Chimpomatic

Working For A Nuclear Free City

Rocket

It's no secret these days that the kids are wearing the rock trousers and they're in danger of showing up their older and wiser counterparts when it comes to sheer quantity of quality. The much favored Arctic Monkeys are still fresh from a prize winning debut and we already have enough new material from them to fill another. Likewise Working For A Nuclear Free City gave us their self titled debut late last year and here we are in January with a fantastic 4 track ep of songs not only new but that display a definite progression.

This ep shows a more mature sound and will go some way to dispel the Stone Roses comparison which was so tempting in their debut. Opening track "Rocket" shuffles its feet beautifully for the first half then explodes with a cacophony of just about every instrument available and the result is thrilling. The boys do it again with "Heaven Kissing Hill" which starts with an Arab Strap style monologue which then opens up into soaring instrumentals. This song ends with the same beard stroking spoken word but soon crumbles into laughter showing this bands refreshing ability to not take itself too seriously. Another great instrumental master-class follows then things are brought to a close with "Stone Cold". This revisits their earlier Roses sound but still works and judging by the first 3 tracks and this songs title this closer could be the bands way of laying to rest their previous influences and preparing the ground for new seeds. But we shall have to wait and see what's in store for this band but if this little taster is anything to go by it could come at any time and the chances of quality is pretty high.

#Music
#BC

31st Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

LCD Soundsystem

Sound Of Silver

These days fashion is a major player in making an album hit or miss - and James Murphy's LCD Soundsystem proved this in 2005 when their self titled debut took everyone by storm. It being the right time for their blend of self referencing, witty beat punk wasn't the only reason it was such a success. The album was full of well crafted, intelligent music which set the bar high for their second installment. "Sound Of Silver" sees them take stock of all that has gone before and move on confidently.

'Get Innocuous' creeps in with a whisper and the album is off to a perfect start. A 2 minute gently rolling beat intro is the frame work for Murphy's unassuming vocals. This could be vintage Talking Heads if it wasn't for the fiercely electronic structure. It tells us from the outset that some new strings have been added to this bow and to start the difficult second album off with a 7 minute piece of lushness like this sends out a message of confidence and progression. 'Time To Get Away' revisits old ground with wailing vocals stabbing at stuttering beats but the new ideas soon return. 'Someone Great' opens with an almost Top Gun theme morphing into Human League synths and the stand out track 'All My Friends' continues the 80's synth revival with a more piano led driving beat that never pauses and could go on forever. James Murphy's vocals are taken down a notch as in the opening track and the result of this change is stunning. Its relentlessness is awesome and even though the pace never changes you feel as if you're building up to something powerful. As in the best Joy Division moments it's this combination of a rolling bass structure, subtly building vocals and the guts to take a song past the 4 minute mark that make this album memorable.

This is a band settling into their sound and a displaying a progression that shows a lot of maturity. Their 2005 debut was perfect for that time both in content and style. Murphy's DFA label was huge, pioneering a very exciting electro/indie crossover and the sound that emerged from the labels history was fresh and a generation of super-cool indie kids were more than ready to accept Murphy's blend of synth beats and abrasive punk musings even though his lyrics often ridiculed the image conscious demographic that followed him. But since then the elctro-punk style has become somewhat tired so this album couldn't have been easy for the band. Talking Heads have been the principle influence for some of the best bands to emerge in the last 3 years and they certainly feature here. But this influence has brought a more earthy sound to LCD and that's where the maturity lies. Just as with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's Some Loud Thunder we see a band who after making people sit up and take notice of their first statement are now settling in for the long-haul and although they've eased off on the gas they're making music with more depth and durability.

#Music
#BC

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

Benjy Ferree

Leaving The Nest

Domino

As 2006 drew to a close the music scene typically turned in on itself and pumped out endless retrospective compilations to distract us while the new release section of the record stores were replaced with 'Best Of 2006' rundowns. I have never understood the January blues syndrome as this month welcomes the return to form of new music and late December's creative droubt comes to an end. After such thirsty times any relief is welcomed but it is all the more rare when it tastes as sweet as 'Leaving The Nest.' This is the debut album by Domino's new boy Benjy Ferree and it's sure to be a quiet classic.

Ferree's biography reads like any cv and has very little to do with music making. After pursuing a passion for cinema he moved to California and ended up being a nanny to various Hollywood big hitters including David Lynch. The acting thing never seemed to happen and after many sing-song sessions with the kids he realized he possessed a certain talent for song writing. Encouraged by Fugazi's Brendan Canty, Benjee set about compiling his debut work.

This potted history is important when you hear the album. It oozes class but also humility. The songs seem almost improvised and sound like work produced from the innocent mind of someone who never intended to be doing this. 'In The Countryside' starts things off on a refreshingly upbeat note as the lyric "So happy hands all in the air" is repeated with a jaunty swagger. You would be forgiven for assuming that such sugary sweet lyrics could only be the work of a musician hell bent on bogus, loved-up, pop stardom (two words: Magic Numbers,) but that's the great thing about this album. It is happy music, if I can be so sweeping, but not overwhelmingly so, and it's genuine. The compositions are simple and lo-fi and having established these loose perameters Ferree allows his sound to go where it pleases. 'The Desert' is classic Ben Folds with its light melody, 'Private Honeymoon' evokes the hollow, emptyness of Jeff Buckley and 'Leaving The Nest' recalls the mighty Jack White.

While these comparisons - and a good few others - will inevitably spring to mind, Ferree's sound remains his own. 'Leaving The Nest' is a culmination of natural talent, experience and a totally honest love of music. I predict great things for this guy and thank him sincerely for starting 2007 off on such a high.

#Music
#BC

18th Jan 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

The Big Sleep

Son Of The Tiger

French Kiss

The Big Sleep are a 3 piece band hailing from Brooklyn NY and they make a big rock noise. Sometimes it's psychedelic noise, sometimes straight up driving noise, but on the whole it means business. Son Of The Tiger opens with a musical eqivalent of a firm kick in the nuts. Brown Beauty is an instrumental sonic onslaught that holds you in its tight grasp as it steadily builds from dark and brooding to loud and heavy to louder and heavier. As you stand there, breathlessly exhausted, mouth open they hit you with a second wave with Murder. This is Electrelane after a music lesson with Wolfmother. Sonya Balchandani's vocals are sweet and subtle and are an effective contrast to the heavy riffs and crashing symbols around her.

Unfortunately, The Big Sleep are not able or willing to keep up this pace and the album takes a slight dive into no mans land as spacous, plodding stoner rock becomes the prefered method. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but after the power of the opening tracks the album seems to drift off into obscurity. Tracks like S.K.B and Menemy tend to start out fine but soon get lost in muddy cymbols and feedback and all to often lack the guitar structure of the earlier gems. However things pick up with Shima. It's jangly opening guitars are a welcome break from all the fuzzy, heavy riffs and the vocals are more audible becoming the focus that unites the song. It has more of an indie feel and builds more naturally to the familiar cymbal cacophony finale. This short break prepares you nicely for the moody title track that follows. It's a similar deal to earlier but seems to work better here and the screeching guitars and thudding rhythm really satisfy.

The Big Sleep have put together a very refreshing blend of dirty, shit kicking rock with dulcet female vocals and also seem to be in love with the entirely instrumental heavy jams of bands like The Longcut or Kinski. Put all this together and you get an album that isn't perfect but has guts and isn't afraid to grab you by the scruff of the neck and give you a darn good shaking.

#Music
#BC

11th Dec 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Some Loud Thunder

Wichita

No sooner have I compiled my best of 2006 list with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's stunning self titled debut coming in at number one when it's follow up, slated for a January release, lands in our laps. They say the second album is always the difficult one and this must be made all the more so when your debut received such overwhelming critical acclaim. Some Loud Thunder is certainly not what I was expecting and after the first few listens I was quite disappointed not to be dazzled by the energy that was present on the first album. I would like to tell you that now after about 25 plays it has solidified it's place in my 2007 list but I can't. I am enjoying it a lot more than I was, but there remains a slight whiff of disappointment still.

The structure of the first album was was quite relentless with many high points, few lows, some nicely placed instrumental breathers - all of which culminated in a fantastic finale that just made you want to start the whole thing again. This time it's a different agenda. It's a much more low key affair with really only one obvious peak coming mid way through the album. Most of the songs seem as if they are building to something but never do and while they have virtually abandoned the instrumental fillers they have adopted a slow burning sound that whispers rather than shouts. This new approach at times produces some beautiful moments and really challenges the listener to stick with the program but also makes parts of the album quite laborious.

So, purely on the strength of their debut I have persevered with this one and have come to see it in a new light. Instead of viewing it as the weak follow up to a fluky start I have a sneaky feeling that this is the work of a band that intend to be around for a while. It seems their debut was designed to get our attention and all the praise that this brought has provided them with the creative space to explore new territory. This could be the album that calms things down and eases off on the pace that quite often leads to a bands early demise, or it could be just plain crap. - BC (3 stars)

Some Loud Thunder is by turns intense, moving and powerful. There is barely a bum note on the album and the song writing and music have taken on a depth and scope beyond Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The album sounds quite like a movie sound track in places and a lot of the music often seems very familiar - regularly sounding like a reprise to a track you never heard.

This quality is also it's flaw and the first few tracks sound like a slow building intro into the album, before the remaining tracks quickly sound like tghings are winding down. With the exception of the obvious single Satan Said Dance there is no middle ground on the album and it feels like it is missing it's heart. The album never quite grabs hold of you as a complete piece of work, and it lacks the cohesiveness of the first record. The infectious, awkward quality of their previous effort is also noticeably absent.

