endless Numbered Days and the fantastic Woman King EP in 2005, The Shepherd's Dog is the third full length and it's their best yet.

Sam Beams first two albums have been musically pretty stark often featuring his whispered vocals over delicate finger picking resulting in miles upon miles of intriguing yet desolate land, but after the hugely successful collaborative mini album with Calexico, In The Reins, and the subsequent tour, Beam's sound has progressed into Technicolor with a full band arrangement providing welcome sustenance to his flawless songwriting.

The sparse landscape from which this band has coaxed some of the most heart-aching sounds of recent times is looking more lush than ever here and is certainly starting to bear fruit. Beams vocals are as breathy and soft as ever but the instrumentation that accompanies his tales is dripping with texture and the sheer variety of tools, from lap steel to washes of strings, provides a richness not seen before. Beams vocals maintain their fragile characteristics but seem to contract to intimate closeness then expand to great washes of tone allowing the progressive musical arrangements to take the foreground.

The album is meticulously structured with each song flowing seamlessly into the other. Carousel is the musical equivalent of a babbling brook gently flowing through rocky land as Beams vocals, drenched in effects, trickle softly over delicately plucked guitar. Then as if a damn had broken its banks way up stream the river starts to pour forth with growing pace as we move into one of the albums many highlights House By The Sea. Deep bass and intricate guitar provide the complex backdrop for Beam and sister to harmonize. Innocent Blues shuffles along at a blissfully lazy pace with some unexpected banjo brilliance looming to the forefront which bleeds in to the reggae infused Wolves (Song Of The Shepherd's Dog). This acts as the centre piece to the album. At nearly 5 minutes in length it too shuffles into view with effortless simplicity and mid way through takes a short breather before launching into a glorious instrumental home straight. It's richness in sound is almost too much to fathom and marks a definite turning point for this band.

And the same can be said for the record as a whole. It maintains a firm link to the albums of the past with their soft and often bleak outlook but punctuates this with innovative musical arrangements that have their view firmly set on the road ahead. Resurrection Fern has Beams voice sounding so smoother than ever and the fragile steel guitar that soars behind it is simply glorious. The albums structure delivers its final genius blow on the closing track. Flightless Bird, American Mouth has a devastating air of conclusion and is a perfect way to end this record. It begins as fragile as a newly hatched bird then slowly takes flight and off it soars on a soft breeze of sadness and finality. It takes a few plays for this album to seep in but when it does you wont want to stray too far from its warmth.

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#BC

30th Sep 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Aesop Rock

None Shall Pass

Def Jux

It's not often that I can start a review of a record by an underground hip hop artist and thank one of the biggest corporate giants of our time for providing us with the only taste of this guy since 2003 - but if it wasn't for Nike commissioning Aesop Rock for its inspired series of jogging tracks our hungry ears would have had very little to feast upon since the triumphant Bazooka Tooth. And Nike's interest is the result of a steady rise in the shares of this Long Island born MC/producer since his first album for Def Jux Labor Days, what some regard as his finest stroke. So None Shall Pass, his fifth proper full length has been long in the making and much anticipated by any hip hop head with a brain.

Aesop Rock is a rare commodity indeed these days, an artist who is truly pushing the envelope and who, if you're into him, has never put a foot wrong and is pretty much guaranteed not to. Some criticised the Nike piece, but for the purpose it was made to serve it did the job and though it was stripped of the free flowing lyrics I can imagine it would be good to jog to if I could ever get out of this chair. So with None Shall Pass we get our guy back where we want him and with production duties shared between Aesop himself, Blockhead and El-P the result is little short of dazzling.

Things have changed since his last record and though this is still unmistakably Def Jux much of the production has been simplified and the claustrophobic machine-beats are played down in favor of more linear, live sounding instrumentation. This leaves space for Aesop's fables, and though this has always been his strength they seem to rise to the top here and it's damn near impossible to keep up. There's no dick-swinging bravado with this guy, just complex stories bursting with mind boggling imagery and all told with lyrical dexterity that defies belief.

With the title track Aesop provides us with one of the easiest entry points to his sound in a long time (Nike discounted) It's built around a pretty straightforward beat and melodic loop and with Aesop's lyrics it rolls along relentlessly. As is often the case your ears try desperately to keep up with this lyrical pace as juicy nuggets of the English language are dropped teasingly close to our understanding but as soon as we've stopped to gather them up Aesop's way ahead. I mean when the opening lyric is "Flash that buttery gold, jittery zeitgeist wither by the watering hole, what a patrol, what are we to heart huckabee art fuckery suddenly?" How are we expected not to feast on this. Unlike militant label mates El-P or Cannibal Ox, Aesop Rock often appears to take a different route but on closer inspection lyrics like "sign of the swine in the swarm when a king is a whore who comply and conform, miles outside of the eye of the storm" he shows a clear opinion of the current state of our world.

Bring Back Pluto encompasses this albums best assets. It has a plodding and delicate bongo beat that is still bass heavy enough to comfortably float the words to the surface. As does the awesome Fumes. The pace here is recreational compared to this guys previous work but as always vast swathes of texture are lurking in the background and at the half way point these textures cleverly manage to flip the beat around to a momentary quickening of speed without you even noticing.

