Chimpomatic

Gentleman Reg

Jet Black

Arts & Crafts

Good things have been emerging from the Canadian music scene over the last few years; Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade… Nickelback. This month sees the arrival of Gentleman Reg (Reg Vermue), whose debut UK album, ‘Jet Black’ arrives here on Broken Social Scene's Arts & Crafts label.

‘Jet Black’ opens with plenty of cascading guitars, honky-tonk piano and thumping percussion, which initially brings to mind something of Ben Folds. As the album progresses, however, things take a few abrupt turns. At intervals Reg seems to invite the likes of Belle and Sebastian, Rufus Wainright and even the Scissor sisters along to the party.

At the heart of this album two songs settle Gentleman Reg most comfortably into a landscape of synthesiser heavy, electro-pop. ‘We’re in a Thunderstorm’ and ‘Falling Back’ had me convinced I was listening to the confections of Gallic-pop-combo, Phoenix. Even the lazy way Reg slurs his lyrics suggests a fraudulently French approach to the art of singing in English.

Apparently Reg, ‘has made his sexuality a matter of public record’ and is ‘regularly involved in Gay Pride events’, which strikes me as a curious thing to feel the need to emphasise in pre-release publicity. Half the time, I admit, I didn’t have a clue what the record was making public through its garble of mumbled lyrics, but the music can be dangerously catchy. Occasionally whimsical, more often upbeat, it’s sweet tasting and fluorescent. Certainly not ‘Jet Black’.

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23rd Mar 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Andrew Bird

Noble Beast

Bella Union

In recent years there has been an endless stream of male singer/songwriters oozing out gentle melodies plucked from delicate guitars and swirling with rich, textural strings and I'm quite honestly bored of the lot of them. Andrew Bird, however, provides exactly what i've just described but has always stood head and shoulders above the rest. His 2007 album Armchair Apocrypha won him critical acclaim across the board and topped many 'best of' lists that year. It was the album that lifted his sound way above his previous work and uncovered a wealth of ideas that had until then remained relatively unexplored. Noble Beast does however return somewhat to the earlier, less flamboyant sound of albums like Weather Systems. It's much more subdued in both tone and scale compared to Armchair Apocrypha but like all his work it is filled with warmth and a musical texture that surpasses most.

As a multi-instrumentalist, Bird meticulously constructs the densest musical backgrounds and Noble Beast excels in this area. With some of the skyward intentions toned down here compared to 2007 each song is given the time and space to explore this multi-layered and rich texture. This beauty is seen from the very first note. Opener Oh No introduces this record with Birds trademark whistles and assumes a rather jovial, jaunty tempo while dealing with the theme of pure terror. Inspired by a flight he took while sat next to a wailing child Bird says of the experience "I was struck by the mournfulness of this kid's wail. He just kept crying 'Oh no' in a way that only someone who is certain of their own demise could." And here lies the dichotomy in Birds work and one of the many answers to my earlier question of why he stands so proud of his singer/songwriter piers. Musically this album drips with cosy warmth and yet features some of his most deranged lyrical content ever. Stories of kittens with pleurisy and grown men living inside his body Bird creates here a work of infinitely evolving detail.

This record has some of the longest songs he's ever made. At over six and a half minutes Masterswarm frequently changes direction and with the luxury of time manages to drift off into blissful instrumental segments ultimately fading out to the sound of the rhythmic handclap beat as filtered through an effects program that could be from the Thom Yorke portfolio. Many of these songs feature Bird's enthusiasm for subtle experimentation such as this. Not A Robot, But A Ghost has some gloriously intricate and homemade percussion as its rhythm section that morphs with twitchy laptop beats to form a driving swarm of rhythm that propels the song along at a pace that the afore mentioned Thom Yorke would be proud to call his own.

Recorded partly in Nashville and partly at the Wilco Loft in Chicago this record couldn't fail to be a triumph, and a triumph it certainly is. It's slow burning but its depths are unfathomable at this early stage. It's a worthy follow up to 2007's impressive work and features some of this artists finest compositions. Some of them are so perfect they are in danger of being consumed by the advertising monsters but the ones that escape this pitfall will stick with you for a very long time.

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4th Feb 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Antony & The Johnsons

The Crying Light

Rough Trade

It's been nearly four years since the operatic tones of Antony & The Johnsons breakthrough album I Am Bird Now took the music world by storm - well, the Mercury Music loving crowd at least. The Crying Light is the belated follow up, building on that success with confidence and style and again pushing forward the boundaries of popular music.

In name alone, "The Crying Light" gives a pretty clear idea of what to expect. Openers Her Eyes Are Underneath the Ground, Epilepsy Is Dancing and One Dove set the tone - with mournful, haunting vocals over piano and strings creating ethereal soundscapes reminiscent of the dreamy pop of the Cocteau Twins or This Mortal Coil. This is visual music, haunting and narrative - with suggestions of love, loss, life and death ...wait a minute, isn't that what everyone's talking about at the moment?

It's not all doom and gloom, and as early as Kiss My Name there's a chink of light at the end of the tunnel, as a more upbeat piano lifts the mood - accompanied by soaring strings and shuffling drums. It's back to the blues for the guitar-led title track, before lead single Another World brings the mood down again - as well as making for one of the more disappointing tracks here, plodding slowly along and highlighting the essentially straightforward method behind the magic of this album.

Thematically the songs are very consistent, giving a soundtrack feeling to the record - which seems built around centerpiece Daylight and The Sun, which by the time it arrives sound like a reprise itself, swelling beautifully and floating over piano and strings. Touching and melancholic, this record continues along the strikingly original path forged by the debut and should certainly cement the reputation of Anthony Hegarty as a creative force.

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21st Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

John Frusciante

The Empyrean

Record Collection

Since he escaped his tooth-consuming drug addiction and returned to the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1998, guitar hero John Frusciante has released a remarkable 10+ records through his solo projects - while of course playing a major part in the rehabilitation of the Chili Peppers from punk-funkers to stadium-filling, serious rockers.

While the results of the experimentation on his 2001 and 2004 solo albums have had an obviously positive effect on the Chili Peppers (most notably through the mind-blowing guitar-theatrics of Stadium Arcadium), he still manages to hold plenty back for himself - and there are not many albums that kick off with a 9 minute space-jam. Frusciante's own notes recommend that the album is played "as loud as possible and it is suited to dark living rooms late at night" - and the opener re-affirms that point. Slowly building from a lone drum, it's a vocal-free track where the guitar does the singing (sorry), as we are slowly drawn into the album.

The roles are reversed on Song To The Siren - a cover of the Tim Buckley classic, which is notable here for it's lack of guitar, instead relying on Frusciante's haunting vocals to beautifully carry the song - with delicate keyboards providing much of the charm, both here and throughout the album as a whole. Once we're warmed up, Unreachable provides one of the many high-points of the record, seemingly using a two minute intro as an excuse to unleash the stunt guitars for a blistering 4 minute outro.

The David Axelrod-style production tricks are in full-effect through the album, with some of Frusciante's more eccentric moments adding a great deal of personality to the record, whether he's singing in a faux booming voice on One More Of Me, or looping choral-style samples on Dark Light - which again uses a haunting intro, before segueing into a seemingly separate song and building beautifully on a simple bassline to hypnotise you through another 8 minute epic.

The relatively lavish production quality of Shadows Collide With People is still absent here and would have benefitted the record greatly, although production is certainly a step up from the more lo-fi home-studio vibe of many of the solo projects. Although, when you're a rock star living in the Hollywood hills, the home studio is not what it used to be. The vocals are sometimes often over-effected, where they would perhaps be more effective raw - but don't worry, there's plenty of room for another epic before the end and Central provides another soaring high point to the album, winding samples and booming keyboards through a heavily layered guitar track that builds and builds.

As a complete record, this is certainly a more focused release than Frusciante's six-albums-in-six-months period, as while each of those records yielded several gems, there was a certain sense of in-cohesiveness, which is clearly absent here. While Frusciante describes The Empyrean as a "concept album", he acknowledges that it may not come accross as narrative in that sense, but there is certainly a running theme within the songs, which all hold the same mood and tone - echoing feelings of loss, death and spirituality. The result is an outstanding, thoroughly involving and innovative album - which provides a sometimes challenging listen, with many rewards.

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19th Jan 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Guns 'N Roses

Chinese Democracy

Polydor

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blitzen Trapper

Furr

Sub Pop

Since Wild Mountain Nation, this Portland band's 2007 critically acclaimed album, there has been much talk about the brazen diversity of the lo-fi gems that littered that record, the way it lurched from avant-guard guitar noise to dreamy country heartbreakers. So it's surprising and refreshing to get this follow-up which seems to turn its back on much of that praise and is a crystal clear exploration of everything from 70's rock legends like The Grateful Dead and The Byrds to all the roots country melody that preceded that. They still embody the Beck sense of experiment but have made a decisive choice as to which elemnt of the previous record they wish to develope.

Furr is way more consistant than Wild Mountain Nation and though it lacks the debuts experimental flare it makes up for it in its ability to roll out songs that range from the wilderness-wandering soul of Stolen Shoes & A Rifle and the psych-rock skyrockets of Fire And Fast Bullets. The charm of Blitzen Trapper is that they are so heavily embedded in a rootsy/country sound but are, at the end of the day, an indie rock group who have grown up with the DIY mentality of bands like Pavement. Put all this together and the result is a sound that wears its influences proudly on its sleeve but at the same time manages to disguise them beautifully.