The relative lows are no where near as annoying as the ditties on album one, and the album remains almost completely solid in quality - but also lacking in the giddy highs of Yellow Country Teeth, Is This Love, Home On Ice or the countless other peaks on the rollercoast ride of the debut album. Some Loud Thunder's main flaw is in it's pace. Improved track sequencing and editing back of some of the tracks, plus a couple more more tracks would have made this an instant classic, rather than just a solid follow up - CSF (3.5 stars)

Here's a song by song break down:

1 - Some Loud Thunder. The album starts abrubtly, with the band mid-flow and sounding at their most Talking Heads. This seems an odd place to start as it sounds like a mid-album track. This song makes it clear that this isn't going to be an album like the first one. No real chorus to speak of but some nice rhythm and hand claps. Hopefully the shocking sound quality of this track is due to the promo only featuiring a rough mix, that will be improved by January.

2 - Emily Jean Stock. This seems a better place to start but sums up the first half of this record. The whole song seems to brew like it's building up to something but never does, but it has a lot of the harmonies that made the first album so listenable.

3 - Mama, Won't You Keep Them Castles In The Air And Burning? A very low key affair and continues the steady build up of the record. It simmers up to mid point then plateaus nicely into a harmony filled home-straight. A bit like a Radiohead b-side, with a few tuning up/washing up sounds.

4 - Love Song No.7 (mp3). The beautiful piano opening of this one mark it pout as a definite highlight. The sparse, atmospheric atmosphere smake sit sound like a love song rising out of the chaos of a sound check.

5 - Satan Says Dance. This is where the album peaks and it's tempo puts the previous songs into context as you realise that everything has been building to this point. It is the one song that recalls their previous work as we are treated to the rolling drum running pace that made the last record so electrifying. They have thankfully updated this format with a myriad of electronic bleeps and tweaks that lay down a rich tapestry of sounds, sounding like tuning up chaos in a kids music class. We get the familiar repeated vocals of and the odd "alright now" which certainly gets the toes a tapping. This song rises like a polished, crisp gem from a murky pool to become the standout peak of this album, and a certain single. "No whips, no chains, just dancing, dancing, dancing". Welcome to Hell.

6 - Upon Encountering The Crippled Elephant. This is the only instrumental ditty here and and makes fine use of the stereo recording format. It's as if you're walking down a deserted street and in the distance a lone figure approaches, as he gets closer you realise he is playing the accordian and you stop and cautiously watch as he passes you by without so much as a glance, then he is off on his way into the distance once more. That is unless he bumps into Damon Albarn and spends the afternoon in an East End music hall.

7 - Goodbye To Mother And The Cove. This is a beautiful song that starts off with a delicate high pitch plucking and ever so slowly builds. Sounding like a reprise to earlier themes, the vocals are dripping with melancholy and help to gently carry the tune to the military drum finale.

8 - Arm And Hammer. The acoustic strumming structure of this song never seems to go anywhere and the vocals jar more than ever making this one of the weakest tracks, which should probably have been relegated to b-side status.

9 - Yankee Go Home. The free-wheeling of the first album is a distant memory on this methodical and well-planned track. The first of several finales.

10 - Underwater (You And Me) (mp3). This could be the closing credits to a film. The pounding drum beat gives the mood a light feel and never changes all the way through. It is accompanied by a floating bass line and clanging bells that have cropped up frequently throughout the album, again echoing the idea of reprise and themes of retreat. Sadly it's not the final track as it's monotony seems to draw things to a close nicely.

11 - Five Easy Pieces. The monotony is continued however here on the album closer. An acoustic structure this time provides the background to the reverb-heavy distant vocals that wine and wail and threaten never to stop. They are punctuated every now and again by the gloriously dreamy bass line that really makes this song a fine one to bring things to a close.

#Music
#Chimpomatic

8th Dec 2006 - 9 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

The Flaming Lips

Hammersmith Apollo, London

Having seen Midlake a week earlier at the ULU and found them disappointing, simply because the sound quality was very poor, I luckily decided to get to this gig at the Hammersmith Apollo early - and it turned out that Midlake would also be supporting the Flaming Lips. Seeing them again at the Apollo was so encouraging - you could really appreciate Tim Smith's voice and their nostalgic sound, which really resonated across the room. Sadly, no one had a clue who they were. Van Occupanther's fantastic songs like Roscoe, and Head Home came and went without any fuss, unlike at ULU - where the crowd clearly adored them, singing along to every word. It was sad; a great band like Midlake can really appeal to a wider audience, and even though the sound quality was better at the Apollo, the uninformed crowd wasn't quiet sure how to receive them. They had driven all the way from Paris especially for the show, and afterwards had to drive back to Lille to perform another gig the next day. Let's hope they had more success across the channel.

I had heard the Flaming Lips really put on a show - a friend once saw them live where they gave out mini radios for everyone. A local radio station would be broadcasting a song live, and when that song was performed everyone had to switch on their radio so they could hear it in stereo. Back at the Apollo, balloons were hovering above our heads as the crowd diligently played 'keepy upy' with them. The band came on stage accompanied by mass eruptions of cheering, shouting, confetti, more giant green balloons, and mirror balls - 3 mirror balls.

Opening the set with The Soft Bulletin's hit single Race For The Prize, Wayne Coyne got into his translucent giant balloon and walked across the crowd. My god, it was friggin amazing. As the show moved on the balloons really began to irritate, and you soon noticed popping sounds, as they were very quickly eliminated. More confetti was fired into the crowd, with the never-ending audience sing-a-long lasting from start finish - ending with Bohemian Rhapsody - Flaming Lips style.

Ever-articulate circus leader Wayne Coyne marshalled proceedings, first encouraging everyone to celebrate the recent mid-term defeat of George Bush's Republican Party, then apologising and praising how wonderful a crowd we were - how he has subjected us to all this confetti and balloons, and singing along to surreal lyrics - yet we didn't boo him once. He went down on his knees and thanked us all, watched on by a crowd of Santas on the right and green aliens on the left, holding touch lights. The rest of the band was dressed in super hero outfits. I can't think of another band that has put so much effort into making sure they entertained us.

#Music
#Gig
#HK

6th Dec 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Robert Gomez

Closer Still

Bella Union

Robert Gomez is a singer songwriter from Denton, Texas. There must be something in the water there, as Gomez is the 5th Denton signing to London's Bella Union Records - following on from Life To Experiance, Jetscreamer, Mandarin and Midlake, who he supported in London in last month.

Title track Closer Still uses a punchy, driving bass line which fills out with strings and even a bit of brass to end up as a rich, textured epic. Gomez' low voice has a smoky, restrained power to it - and the arrangements of tracks like She's A Dog often bring to mind 70's Tom Waits. Pretty much every instrument you can imagine pops up somewhere - strings, brass, even a Xylophone, and while that adds a lot to the sound, occasionally the arrangements seem too large for Gomez' voice.

Shaky Tom Waits comparisons aside, Gomez' sound and voice are best compared to indie veteran Elliot Smith, and his distinctive voice works just as easily with sparse arrangements such as the closer When They Were So Brave, although the less distinguished Stuck Inside provides a hesitant note that sometimes sparse just isn't enough.

There's range and breadth in the song writing here, and Closer Still provides a tasty taste of what we can expect when new album Brand New Towns arrives in January 2007.

#Music
#CSF

1st Dec 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Dan Sartain

Join Dan Sartain

One Little Indian

This is the second full length from the Alabama based musician and at 24 Sartain has managed to create a timeless piece of work that oozes bitterness but is delivered with an upbeat confidence. Recorded partly with a mariachi band and partly with The White Stripes producer Liam Watson, Join Dan Sartain is a lighthearted and refreshingly honest example of one man doing what the hell he feels like.

The great success of this record lies in it's subtle air of defiance. The 15 songs here represent a polite two fingers up to just about everyone in Sartain's life. As the last notes of the closing track Love Is Black ring off you can imagine Dan Sartain, with the arrogance of a young Johnny Cash, throwing his guitar at the mixing desk and storming out of the building mumbling "fucking record that, see if I care." The music isn't at all aggressive and it's hard to pin down just where this defiance comes from, but the effortlessness with which Sartain delivers his short little ditties is a good place to start. The furious pace of the opening track Drama Queens set's Sartain's agenda from the outset. At one and a half minutes it's a tightly packed bundle of forked tongue bitterness and it hooks you in good and proper. And talking of tongues, Sartain's seems firmly in his cheek as he skips through many different genres from the dirty grunge of I Wanted It So to the spanish love song Besame Mucho, originally recorded by Elvis. The warmth of the mariachi accompaniment of Flight Of The Finch is contrasted nicely by the fierce musings of two of the albums highlights, Gun Vs Knife and Hangers On.

It's great to hear an album that obviously comes from a rich tapestry of sources and though many of them will instantly spring to mind they will be wiped clean just as quickly and the lasting impression will be be a work very much its own. The arrogance of the music is reflected in the title of the album and if this is Dan's raleigh call to join him then I for one am in. I say that but at the same time get the impression that you can pledge allegiance as much as you like but the final decision lies with Dan himself and after hearing this record I am left with the immortal words of Eddie Murphy ringing in my ears, "This is my house, if you don't like it, get the fuck out."

I like it, I like it.

#Music
#BC

30th Nov 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

120 Days

120 Days

Smalltown Supersound/Vice

120 Days is a fair assumption of what might have happened had Ian McCulloch or even Bono turned up for the post of Ian Curtis' replacement instead of Bernard Sumner. Fusing driving 80's beats, tight guitar arrangements and soaring vocals, Norway's 120 Days have crafted a tidal wave of sound with their debut LP. Their intention to 'go large' is evident from the 9 minute techno opener of Come Out. It's long, sprawling, cold, impenetrable, it's late night motor-way driving, it's Michael Mann and it sums up the grand vision of this record. Taking the best bits from the 80's indie scene and injecting a bit of Kraftwerk here and there this is a most satisfying debut and although they never reach the intensity or raw passion of bands like Joy Division or Neu! they still manage to create a grandeur that at times is quite thrilling.