But as much as I enjoy and appreciate this sunday stroll pace it sure is good to get moments like Citronella where the Jux machine starts grinding out stomping, gut-wrenching bass and wooly, static-frothed beats. This is brought to a climax on Gun For The Whole Family. Any album on this label wouldn't be complete without the whole Jux family getting involved and with previous songs featuring the familiar sounds of Cage and Mr. Lif it's here that label boss El-P weighs in and interestingly it's the erratic apocalyptic beat that suits El-P's frenzied style more than Aesop Rock's and it's really the bosses moment and not Aesop's.

The last track Coffee is a real departure for Aesop Rock. The beat is backed by distant vocal harmonies but then as if out of nowhere we get singing, yes, singing, and it's not just any singing, it's John Darnielle from The Mountain Goats. It would be hard to predict such a partnership but since moving to San Francisco these two artists have been collaborating and this is the first glimpse of the fruits - and it's fantastic. It also shows the kind of creative mind we are dealing with here. None Shall Pass is a hip hop record and never claims to be otherwise. It's full of deep beats, cuts and scratches and everything you'd want from a hip hop record but oh so much more. If you can decipher it you'll see a whole host of source points that go way beyond this genre. It's like reading a Kerouac novel at double speed, actually it's like reading a vast collection of short stories with no punctuation. It's a turbulent sea of words that stretches on for miles and you know that if you dive in you'll get embroiled in a whole torrent of forked-tongued, whiplash trouble but you do it all the same. After all these opportunities don't come around all that often so you'd be a fool not to.

#Music
#HHG

28th Aug 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Kinski

Down Below It's Chaos

Sub Pop

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

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

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

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

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#BC

21st Aug 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

The New Pornographers

Challengers

Matador Records

I went to see The New Pornographers a couple of years ago at London’s Borderline. I hadn’t really heard many of their tunes, but this Canadian 7/8 piece came highly recommended. I can’t say every one of their hard driving indie pop tunes clicked with me, but I was certainly impressed and puzzled by their style. There was something about the structure of their tunes that was odd and original and very compelling. (Plus, their drummer was mental and who doesn’t like to see that?).

Their fourth album, “Challengers”, is similar – there’s such variety in the way they build songs, and some great riffs dotted throughout, that on my first listen I kinda knew I liked it but at times I was perplexed as to why.

“My Rights Versus Yours” is a brilliant catchy opener that builds from a mellow folky start to flourish into an air-punching, foot stomping tune. This is followed by the equally ace “All the Old Showstoppers” which houses some great hooks and again made me do a little jig when it hit the heights. “All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth” is where they sound closest to fellow Canadians Arcade Fire, but the next two tunes, “Failsafe” and “Unguided”, are battling it out as my favourite on the album.

"Myriad Harbour", is another cracking tune where the singer starts the lines only for the rest of the band, like an annoying girl I once worked with, to finish his thoughts for him. This song also heralds the first of a couple of moments on the album, as the vocals get a bit Tenacious D (he asks his local record store for “an American music anthol-low-geeee” – Jack Black stylee), where I’m not sure if they’re having a laugh or being deadly serious.

Singing duties are, however, swapped around four band members (lady singers Kathryn Calder and Neko Case have - I can exclusively reveal - nice voices) and they pepper songs with some pleasant harmonies. These come through strongest in the splendid “Mutiny, I promise You” and the sparse “Adventures in Solitude”.

The main man of this side project (all band members release records as solo artists or with other bands), A.C. Newman, says “Over the years I’ve just learned how to write better songs”. It certainly seems apparent here as it feels like there’s more depth and diversity than on their previous albums. While it might not be as constantly full on as, say, Electric Version (their 2nd album from 2003) - which some of their fans may not thank them for - I think with repeat listens you’ll reap the rewards of this interesting and enjoyable album.


Bonus Trivia:

- The New Pornographers name, its suggested, was inspired by a quote from American Pentecostal Televangelist, Jimmy Swaggart, who declared that music was, yep, the ‘new pornography’.

- Jimmy Swaggart also hated gays: “'I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm going to be blunt and plain: if one ever looks at me like that, I'm going to kill him and tell God he died.”

- Jimmy Swaggart also publicly exposed one of his buddies for having an affair - claiming his mate was a "cancer in the body of Christ."

- What goes around comes around… Jimmy himself got busted – twice - for sleeping with prostitutes, but was less forthcoming in criticism on this one:  "The Lord told me it's flat none of your business."

#Music
#Locochimpo

24th Jul 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

O'Death

Head Home

City Slang

What do you get if you cross a wailing voice, a banjo and a fiddle? This isn't a joke. Country music right? Well normally yes but in a parallel, and slightly perverse, universe the outcome is O'Death.

Listening to O'Death I'm reminded of the scene from the Blues Brothers where the band reform and secure a gig at Bob's Country Bunker. 'What kind of music do you usually have here?' asks Elwood and the response is "we have both kinds; country and western" whereupon the band are forced to launch into Stand by your Man and the theme from Rawhide before a riot ensues. To me this has always summed up country music. As an outsider it has always seemed to be something of a closed shop existing in a vacuum that fails to acknowledge or incorporate any other form of music. Those on the inside appear to know the ropes and stick to the formula - it's either plaintive songs of heartbreak of the 'stand by your man' ilk or sing-along hoe downs from the Rawhide vein.

O'Death are the outsiders who don't play by the rules, they've left the country bunker and discovered a whole other world out there. Now there is another suffix to add after country; it's not just 'and western' because to the musical lexicon O'Death have introduced 'country and gothic punk'. Based in New York, these are rural boys embracing the attitude of the big city. Theirs' is a sound not so much for barn dances on Walton mountain but mosh pits with the characters from Deliverance on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre farm. This is the riot at Bob's Country Bunker in musical form.