Much of Wild Mountain Nation seemed to filter Eric Earley's vocals through effects that kept it distant, yet here it is brought to the forefront and is gleamingly clear and intimate. Furr excells because the lo-fi elemnt is kept at a minimum and the intention here is to make complete songs that ooze atmosphere with their embracing of Dylan style narrative as in the story of muder and revenge in Black River Killer. Dusty landscapes roll out infront of songs like these, landscapes that hold in refuge all sorts of fugatives and runnaways. Slide guitar tumbles along, accompanied by the gentle acoustic strum, but the two can just as easily be interupted by swirling, narcottic guitar and playful yet decrepit keyboards. This musical mix and Earley's sometimes soulful and sometimes shrieking vocal delivery seem to ask more questions than they answer and yet it's in these questions that Furr's ultimate success lies. In lesser hands an album such as this would be of no use to the world but amongst its solid songs loiters an unruly side that will keep you coming back for more.

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29th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Deerhunter

Microcastle

4AD

Fans of this Atlanta four-piece are in for a real treat with the release of their first album for 4AD. Microcastle is the followup to 2006's critically acclaimed Cryptograms and departs from the highly constructed debut by doing away with much of the vast atmospherics, lifting the overall tempo of the record and injecting some exciting muscle into their sound. But this isn't the only treat in store. The release is accompanied by a bonus disc entitled Weird Era Cont. and is an album in its own right consisting of 13 new tracks.

Like The Pixies quiet/loud contrasts, Deerhunter construct their sound using a similar grasp of opposing forces. Their success lies in it's ability to build great, all-encomassing soundscapes of fog that swirl around you like soup, and then in a blink of en eye pierce this density with a clarity that dissipates all around it and appears, standing alone and shining with dazzling intensity. The other contrast widely used here is in scale. Opening track Cover Me (Slowly) launches off with crashing cymbols and soaring melody that instantly evokes visions of an ever expanding landscape growing wider and wider from a bounless basis. In a blink of an eye Agoraphobia follows this with stripped down drum beats and Bradford Cox's intimate vocals and the listener is abruptly jolted down to earth. Cryptograms employed the same use of contrasts but did it from song to song with almost every other song being an expansive and densely textured instrumental composition. Microcastle incorporates all this but does it in a way that brings a smoother flow to the album.

Bradford Cox's vocals shift greatly according to the musical arena they find themselves in. The slow pace of Activa brings with it Cox's thick, laborious delivery as if each word is wading through treacle. Whereas Nothing Ever Happened with it's deep driving guitar and relentless beat sees Cox drift with dreamy buoyancy. Like his side project Atlas Sound, Cox creates very thoughtful compositions where each word uttered is enveloped by bristling synth fuzz, gentle percussion and layer upon layer of subtle sampling and production. But he builds on this greatly with this release adding muscular guitar chords that, in the case of Nothing Ever Happened and closer Twilight At Carbon Lake, gather up all this delicate construction and cary it all away on huge waves of spund that never seem to end. They bring an epic quality to the latter half of the record and continue the trend well into the bonus disc.

Weird Era Cont. is far less considered and benefits greatly for it. The songs seem to be less precious like the hard work was done with the first disc and the pressures off here. As a result it's as good if not better than the lead record. Once you reach the end of this disc you get a dazzling idea of what it was all building up to in the form of the final track Calvary Scars II / Aux Out. It's a ten minute finale of epic proportions that ends up pounding and pounding and in the course of this it changes the face of thsi whole release and it, and the entire second disc bump the whole thing up to a fine score.

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27th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Harold And Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay

(dir. Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg)

New Line Cinema

More dumb stoner fun from Harold and Kumar. This time they're trying to bust out of Guantanamo after getting arrested mid-flight to Amsterdam when Harold's smokeless bong is mistaken for a bomb.

If you've seen the first one, you'll know what to expect: mid-to-low brow stoner jokes with enough room and wit for some sly social commentary. That it's a stoner film prepared to actually acknowledge the madness of Guantanamo Bay is all to its credit; obviously it's hardly the most in depth critique, but like their take on racism in the first one, it does make it a film with something to say (alongside all the pot-shots).

There's another great cameo from Neil Patrick Harris aka Doogie Howser, some more trippy nonsense and a realness to the H&K friendship - not bad for a film with a unicorn in it. It's a pretty mindless romp in some ways, ambling along from wacky adventure to wacky adventure, but that's also what makes this likable comedy work. 

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24th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Gomorra

(Dir Matteo Garrone)

Fandango

Two kids decide to take on the local crime boss. A mafia-funded tailor decides to moonlight for a Chinese sweatshop. A politician looks for new sites to dump toxic waste. A mob money man decides he's had enough. A grocery boy gets drawn into an escalating turf war.

Dizzying reinvention of the mafia movie, based on the nonfiction book by Roberto Saviano. Far from the glamour of The Godfather or even The Sopranos, this is more like a Naples version of The Wire. We're thrown into the middle of five stories, which build up a crushing portrait of a city in chaos; it's not so much that the system has failed here, but that even the crime culture which has stepped into the void seems to have spiralled out of control, light years from the honour amongst thieves myth we've seen time and again. 

It's beautifully shot, with the housing estates where the bulk of the action takes place rising up like decaying Mayan pyramids. Scenes are artfully constructed, with details like a freshly manicured hand or a statue of Jesus being winched down an estate balcony standing out amidst the action. That's not to suggest that this elegant movie glosses over the trauma and social breakdown - far from it. Violence is ever-present, brutally casual and everyday. It's a bewildering experience, as we float from story to story and back again, wondering how they connect - and also wondering how any of the characters can possibly hope to escape the lives they've found themselves in. 

At 137 mins, it's a long haul, but well worth it. Strong contender for one of the films of 2008.

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1st Oct 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Ben Weaver

The Ax In The Oak

Bloodshot

Modest Mouse and Iron & Wine producer Brian Deck joins Ben Weaver once again on his sixth studio album and the result is a more experimental sound that lifts this record from the sometimes slow grind of his previous efforts. The partnership here between these two artists is more of a collaboration as Deck does way more than produce this piece of work. The Ax In The Oak sounds more like a question and answer exercise as one artist uses what the other has given as a launching pad for multiple departures.

All the regular trappings are here, with Weaver's gruff delivery dominating every second, his lyrics as bare and exposed as ever but the addition of beautifully subtle electronic texture seems to go some way to providing much needed warmth and support to these exposed vocals. But ultimately it's the vocals that makes Ben Weaver so unique. Like Silver Jews' David Berman, Weaver has an ability to see the world in all its day-to-day minutia and uses this attention to detail to describe the larger concepts we all struggle to understand. Opening song White Snow declares "You get one wish for each dot on a junebug's wing / And there's only one dot on the one I'm holding...I'm not going to waste it on you." Likewise, Anything With Words states "The truth is no rounder than a tired horse's eyes."

The themes in Weaver's songs are as earthy as his voice. Nature features strongly with foxes, hawks, alligators and crows all drifting by the desolate Weaver landscape. This is very real music as every hum-drum experience contributes to Weavers creative tapestry. But reality isn't always pretty and Weaver doesn't shy away from this. His tales of monotony, loneliness and dead birds can sometimes sound awkward but it's in this awkwardness that the captivation lies.

Such wisdom appears quite startling from someone in his late twenties and the manner by which this wisdom is administered is also staggeringly mature. For an artist like this to be so often compared to Tom Waits the mind boggles at what he'll be sounding like in 20 years time. But great music will often disguise both its origins and the direction it intends to go and throughout all six of this guys records both these elements remain unclear. The standout track here is Hey Ray and if this is any kind of hint at the road that lies ahead for Weaver's music then it is more than encouraging. The lonely strums of the acoustic guitar are so shrouded in loneliness that when they are eventually enveloped by Deck's warm bass and delicate beat it's hard not to feel a shiver. At over six minutes long Hey Ray is the most subtly ambitious song to date. It shows Weaver's ability to sing about desolation so convincingly and yet shroud his words with such intimacy. He's left "the ax in the oak and the pot on the stove" but assures us he'll "be back in a while." Mr. Weaver, we await your return with baited breath.

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10th Sep 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Calexico

Carried To Dust

City Slang

Pressing play on the new Calexico record is akin to gently parting the curtains after a restless, fever plagued night to find the new day outside well into it's swing, the world still spinning and the sun still beating down mercilessly. As the light streams in you're weary figure is bathed in its healing warmth and your woes of the night before are banished to a distant memory. And the more this album casts this light on all other offerings from this band, 2006's Garden Ruin is illuminated as something of a blip, a brief moment of bad form, and even though it was by no means a poor album it has become glaringly obvious that Carried To Dust is what this band do best. But that is not to suggest that this is merely Calexico by numbers.