They tend to stick to a tried and tested formula with each track creeping in on a swirling, astral synth wave making way for the hard, bass heavy drum-machine beat to kick in. This driving techno-like structure provides acres of space for the dark vocals as they slowly building us up to majestic heights. The stand out moment is Get Away, and with it we see a brief emergence of a more rock orientated structure with the sweeping synths making way for soaring guitars and Adne Meisfjord's vocals break out from their electro confines to embrace a more passionate level of intensity. This all culminates with the epic 11.5 minutes of closing track I've Lost My Vision. Often a closer of this length means an annoying hidden track that follows 6 minutes of silence but here it's beats all the way home. The vocals have the luxury of starting 2 minutes in and then slowly dropping away to let the music span out over this vast landscape only to return later to remind you just how awesome this song is. Then just as any self respecting track would be called in for their dinner, 120 Days plays on with a soaring 2 minute guitar finale.

The albums formula can seem repetitive at times but it sounds intentional and adds to the high speed-4 am-sprawling-Autobahn vibe. The synths echo the sweep of street lights as they pass over head every second for miles and miles and the beats become the evenly spaced motorway repair lines that bump the wheels over and over. It all becomes quite mesmerizing at times and this debut should be accompanied by a government warning not to listen to it while driving.

#Music
#BC

29th Nov 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Ratatat

Classics

XL

You may be wondering how the hell this NY duo managed to make a greatest hits album after only one record. Answer: Classics is just a witty title for their follow up to the 2004 debut, and yet after the first listen you start to imagine that this title could quite easily come into it's own as each song is packed full of catchy hooks, beats and melodies that it can't be too long before the media pick up on this and adorn every advert with a Ratatat riff just as they did with artists like Royksopp.

Ratatat are Mike Stroud and Even "E*vax" Mast and they make eclectic instrumental music using predominantly guitars and electronic beats but back up these grand statements with sampled textures. Classics was born out of their extensive touring with bands like Interpol, Franz Ferdinand and the Killers and brought about the shift from the stripped down, looped sound of their debut to the fuller and grander feel of this record. "Audiences usually responded way more strongly to our louder, more aggressive songs," recalls Stroud. "So this time in the studio, we were more conscious of trying to please a crowd, without selling ourselves short. Also, playing so many gigs inspired us to make the new record sound much more live."

I would certainly agree with this statement on many levels. Classics does sound like an album made very much with an audience in mind. It steers away from any challenging curve balls and often plays safely into the listeners hands. But just as this is a criticism it is also the albums strength. It may occupy the safe middle ground but it does so with the pride and is of the highest quality. The reason many of the songs could make it onto adverts is because they are so good and give you what you want straight away.

The beat-heavy thud of 'Lex' will have your hands clapping and toes tapping in no time, while the sweet melodies of Tropicana reveal the boys admiration for bands like The Beatles and The Kinks. Much of the album was recorded at Bjork's upstate New York rural retreat and sounds like it provided the duo with much needed focus. It also explains the various animal noises that pepper these songs like the tigers on 'Swisha', the birds and bug noises on 'Tacobel Canon' and the impressive roar that provides the back bone to the stand out track 'Wildcat'. 'Loud Pipes' moves expertly from the rewind plodding beat to the tip toe tinkle with a gracefulness that makes this record easy to listen to but not easy listening.

It's hard to pin down what separates good instrumental music such as this with all the bland dross that serves to numb all creative impulses we may be lucky enough to receive and after listening to Classics I still don't know but there's enough honesty gone into this record to tell me that this is one of the good ones. The title may scream of misplaced arrogance but the music doesn't.

#Music
#BC

24th Nov 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Chin Up Chin Up

This Harness Can't Ride Anything

This is the second album from Chicago's Chin Up Chin Up and sees them make slight yet important improvements on their previous LP. 2004's brilliantly titled We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers was a great piece of understated indie bliss and The Harness Can't Hide Anything is a similar story only singer Jeremy Bolen has brought his vocals more to the foreground changing his hushed tones to a more raw, unpolished delivery. As a result their sound has become a lot less polite.

From the outset you can feel the sound being more in-focus as the title track gets things off to a good pace with it's driving guitars and fast drumming. Although most of the songs tend to employ a repeated vocal and guitar rhythm as their home straight the sound never becomes repetitive.

I Need A Friend With A Boat is probably the best song on the album. It chimes in with Cure-like guitars and steadily builds to a fantastic crest of driving bass lines, piano and violin. Blankets Like Beavers follows similar suit until half way through spews out a glorious synth drive that takes the song off to new heights of rhyhthmical Spoon territory. Landlocked Lifeguards shows it's teeth a bit more finishing off with a din of screeching guitars and crashing cymbals which sets up the beautiful Stolen Mountains. This is the most delicate song on the album revisiting the hushed vocals of their previous work. It has a gentle, plodding rhythm as its structure but nicely turns into a drum/string medley with a bit of glockenspiel thrown in as well.

The Harness Can't Hide Anything is a similar story to White Whale's WW1 in that it is all really solid but as a result doesn't have any obvious highlights - but also has no low points either. On the final song Trophies For Hire Bolan sums up the album very well when he says, "These lakes are not oceans, these trees are not forests," but in his defense, sometimes the grand, dramatic landscapes which he hints at are not always what is needed and Chin Up Chin Up haven't aimed for that but have produced a quality piece of indie rock, what more could we want?

#Music
#BC

22nd Nov 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Robert Pollard

Normal Happiness

Must Destroy

The ever-prolific Robert Pollard is back (again) with a new solo LP Normal Happiness. The press release explains how The Beatles or The Who might release two albums a year and that was the norm in those days, and should not be frowned upon now. They seem to be overlooking the fact that between 2005's Beneath A Compound Eye and this second official post-Guided By Voices solo album Pollard has put out another 3 side-project albums on which he is clearly the captain of the ship - The Takeovers, The Keene Brothers and Psycho And The Birds. Plus that Bubble soundtrack mini-LP.

Putting side-projects aside for a moment, this is clearly a Robert Pollard solo album and the closest thing we're going to get to a new Guided By Voices record for the foreseeable future. Where the side-projects are defined by their lack of definition, Normal Happiness is a fairly coherent record - featuring 16 concise chunks of pop-rock which barely clock in at over two minutes each. It follows the late-GBV era of Half Smiles Of The Decomposed in style, playing clever lyrics off against musical themes and concepts. As usual it's a roller-coaster of variable quality, but rather than me giving you a general consensus, let's get specific.

1. The Accidental Texas Who - Near perfect. Bob's outrageous comedy English accent at the start sets the tone for the album and makes the track seem like throw-away brilliance, effortlessly changing gear. 5 stars.

2. Whispering Whip - A moody opening starts the song well, but once that trump card is played it looses a bit of direction. 3 stars.

3. Supernatural Car Lover - A future Song Of The Day. Flawless power-pop, with a catchy underlying guitar lick powering it along. 5 stars.

4. Boxing About - Effortless and beautiful. 3.5 stars.

5. Serious Bird Women (You Turn Me On) - Megaphone vocals undermine this ballad, which stretches a bit thin. 3 stars.

6. Get A Faceful - Catchy, but slightly plodding. Like watching Carl Lewis do the 100m in 13 seconds. 2.5 stars.

7. Towers And Landslides - Starts and ends abruptly, once the mission of the song has been accomplished. 2.5 stars.

8. I Feel Gone Again - A low-key number that starts acoustically and builds into 70's sounding power pop of the Toto calibre (but about 8 minutes shorter). 3 stars

9. Gasoline Rag - Quirky stop-starting number with good production and a galloping chorus, but it's a bit thin on the lyrics. 2.5 stars.

10. Rhoda Rhoda - Average musically. M.O.R. 2.5 stars.

11. Give Up The Grape - Plodding, but nice key changes and a more lyrical drive. 3 stars.

12. Pegasus Glue Factory - Blending in musically from the previous track, the album is now coming back together. This great-title of a song could be a Genesis b-side, building up to an improv sounding jam. 3.5 stars.

13. Top Of My Game - Finger picking and lyrical. A fresh start. 3 stars.

14. Tomorrow Will Not Be Another Day - Starts in the middle, like a back-from-the-break lick on the Dukes of Hazzard. Would have liked it to be more of a Skynyrd 10 minute jam. 3 stars.

15. Join The Eagles - Contemplative and lyrical. A possible tuba on the end. 3 stars.

16. Full Sun (Dig The Slowness) - With simple lyrics recalling his own GBV songs (the carpenter's and their wives), there's little room for vocals here - giving way to a superbly building musical jam, packed with bleeping synthesizers. Back to the best. 4.5 stars.


So, there we have it. 50.5 out of a possible 80. 3 stars. Tracks 1, 3 and 16 make it into my ever expanding best-of-bob-projects playlist. The record seems to literally reference Guided By Voices themselves in several places (both musically and lyrically), bringing a nostalgic feeling to some of the records like a magic wand. As we've recently seen with GBV's lo-fi peers Sebadoh and Pavement, when is more too much? If I'm honest I'd be hard pressed to name any GBV record as a flawless classic, but the flaws are what made them classics, and this just follows that same logic.

#Music
#CSF

21st Nov 2006 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Joanna Newsom

Ys

OK, you're going to have to bear with me on this review as I am breaking a strict rule of mine while writing it - and that rule is to never embark on a review until you know what the album is about. To mislead the hoards of readers we have on this site with knee-jerk opinions would be a dreadful misuse of responsibility. So from the outset I will be honest and admit that I haven't got a clue what the hell is going on on this second full length from the enigma that is Joanna Newsom. The reason I am not waiting until I do know more is that I get the impression that that day will never come, but as I have firmly made up my mind that this is a work of unrivaled genius I think that is justification enough to start the review.

