Chimpomatic

The View

The View E.P.

Following in the footsteps of several recent cheeky scallies comes this EP from Dundee band The View. Comin' Down is a raucous rock n' roll song, along the lines of early Who, or Touch Me by The Doors... Face For The Radio is a nice acoustic number, and there's definitely lots of promise in these guys - with an easy going attitude and seemingly casual sound.

They just signed to to James Endecott's 1965 Records, so are currently holed up in a studio with the producer of the first Oasis record - Owen Morris. And they're playing at Brixton favourite The Windmill on June 3rd.

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15th May 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Buck 65

Secret House Against The World

Buck 65 could read a shopping list or even my last rights and I would love it, so I guess I am not the best person to write a review of his music. I think this is his eleventh album (I lost count ages ago) and it sees a real departure from the previous works. He is known for his hobo like musings about life, love, shoe-shine and just about anything -and all this over self-crafted beats and soundscapes. But here we see a new musical injection that at first jars, as it is not what we expect from Buck, but then we realise that the very thing we love about this guy is his freedom from any genre, collective or type and we are right back loving him again.

There are some sublime moments of real beauty here and most of them come with the new inclusion of a female voice that sits so pretty next to the Waits style growl of Buck. We first see this new combo on ‘The Suffering Machine, ‘ a gentle, acoustic led song full of heart wrenching sadness about a lost soul ambling aimlessly from place to place with no friends and waiting for the “Black angel,” to carry him down. On his web site, Buck reviews his own albums. He says that this album has what was missing all along and that is melody, female voice and lushness Well this song has all of that. I never thought a hip hop song could bring tears to my eyes but The Floor does just that. You listen with open mouth as he tells the story of his abusive father coming home and throwing "the goldfish to the cat on the kitchen floor" while his beaten and down trodden mother just smiled "the saddest smile I’ve ever seen in my life."

Buck has grown up with this album. It is about serious stuff and though it has all the profound musings that we have come to expect, the musical composition adds weight to the words and it’s truly moving. Buck gives it three out of five on his site but I will see that and raise it.

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12th May 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Archie Bronson Outfit

Derdang, Derdang

These days a record label is not complete until it has a David Byrne inspired vocalist on their books. Rough Trade got theirs with The Arcade Fire, Wichita with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and now Domino have found theirs. Hailing from the West Country, Archie Bronson Outfit are not something you would want to listen to if you were of a nervous disposition, or in the least bit on edge. This is not a criticism, it’s just a pretty stressful experience listening to Derdang Derdang, the groups second album. They have managed to create a real sense of urgency that except for the final track is pretty much unrelenting. The whole album can be summed up in the stand out track Dart For My Sweetheart. On the whole, I frown upon songs that use counting, or days of the week as their structure - but this one is an exception. It starts “One is a gun with a dart for my sweetheart,” and continues up to twelve. All this over methodical, driving and jangling guitar and drums. Arp, the drummer and lyricist says, “There’s a nursery rhyme feel to the lyric, the counting stuff.” His kids ain't getting no sleep tonight.

The band claim this album was written and recorded in a very short space of time while they were all living together - and this comes as no surprise to me. It has a captivating sense of immediacy and the ever building tempo in each song threatens an approaching explosion, but rarely gives in. The tension comes from a combination of repetitive guitar rhythms, screeching free jazz saxophone and distinctive, paranoia filled vocals - delivered with such energy and force you have to either switch off or sit up and take notice. On Dead Funny he orders us, “don’t worry just get your head down.” Sound advice I think.

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10th May 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

King Kong

(dir. Peter Jackson)

The biggest chimp of the all, revamped by the LOTR crew.

For some reason it's taken a while to get round to this super-ape outing here at chimp HQ, so it's nice to finally open up the DVD (although there's 2 bullshit ads included as part of the "extras" on my R3 copy).

Like what Peter Jackson's done over his career, and there's some nice touches to his monster/gore past which I wasn't expecting in the Skull Island bits (been so long since I saw the original that the plot was basically new to me).

Jack Black's money-making movie director works well in the first half, although you do get the impression that Jackson sympathises with his blagging skills and general enthusiasm for getting a film made, which does seem to jar a bit with the second half in New York, with Black then the evil maestro putting on Kong's Broadway debut.