Having opted for the bold yet polite statement of Garden Ruin, Joey Burns turns the haze up once again and he and his blissful music retreat into the shadows. And its from here that the familiar dusty sounds of Calexico emerge gently, feeling no need to hurry or impress, choosing the subtle, time honored approach and allowing their sweeping cinematic panoramas to gradually seep into your being. It's a roaming album that makes its way through sprawling, sun-baked terrain, its eyes set on the ocean ahead as a symbol for new shores. Along the way it picks up many characters from murdered political poets to refugees displaced from their homeland.

Musically, Carried To Dust is a masterclass. Every note played and every word breathed serves the grand purpose. The dry landscape of Two Silver Trees is pricked by the crispest of notes that twinkle like timid sprouting shoots. Burns' whispered vocals step into the light cautiously then as the music swells the song expands to magnificent sweeping vistas. The same can be said for The News About William that follows. The addition of the string section provides the grandeur here with Burns' voice rising from its hushed tones to match the soaring horns and violins.

Calexico can evoke scenes of endless landscapes bathed in light and warmth but in an instant can fill these visions with seething tension. Fractured Air both in title and sound illustrates this perfectly with its clipped guitar and clenched reservation. The apocalyptic Man Made Lake simmers all the way through, the beat and tinkling piano suggesting a twilight where all is not at rest. This tension is brought to a magnificent and unusual head as screeching guitars bring this song to an uneasy but expert close. Then by contrast, songs like Slowness with its sweet female accompaniment and slide guitar and the album closer Contention City drift along on a warm breeze with lazy, idyllic lethargy.

House Of Valparaiso could be one of the most perfect Calexico songs to date. It has all you want from this band from Burns' hushed tones setting the scene then the heat being turned up ever so slightly with the inclusion of gentle mariachi trumpets. These are then layered by the rising vocals soaring effortlessly over head of the pitter-patter rhythm like a thermal riding bird of prey. Carried To Dust consolidates all that this band has learnt from its long history. It doesn't just rehash the many successful elements of 2003's Feast Of Wire but builds on these via the lessons learnt from Garden Ruin. Calexico have always been a band that dare to experiment with the tradition in which they are firmly planted but their need for experimentation never overtakes the music. It is always employed solely to serve the song and this album shows that it's this reserved flair that is the ultimate triumph for these songs.

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1st Sep 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Rescue Dawn

(dir. Werner Herzog)

Gibraltar Entertainment

German-American Dieter Dengler (no relation to Mark Wahlberg's character in Boogie Nights) likes to fly. So much so, that he joins the US Airforce and finds himself flying covert missions over Vietnam and Laos as the Vietnam War starts to escalate. After being shot down, he is captured by Pathet Lao guerillas and taken to a POW camp, where he meets long detained Americans and Air America 'employees'. Determined to escape, the group hatch a plan - but once they are out of the prison, the jungle proves to be an even more ruthless captor.

German marverick Werner Herzog remakes his own 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly with mixed results. Well known for never using storyboards, Herzog brings his documentary-style film making to the project, which coupled with the average cinematography gives the movie an 80's TV movie feel. In fact, if it wasn't for the thrilling story you could occasionally be forgiven for thinking you were watching an episode of Tour Of Duty. With an improvised script.

That improvisation leads to some limitations on the editing - which often seems to work around a scene, rather than present it as well as possible - as well as providing some shockingly jarring special effects (Herzog's first). In turn, the direction does some disservice to what could easily have been a world class performance from Christian Bale, who clearly put everything he had into the role - no doubt studying Dengler's mannerisms in detail from the original documentary. Showing a shocking loss of weight throughout the story, Bale method eats his way through the film - literally devouring a plate of maggots and a snake in the process. Steve Zahn and the ever twitchy Jeremy Davis provide additional support with the cameraderie between the malnourished prisoners varying from intense to downright maniacal - occasionally seeming more like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest than The Great Escape.

Engrossing despite itself, this is a remarkable story that is well worth taking the time for. You cannot fail to be drawn into the desperation of the situation and the relief and euphoria at the end is simply overwhelming.

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9th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Ween

Shepherd's Bush Empire, London

May 8th, 2008

We have a lot to thank ATP for. Twice a year they ship over highly rated, under-appreciated (by us Brits at least) bands who could often not justify the air fare. Lucky for us, these bands often squeeze a few other dates in while they're in Europe - and fortunately Ween were no exception, making their first UK appearance since 2003. Billed as "An Evening with Ween", the band were scheduled to be on stage at 8pm - with no support, for a three hour set. As a longtime fan/part time believer in the cult of Ween, it was make or break time.

Shortly after 8, the lights dimmed and the crowd erupted. Shoeless and Geneless, Dean Ween took to the stage, before powering up the band with a beefed up version of Fiesta, from last year's La Cucaracha. Gene soon joined brother Dean on stage as they segued into Take Me Away - and the power and prescision of the band set things up for a night of fun, that was unfortunatley barely matched again.

Like a hilarious comedian who ruins his potentially flawless routine with constant fart jokes, the show pretty much played out like any Ween album - patchy as hell. Unfortunatley, a live show lacks the one essential item for making any Ween album bearable - the skip button. For every chunky verion of Bananas and Blow, I'll Be Your Johnny On The Spot or Voodoo Lady there was an over-extended labrious wander through many others from their vast catalogue. Sound problems didn't help, with Thin Lizzy-esque power anthem Gabrielle amongst many tracks drowned in the poor sound, which managed to muffle even the drums and treble.

Many of my own favourites were left out (where were Stay Forever, What Deaner Was Talkin' About, Did You See Me?, If You Could Save Yourself and It's Gonna Be A Long Night?), possibly because it turned out it wasn't such a long night after all - a mere two and a half hours - and if they'd cut out the brown noise that made up most of the show we could have been going home after around 45 minutes.

Criticisms aside, I certainly feel like I have the minority opinion here - with most of the packed out crowd having the time of their lives. Beer bust at the Empire! For me, the dream is over. At best they're like Zappa, at worst it's like watching a pub band rehearse their latest wacky Barbara Steisand cover - complete with National Anthem Guitar Solo. I have seen an alternate reality where Tenacious D are leading the world in musical experimenation and it scared me.

I feel like I've escaped from a cult and while I feel an occasional nostalgia for the fellow moonies I left behind, it sure feels good. For now.

Check out more photos over at our Flickr page.

Watch videos from the show at DrDamage73's YouTube page.

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13th May 2008 - 2 comments - 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.

#Music
#BC

7th May 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Iron Man

(Dir Jon Favreau, 2008)

Very fun blockbuster antics, that matches cool tech FX w Robert Downey Jr's patented smartass delivery. Without either them working it would be a pretty generic exercise in the routine "superhero powers up; finds baddy; has a big fight" plot. It never quite hits those "America! Fuck Yeah!" moments you want from a film like this, but it comes pretty close, and the RDJ charm is in full effect throughout.

The various Iron Man prototypes are all accompanied with some highly satisfying sound effects as boozy billionaire genius playboy Tony Stark works his way up from the 1.0 version of the suit he builds to escape from some al-Qaida style bad dudes who kidnap him in the desert somewhere.

The supporting cast isn't bad either: chimp hero Jeff Bridges rocks a mean bald/beard combo and does a good growl throughout. Gwyneth Paltrow is a bit blank, and keeps changing her hairstyle a lot, but isn't too bad as Stark's long-suffering PA Pepper Pots (howcome all superheroes get potential girlfriends with alliterative names?). If you're a Marvel fan, you'll enjoy the "next time" nod from Terence Howard's military man when he gets to check out the suits.

On the down side, there are some awful product placement moments from various cars and burger chains who've forked over big $$$ to get in there - hasn't anyone in Hollywood seen Austin Powers?!

Not sure the politics are really that thought through either: he's an arms manufacturer who gets upset when he sees his weapons blowing things up for the wrong people, so he decides to blow them up, but still let his company sell weapons to the good guys (America)? eh? Er, here the RDJ charm offensive comes into full swing: never mind that, here's another smart line from Downey...

Bound to be a franchise. Could have done with the full Black Sabbath tune somewhere in there too. Just about fun enough.

#Film
#chimp71

1st May 2008 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Atlas Sound

Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel

4AD

"The dream of one summer, this last summer I had. It's almost as if I had one continuous dream and the product of achieving it is the album you have here." And so writes Bradford Cox, the creator behind Deerhunter and this, his earliest incarnation and solo pursuit, Atlas Sound. Let The Blind... is the debut album under this name and "one continuous dream" would be an accurate way to describe it. With themes of nostalgia and childhood infiltrating every pore of this sound much of its conception can be attributed to one whole summer where, as a 16 year old, Cox lay immobilized in a children's hospital undergoing surgery on his back and chest. This lost summer, spent bedridden and gazing longingly at the world, echoes the bleached out warmth of this sound and the endless dream-like imagery that loom in and out of focus throughout the record.

Let The Blind... is the vehicle by which Cox can express the ideas he feels unable to in Deerhunter. It's a one man bedroom recording of great depth and beauty that spends much of its time swimming in hazy pools of warmth while occasionally rising to minimal peaks of focus before receding back again. It employs similar washes of sound as Deerhunter's 2007 Cryptograms but assumes the roll of its more reserved cousin, lonely and sedated it spends its time indoors dreaming and anticipating.