It is an edgy and at moments slightly disturbing journey but O'Death is a travelling carnival of infectious energy. Their relentless refusal to charm is charming in itself and if you get it then it rocks! Melody is certainly not sacrificed.  Most tunes being of the foot stomping variety rest on beats that recall Iggy and the Stooges. These songs could've been penned by Tom Waits imagining them being delivered by a voice that at times could belong to either Frank Black, Jack White or Neil Young. At the end of this barn dance you can imagine that someone has spilt volatile moonshine over a hay bale. A stray cigarette thrown away by the fiddler has caused a fire and the band have to make a sharp exit on the back of a pick up truck. The locals elders are up in arms bemoaning the trail of destruction but the kids have had their eyes opened and will never be the same again.

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#Muxloe

23rd Jul 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Spoon

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Anti

For me, Spoon are one of the great American Indie bands - seemingly always recording, and always on tour. I got into them late, but like all good bands they have a back catalogue that keeps on giving... all the way back to their rough edged debut Telephono.

Telephono led them onto a major label deal with Elektra, who then dropped them after A Series of Sneaks failed to do the required business - a story covered in their Agony of Lafitte EP. Their subsequent records each expanded the success of the last, and 2005's Gimme Fiction seemed like a big hit - with I Turn My Camera On seemingly playing in all the clubs. I guess I was just in the right clubs, as number 44 in the charts doesn't demonstrate sales being where they should for a band this good. Their critical success continues however, and following last year's sidestep into soundtracks (for Will Ferrell's Stranger Than Fiction) Britt Daniel and co are back with another great record.

Don't Make Me A Target heralds the bands return, and quickly seems to address these political times ...or maybe that's just me reading things into it. Either way, politics doesn't get in the way of a thumping good tune, that quickly dispenses with the lyrics for a guitar and piano attack. The Ghost Of You Lingers is on the edge of pretentious, but falls just the right side of brilliant. It's an unconventional song, with effects and layered vocals that seem like they're building up to something which never comes, but where it takes you on it's own terms is more than satisfactory - dark, atmospheric and moody.

Cherry Bomb rolls back the years to the Girls Can Tell era and the kind of high-school story that seems to be the Spoon staple. Touching, moving and sentimental - built around great music with a banging piano trumpet and drums. Don't You Evah is a cover of a song by The Natural History, and there's some classic Spoon in tracks like My Little Japanese Cigarette Case and Don't You Evah.

The album is more of a fall back to the classic Spoon sound, before the mildly misleading diversion of Gimme Fiction. It's the sound of cruising in a 50's hotrod, chasing girls and drinking milkshakes with Richie Cunningham.

The band has moved forward and become more sophisticated, building more complex, layered backgrounds for their deceptively simple songs. There seems to be some influence coming in from the sound track experience and Rhythm and Soul ticks a lot of my favourite boxes to great effect. Great tempo changes. Great keyboards. A touch of Small Stakes Ice Hockey rock. I've narrowed the magic ingredient down to a squeaky little sound or a barking dog - which will make CSF junior chuckle one day. Animal Midnight has it, and so does On Parade.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is short, at 36 minutes / 10 songs ("the perfect number of songs for an album" apparently), but it never seems it. This is a classy and well-produced record, with some great songs, magic touches and restrained, clever song-writing. It's not a massive step forward - which is no complaint from me, as it is the sound of a great band knocking out another great album.

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#CSF

5th Jul 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Alex Delivery

Star Destroyer

This new release from the always-worth-a-listen Jagjaguwar label is a curious little thing indeed. It's packed full of fractured beats and trickling melodies that all struggle to be heard amid the ever-present fog of noise that make up this intriguing collection of songs. New York's Alex Delivery have here a fuzzy blend of prog rock, Krautrock and Brighton rock mixing spacey distortion with deafening drums, mumbled vocals and delicate melodies that seem to emerge from disused seaside piers or children's playgrounds.

Self-sabotage is also a favored method here as on the opening track Komad. At just over 10 minutes this song treads the fine line between an utter captivating courage to set up a glorious song structure only to completely demolish it and an irritating tendency to never give you what you think you want. Like a rusty swing in a disused playground this song creeks into view only to be joined by crashing drums and frontman Robert Lombardo's gritty vocals. The swing keeps on creaking for about 5 more minutes until it slowly morphs into a field of distorted synths and muffled beats. Rainbows lays down a bed of delicate clicks that sound like millions of sampled insects then scatters over the top an achingly nostalgic melody. Lombardo's vocals shuffle through all this in a lazy manner but you can rest assured that its the scratchy insect noises that eventually win out and the melody is soon confined to a distant memory.

Scotty is the sound of a crippled merry-go-round on board a sinking oil tanker, its sweet, playful loops barely audible over the crashing sounds all around. But then Sheath-Wet seems to hint at this merry-go-round staging something of a resurrection as its melody rises slowly from the depths, joined by the clumsy clattering of various hard surfaces this plods on for over 11 minutes with vocals drifting in whenever they can be bothered. I don't mean in any way to sound negative about this approach as it is strangely beguiling and if you stick with this song you never want it to finish and at some points you wonder if it ever will. It loops round in a hypnotic, self absorbed fuzz like a child spinning around, eventually losing balance.

As the art work suggests this record has an other-worldly feeling, often mirroring the illogical structure of a dream where nothing seems to fit together but the more time you spend with it the more this disconnection seems to make sense. Until, that is, you try to explain it to someone once it's finished and they look at you blankly, waiting for you to stop. A bit like what I'm trying to do now so I'll shut up and let you experience it for yourself on my recommendation. (I think.)