Naomi Watts does the most with her scream and faint routine, and gets the compassion for Kong over without saying too much. It's much more of a human getting on with a wild animal relationship than some inter-species romance. She's like a friendly zoologist with juggling skills that he's stumbled across. You feel like Kong's pretty lonely on the island without any other giant apes around, and that Naomi's better company than the local savages who seem more interested in keeping in chucking him the occasional sacrifice from behind a wall. Adrien Brody's ok, but a bit sidelined towards the end.

The Kong animation/acting from Andy "Gollum" Serkis (who's also the ship's cook) is pretty cool, wasn't expecting so much dinosaur bashing which seemed like Jackson having fun with some Godzilla-style showdowns, and the crew of the Venture are at least pretty wowed when they first come across all these huge mythical beasts running around. All the whooping natives stuff is a bit odd, not quite sure where they're going with that.

Enjoyed it overall, but it did feel a touch overlong for what's essentially a pretty simple B movie plot - although holding off on Kong's entrance works, and all the on-board scenes build up to Skull Island's sighting.

Could have been a much more intense, wham-bam experience at 20 minutes shorter: just because it's a really big monkey doesn't mean it has to be a really big epic… but hey, it's a big monkey smashing up New York and punching out dinosaurs - that's always going to go down well here.

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30th Apr 2006 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

The Broken Family Band

Balls

Please refer to everything I said about this band in the review of their previous album but just add balls. This album keeps us guessing even more. The opening track lets us know that this ain't gonna be another straight-up country offering. It’s pure rock, and kicks things off nicely. It’s another hate filled masterpiece that has it’s grubby little fingers in many genres. Fantastic stuff.

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28th Apr 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Broken Family Band

Welcome Home Losers

This band is great and they really shouldn’t be. They just don’t stick to the rules and that pisses me off. I first discovered them on a Rough Trade ‘Country’ compilation and that’s where you would expect to find them, not in Cambridge which is where they are from. But they sound so damn country, and what pisses me off more is that they make great country music. This record is packed full of sadness and bitterness and delivered with such irony that it is surprisingly upbeat. It is tongue-in-cheek like The Hansome Family and sounds like the secret diary musings of a man who has had so much crap dumped on him from various relationships that he is left with no other option than to see the funny side of life. I suppose this is their English side coming out. Bravo.

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28th Apr 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam have a knack of sounding like a muscle car cruising down an empty road in Montana. Masters of the key/pace change, they often shift up and down gears, speeding up and slowing down but always sticking to the road.

While Life Wasted and World Wide Suicide are great openers (except for the title "World Wide Suicide" - definitely a case for 'keep the title out of the lyrics') rocking all the shift change tricks, it's not until six songs in that we get a real change of style - with Parachutes. Similar in tone to the Stones' track of the same name, this great little number is much more in the vein of 1996's No Code.

Things get more more varied on what would have been side two in the vinyl days, with Gone being the gem on the album. It's Pearl Jam at their best, using a simple quiet start to build up the emotion and sound into an awesome wall of noise.

Army Reserve is one song that doesn't quite click, somehow sounding like the U2-style jangling guitar was written separately from the lyrics, but the album finishes with two excellent tracks. Come Home sounds like a cover of a lost classic by Smokey Robinson or Otis Redding and is the band at their best. Inside Job, written by guitarist Mike McCready, is a moody slow burner. Staying just the right side of Dire Straits, the song would fit well on a movie soundtrack and brings the album to a worthy close.

The album is definitely a democratic effort and the input of the entire band leans the sound down the more conventional end of the Pearl Jam spectrum - generally sounding more like Yield or Riot Act than Vitalogy or No Code. That's never a criticism with these guys however and although not as lyrical as some of their work it's a solid, thoroughly enjoyable rock album from a band totally assured of their craft.

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25th Apr 2006 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Spank Rock

Yoyoyoyoyo

I am all about Baltimore at the moment. Granted I am three seasons late, but The Wire is rocking my world and so is this album. Baltimore’s Spank Rock are the new signing to Big Dada and they have gone and made the most exciting hip hop I have heard since the last Anticon offering. Unlike the Anticon posse it doesn’t take itself seriously at all. It sounds like a cross between Tag Team’s ‘Woop there it is’ Antipop Consortium and a fair dose of 2 Live Crew. It’s low down and it’s dirty.

MC Spank Rock’s chief concerns here range from the contents of a woman’s biker shorts to his less than admirable intentions as to what to do with said contents once he has acquired them. Song titles like 'Back Yard Betty','Coke & Wet' and 'Screwville, USA' tell the whole story yet despite this it is a very intelligent piece of work with amazing production. It is very tongue-in-cheek (which cheek? I hear you ask, and you would be right to) but not in a gimmicky Darkness way, more in a Licence to Ill kind of way.