A muffled child's voice clumsily narrates a ghost story in the opening few moments only to be overcome by a slow approaching wave of sampled glockenspiel that blissfully fades to the gentle rhythms and distant vocals of Recent Bedroom. Cox uses repetition to convey this dreamlike state with looping vocal formations drifting in and out of the listeners consciousness like the various stages of sleep. As the distant muffle of Recent Bedroom gives way to the crisp and clear pitter-patter of River Card you can feel yourself rising from slumber with ease and gentleness. Cold As Ice sees you fall back into the abyss only to be summoned back with angelic grandeur by the chiming synths of Small Horror. From the clipped drum roll of River Card to the sunken 4/4 techno beat of Winter Vacation, Cox smothers every minute of this record in rich effects conjured from homemade electronica.

Compared to his work with Deerhunter this is very much the sound of an individual. Sonically and thematically Let The Blind... describes the space inhabited by this one individual, be it the swirling pastoral landscape of his mind or the confines of a hospital bed. This is a very personal piece of work which manages to shimmer with warmth and shiver with icy melancholy. On Quarantined he sings "quarantined and kept so far away from friends," so his only option is to escape into this dream while he lies there "waiting to be changed."

As the closing fuzz of the final title track echoes opener A Ghost Story, you really have to emerge from this record to rejoin the real world. It's effects are subtle and it's not until it fades away that the spell is revealed and you realise how deep you have been taken. This is an abstract musical journey and seems to flow with a disjointed perfection that makes it work best as a unified whole rather than a collection of songs. It's headphone music to really disappear to and like most of Cox's work it's a fiercely original sound that knows exactly where its going and will take as long as it wants to get there. Your only choice is whether you've got what it takes to tag along.

#Music
#BC

22nd Apr 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Bon Iver

For Emma, Forever Ago

4AD

Imagine you're in a public place, say a train station or doctors waiting room, and you can see this person going round gently and methodically whispering in peoples ears. You notice the look on these people's faces change slowly from one of skepticism to one of wonder and delight. You'd really want to know what this person was whispering right? Well as soon as the opening notes of For Emma, Forever Ago come to rest gracefully on your ears you'll realise what everyone else was hearing and your face will too be full of wonder.

Bon Iver (an intentional mis-spelling of 'Bon Hiver,' french for 'Good Winter,') is the work of Justin Vernon and his debut album is a very special thing indeed. It's one of the most beautiful sounds I've heard in a long time and its conception came about under fiercely controlled circumstances and time scale. After the break-up of his former band, DeYarmond Edison in 2006, Vernon opted out of society and took himself off into voluntary exile. Armed with only a couple of microphones, a baritone guitar, two drums, a horn and a reverb pedal he set off for the desolate landscape of Northeast Wisconsin and spent three months alone in a log cabin. Living off the land and hunting for food Vernon was able to shut himself away from the usual chatter of the world and allow an inner voice to emerge in his work. "I recognise that the record is enigmatic and special in a strange way. I can't take full credit for it, and I was the only one there." With no firm musical objective and the basic pressures of survival to worry about these songs grew organically and were governed purely by the natural artistic process that can only flourish under these circumstances. "I was able to access deeper, darker and even happier shit just by this sort of subconscious way of doing it."

Knowing this back story is not necessary, but it adds to the uniqueness of this record. Each song reflects the barren land in which it was born, as shiver and shudder under the clear sub-zero sky, with Vernon's spectral falsetto delivery trembling delicately like the frail trees that sway in the wind outside his window. But the glow of honesty and dedication burns with the comforting warmth of the log fire that crackles within, making this record endlessly captivating and welcoming. A bleak and lonely guitar strum opens the record, with Vernon's vocals tentatively creeping into view, but it's not long before they gently swell with an increased musical accompaniment like a rising flame. "I am my mother's only one, it's enough," is the line chosen to open this record and with it we see Vernon's thoughts turn inwards to memory as if forced by the elements outside. Lump Sum produces a choral arrangement so spacious it suggests a relationship between the empty space outside and the cavernous boom of a mind devoid of worldly noise. Skinny Love sees a rising of tempo and a new gravel sound creep into the voice as it gets louder. As if by way of response to the deafening silence that prevails, Vernon's words "I told you to be patient, I told you to be fine," lift with striking force but stand ambiguous to their target, a past love or Vernon himself?

There was some degree of post production added to the record once the exile ended, with instrumental accompaniments added by Chrissy Smith of Nola on Flume and Boston musicians John DeHaven and Randy Pingrey supplying horns on For Emma. Vernon achieved the choral sound, seen to great effect on The Wolves, by countless overdubs of his own voice. The subtle addition of these third parties and overdubs work in contrast to Vernon's solitary voice, making an interesting mark on the album's atmosphere. Instead of shattering the illusion of confined spaces this only serves to enhance the loneliness, with these added elements circling the central sound like ghosts of past regret rising to the surface of the memory. For Emma is the penultimate song and the inclusion of the horn section is so startling it brings with it a sense of the regret lifting and some conclusion being reached to the questions that have encircled us throughout. It's presence here is like a brief sighting of human company in this desolation and it swells the heart to triumphant heights. But as the achingly beautiful Re: Stacks fades in, the cold and loneliness encroach once more and you wonder if this sighting was only in your mind.

Re: Stacks brings the record full circle and tapers it off with delicate melody, gentle, resolved guitar strums and the sweetest vocals on the record. It leaves you with quiet resolution and the silence that reigns after the song is finished is all the richer for the sounds that have proceeded it. In this silence you beg the world to give you just a little more time, but slowly and surely it crashes in and the spell is broken - until of course you press play again.

#Music
#BC

21st Apr 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Four Tet

Ringer

Domino

Say what you like about Four Tet but "same ol, same ol" is unlikely to be included. Having put out a rather under-par fourth album in 2005 with Everything Ecstatic and following it with ongoing collaboration with Steve Reid this 4 track EP is the first piece of solo material we've been given for a while, but boy was it worth the wait. Having slightly exhausted his form of cut-up beats and calamitous percussion, he crafts here a more minimal and deep techno formation that hints at conforming but always keeps it's hand hovering dangerously over the sabotage button where the slightest press could send the beat spiraling off into glorious irregularity.

From the opening title track to the closing disco percussion of Wing Body Wing these songs take in deep breaths of space then exude from their every pore sublime ripples of sonic richness. At over 10 minutes in length Ringer is a stunning way to open this EP. The sense of space is achieved by the slow build up and gradual layering of vast swathes of tone and delicate beats that climb upon eachother, higher and higher, until they stand proud, surveying this endless landscape. Ribbons drips with moist lushness while Swimmer rides the wave of a constant, resonating tone then slowly fades in erratic cymbal beats that swirl from one ear to the next with anarchic confidence. Wing Body Wing pulls focus on Hebdon's trademark recuttings of jazz breaks and brings them into line with a deep heartbeat and almost african rhythms. Gentle melody tip-toes around this rhythm making way for driving bursts of synthesizer.

This EP heralds a very promising direction for Hebdon. This is techno made with an afrobeat/krautrock sensibility and it may be minimal but this artists grasp of detail is very much present. Every moment of this record has been viewed under a microscope but the result sounds effortless and joyous. It beats with an unstoppable pulse and shields its eyes from the glaring sunshine ahead as it looks forward to the expanding horizon it has just created.

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15th Apr 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Speck Mountain

Summer Above

Peacefrog

Released way back in 2006, Summer Above - the debut album Chicago's Speck Mountain - is finally reaching our European ears  and like a fine rain it has seeped into my life without me even realizing. Entirely self-produced this record is one of such profound yet subtle beauty that you'll have to be careful not to miss it. Its impact is slow-release and comes in the form of dreamy, psychedelic pop-rock, built on organ drones, shimmering guitars and singer Marie-Claire Balabanian's soft, sedated, honey-dipped vocals.

The title song chimes in with dirty, jangly guitars which lay down an almost 2 minute long soundscape for the first, sweet breath of Balabanian's voice. Close and intimate, nobody is in any hurry to prove themselves here and by the end of this opening track the spell is cast. Hey Moon is a stripped down slice of minimal expertise while Midnight Sun shines with melancholic warmth. Fjord Song sees Balabanian's vocals dripping in reverb and as a result vast caverns of sound emerge from this previously barren landscape like long forgotten monuments. This seems to clear the way for a new and fresher sound and Chlorine Fields is the mighty forerunner of this. At over 8 minutes long it holds you with baited breath in suspended animation before embarking on a tripped out instrumental marathon that sees swirling organ spiraling into an abyss of droning guitar and a thick fog of sound. And if the advancing rain of this record has been building to this point then album closer Blood Is Clean is the fresh result of a storm passing. Clean and crisp, it is the antidote to the previous song and with typical restraint it finishes this record off perfectly.

Speck Mountain have brought with them comparisons to such bands as The Velvet Underground and Mazzy Star, they could also inspire memories of more contemporary sounds like that of Yo La Tengo but ultimately their success is all their own. There is a confidence and humility here that slows the whole thing down to a gentle hum. They effortlessly create space then take their time to fill it. It's repetition and time that makes this sound bore its way into your soul, it swirls with glorious psychedelia but Balabanian's vocals have a focus and clarity that maintain a foreground presence and keeps things from descending into hazy, intoxicated obscurity. Like an exploding star the light of Speck Mountain has taken its time to reach us but now that it's here we can all bask in its warmth.