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#BC

5th Jun 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Dizzee Rascal

Maths & English

XL

My my, hasn't he grown. The third album from the young up-start sees age and experience add eight to his still gritty rhyme style. The blueprint is still the same since his 2003 Mercury Prize inning debut Boy In Da Corner but with the gift of hindsight he is able to craft a much fuller ecord not just in content but also in style enlisting the help of US rappers Bun B and Pimp C, Shy FX and finishing off with an all UK line up of Alex Turner and Lily Allen.

This new maturity is expressed from the outset with World Outside where Dizzee illuminates the importance of seeing the bigger picture that lies beyond both his fame and the ghetto roots that he has come from. You can almost hear Earl's brother look up from his beer with the start of the next track Pussyole saying "Tell me they didn't just go oldskool." Here Dizzee raps furiously over the awesome Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock beat bringing a fresh dose of grime to this classic. Where's Da G's questions fake gangsters while Bubbles is a full-on dick swinging boast-fest about Dizzee's success. But you can't argue with a word he says here as it's all true, it's all to be applauded and it's all rhymed over the tightest production.

Tracks like Hardback (Industry) illustrate just how far this MC has come. This song sounds like Dizzee Rascal's pitch at a school careers evening explaining the pitfalls of making it big in the music industry as he dishes out advice over a deep, booming beat. It's the stark contrast of tracks like this and the ego filled, abrasive moments like first single Sirens and album closer U Can't Tell Me Nuffin' that make this record so appealing. On Suk My Dick Dizzee claims "When I was a kid I had a chip upon my shoulder but it aint getting better as I am getting older." This is so true and somewhere in this line lies the success of Maths & English. The dust certainly has settled on Dizzee's life of Grime but it is the sign of a great artist to be able to preach words of startling wisdom with honest conviction while also retaining the edge that put him at the top in the first place.

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#HHG

4th Jun 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Night Of The Sunflowers

(dir. Jorge Sanchez-Cabezudo)

Spanish rape and revenge thriller that twists with each of its six chapters to reveal different, subtle shades of a complex, involving story.

A pair of bickering, aging neighbours in a small deserted village, a pot-holing expert and his wife, a married cop who works with his father-in-law, and a disillusioned travelling salesman are among the characters we meet in a dusty backwater where nothing ever seems to happen.

Another grown-up European drama, packed with tiny details that hint at rich back-stories for all the characters, without dwelling on anything for too long. Moves from being a visceral stalker chiller to almost Hitchcock-levels of multiple motivations and human interaction in extreme situations. Highly recommended if you're looking for something that doesn't have the number 3 in the title this summer.

#Film
#chimp71

31st May 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Sage Francis

Human The Death Dance

Strange Famous

After hearing the opening track to the 3rd full length from this master of all things spoken I started planning my 'fallen hero' review. With a heavy heart and a heavier pen I began the obituary of this lyrical wizard, combing through his previous two albums trying to find any predictions for this untimely demise. But luckily for Sage Francis and you, my worthy readers, I am not one of these people who writes a review based on the first few tracks, because by track 3 I was beginning to mentally screw up my previous review and was only too glad to find myself back at the drawing board. Where Underground For Dummies started things off with a predictable and unimaginative back-story to Sage's hip hop pedigree Civil Disobedience restores the factory settings and it's pretty much clever wordplay and tight rhymes from here on in.

After a string of EPs it was 2002's Personal Journals that really let Sage flex his lyrical muscles. It was a dark and and gritty portrait of a man on the edge and was followed up in 2005 with the awesome A Healthy Distrust. This was an upgrade from the first album in every way. The beats were massive and the rhymes fiercer than anything that had gone before. I guess Human The Death Dance falls somewhere in between - which is no bad place to reside in the Sage back catalogue.

On A Healthy Distrust, Sage confessed to having "more back issues than Guns n' Ammo," and this album shows that few of these issues have been resolved, instead they seem to have festered and grown more potent over the years. Like friend and fellow poetic genius Buck 65, Sage Francis has always written his own rules and has never complied to any Hip Hop cliche. Instead of dick-swinging lyrics and thugged-out, self-referencing imagery we get an outpouring of anger, self-pity and cynicism slotted expertly into well crafted beats. The variety of beats here is what makes this album so listenable. Clickety Clack describes its beat perfectly while the dark and brooding Call Me Francois sounds like a Terminator chase scene.

But here's something I don't normally say in a hip hop review - it's the slow jams that really steel the show here. The best moments in the Sage Francis live show are when all the beats quit and he goes it alone. He has such lyrical dexterity - and without a beat this really shines. So the closest we get to that on a record is when the beat slows down as in Water Line or is replaced altogether by a full string section as on the epic Good Fashion. But there is a run of glory on the last four tracks starting with the album highlight Hell Of A Year. This is classic Sage Francis - slow, dark and oozing with melancholia. Few hip hop songs are about failed relationships and lost love but this is Sage's forte and the power of this song is still ringing in your ears when you get to the album closer Going Back To Rehab. This is Sage's most adventurous song yet. At just over six minutes it starts with a gentle guitar melody with Sage rhyming fluidly and venomously slowly getting fiercer and fiercer until the beat kicks in and the spit starts flying. It's an angry and powerful way to finish this super-intelligent third album and if it wasn't so damn good you'd be reaching for the phone, dialing the authorities to warn them that this guy's gonna do something bad sometime soon. But musically this isn't that time thank god and shame on me for thinking the Francis crown had slipped.