To put it bluntly it’s just really good fun and the beats alone will get you stripper dancing in no time. So lets all repeat after me “Tap dat ass, c’mon Tap dat ass.”

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24th Apr 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Loose Fur

Born Again In The USA

As one gets older we notice things about our personalities that we either like or dislike and as much as we tried to fight them when we were younger we soon give up and learn to accept them. We even start to warm to some traits and see them as important threads in the marvellous tapestry that is us, despite the fact that they annoy the hell out of people around us and sometimes land us in jail. Recently I have discovered one of these facts about my personality and in the words of the Dude “Some new shit has come to light.” I have discovered that I have the worrying ability to become so totally obsessed and consumed by something that all logic and sense leave me when it enters my thought. About a month ago the subject of my obsessions became anything Wilco/Tweedy. It seems like we have waited far too long for new Wilco material and I just couldn’t take it. So I would spend hours, days combing the internet for anything Jeff Tweedy had ever put his hand to, any collaboration, any live morsel even if it was recorded from the toilets.

So you can imagine my delight when Loose Fur’s second album landed. Finally something legitimate and legal to quench my insatiable thirst. Like any addiction quality rarely comes into it, so it took me a while to ask myself if this album was any good. And it is, though not reaching the dizzy heights of pure genius that Wilco reside in. It goes without saying that my favourite moments are when Jeff is on point but on the whole this is a solid piece of work with just the right mix of straight up rock, melody subtlety and experimentation. It seems like less of a side project for the boys ( Jeff Tweedy, Jim O’Rourke and Glenn Kotche) and yet still manages to sound like three musicians enjoying a day off. This is seen quite clearly in The Ruling Class, a jaunty little number about Jesus shooting crack. Further on there’s a great instrumental song An Ecumenical Matter which really shows off the compositional skill of this dream team. And the album finishes with 2 songs worthy of any Wilco B side. Wreckroom with its fantastic guitar solo’s reminiscent of the jaw dropping opener on Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born and the slightly Sesame Street sounding finale of Wanted.

This album will certainly keep me satisfied until the next Wilco offering and maybe if I stay away from him long enough Jeff and his layers might just lift this damn restraining order.

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11th Apr 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Show Your Bones

Wichita

This wasn’t an album I was anticipating with baited breath, but it has slowly made its way to the top of my recent purchases pile.

Show Your Bones is the follow up to 2003’s critically acclaimed debut Fever To Tell which never seems to impress me as much as it does everyone else. It's a bit like the album equivalent of Reservoir Dogs. While I consider it a fantastic piece of art and have the utmost respect for it, it’s not something I am likely to stick on over lunch. There is only so much pummelling I can take and Show Your Bones has impressed me for this very reason (the Tarantino comparison stops here, Show Your Bones is no Pulp Fiction) It has retained the grit and muscle of its predecessor but seems to give a gracious and subtle nod towards commercialism. It is more rhythmical, more melodic and just more appealing.

This is evident from the opening track Gold Lion, with its acoustic strumming being slowly obliterated by the inevitable wave of dirty guitar. Way Out follows a similar pattern and Fancy finds us in more YYY familiar territory with the Karen O’s trademark growl/banshee wail scratching its grubby nails down the wall of guitar and percussion. But the stand out track has got to be Warrior. It starts like a song you might stumble across on some far off obscure stage at an alt folk festival but soon picks up its feet and starts running with the line “this road’s gonna end on me.’ I’m sure it will at some point, but on this evidence there seems to be a lot more road ahead.

This album smacks of a follow up that will make die hard YYY fans scoff at people like me for preferring it but as Brakes say in Heard About Your Band, “You shared a cab with Karen O, OO,OOO,” roughly translated means ‘I don’t give a shit.’

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5th Apr 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Why?

Elephant Eyelash

I wanted to review this album for a few reasons. Firstly because it’s a great album and secondly because I feel the hallowed halls of Chimp Towers needs to reprezent for the underground hip-hop.

Why?, aka Yoni Wolf is one third of the genius that was cLOUDDEAD and has put his skills to many fine releases from the ever-changing and ever-ground breaking Anticon label. Elephant Eyelash seems to have a coherency and focus that has sometimes been missing from a lot of Wolf’s many endeavours. He is a lyricist like no other who delivers playful yet dark sing/speak vocals with an awe inspiring attention to every syllable. It is a strangely uplifting experience which leaves you wondering why you were just joyously singing along to lines like “Unfold an origami death mask/ And cut my DNA with rubber traits/ Pull apart the double helix like a wishbone/ Always be working on a suicide note.”