#Music
#BC

3rd Apr 2008 - 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

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.

#Music
#BC

26th Feb 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Cave Singers

Invitation Songs

Matador Records

Like an England early goal, a January love affair with an album almost certainly spells the inevitable slump into obscurity and defeat when it comes to the final whistle at the end of the year. Seattle's Cave Singers provided me with my first job of the year and though we all look set for a steady economic decline and general misery in the coming 12 months Invitation Songs has taken up the slack with its generous supply of much needed warmth this winter and only time will tell if it's still emitting this warmth come the end of play but I sincerely hope it is.

Cutting their teeth on a post-punk background and name-checking such bands as The Replacements, The Pixies and Fleetwood Mac as their influences this 3 piece has shocked everybody including themselves by creating what can only be described as a folk album. They never listen to folk music, they never intended to make folk music and until recently the guitarist had never even picked up his instrument. But all this can be seen to contribute to the honesty of this music and in this honesty comes its warmth, charm and power.

The music is uncomplicated with gentle guitar melodies being padded out with brushed and slapped drum beats and singer Pete Quirk's nasal drawl provides this music with the abrasion that is often missing from similar artists. Effortless stompers like opener Seeds Of Night (mp3) and Dancing On Our Graves recall Civil War marches with their relentless rhythm, while Helen is a tortured tale of lost love that swells slowly but then fades to nothing. This is the power of these songs as they hold in their repertoire the latent ability to freeze you with a sparse chill or scoop you up and cary you away on a thermal sky rocket, and they do all this without you knowing. This album makes no mission statements so it's effects are not easily spotted but deeply felt. This is very physical music and conjures up a whole host of landscapes around you as it plays. Called swirls around in a barely visible darkness with haunting cries looming out at you while Royal Lawns expands into cavernous halls that echo its melancholy. Elephant Clouds is the backbone of this record and is a curious affair indeed. It bears a strange resemblance to Richard Marx's Hazard and is still a corker. It tip-toes along on what is by now a trade mark nervous tension but then picks up into a galloping torrent of emotionally soaring awesomeness, but as is also a trademark it never fully puts out and leaves you breathless and wanting more.

The aptly named Invitation Songs has welcomed me into this musical year. It is an album dripping with mystery, its melodies are ghostly and empty and yet can turn with dazzling ease into foot-stomping rousers or delicate heart-warmers. Its humility will make it a slow burner but it has the power to seep into every corner of your life and once it does your life will be a better place.

#Music
#BC

30th Jan 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Sons and Daughters

This Gift

Domino

It is unfortunate that the performance I saw given by Sons and Daughters on last week’s Culture Show of their new single ‘Darling’, was so dire. Unfortunate because, having never seen S+D live, I would have thought them to be naturals on the open stage. Their shtick is, after all; Scottish, spiky, raw, guitar and drums combo, fronted by the vocals of Adele Bethel and Scott Paterson. No flourishes, a perfect live proposal.

In spite of the way Adele’s voice strained ever to match the range and quality displayed on their new album, ‘This Gift’, I’m still convinced that live they must be worth the price of a ticket. This is the band’s third album and builds on foundations laid by 2004’s ‘Love the Cup’. To my taste the paired down, Presbyterian joylessness of that first album made listening to it feel like a bit of a duty; I knew I should probably like it but could rarely be bothered with the effort.

With ‘This Gift’ however, the band combine the Gothic gloom of their lyrical landscape with an energetic new pop sensibility. West Coast Scots have always had an instinctual leaning towards American folk, Country and Soul and the land over the horizon can certainly be felt in the roots of this band’s musical origins. But with the aid of producer Bernard Butler, there is now a lightness of touch and eclecticism to the band’s range which helps show off the smooth Glasgow burr of Bethel’s voice.

The songs still talk of desperation, anger and sexual hunger but with a springing dynamism that doesn’t leave you feeling you’ve been beaten on the head with a frying pan for forty minutes. If you’re struggling to get up on these dull January mornings, stick this on and you’ll be given a jolt, a double shot of musical espresso. ‘House in My Head’ pounds out an urgent alarm call but manages to smooth the raw sound with guitar riffs that would delight Johnny Marr. ‘Goodbye service’, ‘Chains’ and the fabulous ‘Iodine’ make musical reality out of their lyrics. Lines that speak of ‘Trains in the distance’ and ‘High tension lines’ are driven with the momentum of a rampaging railroad engine. And when 60’s stomp ‘Darling’ urges you on with ‘twistin in, twistin out the night’, I dare your foot not to be tapping.

#Music
#LG

26th Jan 2008 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Instruments Of Science And Technology

Music From the Films of R/Swift

Secretly Canadian

With Richard Swift's debut release, he introduced us to the twin sounds of The Novelist/Walking Without Effort, before 2007's Dressed Up For The Let Down proved to go the distance and become one of the year's most lasting album's - providing an understated sound that was rich in detail.

With side-project Instruments Of Science And Technology, Swift takes us on another unforeseen journey, once again heading out into different territory to pull together the sountracks to a selection of imaginary films: Music From the Films of R/Swift.

Opener Ashes serves as an intro to the album, before leading into the upbeat INST - more pounding electronica that soundtrack. Themes and repetition are explored with the un-ordered Themes 3, 4 and 5 and the double barrel of Plan A & Plan B, and while there may or may not be actual films to accompany the music there is certainly a cinematic influence. The atmospherics of Brian Eno are the most obvious namecheck, with long, slow soundscapes building up and down altering the mood.

With Swift's characteristic voice virtually absent from the album, it's hard to place this alongside his existing work - as his vocal sound and lyrics are so integral to the success of both the debut and Dressed Up For The Let Down. If forced to view the album as a stand alone work it may not be perceived as the most original or unique record out there, but it's a solid album of textured electronica that adds another string to this man's bow. It also adds another subtle layer to the music he produces for his day job and that layer will hopefully be all the more apparent on future work.

#Music
#NM

21st Jan 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Reaper

Pilot

E4/ CW

"Sam didn't even go to college!"
"Yes he did Kyle and we're very proud of him for trying... It's just that college made him sleepy..."

Like this new Slacker meets Men In Black (he's the man in slack) where hell on earth turns out to be the local DMV (where you get your driving licence in the States) and Ray Wise (Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks) is a smooth soul-searching Devil.

Bret Harrison is the DIY store goof-off who finds out on his 21st birthday why his parents have been letting him cruise through life so far - they sold his soul before he was born (thinking they could get out of the deal on a technicality - not having kids).

During a weird birthday, he gets to grips with his powers, gets tooled up by the Devil, and sent out on his new mission, to return any escaped dead people to hell. You can see how this is going to pan out, with a bit of working out who the hell dude of the week was when they were alive, while still dealing with the rest of the schmucks at work and his folks etc, but it's played for fun, doesn't take itself too seriously, and skips through the nonsense fast enough to make it watchable.

Also has one of the best bits of product placement on TV for a while - he gets to use a Dirt Devil mini-vac to suck the wandering souls back to hell.

#TV
#chimp71

30th Dec 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Anthony Reynolds

British Ballads

Hungry Hill/Spinney

Anthony Reynolds doesn’t like going out. In his third album, British Ballads he looks out at a world of ‘buses, cafes, people’s dead faces’ and says ‘no, no thanks’. ‘What’s the point of going out?’; well not a huge amount if it’s to experience Reynold’s gloom ridden landscape.

This singer-songwriter prefers to stay at home. He proudly announces that he doesn’t read the papers or watch TV and experiences life through the pages of his library. So far so misanthropic. The opening track to this album, however, defies expectations with its bouncing musical optimism. ‘I’ve been around but I’ve got myself nowhere’, he sings in ‘I know you know’ and there is a bittersweet edge to the way the lyrics are coupled with lush orchestration, free flowing keyboard and staccato hand claps. Reynolds has a honeyed voice which is a pleasure to listen to. It’s a shame then, that clunking lyrics and tired metaphors undermine much of the rest of the album.

‘Love feels like stealing and stealing is a crime’. What the hell does that mean? ‘The last bar on lonely street’? God no. I can see the misty eyed sincerity with which these songs were composed but the result feels heavy handed. ‘I’ve never loved like I love you’; ‘a girl and a boy’; ‘noisy city streets’; ‘I'm down and keeping count’; there are hackneyed phrases and analogies which glow radioactively at the heart of too may of these songs. The ambition is laudable but instead of perceptive social commentary, you’re left with the bed-sit sincerity of a guy who rejects the world and probably doesn’t wash himself.

The melodrama of Reynold’s vision comes complete with tolling bells and disjointed piano solos. It aspires to the painful beauty of Jeff Buckley at his most introverted but leaves me thinking instead of 80’s singer songwriters Nicks Heyward and Kershaw. There is even an inkling of the album Regeneration; the Divine Comedy at its least comedic.

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10th Dec 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Phosphorescent

Pride

Dead Oceans

There must be a moment in the sleep process and indeed the death process that is akin to the waking up, a moment where the two states cross over and if this moment were to freeze it would be near impossible to tell whether the body was regaining consciousness or receding. Phosphorescent's 2nd album is cleverly placed in this moment and though it is one of the loneliest and barren records I've heard since Bonny 'Prince' Billie's I See A Darkness it is clearly frozen in a state of waking up. This is not a conclusion I've arrived at easily. Any hint at the direction this record is taking is subtle to say the least, but that is where it's success lies.