#Music
#HHG

23rd May 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Arctic Monkeys

Favourite Worst Nightmare

Domino

Last month in the sweaty temple of music known as the London Astoria I worshiped at the altar of the Arctic Monkeys. Their performance was a revelation that mugged me of my considerable cynicism regarding the copius plaudits given to these whipper-snappers from Sheffield. My account of that experience was the review equivalent of Belushi back flipping down the aisles when the Rev. James Brown asked of the Blues Brothers congregation 'do you see the light?' Yes, I saw the light. And like all new converts I felt an evangelical duty to spread the word. The word was that the Arctic Monkeys are the real deal. So it was with some trepidation with which I approached listening to 'Favourite Worst Nightmare.' Having become such a public zealot would I now be left with a considerable amount of egg on my face? Thankfully the answer is no. Like any belief that is successfully put to the test my faith has been affirmed and strengthened. Though this may not be their masterpiece I stand by my assertion that the Arctic Monkeys are the real deal and, so long as they remain so, it is my mission to convert every Doubting Thomas.

The difficult second album. Many a lauded and applauded act has struggled with this one. A variety of approaches have been taken in pursuit of delivering the second coming. The Gallagher approach was to give an airing to the left overs deemed not quite good enough for the debut album. Some, such as the Strokes, take a laissez faire 'if it aint broke, don't fix it' approach. The Squire and Brown tactic was to take previous success as a license for self indulgence. Others, thinking of the La's, just wilt from the pressure. Luckily, the Arctic Monkey's have avoided the pit falls that litter the paths taken by these forerunners. Their sound maintains an energy and freshness which dispels fears they may have rested on their laurels. This is a collection that varies the pace and tone to suggest that they are more than just a one trick pony while the retention of economical 3 minute songs has guarded against any over indulgence.

Just in case the listener is in any doubt about the Arctic Monkey's musical direction they deliver hellos and goodbyes which make their own intentions absolutely clear. Album opener Brianstorm offers reassurance that they won't entirely turn their backs on the floor filling anthems with which the myspace kids first fell in love. Also reassuring is the proof that their heads haven't been turned by fame; preferring to mock boys in 't-shirts and ties combinations' and girls in jacuzzis who 'lay it on a plate' rather than deigning to join them. 505, the final song of the set, however leaves the listener with a reminder that the band intend to let their sound evolve even if outright revolution isn't on the cards. The signs point to the emergence of a more measured less frantic approach. Less brash and more sophisticated. Less about bravado but more confessional. All without discarding what made them special in the first place.

Where 'Whatever You Say I Am' was all about the possibilities of the night ahead, the soundtrack to an evening of escapades on dance-floors, Favourite Worst Nightmare is the journey home. Stepping off the nightbus the streets are empty except for neon reflections in dirty puddles and the rattling sound of the kebab shop shutters being pulled down. There is an air of menace that permeates throughout. It is an album that forces you to look over the shoulder to find you're being followed by edgy riffs, eerie organs, frantic drums, aggressive bass and tales of jealous boyfriends, daggers drawn and noses broken.

The strength of the Arctic Monkey's is that there is no evident bandmaster. They are a collective or gang who back each other up and allow all members a moment in the limelight. All have a chance to shine and impress. Alex Turner is a great chronicler of our times and certainly knows how to deliver a tune but that doesn't mean the rest are his backing band - far from it. The band was famously formed after they were given guitars for Christmas and surely Santa must have also delivered a bumper book of rock n roll riffs too. The versatility of the guitar parts is dizzying; ranging from Jack White-esque axe-smithery to delicate moments like riding the surf with the Beach Boys. The rhythm section play their part too. The bass veers from bullying on 'Teddy Picker' to bouncy on 'Flourescent Adolescent' and everything is held together by drumming alternating from powerhouse to shuffling in a manner which even Remi would be proud. Fortunately when they all raise their game simultaneously such as on 'Balaclava' there is no sign of too many cooks spoiling the broth, on the contrary the mixture of ingredients is magic.

I'm not preaching here in hope of convincing you to pay alms to the Chimpomatic church only to find that I shall later misappropriate these funds for a new life in Rio. It is not an album completely immune from criticisms, though in truth this is knit-picking in order to demonstrate that I'm not just pretending that the Emperor is wearing clothes. Very occasionally as on 'If You Were There, Beware' or 'Do Me A Favour' it is easy to predict the 'here comes the rock out' bit that characterises 6th form bands. Maybe sometimes the band have taken this commission too seriously. The likes of 'The Bad Thing' and 'Flourescent Adolescent' offer a too rare glimpse into the fun that it's possible to have when you're young and in a top rock n roll act. Expectations are high and perhaps Turner over-extends himself when he ventures beyond story telling to message giving. He doesn't need to try to be the spokesman for a generation, he can afford to leave that to someone else. But seriously, that is just knit picking.

So will the Arctic Monkey's prove themselves to the doubters with Favourite Worst Nightmare? Perhaps. Is this a great album? Maybe, though not definitely. Only time can hand out such accolades but respect and kudos needs to be awarded for giving it a valiant try. Are the Arctic Monkey's a great band? Again only time will tell but Favourite Worst Nightmare at least proves that they have the nous, talent and balls to one day deserve to be heralded as such.