Anything by this artist is challenging but so worth your time. This album and countless other on this label offers a rare musical experience, a chance to listen and appreciate music that is indefinable and carries with it no genre baggage. My iTunes says ‘Folk’ but I say Why? Stand out tracks include Sanddollars, Rubber Traits, Fall Saddles and Gemini (Birthday Song)

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5th Apr 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

The New World

(dir. Terrence Malick)

As the first European settlers land in Virginia and begin to build the Jamestown colony, a native princess (Q'Orianka Kilcher) falls in love with rogueish adventurer - Captain Smith (Colin Farrell). As the two civilizations begin to understand each other, tensions mount and different mentalities drive them apart.

Anybody who has seen Terrence Malick's previous films will have a good idea what to expect here; long, slow shots of nature, extensive use of music to set the pace, disjointed, montage style editing and fairly minimal dialogue. You're either going to like that or you're not - and while I would rate The Thin Red Line as one of my personal favourites, I must admit that this one took me a while to sink into.

The initial tension of the European's arrival was handled well, but it was clear from the start that this film had been reduced in length and scope from what it could have been. Several name actors were spotted, but they often had little dialogue. Or none at all in the case of Ben Chaplin. The romance between Smith and Pocahontas popped up pretty quickly from nowhere, and then he was off. Considering this was only Terrence Mallick's second film in 7 years he could have benefited by giving himself a little extra time and space.

Things paid off nicely later, and the film found it's feet with the introduction of Christian Bale's character John Rolfe. He bridged the gap between the two cultures, and the narrative that developed was undoubtedly built strongly upon the previous scenes.

The contrast between nature and man, and then the almost alien contact between the two worlds of men form the heart of this unconventional film. The mood and atmosphere created in this film is amazing. Forget about convention and what you think you should be seeing and just relax and enjoy the ride.

Apparently the DVD will be 'extended'.

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21st Feb 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Brakes

Give Blood

I've been reassessing the Brakes album Give Blood on the back of Clap Your Hands' recent acceptance into chimp rotation. The good news is, I was hasty in dismissing them so early. It's a mixed bag sounding a bit like Pavement, a bit like Galaxie 500 in places, a bit like Clap Your Hands, and even a bit like Operation Ivy - but still retaining something quite English... she was earning 10 grand, p.a.

It's not a heavy concept album, but it is just a bit like a bunch of guys playing fun songs and having a good time.

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15th Feb 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

The National

ULU, London

The National have been making quick progress up my album of the year chart, so this was a good chance to put these pups under the microscope (even though they are only a mere 3 albums in).

Support act Film School kicked things off, and I spent quite a while deciding whether their Cure stylings and sound were contrived or genuine... but being American ponces (as opposed to British ones) did them some favours and they may be worth watching out for. When The National took to the stage however there was no doubt that they were a cut above. They kicked straight into the new classic Secret Meeting with such power and gusto that the audience was instantly gripped. I was surprised that singer Matt Berninger wasn't the dude on the cover of the debut album... but if Britt Daniel from Spoon is Richie Cunniingham, then this guy is a cross between Crispin Glover and Sam Shepard. Alternately smoking and moodily skulking around the stage... which all made me realise how many bands don't have an instrumentless singer at the moment. This created a real focus for the six piece band, who did seem a lot more of a band (rather than a single vision of a single person) than I had imagined.

There was a bit too much swapping around between the bass and guitar guys (chimp concert rule number 3, stick to one instrument), but the set motored along without much interruption, consisting of a lot of tracks from the current album Alligator, with a few other numbers from Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers and the Cheery Tree EP, all amped up a notch from the studio versions, with a fair bit of screaming.

If you don't have Alligator yet, get onto it. And keep a eye out for these guys in the future. Ossum.

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23rd Nov 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Spoon

Koko, Camden

Spoon are one of those bands who seem to have surfaced recently... but a bit of detective work reveals they've been around for years and years, quietly plugging away, doing their own thing.