Phosphorescent is the work of Matthew Houck and though this sound is comprised of many voices and musical accompaniments it is Houck who leads this choir. Like the afore mentioned Prince Billie, Houck's voice quivers and shakes like a fragile flame. His music is stark and minimal. The production is hollow and there is very little in the way of bass to provide you with any warmth. Periphery noise is often prominent with voices and shuffling creating a sense of emptiness behind Houck's intimate whispering. These are prayers set to music, some people would call that a hymn but these are more intimate and personal than that. 2005's Aw Come Aw Wry was a different affair from Pride, full of marching bands and evangelical fervor but here Houck takes the same sentiment but expresses it in a far more subtle and mystical way. The result is a more spiritual-sounding record.

The start of the album is very different from the end. A Picture Of Our Torn Up Praise and Be Dark Night conjure up the most desolate of landscapes. As cold, dark nights loom we huddle round these saddest of Christmas carols for a glimpse of warmth. Wolves is a divine piece of work. With the help of a gently plucked ukulele Houck starts off, "Mama there's wolves in the house, mama they wont let me out." In this song we see the albums aim to ward off this approaching death. "They make for my heart as their home."

By the time you get down to My Dove, My Lamb the approach has shifted. This song and the next - Cocaine Lights - are twice the length of their predecessors and serve as a total immersion in this prayer. They stubbornly take their time in a Dylanesque repetition of verse and chorus and they are simply dazzling. Were it not for the closer Pride which is over six minutes of wailing these two songs would end the album in uncompromising beauty.

This record creates this bleak image of cold and dark and yet at its heart there is so much warmth. It shows you the world outside but subtly gathers around you and holds you close. Houck's final line on Cocaine Lights ends this truly special album perfectly and sees this vulnerable, flickering flame show encouraging signs of burning bright. "I will recover my sense of grace, and rediscover my rightful place, yes and cover my face with the morning."

Buy this album now.

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6th Dec 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Murcof

Cosmos

Leaf

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

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

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

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

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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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30th Sep 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Okkervil River

The Stage Names

Jagjaguwar

As the first beats of The Stage Names creeps into audible view any fan of this band will undoubtedly realise that times have changed since the fantastic Black Sheep Boy, Okkervile River's 2005 desperate triumph. With The Stage Names, front man Will Sheff has again managed a triumph but its of a wholly different nature. I guess you could call it a triumphant triumph which I would have thought was the best type. Black Sheep Boy had the power to almost drown you in melancholy as Sheff's tales of woe and despair were delivered with treacle like denseness over all encompassing soundscapes. Though he has by no means cheered up he is aiming his desperation to the heavens and the result is epic.

Sheff writes like a novelist and composes songs full of mysterious characters and plays out his worldly misgivings through each of their sad, broken-down lives. While Black Sheep Boy conjured up images of a time long past The Stage Names is very much rooted in the present. Here we see Sheffs characters as musicians, fans or failing victims of the show-biz mangle. All this is told with Sheff's unique lyrical ambiguity as he manages to swamp you with bookish poetry while always slipping a wink here and there to warn you not to take it all too seriously.

The first three tracks set the tempo high as the dirty riffs of Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe count you in, Unless It Kicks is an endlessly climbing rock powerhouse of a track while A Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene has a swaggeringly jovial jaunt as satisfying as a Love Cats-era Cure and as it descends into blasts of trumpet and backing 'doo doo doo's' we could be listening to Spoon. (Yes, it's that good.) But as thrilling as this opening run of songs is we know it can't continue and it just wouldn't be the same without Sheff providing us with ample opportunity to give in willingly to his unavoidable wave of blissful melancholia. Savannah Smiles is an achingly delicate tale of regret and lost moments while Girl In Port is Sheff at his storytelling best.

But if for some unimaginable reason, like you're mental, all this hasn't managed to convince you by the time you get to the penultimate John Allyn Smith Sails then you're given one last chance to reach out and grab this sorry talent by the scruff of its dirty neck. This is Sheff's tribute to the late John Berryman and it's his finest moments to date. Sheff adopts the first person as he chronicles the poets suicide but as a final twist of the grimmest humor he turns the song into a masterful rendition of the Beach Boys Sloop John B. As he launches himself to his death 'with a book in each hand,' the sorry admission, "this is the worst trip I've ever been on," rings out with laughable desperation and this songwriters genius is immortalised for ever.

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7th Sep 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Sixtoo

Jackals And Vipers In Envy Of Man

Ninja Tune

Robert Squire aka Sixtoo is a man of many talents indeed and trying to pin him down to any one area is proving rather tough. He emerged from the mid 90's underground hip hop scene as an MC to be reckoned with. Sharing the stage with such visionaries as Buck 65 and Sage Francis he soon became synonymous with the Anticon/Mush collective. His 2002 release Duration saw Squire put down the mic and concentrate on the production side of Sixtoo. This has been going from strength to strength culminating in his 2003 Ninja Tune debut Chewing On Glass & Other Miracle Cures, a compelling album dripping with atmosphere. This years Jackals And Vipers builds on this formula but is an altogether darker affair.

Constructed using meticulously stitched together recordings of various live sets then taken into the studio and rendered down to their basic elements this record works as a wonderfully rich film-noir soundtrack played out in 13 movements. Each track is named Jackals & Vipers In Envy Of Man Parts 1-13 and they are designed to be listened to as a continuous whole.

Things start off pretty dark with a brief intro leading us into the drum heavy Part 2. Creeping along to pounding beats and sinister synths this awesome opener sets the tone of paranoia and pretty much keeps it up until the final movement. Though very much rooted in hip hop Squires touch is often light and it's in these moments that we see him as a master of his craft. Each sound, whether booming or whispering, is bathed in detail. Each beat comes with added effect and the samples are expertly disguised creating an impressive air of mystery that is essential to the whole. This multi layering and constant reworking can produce insanely claustrophobic compositions but can also lean back allowing strings or a delicate piano chord to evoke grand, spatial landscapes.

As the final movement draws to a close you are left with as many questions as answers but all good art should leave the viewer or listener in this way. Jackals And Vipers opens its arms and welcomes you into its hidden world of paranoia and intrigue but once you leave you'll be none the wiser as to how it was all done. It gives of itself only as much as it needs to and the rest is up to you but seeing as over generosity is often the downfall of instrumental albums such as this Sixtoo manages once again to avoid that pitfall and produce a caged piece of hip hop brilliance.

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6th Sep 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Lightning Dust

Lightning Dust

Jagjaguwar

Who would have thought that the strange and beguiling space-rock monster of Black Mountain would bear so much fruit since its magnificent debut in 2005. This awesome beast has spewed from its depths many fascinating side projects and this most recent one is no exception. Formed by Amber Webber and Joshua Wells this debut album is the total opposite to the mothership's blend of psychedelic rock and penetrating guitars and yet touches the same grand heights. Webber's haunting vocals form the backbone of the sound and the result is a compelling collection of songs that have the quiet power to make you shiver with icy discomfort as in the hollow Take Me Back. Webber's vocal depth was only hinted at on the Black Mountain debut but its power is fully realised here. She sings with such ease and yet commands an epic respect. Her voice can seem up-close and intimate as in the beautiful Castles And Caves and yet conjure up visions of sprawling, desolate landscapes seen on one of the albums highlights Heaven.

Lightning Dust sees Webber emerge from the other side of the dominating rock of Black Mountain with proof that the time spent in its all-encompassing shadow only strengthened her talents and in many respects informed her own work. One of the interesting things about this record is its ability to suggest the same vastness and space as Black Mountain but with a much lighter touch. It's a delicate thing that evokes grandeur by offering emptiness and is another tick in the box of this Vancouver collective and its fantastic record label Jagjaguar.

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3rd Sep 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Shearwater

Palo Santo (Expanded Edition)

Matador Records

For those slackers who missed 2006's dazzling fourth album by Shearwater, Matador are here to save your bacon with a pimped-up re-release consisting of 2 discs and new deluxe packaging featuring some stunning artwork. Palo Santo is the bands first album where Jonathan Meiburg assumes full vocal duties and the result is a grander, more rounded sound that sees them rise like a phoenix from the thick melancholy that engulfed their earlier work. This isn't to suggest that this isn't melancholy. The record is inspired by the life of Warhol muse Nico so it isn't going to be a bag of laughs but while they keep to the icy chill that has become their trademark Palo Santo serves up many moments of awesome grandeur only hinted at on previous records.

Formed in 2001 by Meiburg and Will Sheff, Shearwater was meant to be a vehicle for the quieter songs penned by the two musicians while working on their principle collaboration, Okkervile River. But after the addition of new multi-instrumentalists Shearwater soon grew way beyond initial intentions and Palo Santo is their crowning glory.