Clocking in at just under an hour and boasting only 5 songs, the longest being almost 17 minutes, Ys certainly is a commitment. Starting this album is an experience akin to standing at the foot of a massive mountain. You know you want to climb it but the view from the bottom makes you question whether you have it in you and it's not until you've completed the first leg of the opening 12 minutes of Emily that you start to realise what an epic journey you have ahead of you but the view from there is so special that to reach the summit fills your heart with excitement and you push on. Those who do reach the top are rewarded in ways too profound to mention. Not only is there the sense of pride on having made it this far but the strange compulsion to go straight down to the bottom and do it all again is overwhelming.

So despite not knowing anything about the meaning of this work we have established that it's quite good and so can distract ourselves with some background facts concerning it's conception and production. It follows in the footsteps of 2004's critically acclaimed debut The Milk Eyed Mender and takes it's title from a mythical Breton city that was flooded as punishment for the decadence of its inhabitants. Newsom describes dreams she had after having written the record that the title had to have a Y and an S in it and should only be one syllable, after coming across a reference to this myth she knew that Ys, pronounced 'Ees', had to be her title. The album features a whole host of stars backstage. It is engineered by Steve Albini, produced by Jim O'Rourke and all but one song is given full orchestral arrangement by Van Dyke Parks, it also has the occasional backing vocal by boyfriend Bill 'Smog' Callahan. But it's Newsom herself that ultimately makes this record what it is. Her voice achieves a much more expansive range here going from booming depth to ear-piercing squeaks to a floating beauty that is simply heart melting. Her debut had her lumped in with the acid-folk of Devandra Banhart which in my opinion didn't do her any favors. This record will undoubtedly put an end to all that as its richness and awesome scope makes it near impossible to label. Comparisons to the work of Bjork and Kate Bush are valid only in terms of vision and shear single mindedness. As time moves on it will be impossible to guess when this album was made, it has a timeless quality and no references to modern times whatsoever. (I thought I found one on Emily when what I supposed was the lyric "The media writes just what causes the light and the media's how it's perceived," turned out to be "The meteorite's just what causes the light and the meteor's how its perceived.") You get immersed in the vivid descriptions of nature and stories that are told with such a beguiling use of language that you stop trying to follow their meaning and sit back content to let your heart dance in the warmth and ease with which these magical words tumble out. There is little point in going through the album song by song as this is a piece of work where each element has to be seen in the context of the whole. It's not just the length of the songs that makes them so daunting, they feature no standard chorus structure, there is virtually no let up in the flow of expertly pronounced poetry or free flowing harp and Park's orchestration sweeps you up and catapults you across his epic cinematic landscape and each song leaves you exhausted. But the profundity of this exhaustion comes from the honesty of the artist, none of this album seems contrived or pretentious. It's one of those rare moments of originality that is self made.

You can arm yourself with as many facts as you like about this album but none of them will help you on your journey, they will only weigh you down. Just as Luke bravely put away his mechanical means of navigation on his assault on The Death Star so must we turn off logical thought on our long trek towards the summit of Mount Newsom and let some other force guide us. To do this is the only way to reach the top and once there the view will be more spectacular than you could possibly imagine.

#Music
#BC

20th Nov 2006 - 6 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Midlake

ULU, London

The prospect of seeing Midlake live was an exciting one. The superb album The Trials of Van Occupanther is peppered with themes of nature, conjuring nostalgic feelings of the countryside and man's relationship with it. A bunch of grown men with gruffty beards singing delicately about nature is a wonderful juxtaposition. A juxtaposition reminiscent of Grandaddy perhaps, but to compare Midlake with Granddaddy would be wholly unfair - overlooking their own unique sound.

After strong support form Robert Gomez and Fionn Regan, Midlake took to the stage. The crowd went crazy when they started playing the single Rosco, and there were cries for a repeat of the same song. Every song was accompanied with some strange film in the background - some homemade, others seeming very familiar and possibly a Roman Polanski film - but don't quote me on that. The films really helped to bolster the song's strange eerie feel, conjuring a lost time and lost place. It was nice to see that the band were very humbled by the crowds' affection towards them, singing along to all their songs.

There's something strangely important about wanting to see a band we like live, but so often they never live up to the same sound quality we know them for. And particulary when you have a band that doesn't make 'jump-up' music, the sound quality has to be spot on. Sadly this wasn't the case at ULU. The gig itself was entertaining, but the sounds did no justice to Tim Smith's vocals and of course the songs lost much of their eerie magic. They ended the set with current single Head Home, perfectly apt and a crowd pleaser to finish on a higher note.

Luckily, I caught the band a couple of nights later, supporting the Flaming Lips at Shepherd's Bush... with much more satisfying results.

#Music
#Gig
#HK

16th Nov 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

My Morning Jacket: Okonokos - The Concert

(dir. Sam Erickson)

Sony BMG

As an accompaniment to their recent live album Okonokos, My Morning Jacket filmed their two night stint at San Francisco's legendary Fillmore as a DVD release, which also ran in limited cinemas.

Harking back to the classic days of the concert film, Okonokos is basically a straight live performance form the band, bookended with a mild narrative - the product of Jim James' wild imagination. While this doesn't really add much in terms of an actual narrative, it creates an atmosphere for the concert - which is clearly mirrored with the concept created for the show itself - a kind of victorian gentlemen's congregation in some bear infested wood. The crowd have generally entered into the swing of things, and they are rewarded with a stella performance from the band as usual.

The DVD's pitfall is the almost unavoidable trap set for all concert movies (yes, the Song Remains The Same included) where they rarely create the same atmosphere as actually being there. As far as these things go it is a good one - the bands' boundless enthusiasm is clear, and on mind blowing tracks like One Big Holiday and Lay Low, you do actually feel like you're there, on stage with the band in a guitar huddle. Plus you can watch animal-esqe drummer Patrick Hallahan doing his Steam Engine robotics in close-up.

The DVD is pretty much note for note the same as the CD (minus At Dawn, I Think I'm Going To Hell and Dancefloors), so really it's a case of one or another - and concert DVDs do work well as an audio-disc-with-visuals. There's no complaints on either format, and this live album and film serve their purpose well - as a (hopefully not too long) bridge between studio albums. Another well timed step from My Morning Jacket, as the band move on from there classic album Z hopefully onto bigger and better things.

Roll on 2007.

#Film
#CSF

14th Nov 2006 - 6 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Yo La Tengo

The Forum, Kentish Town, London

Veteran Indie shufflers Yo La Tengo are in Europe this month, in support of both their recent album I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Kick Your Ass, and their soundtrack to the Will Oldham movie Old Joy, for which they made a panel appearance at the London Film Festival. For they London show they booked up The Forum, with support from post-rockers Minotaur Shock.

There was anticipation in the air from the muso crowd, which included to my surprise a heavy set tough-guy tout that I had seen outside. He was re-directing people who were blocking the view of others, and was ready for a punch up when one guy was chatting as the band started.

For a band with such a vast back catalogue, the show was dominated by ...I Will Beat Your Ass for a good 75%. After a beautiful I Feel Like Going Home and a jaunty Beanbag Chair we were straight into the 10 minutes epic Pass The Hatchet.

The band had the aura of seasoned veterans, and the crowd were loving it. Ira read out an amusing item from the Independent regarding the dangers of being a drummer (Bloc Party have unsurprisingly fallen foul) and warned that Georgia would be taking it a little easy' tonight, but thankfully that was not the case. Working the stage like a three-man-one-man-band (or even a Marx Brothers musical interlude - Ira would be Chico), they swapped instruments and tasks seamlessly, avoiding the tedious, self-important setting-up delays that so many bands seem to fall into. The variation ads another dimension to their show and they easily motored through inspired versions of most of their awesome new album - plus a handful of older tracks, including a great Don't Have To Be So Sad.

While Ira and Georgia seem to have all the fun, you can't help but feel sorry for James who definitely gets the short straw - repeating the same bass-line for 10 minutes, while Ira freewheels along like an indie Hendrix. Sometimes that freewheeling goes too far off the tracks, and the songs get just too strung out - dwindling into free-jazz territory, and it was hard not to notice some of the crowd developing visible headaches - me included. This was most noticeable on Blue Line Swinger. The song disintegrated into 10 minutes of jazz-feedback - and while it did pay off with a great finale as the rhythm synced out of the chaos, it's hard to know if it was worth it. Much like Less Than You Think, the poison pill on Wilco's A Ghost Is Born.

Although they were chatty and the crowd certainly seemed engaged, the band can seem rather distant on stage. When the audience stop stroking their beards and get more involved the band softened up and it became more of a rock show that a performance. The encore put the whole thing up a notch and was they highlight of the show - with the band returning to the stage and literally taking requests from the audience, a technique which might be useful more often. It seemed that the audience were universal in their choice of favourites, and classics like Autumn Sweater show this band to be truly magnificent.

#Music
#Gig
#CSF

14th Nov 2006 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

TV On The Radio

Koko, Camden

I find it near impossible to sum up the sound of TV On The Radio and when I try to think of an equivalent in order to aid my description I find myself stumped. But one thing I did discover in the majestical surroundings of Camden's Koko was that with two and a half albums strong this Brooklyn 5-piece know exactly who they are and what they are doing.