After the utterly useless support band "Amusement Parks on Fire" shuffle their tedious, angst ridden, Kurt Cobain cardigan-wearing, trauma-feedback nonsense into the wings, Spoon hit the stage and straight away it's clear that they're a band with a lot of live experience. They're super tight and work the crowd well, with Richie Cunningham/Gary Busey (c. Big Wednesday) lookalike singer Britt Daniel exuding personality with his chat and semi-moonwalking sliding dances. They march through a lot of their latest album Gimme Fiction, with great drumming and Ice Hockey style keyboards (from a Vincent Gallo lookalike)... sounding a lot like an American 1960's band in the style of a British Invasion rock. Right at home on Nuggets in fact.

It's all over too fast, with a rousing encore finale of Ice Hockey Rock (TM) classic Small Stakes. Check the surveillance section for a clip.

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13th Oct 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Queens Of The Stone Age

Brixton Academy

after al qaida stopped the rock earlier this summer (and another time before that when they cancelled for health reasons), it was good to finally catch josh homme's latest version of q.o.t.s.a. at the brixton academy: still kicking it out even without a large bald dude on bass. lots of ten minute jams, super heavy drums and real charisma from l'homme, plus a cool set that had room for all the hits, as well as things like that pj harvey desert sessions song i wanna make it with you, and lots more (early?) stuff i hadn't heard before. rocket chimp felt they could have done with slowing down on things like no-one knows, which is a fair point. but as a carnivore of rock, this chimp thought it was pretty beefy all round. recommended, would see them again.

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23rd Aug 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Wolfmother

Wolfmother E.P.

One of the hot tickets at this year's South By South-West music thing, Australia's Wolfmother are kicking out retro proto-metal - a la early Black Sabbath, with a tinge of Zeppelin and a psychadelic haze of Iron Butterfly. Like no-doubt every garage band of the late 70's was trying to do.

The first couple of tracks are properly proto-proto metal, with thumping riffs and not many lyrics. Apple Tree still has few lyrics, but is a bit more interesting and makes you realise how metal the White Stripes sometimes are. The White Unicorn is the stand-out track, which actually builds up a bit and changes pace - where the others are mainly one thundering wall of sound. Looking forward to more. Would like to see these guys live.

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21st Jul 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Ambulance Ltd.

The ICA, London

June 13th 2005

Possibly the first hot shit band I've actually seen ahead, or maybe on, the curve. These guys kicked off their set with instrumental chimp favourite "Yoga Means Union" building up to a powerful rockathon. 'Tight' is the adjective of the moment.

After that things moved along with a remarkably sequential set of the first 4 or 5 tracks off their album. Then a few new songs, which were more like the non-favourite tracks off the current album, but these new ones were good - so some re-appraisal is due. Straight A's and a few more to finish, then the fastest encore of all time - finishing with a homage to some Westcoast roots with a cover of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

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14th Jun 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Sum Of All Fears

(dir. Phil Alden Robinson)

A Nazi extremist gets hold of a missing Israeli nuclear bomb and tries to use it to start war between the US and Russia. Only young CIA analyst Jack Ryan can see the truth and prevent all out war.

Unfortunatly that young CIA guy is Ben Affleck, not the Harrison Ford of previous Ryan films. Affleck is surprisingly undislikable, mainly due to the fact that this is a big film with a lot of character's - rather than a typical star-focused Hollywood blockbuster.

It's a pretty intelligent and engaging film, that holds back on the usual punch up action, and focuses instead on Nuclear armageddon. It's a weird cross of pre/post 9/11 paranoia - as the bad guys in the book were Islamic terrorists, but at the time of filming (2001) it seemed implausible that they would be able top get hold of a nuclear weapon. Things had to be re-jiggled a bit in the edit however, as things had changed...

It starts to unravel slightly towards the end, but generally it's pretty entertaining. Good cinematography too.

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23rd May 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Mars Volta

De-loused In The Comatorium

At The Drive In were one of those bands that I always meant to check out, I just never got round to it. So when I got hold of this album I was expecting quite a lot. And this album does rock - starting as it means to go on. The songs are pretty unconventional in terms of pace / tempo / rhythm, and you have to be in the right mood for it. Headphones are recommended.

Fortunately I have been finding myself in the mood more and more - planning train journeys so we can spend some time together. As a sweeping rollercoaster of jazzy - sometimes progish - rock this would make a great soundtrack for some freaky movie. Sonic landscapes flow out gently, then spin on a dime to be full-frontal aural assualts of conspiracy riddled lyrics. "If you only knew the plans they had for us....."

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1st Oct 2003 - Add Comment - Tweet