La Dame Et La Licorne opens the album and actually mirrors the career of this band quite nicely. It creeps into view with Meiburg's frail, quivering voice barely audible but gradually swells to thumping piano and howling declarations. And this sets us up for Red Sea, Black Sea, one of the albums many highlights. This takes no time to pound with all its heart on the galloping rhythm that dominates this song. It's these moments of real muscle that make this record pull away from the bands back catalogue and race forward with renewed energy and confidence. Seen again in White Waves' gritty electric guitar and Seventy Four, Seventy Five's pounding piano. Having said that, there's still plenty of room for the feather-light delicacy of the title track and the achingly beautiful Failed Queen where hollow landscapes are created with sparse acoustic guitar and the frail musings of Meiburg.

This element is explored in more depth on the second disc where we get demo versions of four of the original tracks. These are drastically stripped down renditions showing the extent to which this vocalist can vary his delivery. Having seen the heat of this voice on the first CD we now get the drifting whisper like a feint trail of smoke from a newly extinguished flame. There are also 4 new songs on this bonus disc including a cover of Skip James' Special Rider Blues.

This is an expansive album from a band who started from humble beginnings but are now evolving into a great rock outfit. Shearwater have always fitted into a tradition of songwriting that seems to capture the great American landscape in all its sparse, lonely beauty but with Palo Santo they have started to evoke the power and strength of this landscape and this refurbishment only serves to enhance that.

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20th Aug 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Various Artists

Hallam Foe - Original Soundtrack

Domino

Film maker David McKenzie wanted to free himself from the convention of composing an original score as a sound track to his forthcoming film Hallam Foe. Discouraged by the prohibitive costs of forking out for already licensed published source music McKenzie decided the best avenue to pursue this would be to approach a record label about buying up a job lot. It was a move that evidently paid off with McKenzie and Hallam Foe winning this year's Best Music in a Film Silver Bear award at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival. McKenzie's master-stroke was plumping for Domino as his label of choice. Who better to paint the aural landscape of a coming of age tale set in contemporary Britain than Domino? With the exception of the title track by label luminaries Franz Ferdinand, not a single song in this collection was commissioned for the film but instead the whole Domino archive was trawled for appropriate tunes. It's a deal that pays off for everyone because Domino have the opportunity to showcase some of their lesser known talent. And what a stable of talent it is too. As much as a film soundtrack this is a chance for the label to say 'meet the family'.

Listening to the Hallam Foe reminded me of those big occasions when one meets a whole new family, perhaps the in-laws or a new step family for the first time. In this case the Domino family. Like all family do's it is a gathering of quite disparate characters who all have little more than a name in common. Like a family from a Mike Leigh film, or Jonathan Franzen novel there are inevitably secrets. The Domino's are no exception and provide a soundtrack populated by acts who all have a role to play.

Opening the album is 'Blue Boy' by Orange Juice, with Edwyn Collins in the role of the family hatchback driving Uncle reminding all that he once zipped around on a scooter and chopped out songs with military beats and Clash riffs. King Creosote discloses the discovery of an extra marital affair that everyone pretends not to know about in 'The Someone Else'. Rebellious cousins have shown up with Clinic's 'if i could read your mind' snarled out like Jonny Rotten singing a Smiths song and U.N.P.O.C screeching 'here on my own' like Frank Black attempting a Talking Heads number. Pssap is the cute little niece playing kazoo and singing about their Tricycle. The role of exotic wife of the uncle who made all the money is played by Juana Molina with a sultry seductive voice. Franz Ferdinand are the golden boys who have been overindulged and fail to entertain. The sister who's been damaged by a broken heart comes in the form of the sweet and sensitive 'I hope that you get what you want' by the soothing Woodbine and all the teenage heart break is narrated by James Yorkston with the wisdom of an 80 year old granddad. The gathering is completed by a couple of annoying younger brother's, in particular Double Shadow with their pretentious sub Prince effort and Future Pilot AKA who linger with a brooding air of menace.

Like any big do, it's not possible to remember all names and recall all the characters, some just add a background hum to the atmosphere of the Hallam Foe affair but on this one meeting alone the Domino family are ones that I'd definitely like to spend more time with.

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31st Jul 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Miracle Fortress

Five Roses

Rough Trade

It's no coincidence that the release of Miracle Fortress' debut album happens to coincide with the belated start of the british summertime. Montreal based multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Graham Van Pelt must be a powerful man indeed to keep the sunshine at bay until he felt fit to offer this album to the world as one play of this idyllic piece of work will tell you where the nice whether has been for all this time. Listening to Five Roses is like lying on your back looking up at the sun, shimmering and dancing between the branches of a sheltering tree. As it blows gently in the breeze shards of light make their way through the foliage to intermittently soak you in their warmth. I include the tree in this analogy because this isn't just your sun bleached, airy-fairy pop record, it's much more varied than that. Van Pelt's vocals drift effortlessly on soaring thermals of delicate synths but also march triumphantly alongside pounding drums and joyous guitars.

Records of this type can often stay out too long in the sun and end up with no real focus to punctuate the breezy soundscapes. Opening track Whirrs puts that to right straight away with it's stomping rhythm and driving guitars. It's not the rising warmth of the rest of the record but it tells us unequivocally to feel free to plan the barbecue cos it's gonna be blue sky's from here on in. Debut single Have You Seen Her In Your Dreams is pure bliss with its soft melodies that will melt any heart and dispel any recollection of winter. Maybe Lately takes a slightly different path to your affection with it's Brian Wilson harmonies and jaunty baselines while Hold Your Secrets To Your Heart is a gently progressing but ultimately triumphant pop master stroke.

The album has a definite progressive structure as it steadily enlarges on this hopefulness throughout the forty three minutes. From the delicate droplets of warmth of the first half songs like Blasphemy with its midway gear shift slowly increase the downpour until the finale of This Thing About You provides us with the full panoramic view of the glorious ocean spread out before us. Granted, this song could evoke images of a T Mobile advert where a guy smugly struts around town on his phone without a care in the world purely cos he's got 400 free minutes, but stick with it and these appalling images will soon melt away. It's a triumphant end to a beautiful day.

Not since I discovered the highs of Loney, Dear's Sologne have I been this satisfied with a record. This is pure comfort without being easy listening. It's blissfully engaging and shimmers and shines as if soaked in light. Highly recommended.

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30th Jul 2007 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Editors

An End Has A Start

Sony BMG

If my record collection was a sinking ship (which before the days of promo cd's and hooky downloads it was) this new album by Editors would be one of the first to go overboard. That's not to say it's bad, it's just totally unnecessary if you have their excellent debut. Very little progress has been made from their soaring musical arrangements that on The Back Room combined to great effect with Tom Smith's baritone strength as frontman.

It's the same story here but the highs are nowhere near as lofty. It's a shame because in their own right these are really solid songs. The title track is a driving tour de force but if you've got All Sparks you don't need it. Bones is the slow, rumbling track that gently builds to a powerful climax but then so did The Back Room's Fall and Camera.

Smith's voice has a booming depth that commands real power but his band provide a sound that we hear all too much these days. The restraint he showed on The Back Room was the source of the tension that held it all together but it's just a bit tiresome here and I just wish he'd let rip now and again. He comes close on The Racing Rats but still frustratingly manages to keep it together. Songs like this and Escape The Nest make the best bids for the peak but by taking the same rout as their predecessors they will be forever shackled.

I like this band, they swim in the same pool as the other NME-loving new comers but don't subscribe to all the pretension that comes with such company. I like the way they're called Editors and not The Editors, I really liked The Back Room and all the b-sides that came with it and really wanted to like this. I was primed and ready, I was an easy target, but they missed, and I'm sure they couldn't give a monkey's that they missed me but I do and that's all that counts.

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21st Jun 2007 - 5 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

The National

Boxer

Beggars

The National are a rare and special commodity indeed, they seem to exist in an alternate reality all of their own. They have an almost Teflon power to repel any concrete judgments that aim to stick to their ethereal outer surface. Though they never claim to make music that breaks boundaries, creatively they exist in a bubble. Their sound recalls artists like Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen but even as I write this my head's telling me "well not really." Artistically they follow their own path religiously. You would never catch Matt Berninger penning an openly anti-war lyric,  instead he expertly crafts word groupings that defy imagination and meaning yet inspire a certain magical imagery that is totally unique to them. The write up on their myspace page puts it perfectly. "The band sings about the kind of dreams that ruin lives, and they make of those dreams the kind of music that saves them."

With Alligator, their 2005 debt for Beggars Banquet, The National pricked up the ears of music critics, bloggers and any one with a heart and at their London gig at Koko they looked openly stunned as the rapturous crowd sang along ecstatically to ever line. It's easy to create honest and unadulterated art in virtual obscurity but how do you do it when your last album genuinely changed lives? Well, Boxer is how.

This follow up contains not a single trace of self awareness. It is as honest and unique as its predecessor and for that reason is like discovering the band all over again. It uses Alligator as a starting point and goes deeper, plumbing newer and far more richer depths of sound and mood. Musically they show a remarkable maturity using great washes of strings to block in their dream-like landscape then send out a resounding boom across this land with pounding piano and the best drumming this band has ever produced.