With it's numerous balconies dripping in ornate decoration and rising skyward to a huge revolving glitterball, Koko is a venue like no other and the view from the stage must either thrill or daunt any band. The addictive thing about TV On The Radio is their grasp of restraint. Their sound is so complex and threatens to explode but rarely does so I was interested to discover how this style would cope with a venue such as this. Dirty Whirl, a highlight from the new album Return To Cookie Mountain crept in humbly with hushed atmospheric sampling and front man Tunde Adebimpe's sweet whistling. This built up slowly and then the band unleashed their sound. It was the sound of twenty men and it was awesome. Adebimpe is the lynch pin to the dazzling show TV On The Radio offer. His theatrical dancing, thorough exploration of the space around him and inexhaustible passion and energy is electrifying and like nothing I have seen before. And his voice, well damn that boy can sing. Often constructing beautiful harmonies with guitarist and vocalist Kyp Malone, Adebimpe's voice more than filled the hall.

The stage seemed cluttered with the various machines that make this sound so unique. The standard drums, guitars and vocals are all fed through samplers, loops and distortions to produce a wall of sound that is oozing with texture. As expected Wolf Like Me was an instant highlight. As the only drum heavy, rock-out tune on the album this is as close as this band come to a standard song, so for it to emerge crisp and triumphant from the murky bog of noise was a delight to which the hungry crowd responded accordingly. Earlier songs like Young Liars were treated to the same extended format with the music slowly fading away to leave Adebimpe's exposed vocals to bring it to a close.

Not all the songs worked with the live treatment and this is due to the intricate subtleties that are so important to their sound not to mention the obvious sound problems experienced by Kyp Malone. I Was A Lover opens the new album with such hollow beauty, but that was lost here. The dense texture that is crafted around this song simply swallowed up the vocals reducing them to just another element in this texture. But this was a minor complaint and was soon forgotten as a free standing bass drum was brought on to the stage to herald the start of Let The Devil In. This was pounded on by at least two other band members as the crowd were encouraged to sing along. Adebimpe opened the song with dulcet vocals only to produce a mega-phone which he proceeded to shriek into as more and more previously unnoticed musicians joined the stage beating a myriad of cymbals, drums, tamborines, you name it. The result was a near tribal stampede of sound that refused to stop. It built and built to epic proportions and launched this gig into memorable territory.

After the dazzling My Morning Jacket show in September I got to thinking, "What separates the good gigs from the great gigs?" I have seen many a great band showcase their back catalogue with expert precision but have often been left feeling slightly flat. These gigs were as good as their albums, but the great gigs go further and make you feel like you are witnessing something specific to this moment, something spontaneously crafted and bigger than the music. This is what was happening at Koko that night, a live event that would be lost in any other format. All too often I leave a very enjoyable gig but mentally tick that band as 'done', the opposite was the case here and as I emerged from my grand surroundings into a rainy night I hoped this would not be the last would see of TV On The Radio.

#Music
#Gig
#BC

13th Nov 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Jeremy Enigk

World Waits

Reincarnate/Sony BMG

First, a bit of back story: Jeremy Enigk used to be lead singer in Seattle band Sunny Day Real Estate, whose 1994 album Diary (released on Sub Pop) is quite rightly considered something of a classic. The success of Sunny Day Real Estate's sound lay in the combination of Enigk's incredible, almost angelic, voice and a rhythm section that gave the songs a harder/darker edge. When you take into account that William Goldsmith (drums) and Nate Mendel (bass) went onto join the first incarnation of Foo Fighters, then you get an idea of the calibre of personnel.

And herein lies the problem of an Enigk solo project. Stripped of the energy and aggression that a 'band' provides, it is left to his voice to carry the songs, the music barely putting up a fight in competition. But is singing alone going to make a good album? Meatloaf has a good voice right? A bit harsh maybe.

Things start off well, Been Here Before showcases the complete range of Enigk's talents, starting slow and introspective before getting BIG, so big, that it takes a church organ to provide the song's break. In fact, what goes on pre/post organ could neatly describe what does and doesn't work on the album. The better songs are the quieter, more acoustic songs, where the music assumes a bit of character, rather than being a bit-part vehicle for 'the voice'. Canons, Damien Dreams and Dare a Smile fall into this category. The latter of which could almost be a Guided By Voices song, that is if GBV's Bob Pollard was to put down the bourbon and beers for a moment.

It's when the songs get epic that things start to go awry, City Tonight being a fine example. Not content with a dodgy synth opening, it begins with the line "Am I Late to the Kingdom of Love", before POWER drumming and guitars kick down the door and take the song home. This is Simple Minds in all their 80s glory, it's a song that conjures up an image of Richard Gere in slow-motion - probably on horseback. But Simple Minds not only had massive songs, they also head massive success, so I suppose dues should be given.

Overall, genuine good points beat potential bad (depending on where you stand on Simple Minds). It's actually quite refreshing to hear an honest album by a singer/songwriter doing what he does best, without compromise, rather than the multitude of bands around at the moment simply aching to be cool.

As for a score. I'll start with a 2 and award an extra mark for being a nice alternative to those other Golden-voiced Juggernauts, Keane and Coldplay, (at least Enigk sings like he means every word). But I'm going to have to dock half a mark for Am I Late to the Kingdom of Love. I hate Richard Gere.

#Music
#chimpovich

13th Nov 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Pavement

Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition

Domino

The Pavement re-release juggernaut continues with their third album getting the treatment this month, now re-branded as Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition. Following in the steps of the exhaustive first two re-issues (Slanted and Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: LA's Desert Origins), Wowee Zowee has been expanded with a re-remastered version of the classic 1997 album, accompanied by an assortment of B-sides, demos and live tracks from the period.

After the relative radio-friendly hits of Crooked Rain, Wowee Zowee was a relative critial and commercial disappointment on it's release, and the band retreated for a two years before releasing a follow up. In retrospect it is quite possibly the best Pavement album, finding the near perfect balance of the wacky schizophrenia of their early albums with the crafted 24 track song writing of their later albums Brighten The Corners and Terror Twilight. We can only imagine what extended titles are in store for those two.

Eclecticism is the name of the game with Wowee Zowee, and literally handfuls of different styles are covered. From the beautiful opening acoustic chords of We Dance, the music hall sounds of Motion Suggests Itself, Spiral Stairs' trippy Western Homes, or just the straight-up greatness of Black Out, Father To A Sister Of Thought, AT&T or countless others, this is an album that's as hard to define as a collection of Ween rarities.

For all the variation however, this is an album that works superbly. The songs play off each other and make a cohesive, balanced whole - with the highlights enhanced by the lighter, fun numbers.

And so we move on to the bonus material. B-sides from the album's singles (Rattled By The Rush and Father To A Sister Of Thought) start things off, and the Pacific Trim EP is a genuine bonus - recorded to coincide with an Australian tour, this release features all 4 tracks of the Rare EP - including notable mentions for vinyl-only I Love Perth and lead track Give It A Day. A cover of the Descendents It's A Hectic World is disappointing, and rambling tracks like Soul Food serve to highlight Pavement's habit of wandering off into musical cul-de-sacs. A demo of We Dance overlooks the natural beauty of the track, highlighting instead Malkmus' tounge-in-cheek English accent for a song which theories have suggested was influenced - either as a homage or pastiche - by Malkmus' friendship with some of the original Brit Poppers, including Damon Albarn (clearly influenced by Pavement in the mid 90's) and Wire fan Justine Fleischman (a former member of Malkmus' current band The Jicks).

Deeper into disc two a handful of tracks recorded on that same Australian tour showcase the band at their best, with off-kilter humor peeling away to uncover musical magic - illustrated most clearly by Box Elder, which recovers from near disaster to highlight how great this track is - from the often overlooked Westing (By Musket & Sextet) compilation.

One thing this album does bring up is how these re-releases monsters perform as self-contained albums. Is there ever such a thing as too much? The original was always long (56 minutes and 18 songs) and it could be argued that it was already sprawling (check out the re-ordered version here) and it is certainly front loaded with the absolute best-of-the-best tracks. At 50 songs and 156 minutes this new edition certainly adds a lot more to that mix, leaving no doubt that the best comes first - as although there are certainly some gems in the bonus material they never equal the epic heights set by the first two handfuls of tracks off the original.

Should this review rate the album as a whole? Or the original album as a whole, with the disposable extra of 32 bonus tracks? As a devout Pavement fan I'd always choose to have more, but if I was trying to convert a rookie to their majesty this would certainly not be the place to start.

I'm going to plump for something in between on this one, as although it is one of my favourite albums, I'm speculating that it is unlikely I'll be flipping on disc two all that often. But with the age of playlists and compilations upon us Pavement have delivered an ideal gift: A classic album with a selection box on the side.

#Music
#CSF

7th Nov 2006 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead

So Divided

Interscope

...Or as CSF quipped 'You will know us by our really long name' and to be completely honest, that was all I really knew about them. Of course, I knew of them - a name like that doesn't erase quickly - but I mostly remember them for the one, very Sonic Youth-ish track; Mistakes and Regrets and the hectic video that went with it. After that, I mentally labelled them art/prog rock (ie. 'difficult') and filed them alongside the likes of The Mars Volta.

So, when the new album arrives and the first thing I hear is a church bell on Intro: A Song of Fire and Wine, it's a case of rolled eyes and "Here we go again!" But then track 2, Stand in Silence, bursts through the speakers and I apologise. This is one of the best tunes I've heard this year. Admittedly, I am a sucker for a meaty riff, and this one is a beauty, but to get from said riff, into a military type fanfare that wouldn't be out of place over the final scene of Top Gun and then back again: it's a tip of the hat to you guys (who we will know…)

The band then seem intent on keeping the listener guessing what is round each corner, so much so that So Divided could simply have taken it's title from the range of music within. Wasted State of Mind begins with Indian drums and ends with French Accordian, Naked Sun is a 70s blues rock/groove with rousing brass section. Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory is a note perfect cover (if slightly slicker) from the mighty Guided By Voices album, Bee Thousand. Eight Day Hell is all joyously upbeat a la The Polyphonic Spree - who I find too saccharine, but in isolation one song works well here.