#Music
#Muxloe

14th May 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Low

Drums And Guns

Sup Pop

Things We Lost In The Fire was an exquisite piece of work that managed to wrap you in its melancholy, taking you deeper into its hopeless warmth and only allowing you up for air to keep you alive. 2005's The Great Destroyer saw the band take a whiplash turn of direction as they showed us that all this brooding and threatening that we had persevered with was about to pay off. They flexed their muscles and the result was awesome. So where to after this turn? The Great Destroyer was such a bold move for a band with such a distinctive back catalogue that there was no going back from it. Drums And Guns unfortunately shows Low trying to.

This starts off very slow indeed, but through Belarus Low manage to maintain a certain tension, or air of expectation. It ticks over nicely, but in classic Low style goes nowhere - and leaves you wanting more. This is to their credit, as in the past they have expertly held your attention through miles of empty, lonely terrain but as Breaker creeps in with it's subtle electronic tip toes and itself goes nowhere you start to wonder whether you have the patience for another long and desolate journey. This seems like an album of sketches, rather than finished ideas. Few of the songs have any kind of resolution and when they do, as in Your Poison, they tail off after barely a minute - while Hatchet is entirely based around a very questionable concept of "Let's bury the hatchet like The Beatles and The Stones."

The glimmers of light throughout this record are the introduction of a more electronic sound. It gives the vast sonic landscapes some definition. Always Fade has an organic, sampled beat that mirrors the muddy textures they used to create with the guitar and Breaker adopts a totally different minimal sound that supports the vocals very well.

This is by no means a bad album, but for a band from whom we expect greatness it is disappointing. They seem to be reconsidering their brave move, but finding that it took them so far away from their original position they are struggling to get back. Since I first heard this band I have been so impressed with their confidence and conviction. They were always a band that knew exactly what they were doing and when playing live they displayed a command of their audience that throughout their marathon, barren performances you could have heard a pin drop. This conviction seems to have dwindled slightly here and I can't fight the feeling of restlessness that creeps in during this record. I am in no way suggesting that I'm getting off the Low Train, but I might read my book for a while until the view changes.

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#BC

19th Apr 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Bright Eyes

Cassadaga

Universal

The 7th installment by Conor Oberst's Bright Eyes sees them open everything up with a more expansive and altogether grander outlook taking precedence. Named after a Florida town visited by Oberst to consult spiritual mediums, Cassadaga aims at the grandeur of a modern American classic. Unlike the work of many 27 year-olds it's possible to plot an artistic progression through the work of this man and see that this album is the coming together of many facets of his life. Early albums like the fantastic Fevers & Mirrors ride on a tense balance of frail whispered devotions of love to impassioned shrieks of hatred while 2005's Digital Ash In A Digital Urn embraced a more electronic sound in its production. Cassadaga acts as the melting pot for all this history including Oberst's recent opposition to anything Bush. The result is a well rounded if not slightly diluted depiction of the present day Oberst and his country.

The success of the Bright Eyes sound is down to simple song writing. Oberst is undoubtedly a complex character but this rarely complicates the songs. If The Brakeman Turns My Way and Middleman are what this band is built on. As usual, Oberst's lyrics are dark and brooding but there is a hope in these songs that coupled with the steady, soaring melody make something swell in your heart. He injects an ambiguity into his poetry mixing gritty realism with hopelessly romantic imagery. His music references time-honored song writing traditions but at the same time is fiercely contemporary. Having said that, the low point of the album comes in the form of the Soul Singer In A Session Band and its a rare moment where we see obvious song writing and dull lyrics.

The band has grown considerably since 2005's double bill release and the string section and soaring backing vocals on many tracks are what really separates this from previous works. Nowhere is this seen more powerfully than on the album highlight No One Would Riot For Less. Oberst's quivering voice mirrors the delicate guitar picking that accompanies it. His protagonists, playing out tales of inevitable death, are comforted by the line "Love me now, help is coming," and from the distance an angelic, female voice can be heard. The strings gently pick things up and carry them away to heights rarely seen by this band.

Most bands reach a point where the far ends of their creative leanings converge together and when this happens the result is often a more well rounded, comprehensive whole but also a leveling out that can round off edges and dilute extremes. At times Cassadaga sounds like Bright Eyes have reached this point. The bitter edge to the Oberst tongue seen on Fevers & Mirrors has been on the way out since 2005's I'm Wide, Awake It's Morning and is obviously being vented in his Desparecidos punk-rock side project. Since his scathing attack on the Bush administration in the song When The President Talks To God, Oberst has become a figurehead for the protest song and though I didn't want this album to be plagued with anti-war imagery the moments where this is addressed are quite feeble compared to the venom of his previous song. Claims that the country is being run by a madman and comparisons to soldiers and insects are nothing we don't already know and not what we have come to expect from this lyricist. To criticize an album for not enough political opinion seems ludicrous but in an age where every cretin is shouting empty, anti establishment noise we need artists like Oberst who don't speak like they have a media reputation to protect and who above all have the ability to express an honest and important opinion.

But in his defense, as you pull back from this album you see that as a whole Cassadaga manages to paint a very real and intelligent picture of America today with all its hopes and fears. In the sweeping orchestral grandeur we see the vast open planes of the American landscape and crouching somewhere within the frail voice of Oberst himself we see the fragility of his country and the uncertainty of its future. 2005's double release was a special moment for this band and though Cassadaga doesn't live up to either of those albums it is still a worthy follow up.