From the outset it's pretty clear we're in for a treat. Fake Empire is just the kind of opener you want to hear from a band with this much expectation. A rumbling piano counts in Berninger's voice which is gloriously baritone and heralds the first glimpse of the awesome drumming we see so often on Boxer. Mistaken For Strangers has more bite to it, with chugging guitars accompanying the pounding drums. Songs like Green Gloves and Slow Slow just ooze from the speakers with thick, all consuming quality. Slow Slow's gently strummed structure ticks along with a majestic string accompaniment and  ends up soaring on a beautifully toe-tapping rhythm. Matt Berninger writes with almost stream-of-consciousness fluidity and his strange tales of diamond slippers, gay ballets on ice and rosie minded fuzz seem to drip from his tongue with such ease that it's quite hypnotic. Unlike previous albums Berninger never raises his voice on Boxer and the blood curdling scream of songs like Sad Songs' Available and Alligator's Abel has all but vanished. Instead we get a voice almost unfathomable in depth which seems to be used as much as an instrument as a conveyor of narrative.

If I had to include one slight complaint it would be the choice of ending on the record. Gospel brings things to a close on a relatively week note especially as the song preceding it is so wonderful. In my opinion Ada would end this album with more of a lasting power with its haunting melancholia and gently simmering unease. But it seems foolish to dwell on this as you'll rarely be listening to this album once and pretty soon you'll have had it on repeat so often that you wont know how it ends.

This album has a strange power. Its depth is slow releasing and after the third play you'll wonder if someone has switched cd's on you. The myriad of layers encoded in its rich tapestry will reveal themselves to you with ever emerging magnificence until its overall splendor will have you open mouthed in awe and wonder. If it hasn't got you after the fifth listen then there's something wrong with your brain or your audio equipment. You can't do much about your brain but if it's the latter then I recommend hiring a Bentley for a weekend and giving it a go on that stereo. Believe me, it'll be worth every penny.

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10th May 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Dave Derby

...And The Norfolk Downs

Reveal Records

Being a paid up member of both fraternities I see certain similarities between the lot of a music fan and a singleton on the dating scene. Having fallen head over heels before both are ever optimistically on a quest for new loves. Each new date or act that comes by could be 'the one' but even if not hopefully there will be some fun to be had along the way. And all singletons know that to find the 'one' it is necessary to kiss a few frogs or spend a few nights on mattresses rendered uncomfortable by the strategic placement of a rock hard pea. Listening to Dave Derby reminded me of blind dates, and in particular ones that were not very successful. Dave Derby is not a prince dressed up as a frog, he's just a frog.

As with any blind date the agreement to listen to Dave was undertaken in good faith. Aside from getting the gender wrong in this case I decided to proceed on the basis that the match making skills of the Chimpomatic machine have served me well in the past. The prospects of a suitable hook up were not harmed by pre-date reports that Dave Derby was akin to Ryan Adams, a man who's music is often hit and miss but can verge on the sublime when it hit mode. The date had a promising start too. The introductory seconds of opener 'Come on Come on' echoed Neil Young's 'Out on the weekend' - the beguiling introduction to his classic album Harvest. The initial mood lulled me into believing that maybe Dave Derby could be the one, it had something of the sweet melancholy of Beck's Seachange about it - promising as this was one of my more recent loves. So like a date, where the mood is right, the introduction reliable, the venue cool and the company looking good I was confident this could be a night to saviour. That is until Dave opened his mouth.

The problem with Dave Derby is that his voice is rather middle of the road and consequently boring - after a while it becomes something of an endless drone. It is the musical equivalent of glazing over the eyes and hearing almost nothing said by your dinner companion. Even when the effort is made to tune it to what is actually being spoken the lyrical rhymes are lazily predictable ("baby what am I gonna do, I just don't know how I'll get over you"). Though he tries to be edgy and left-field the prevailing sense is of a sentimentality typified by 'You Got to Go' that would be a little to syrupy for Jack Johnson or even the Lighthouse Family. It all just reminded me of a date with no passion or spark. OK, so love may not be on the agenda but a little adventure wouldn't go a miss. If only I had thought to arrange a call from a friend giving me an 'escape early' get out clause from this bad date.

After a full listen to '...And the Norfolk Downs' I assessed the album as one does after a bad date. Maybe the problem wasn't with them, maybe it was me, perhaps I was in the wrong frame of mind, or maybe I just didn't give them a fair crack of the whip? After all it would be harsh to say Dave Derby was entirely without charm. The drumming on songs like 'Albuquerque' has a languid almost lazily hypnotic feel. The hammond organ on 'Baby' briefly does its best to brighten things up. And occasionally, such as on 'My Back Issues', Dave is canny enough to know that he wants to sound like Willy Mason even if he doesn't quite know how to. So being the fair minded type I am I gave Dave another chance, and, in the interests of reviewing accurately, a few more chances too. But as with dates, I should've trusted my gut instinct rather than give into eternal optimism. Dave Derby is still a frog and won't turn into a prince no matter how many times you kiss or listen to him.

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#Muxloe

7th May 2007 - 4 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

CocoRosie

The Adventures Of Ghosthorse And Stillborn

Touch & Go

Whoever earns a living thinking up new names to describe indescribable music leads a very sad and futile existence indeed. Sisters Bianca and Sierra Cassidy of CocoRosie have been victims of this in recent years being absorbed by the so called 'freak folk' genre. Certainly many that inhabit this ever growing genre seem to more than fit the 'freak' bill but since their mesmerizing debut La Maison De Mon Reve CocoRosie have made music so unaware of any genre that they have managed to transcend all this silliness. They seemed to create in a total artistic vacuum shutting themselves off from everything and the result was a listening experience like no other. They enticed you into their mystical world with sounds and voices so distant and foreign that it was like a dream experience. Well, having reveled in this dream undisturbed for two albums, The Adventures Of Ghosthorse And Stillborn may just be the wake-up call I was dreading.

This album is disappointing for all the reasons the first two were so unique. As mentioned earlier, their debut was was like no other - then the follow up Noah's Ark seemed to polish this rough diamond, pulling into focus all the experimentation of its predecessor. With this album they seem way too aware of themselves and the genre they have been allocated. Their beauty has always been their ability to embrace all music - from hip hop to opera to soul - but embrace it unknowingly and innocently. The Adventures of... seems to pull out all these influences and make features of them.

Noah's Ark started off with the human beatbox structured K-hole, but the vocals were delicate and subtle, as was the backing music. Rainbowarriors starts this 3rd record off with a similar idea, but the two songs couldn't be further apart. Here the vocals are blundering and obvious and the whole thing treads dangerously near to parody. This is, unfortunately, the story of the album. Where Bianca's impish squeak was so other-worldly, it has now become grating and Sierra's classically trained voice is often used with no subtlety at all.

But as I hate to be over critical I must say that it's not all bad. When they keep it simple like on Sunshine their beauty returns. Houses' ghostly piano and Sierra's soaring vocals create deep caverns of sound that contrast beautifully. The delicate homemade percussion on other songs like Raphael - who's narrative is sung with such delicate sadness - is quite moving.

Having been totally engulfed in their magical spell from the word go and then been dazzled by the live show, I was more than ready to love this album. CocoRosie are one of the most original outfits to emerge in the last 3 years and they make music the way all art should be made, however once this complete and unassuming entity is released into the world it is in danger of being dispersed. The Adventures Of Ghosthorse And Stillborn shows a crack in CocoRosie's dreamscape and the world is seeping in.

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20th Apr 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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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.

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

Papercuts

Can't Go Back

Gnomonsong

Commissioned by the Chimpomatic Masters to review Can’t Go Back by Papercuts, released on Devendra Bahart's new label Gnomonsong, I dutifully loaded the album and listened to it at my first opportunity. I was damp from a morning walk in the drizzle, there were no spare seats on the train and the girl who I'd coyly spent the week playing eye tennis with was facing the other way. Papercuts didn't help to lift my mood for a day of temping ahead because to be frank I didn't really get it. Imagine that the Lovin' Spoonful had been shown a vision of life 40 years into the future. No longer would they want to sing songs of daydreams, believing in magic or dancing all night to escape the summer in the city. Instead the 60’s free love and ‘tuning in and dropping out’ would have given way to failed office romances, tales of listlessly stoned teenagers and dumping your girlfriend by a 'dear john' letter for the 277th time. Sure 1967 dressed up as 2007 sounded good but I was left wondering – what’s the point?

Fast forward 24 hours to the weekend and Can’t Go Back began to make perfect sense. The sun was shining, the cherry blossom in bloom, contact had been made with the girl with the eyes and I couldn’t care less for the dues they say I’d got. Papercuts were a revelation; providing the dreamiest of soundtracks for a daydreaming boy all set for a day of, well as the Lovin' Spoonful might have said, 'day-dreaming'. Papercuts are a band for moments when time is most definitely on your side. Shut your eyes and you'll be transported back to endless summer holiday evenings of climbing trees and chasing girls, you might imagine lying in the Glastonbury stone circle watching clouds float over head or picture yourself with bare feet in exotic sand. John Brown chugs and lopes like Luna in lustful mode, tripping through daisies and dandelions with the Jesus and Mary Chain might sound like Unavailable and The World I Love wistfully recalls Mazzy Star.

If musical daydreaming is not your bag then Papercuts probably won't win you over. If, however, it is your usual cup of aural tea then I hazard a guess that Can’t Go Back may just be the soundtrack to your summer of 2007. Lovely stuff.

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#Muxloe

3rd Apr 2007 - 10 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Windmill

Puddle City Racing Lights

2007

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

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

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

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

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

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#Muxloe

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