All this leaping around does indeed leave the record slightly divided and lacking in a clear vision. However, this can also work to it's advantage, as there is something for everyone here. All the songs are written with intelligence and performed with mucho passion so that, like the seasonal selection boxes soon to appear on supermarket shelf: you may well have your favourites (more track 2 please) but once in a while you can gorge on anything - and when the quality is this good you welcome the change.

#Music
#chimpovich

6th Nov 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Dosh

The Lost Take

The road that Dosh has chosen or is destined to travel is well trodden and as a result can often be perilous. Instrumental hip hop sounds like a good idea but can often fall into the chill out trap and forever condemned to an eternity of middle class diner parties. Fortunately Martin Dosh skillfully avoids these pitfalls and his third full length for Anticon "The Lost Take" is easily his best yet - and actually has no right to be classed as hip hop.

Having started off playing drums in the avant-guard DIY outfit Fog, Dosh released his debut self titled album in 2003 followed by 2004's Pure Trash which featured assistance from Anticon heavy weights Doseone, Jel and Odd Nosdam. With The Lost Take the collaborations are just as frequent but of a different sort. Dosh has cleverly enlisted the help of a plethora of musicians from Fog's Jeremy Ylvisaker, Erik Appelwick from Tapes 'n Tapes and the wonderful violin of Andrew Bird. This is the key to the success of this record. Proficient on most instruments himself, Dosh has created a record that though predominantly drum based is a homage to the art of live orchestration. "Um, Circles And Squares" is the first instance of this dazzling love for music. Here, Bird's strings form a beautiful cushion for Dosh's rolling Rhodes sequences and drum beats. This prepares us for the album highlight of "A Ghosts Business". This could be a scene from a Disney cartoon about the nighttime goings on in a music shop. After the owner leaves the store, the instruments come alive and jam erratically to their hearts content expressing the unbridled freedom that an instrument would if it was locked up in a shop all it's life. As conductor, Dosh makes us think he's lost control of his orchestra - but expertly brings them into line with Prefuse 73 style cutting and pasting.

This track is very important to the album as a whole. Not only does it let us know what this man is capable of, but gives us a valuable insight into the intentions of The Lost Take. Every song after it seems to work better with this knowledge. By enlisting the help of such talents, Dosh creates a rich pallet from which to work his magic. Appelwick's crunching guitar chords give strength to the piano and drums of "MPLS Rock And Roll", making it a triumphant anthem - while his subtle finger picking weaves softly amongst the textural percussion contributing to the delicate warmth of "O Mexico".

I imagine each of the twelve tracks on The Lost Take as an intrepid group of explorers in the old Tarzan movies bravely making their way through the jungle. Comprised predominantly of toffee-nosed British aristocrats and their native bag carriers, they negotiate the perilous mountain path known as "Chill-Out Pass". To lose your footing here would mean plummeting into the raging crocodile infested waters of Hoxton-quiff-sporting-Foxton's employees, hungry to get their soft hands on the next soundtrack to their upcoming Thai fusion themed dinner party. Sadly, not everyone here makes it to safety. "Everybody Cheer Up Song" and the closing sax horror of "The Lost Take" only lose their footing for a second, but that's all it takes on this journey to fall to the depths of mediocrity. But everyone else bravely push on to the other side. Once there, they find the going slightly easier, as a path of sorts has already been forged by people like Four Tet and Prefuse 73, but armed with the brave pioneering Anticon spirit the remaining members of The Lost Take form their own roads through this wilderness to discover new and rich pastures. One would hope that after showing such courage Dosh won't rest on these green and plentiful lands but will strive on to higher ground.

#Music
#HHG

3rd Nov 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Drones

Gala Mill

ATP

Of the new bands I've listened to recently, it's quite clear that The Drones would beat them all in a fight. A coiled aggression runs through Gala Mill and frontman Gareth Liddiard sings like a man with experience of a hundred brawls and of pain in all its varieties.

Two things about The Drones previous (and 2nd) album, that will give you a good idea about what you are going to get from Gala Mill:

1. It was called 'Wait by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By'. A title suggesting themes of conflict, nature and vengeance, a title that says "We aren't messing about here."

2. It won the Australian Music prize for best album, beating off the likes of Wolfmother.

Gala Mill, whilst more economically named, is an album full of conflict, nature and vengeance and perhaps more importantly, has Australia running through its adrenalin-charged veins.

It's straight down to business on 'Jezebel', an 8 minute epic that staggers and sways like a hardened fighter whose legs refuse to buckle. Liddiard's unashamedly abrasive accent snarls about subjects such as nuclear testing in Australia, the Beslan school massacre, a cow that glows in the dark and the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl. Track 1: like a punch in the gut!

There you are - winded. So they follow up with 'Dog Eared', a sinister ballad and 'I'm Here Now' another 8 minuter about heroin addiction that starts slow but ends up pinning you against the wall, threateningly requesting your full attention. 'The Words of the Executioner to Alexander Pearce' is self-explanatory - as long as you know that Alexander Pearce was a cannibal, rapist from The Drones' home state of Tasmania. Phew! 'I Don't Ever Want to Change' changes pace and provides some welcome rocking out, and even though it is about depression and denial, it is a strangely comforting song in the midst of all the down-tempo sluggers. The final track 'Sixteen Straws' is Gala Mill's most ambitious. Close to ten minutes, it's like a traditional folk ballad, as Lilliard spins 30+ verses into a 1st person tale of forlorn convicts avoiding the Catholic prohibition of suicide, by drawing straws to decide who will kill another and thus send them all to the gallows,

It's a hard and dark album, but a rewarding one. That is, if you can stay the distance.

#Music
#chimpovich

3rd Nov 2006 - 5 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Akron/Family

Meek Warrior

Young God Records

This is the third album from the enigma that is Akron/Family and as always it is a weird and often wonderful journey. This New York based quartet do everything they can to confuse you, alienate you, dazzle you and ultimately impress you with their brand of freak folk, post-rock and whatever other genre they decide to drop during this 35 minute slice of madness.

I say madness but for their standards this is quite normal. It's basically a regular alt folk, semi religious record in the style of Danielson or Davandra Banhart that's framed by two crazy, freak out monster jams. To open an album with a song like 'Blessing Force' lets the listener know early that to sit comfortably would be a mistake. Tribal drums, crashing cymbals and feedback start things off, before this turns into group chanting which heralds what we all think is the start of this song, but no. Another whiplash change of direction and the song careers off in another direction, that of head-fuck, twisted guitar and yet more sprawling drum landscapes. Then 3 minutes later we get the free-form jazz section and if you look ahead on your iTunes time bar you realise with horror that you have 2 more minutes of this ear-piercing noise to go. Just as the Rowntrees Fruit Pastel adverts dare you to eat one with out chewing, Akron/Family dare you not to skip this bit. I took up this dare once and finished the track but never again. As ambitious as 'Blessing Force' is, it does sound a bit like a nine minute show-reel and as the beautiful lo-fi folk of 'Gone Beyond' gently follows you can't help thinking that what just went before was nothing but a glitch in the system and somehow a particularly experimental Liars track found its way on to the start of this album.

So from here on in we get the delicate country ditties of the title track, the sparse soundscapes of 'No Space In This Realm' and the fragile finger picking of 'Lightning Bolt Of Compassion'. Then comes the other freak-out monster jam. 'The Rider (Dolphin Song)' is a measly seven minutes though and easier to stomach than its predecessor. It's a dark, brooding scuzz-bucket of noise that explodes erratically into formless improv. It's the evil cousin of Radiohead's 'National Anthem' and finishes you off with a deafening squall that must utilise every instrument in the studio. But the Family don't leave your bruised and pummeled corpse there. No, they pick you up, dust you down and take you to Sunday School with the closing track 'Love And Space'. Here, each band member gets a turn in chanting the "Lord Open My Heart.." mantra and all the craziness from the past 35 minutes is nicely forgotten.

This is another brave example of Akron/Family's talents. By painstakingly constructing their beautiful folk landscapes, only to destroy them in a reckless act of sabotage, they challenge the listener to question what they're listening to. While this is the albums strength it is also its failing. The experimental moments are too few and far between and instead of the annoying wrecking balls they try to be, when put amongst the delicate psych-folk of the other tracks they become the best songs on the album and are so powerful that the others appear out of place. But there is more than enough on Meek Warrior to confirm that Akron/Family are one of those important bands that refuse to be classified and will go on challenging you and daring you whether you like it or not.

#Music
#BC

31st Oct 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Brightblack Morning Light

Brightblack Morning Light

Matador

I was due to review this a while back, but like the vibe of the record itself, I couldn't really be arsed. This is seriously chilled music, all brushes on drums, echoed vocals, wah guitar, deep bass and lolling, rolling organ - with the occasional visit of a slide guitar, to add a touch of spice to this herbal heavy recipe. It's the sort of music to listen to when doing something else, like sleeping or fending off the Sunday morning hangover. As the whole album is so one-paced, ie, Sloooooooooooooooooooow, it feels like one long song, punctuated by a few pauses - no doubt a time for the band to get another lungful of Mother Nature's finest. I like it though. A good one to listen to as an alternative to Zero 7's overplayed 'Simple Things', that is if you can be bothered to put the disc in the player.