#Music
#BC

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

Wilco

Sky Blue Sky

Nonesuch

As I have previous professed, for me Wilco are one of the best bands operating at the moment. Since I first got hold of their Mermaid Avenue collaboration with Billy Bragg, I tracked back and forth through their output, sucking it all up until I had it all. As a relatively late adopter, I had less of the undying love for the "alt.country" end of things, and for me A Ghost Of Born was the ultimate conclusion of where a band like this was going, leaving me to wonder where they would be heading next.

While Kidsmoke, Hell Is Chrome and the other big show-off tracks on A Ghost Of Born steal the show, they also tend to over-shadow some superb numbers that pop up later in the album, such as Theologians, Late Greats or Company In My Back. With sixth studio album Sky Blue Sky things are on a much more even keel, making for a more subtle record that is beautifully crafted and full of hidden treasure.

Forget the Fleetwood Mac comparisons you might have heard, The Band are your homework reference for this album, with superb musicianship pulling from all sides to make an apparently simple track like You Are My Face into a musical masterpiece -  winding up from ballad to multi-part guitar duel, or to transform the opener Either Way from a sunny-weather ditty to an all-out majestic finale, complete with a string section. Great talent brings great responsibility however, and unfortunately the album suffers from some of the same pitfalls as The Band's work from Stage Fright onwards - with the undoubtedly excellent musicianship sometimes falling short of the emotion needed for it to engage the listener as A Ghost Is Born did - which I suspect may be down to a Iack of trouble in Wilcoworld at the moment. If only Tweedy could get back on the painkillers.

But fear not, Wilco are still a long way from a Steely Dan's sometimes unapproachable studio tan style. The glib opening line of Impossible Germany ("...unlikely Japan") is quickly forgiven as it morphs off into a six minute guitar monster. And if you do find yourself waiting for that trademark emotional crack in Tweedy's vocals,  don't worry - that comes soon enough on title track Sky Blue Sky: "It's good enough for now..."

Man of the match definitely goes to new signing Nels Cllne, who takes the guitar standards of Wilco's previous records to epic new heights. As a former free-wheeling jazz guitarist he has added guitar to projects by Mike Watt, Stephen Perkins' Banyan, Thurston Moore and others - as well as releasing some notable, if meandering solo work (I've seen him live, and had the sore improv jazz buttocks to prove it). Kept on a tight leash by Tweedy's songwriting, which often reins him in, Nels Cline excels - adding a multitude of guitar highlights, from the crisp Stevie Ray Vaughn-esqe solo that rounds off opener Either Way, to the pyrotechnics that take Side With The Seeds from it's deceptively soulful opening to it's barnstorming finale.

Sure, there are a couple of more forgettable tracks, but the power hidden behind the laid back effortlessness of this album will be fully revealed live and I have no doubt that it is only going to get better and better. I'd even go so far as to wager that after seeing this record played live, the track about Jeff cleaning the house (Hate It Here) may be a late favourite. We'll see.

The bottom line is that this is a top-flight band working at the top of their game. On the surface it may seem to have the stumbling style of fan favourite Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but when listened to next that album it is a far more complex affair. While it might not have the more overt scene-stealing sonic theatrics of the Jim O'Rourke influenced A Ghost Is Born, beneath the surface there are more than a few nods in that direction - notably on the fantastic closing track On And On And On, where the guitar is pipped to the post at the final hurdle by Mikael Jorgensen's keyboards. His Garth Hudson-style Hammond organ adds a steady stream of quality input throughout the album, but on On And On And On it is thrust into the limelight and carries the album home, bringing it back from a minor lull to finish magnificently.

This is a superbly rich record, taking the huge range of previous Wilco output and creaming off the best of all their albums and shaping it into a rich and polished career overview. There is a fluidity, solidity and cohesiveness here that make it an accomplished delight.

#Music
#CSF

16th Apr 2007 - 4 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Arctic Monkeys

Astoria, London

Does it actually matter what I report here? Every self respecting music buff already has a stance on the Arctic Monkeys and I'd bet my mortgage on the fact that whatever you read about them your opinion is already set. Word on the street was that touts were flogging tickets for a mere couple of hundred quid for tonight's performance at the Astoria. Temptation was to sell up my Chimpomatic soul, take the cash and run. Either I could have insisted that the lucky recipient write a review for me or I could just make it up .........after all, don't we already know all about the Monkeys from Sheffield?

I'm reminded of my teaching days when a fight in the corridor, snow in the playground or the last day of term ensured that whatever I said was destined to go in one ear and out of the other. For such moments we were advised to leave the kids with 'a golden nugget,' even if everything else was a meaningless drone they should at least remember one key point. But more of that later.  No doubt you could join the dots in the Arctic Monkey's story between the following key phrases; 'myspace', 'best selling début', 'Gordon Brown', and 'Brit Awards'. And no doubt you've made your mind up which camp you belong to. Either your one of the tribe who shrug that they're a band with 'a few good tunes but not worthy of the praise, a band for skinny jeaned kids who missed out on Nirvana, the Stone Roses or even The Strokes for that matter' or they are 'saviours of rock n roll purveying witty vignettes on 21st century Britain'. Prior to tonight my mind was made up, I was firmly in the former camp.