#Music
#chimpovich

30th Oct 2006 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Subtle

For Hero: For Fool

Anticon

I haven't heard a hip hop album this original since the last Subtle album. Formed in 2001 by Anticon's Jel (Jeffrey Logan) and Doseone (Adam Drucker) Subtle took their time getting started. After a few singles and 2 EP's, Summer and Autumn, they finally got around to their debut full length in 2004. A New White was a multi layered musical masterpiece that vaguely clung to the fringes of hip hop fusing programmed and live beats, with electronics, strings and Dose's expertly delivered vocals. Their stage show was equally magnificent with a white top hat and tails clad Dose springing around the band like a court jester possessed. While on tour in 2005 their bus skidded off the road paralyzing keyboardist Dax Pierson from the chest down. It seems a small miracle this album was ever made due to the seriousness of Pierson's injuries not to mention the fact that much of the harmonica and backing vocals come from Dax himself.

But thankfully it was made - as it's yet another forward thinking piece of Anticon splendor. Since the demise of cLOUDDEAD and Themselves, and with Deep Puddle Dynamics being less than productive Subtle has become the main vehicle for Doseone to flex his outstanding lyrical muscle and with Jel on beats, Marty Dowers on woodwind, Jordan Dalrymple on guitar, Alex Kort on cello and the afore mentioned Pierson, Subtle's sound is textured to say the least. The key to their success is their grasp of contrast, light and dark, blur and focus, chiaroscuro if you will. Their multi layering of samples, instruments and sometimes indecipherable spoken and sung vocals create a pea soup like fog of sound that is then punctuated by its opposite. Sharp beats and Doseone's acutely pronounced prose spring from this fog at a thrilling pace but never become formulaic, quite the opposite. Much of Subtle's music is confusing and can often make the listener feel as if he is involved in a private conversation of which he knows nothing about, the music never goes where you think it will and although the theme of human pointlessness and the general decay of society is graspable the delivery is often in the form of surreal word play that moves on quicker than you can keep up.

As a whole For Hero: For Fool adopts the same contrasting form that each song does. A Tale Of Apes I & II usher in the fog with the use of post rock mush, Boards Of Canada style nostalgia-synth and Kraftwerk electro pop while Middleclass Stomp swamps you with it's glorious power-cord pop. The three main points of sharp focus are the hip hop extravaganza of Midas Gutz, the unashamedly danceable The Mercury Gaze and the jaw dropping Return Of The Gaze. Here Jel lays down the most complex beat of clicks, scratches and stabs with Doseone's rapping coming in softly at a pace that defies comprehension, he never misses a beat, he doesn't even breathe. His nasal delivery seems to take on the same properties as the electronic, stop-start beat and an accompaniment of gentle acoustic guitar and brushed cymbals culminating in wailing guitar and crashing drums makes this the finest moment on the album. Vocal dexterity is Dose's forte and when put with Jel's masterful grasp of the textured beat the result is an aural delight.

Hip Hop was born from the deconstruction and reassembling of other genres and for that reason remains one of the most versatile music forms. It's creative perimeters are huge. There is nothing it can't borrow, steal or sample. This scope is expressed perfectly in the music of Subtle who seem to see no limits to how far they can stretch this genre. In the hazy, surreal fog of For Hero: For Fool boundaries and classifications are simply not visible.

#Music
#HHG

27th Oct 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Sebadoh

III

Who are Sebadoh? Well, Ill let them introduce themselves, courtesy of Showtape 91 the 11 minute spoken-word epic that closes side 2 of the re-issue of 'III', the aptly titled 3rd album, from this Massachusetts 3 piece.

Amongst other things, Sebadoh are:

- "Your new favourite dope-smoking renaissance threesome"
- "Your post modern folk-core saviours"
- "Featuring that guy who played bass in Soul Asylum, Lou Barlow"
- "3 more reasons to leave your boyfriend. Way to Go, Sebadoh!"

So there you have it; cynical, sarcastic, funny, confident and impossible to pigeonhole. Whilst III was their third album, it marked something of a starting point for the band. Previous albums The Freed Weed and Weed Foresting were self released cassettes that unashamedly wore (literally) their creative influence upon their sleeves. For III Lou Barlow and Eric Gaffney were joined by Jason Lowenstein, and whilst not compromising their taste for musical extremes, produced an album that heralded the introduction of 'lo-fi' in the midst of the Grunge Explosion.

Barlow, freshly liberated from a traumatic stint in Dinosaur Jr. (not Soul Asylum) used III as something of an exorcism, wasting no time in having a dig at J Mascis on track 1, The Freed Pig "You were right, I was battling you, trying to prove myself". From then on, the album takes the familiar shape and form of a typical Sebadoh album, ie. all over the place. Track 2 is a blistering cover of Minutemen's Sickle & Hammers, the heavily distorted bass (a signature sound) and blood curdling screams of Scars, Four Eyes is followed by the delicate Truly Great Thing "Make it easy and I'll hold it against you, Make it hard and I'll run away". Back to their herbal muse for Smoke a Bowl, a song which wouldnt be out of place on the Black Lodge Jukebox in Twin Peaks. How do you follow that? With the country hoe-down tinged Black Haired Gurl of course.

The album continues in this vein before closing with As The World Dies, The Eyes Of God Grow Bigger which captures the split personality of the band perfectly; acoustic singalong, followed by distorted screamalong, all ending with the cheery farewell "BLOOD ON THE WALLS, BLOOD ON THE WALLS." Hey, a trip with Sebadoh isn't ever easy, but you go to some interesting places along the way.

Disc 2 of this re-issue is immediately a winner, in that it includes the Gimme Indie Rock EP - the title track of which, is possibly the finest 3 and a half minutes this prolific band ever laid to tape. The rest of the extras all add to the whole; unreleased songs from the recording sessions, raw 4-track versions of old songs and the bizarre closer Showtape '91. At a hefty 41 tracks, the new 'III' might help solve that terminal puzzle: 'What to get the Sebadoh fan who has everything?'

#Music
#chimpovich

25th Oct 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Brakes

The Beatific Visions

After 2004's Give Blood, Brighton's Brakes are back with their second album The Beatific Visions - and the bets are on. Where Give Blood was an eclectic and electrifying collection of tracks, it certainly wasn't without it's problems. It showed great promise however and the threat of a more permenent band (The Electric Soft Parade is another band featuring two of the Brakes) spending more time focusing on a new Brakes album was a tasty prospect.

Opening track Hold Me In The River fulfills the early promise right fom the start. The playing is sharp and focused, with the song quickly shifting up through the gears. The guitars are high on the priority list, with a sliding screech like a muscle car burning rubber. Although the song is more focused tha some of the more comedy elements of Give Blood, there's still plenty of room for wit - with Scarlett Johansson being amongst this song's topic of fun.

There's no drop as we move on with Margarita and the album's already sounding like an old favourite. The country-punk element of their sound is one of the band's strong points - making for taught and engaging songs without the constraints of sounding like everyone else at the moment. This aspect to the Brakes sound has evolved and matured with this album - no doubt helped by the fact that the album was recorded in Nashville with a who's who from all over the record industry. Recorded by Stuart Sikes (Cat Power, White Stripes) at The House of David studio (as used by Elvis amongst others) and featuring David Briggs (of Muscle Shoals, and Elvis' 70's band). If I Should Die Tonight showcases all of these elements to full effect, creating a superb modern country sound layered with guitars and piano under a simple but engaging lyric.

My main gripe with Give Blood was always the under-developed feeling of some of the songs, which seemed to end just as they got started. That has been addressed on several songs here, but unfortunately Mobile Communication, No Return and title track Beatific Visions are the least successful songs this time round. The songs seem to flatten out into a far more conventional sound and structure, robbing the band of much of their originality. It's a small niggle however, and things pick up again with Cease and Desist and the excellent Porcupine Or Pineapple? - distilling recent wars to a few simple words. Spikey, spikey, spikey. At 1.04 it's the shortest track on the album, which still only clocks in at 28 minutes for 11 songs.

The balance seems a bit lost on the album, which could possibly be rectified different sequencing... although I think from now on I'm just going to shut up and keep my opinions to myself, as if this is any evidence to go by Brakes can do a good job of moving things on by themselves. There are some fantastic songs on this record and it just adds further evidence that the band are heading in the right direction, making great music along the way.

#Music
#CSF

24th Oct 2006 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Loney, Dear

Sologne

Loney, Dear is the brain child of Sweden's Emil Svanangen and this outfit is often described as the one man band with nine members. Whatever that means is a mystery but it does go some way to describe the sound of Sologne. Loney, Dear's blend of DIY indie-pop and lo-fi folk brings to mind solo artists like Stina Nordenstam or Mugison, but the rich tapestry of sounds that is woven around his most delicate of lyrics could be compared to experimental indie kids Grandaddy. All of these comparisons only go a fraction of the way to describe the originality and arresting beauty of this album.

From the first two songs you would be forgiven for thinking that this was yet another record of oh-so-chart friendly, run of the mill, male singer/songwriter crap but wait until you hear The City, The Airport and if you have any heart at all you will reevaluate your earlier judgments, discard your heavy robes of cynicism and jump head first into Sologne's warm waters. It starts of with a cheap casio synth beat overlaid with Svanangen's musings of "the city, I don't want another life that's killing me," then expands like a great bird into a cacophony of instruments, backing vocals, wails, shouts, you name it. It's the childlike equivalent of Radiohead's Let Down and rises and rises with such effortless grace that you want it to go higher and higher. And from here on in it's pure quality. Le Fever is a lonely, melancholic tale but continues the swell of emotion with increasing instrumental textures. Come to think of it, they all do. Songs like In With The Arms creep in with gentle folk sadness then slowly rise to a tearful euphoria with lines like, "Off with the boards, off with what's keeping you down, in with the arms." It's quite exhausting as each song starts you low then lifts you up. We get a little break with the Money Mark style instrumental organ ditty of Grekerna, then the final euphoric blow is dealt in the form of I Lose It All. It's a shame this doesn't end the album as it reaches heights way higher than any thing else as it ticks along at a steady pace then eventually explodes into a piano heavy, drum pounding, Rocky running up the steps glorious piece of crescendo magic that will leave you hands in the air and eyes to the sky wasted.