So now for the part where I stand in front of the class who prefer to gaze out of the window or write notes or carve messages into the table taking no notice of what I say. On the basis of tonight's performance I am a convert, I get it and I now understand the hype. Whatever it is (its surely time to reclaim the phrase 'X factor' from ITV tea time telly) these boys have definitely got it. It is something that in all my years of gig watching I've only witnessed in a very select few. There's nothing ground breaking - its a set of basic lighting, no pyrotechnics, not much banter, and few histrionics. There seems no need for razz-mattaz when music can speak for itself. With the audience in the palm of their hand the enthusiasm is sucked up and thrown right back. Assured, controlled and confident their sound is full of an energy that makes one feel they've been struck by lightning. Tonight's real revelation is the rhythm section that recalls Reni and Mani in full flow, all tight, funky, rumbling, rockin....... I could go on but I expect you won't believe me.....

These boys are unfazed by the expectations, they know they've got it and it's apparent that they are absolutely buzzing. Not yet have they become wearily complacent or developed a cock-sure swagger to alienate all but their hard core fans. On the contrary, they're eager to please, they're the kids at school who really do want to throw the best party possible. 'Come on Alex' shouted one skinny jeaned fan and the Monkey's leader visibly grew in stature 'thanks very much, encouragement is always welcome'. Crucially they never surrender control. The exuberant crowd chanted for Mardy Bum so the band cheekily struck up the opening riff before launching instead into I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor; the fans were ecstatic and the Monkeys confirmed that they still call the tune.

So can they keep it going? Can they resist the mass sing-alongs, or translate some of this magic to record in order to convince the doubters? I don't know. A number of new songs from their soon to be released album 'Favourite Worst Nightmare' were showcased tonight suggesting a more muscular, bluesy sound which dares to seek out a different tempo. The crowd lapped it all up even if their toes didn't tap as furiously and the choruses were as yet too unfamiliar to chant along.  Contrary to the advice espoused in Fake Tales of San Francisco I'm jumping on the bandwagon.
The bell is ringing and its time to run out of the classroom to resume the fight, play in the snow or head home for the holidays. So what is the golden nugget that Mr Muxloe wants you to take with you? It is this - forget your preconceptions and go check these boys out. Preferably you should do it while they still have a wide eyed wonder at the beauty of simple rock n roll, before they get lazy on the decadence of success and before they starting writing bloated songs about 'woe is me, no-one understands me now my days consist of drugs and super-models'. I'm not telling you what to think just saying 'please think again'.

#Music
#Gig
#Muxloe

14th Apr 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Dinosaur Jr.

Beyond

Pias

Listening to Beyond, the first album featuring the original 3 members of Dinosaur Jr (J. Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph) since 1988’s Bug (and a subsequent falling out), I was going to write at length about an old interview with Mascis on Snub TV - but, sure enough, YouTube and Wikipedia fill in the back story there. What struck me was the stark contrast between Mascis the interviewee and Mascis the musician. As he himself points out “There’s nothing going on anywhere really, so you might as well sit where you are.” I can’t imagine the Mascis School of Motivation is over subscribed, but put a guitar in the man’s hands and he’s off and running, screaming fury and love, all articulated over the space of 6 strings and a fretboard. 

This is what we want from Dinosaur Jr. Mascis’ shy, laid-back but sweet vocals, hiding behind some simply stunning electric guitar work. Extended solos and walls of effects might be the stuff of Spinal Tap gimmicks and indeed Barlow himself had a couple of digs at Mascis when first starting up ‘rival’ band Sebadoh (“Pedal hopping like a Dinosaur” he sings on Gimmie Indie Rock), but such is Mascis’ mastery that the guitar is the integral part, the character and essence of each song. Now, with Murph back behind the drums and Barlow, surely one of the hardest Bassists around (in playing, if not fighting terms), reconciled and ready to rock, the rhythm section is there to add the muscle behind Mascis’ wanderings and meanderings - you want a power trio? Here you are.

After almost 20 years apart it is in-keeping with the Mascis’ persona that the first song is called Almost Ready and yep, we’re straight into a blistering solo and ‘immediate classic’ territory.  Almost Ready kicks down the door of Indie Rock 2007 and politely screams ‘What the fuck’s up with this party?’ Less of an edge, but no slacking in quality for the poppier Crumble.  Then early favourite Pick Me Up - 6 and a half minutes and what a journey.  The opening riff could be lifted from a scene in an 80s movie, where the baddie is finally getting the upper hand, all adrenaline and activity, working through a chorus that sees Mascis singing - dueting with his guitar before concluding with a 3 minute guitar solo (that’s three minutes). Awesome.  Play it alongside No More Shoes by Stephen Malkmus to get an idea what these two heroes are all about. 

After all that hi-octane, it’s time to bring things down a bit, with Lou taking over vocal duties on Back to Your Heart.  I’m on record as a huge fan of Sebadoh and a large part of that is down to Barlow’s song writing - so when he’s backed by the power of Dinosaur Jr. it’s a no-lose situation.  This Is All I Came To Do lifts the mood again and whilst the title may or may not refer to guitar solo-work, the song contains a couple of beauties.  Drummer Murph gets to flex on Been There All the Time, laying down some powerful rolls as the band rock out. Hard. Mixing things up, they follow the harder, darker, metal-er(?) It’s Me with the light and airy We’re Not Alone and I Got Lost, which has Mascis’ falsetto voice, sitting atop acoustic guitar, tom rolls and a cello. Lou and his bass take centre-stage for Lighning Bulb before What if I Knew bids us fairwell in the way Mascis knows best…that’s right, a blistering solo.

It’s good to have them back. Since re-forming in 2005, they are amongst a very select group of bands I HAVE to see if they tour near me - and I look forward to seeing them punishing the Marshall Stacks with Beyond.

#Music
#chimpovich

30th Mar 2007 - 5 comments - Add Comment - Tweet