I do hope I'm not building this up too much but it's just such an honest piece of music akin in charm and emotion to Sunset Rubdown's Shut Up I Am Dreaming and each song on Sologne could be the closing soundtrack to a desperately sad film but as you dry your eyes it's genuine beauty reassures you that everything's gonna be alright. If last year was the year to look to Canada for the best in indie music then in 2006 Sweden is launching a typically Scandinavian counter attack. It's restrained, measured yet unfathomable in its quality and creativity. My only fear is that this quality could easily be undone by a Vodafone advert and then I would have to disown this album. Providing this doesn't happen, Sologne may just make my 'best of 2006' list.

#Music
#CSF

24th Oct 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Raconteurs

Brixton Academy, London

I could've sworn The Raconteurs have only made one album. After last nights show I felt I should go home and Google these guys to see if Broken Boy Soldiers wasn't their fifth due to the rapturous reception they got from the adoring Brixton crowd. And no one went home disappointed. Although opening with Intimate Secretary, the albums weakest track, Brendan Benson and Jack White's band put on one hell of a show making a sound so loud that if it wasn't for White's shriek the vocals would have been all but lost.

As on the album Benson is a solid performer but tends to assume the role of the straight guy when put next to the charisma and on/off mic antics of White. Whether he's being a Raconteur or a White Stripe, Jack White is electrifying to watch. Holding the guitar like it's an extension of his arm and with frequent visits to the front of the stage, guitar held aloft this concert was on the verge of becoming the Jack White show.

With only 10 songs to their name and each one getting aired, the order of the night was guitars - with each song being extended in length, volume and intensity. Forthcoming single Broken Boy Soldiers was, as anticipated, the standout moment - with White retreating to the back of the stage to shout the repeated line "The boy never gets older" into a voice distorting mic but the funky-as-hell Level and the gut punching, sonic boom of Store Bought Bones came in a close second. They even threw in a few covers - Gram Parsons and a mammoth rock opera loosely based around Nancy Sinatra's Bang Bang.

The crowd favorite Steady, As She Goes came soon after the encore and was so huge I was sure this would be the finale. But Blue Veins was to close this rock extravaganza and although I questioned this rather downbeat choice, it was given the same amped up treatment as the rest with White and Benson playing the blues something special. This was the final moment for Jack to show his masterful grasp of his instrument as his guitar gently wept and all over Brixton dogs pricked up their ears and cocked their heads.

I fear this performance may have ruined the album for a lot of people as the beefed up power of the live songs leaves the originals sounding positively anorexic. The only complaint would be the 'one album' thing and the drowned-in-sound quality you sometimes get at The Academy but apart from that this was an electrifying show of two musicians in complete control of their instruments and really loving their side project. You would have been forgiven for thinking that this was Led Zeppelin's farewell tour as the band bowed, arm in arm, at the front of the stage to a deafening applause that continued long after they had departed.

#Music
#Gig
#BC

21st Oct 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Bruce Springsteen

The Seeger Sessions: We Shall Overcome (American Land Edition)

Since making it big in 1975 with his third album Born To Run, Bruce Springsteen has had the artistic luxury of rarely releasing a record with the same sound as his last. The Seeger Sessions is no exception. A folk record, this is the first covers album The Boss has ever done. Based on the tracks recorded and popularised by Pete Seeger in the 40s, 50s and 60s the album was recorded with a large ensemble of musicians over two days, and as a result the album has a very live feel. Although this reviewer is not overly familiar with Pete Seeger's music, most tracks on this release have a familiar sound and feeling, as if perhaps we all used to sing them back in our school days.

Things kick off with the snappy and enticing banjo chords of Old Dan Tucker. This is one that would certainly get people to their feet at the hoe down. Springsteen's banjo and gravelly vocals sit perfectly alongside the bass and rythms of the big band. Next up is Jesse James the tale of Jesse James and his murder by The Coward Robert Ford. The band keep tempo with Springsteen's quick story telling developing into some saloon bar accordian.

The album moves on with much variation in tracks from the Seeger catalogue. Mrs McGrath tells the story of the mother of a son badly wounded during the civil war, their woes being spelt out with a strong fiddle accompanyment. O Mary Don't You Weep takes turns to faith and the story of Moses and Pharohs army drowning at the parting of the Red Sea. Pay Me My Money Down was sung by black ship workers when captains tried to slip out of harbour without paying them, and the title track We Shall Overcome reflects Springsteen's active criticism of the current US political regime as a famous song sung around the world in political protest for justice and equality.

This edition varies on the original April release with the addition of five extra tracks, the strongest of which Froggie Went A Courtin, and the excellent American Land, recorded live in front of a New York audience. However, all additional tracks are up to the quality of the original release and there is a sense that the back catalogue was there to produce many more tracks to this high standard.

This is not an album that you will play repeatedly, but like Springsteen's other more adventurous projects you will return to it again and again at times when something a little different is what's required.

#Music
#CJ

19th Oct 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Califone

Roots & Crowns

Eight years in and Chicago collective Califone are hitting their stride. After 2004's Heron King Blues, the band went on a brief hiatus - with band leader Tim Rutili moving out to California to work on film scores until repeated listening to Psychic TV's track Orchids prompted him to start writing again. That debt is acknowledged here with a sublime cover of the song, but let's start this review at the beginning.

Pink & Sour opens the album with a superb layered guitar sound that builds up with Rutili's hushed vocal's weaving in and out of the music like another instrument, before segueing perfectly into a near sing-a-long with Spider's House.

A history of touring with such bands as Smog, Sonic Youth and Wilco gives you some idea of where Califone are coming from and the album is often reminiscent of Loose Fur's self-titled debut album - never in a hurry and always enjoying itself, subtly building up and easing back. However, where that album could often be accused of being a side project, Roots & Crowns is always on-message. The delicate acoustics of Burned By The Christians sit comfortably next to the loops and sounds of Black Metal Valentine, or the crackling piano of Rose Petal Ear. Images of re-birth and evolution slowly creep through, creating a cohesive and focused vision.

Although it can sound both modern and subtly electronic in places, the album's over riding sound is the booming acoustics of layered guitars, low harmonies and organic, complex drum beats. With moments reminiscent of bands like Crosby, Stills and Nash, the album takes traditional sounds and brings them forcefully into the 21st century. While on the first few listens the album may seem slightly flat in places, with further and further repeat listening Califone's subtle sounds will echo round your mind, embedding themselves to be stirred and re-energized with repeat listening.

#Music
#CSF

18th Oct 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

J Dilla

The Shining

Jay Dee aka J Dilla is known as a producer's producer and was often compared to the likes of DJ Premier and Kanye West. He is a little known character in the Hip Hop world but was responsable for such master works as The Pharcyde's Running and De La Soul's Stakes Is High. His is a story of unrelenting dedication and a story who's end came far too soon - both for him and hip hop. He suffered from illness for many years, performing in a wheelchair towards the end of his career, and finally died just days after his 32nd birthday.

The Shining was the album he was working on when he died and just before the end he passed it on to fellow Detroit producer and long time friend Karriem Riggins. It is a mouthwatering line up featuring Common, Busta Rhymes and Madlib but despite this it is a very disjointed whole. This is to be expected considering the circumstances but when it's good it's great. It would be a crime to give some of these guys a whack beat and Dilla dutifully lays down a beauty for Common on E=MC2. Common is at his best when rhyming over hard and funky rhythms and that is what he gets here. At a glance the best cuts here are the "Love" songs. Love Jones is an all too short instrumental ditty from the man himself, Love featuring Pharoahe Monch is a classic soul groove, Jungle Love is a low down, dirty, beat driven grime-fest featuring MED and Guilty Simpson where we get the priceless line " I got hoe's like firemen." In an album that frequently sways into mushy RnB, Jungle Love has enough dick and hoe boasting to see us through. The last "Love" song is Black Thought's masterfull Love Movin'. The complex clicky beat is like nothing you've ever heard and it flows with the greatest of ease to the hard hitting vocals of The Roots front-man.

Unfortunately these moments are broken up by some less than perfect and often week cuts like the shocking collaboration between Common and D'Angelo and Busta Rhymes' testosterone filled opener that sounds more like a Richard Prior sketch. It's not enough to ruin this great artist's final work, however it does suggest, annoyingly so, what The Shining could have been if Dilla had been allowed to see it through.

#Music
#HHG

18th Oct 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Early Years

The Early Years

Finally a band who aren't afraid to make long songs. All too often these days a song will suggest that it has ended too soon and could really do with a good 5 minutes more in the oven. This debut album from London's The Early Years seems to go some way to satisfy me in the length department and if you talk to all my friends they'll tell you that's important.

I say 'some way' because these songs arent all long, none of them are less than 4 minutes, there's a 6.3 and an 8.4, but the thing to mention here is that they all feel long. Some of the greatest songs ever made in my opinion (for 'opinion read 'fact') have the same formula. They are epic, they change pace and they never end where they started. Stairway To Heaven, Paranoid Android, Bohemian Rhapsody, I Am The Resurrection, Free Bird to name but a few all follow this structure and although there is nothing on The Early Years that comes close to these they certainly have the right idea.

Their songs are often the musical equivalent of the average life-cycle of a person. Take High Times And Low Lives for example. It starts with an almost embryonic, blissed out ambient whisper, takes its time to build to maturity to peak at mid point on a crashing cymbal and guitar majesty. It then calms down for a while then starts to gallop again towards the end and quickly gains a glorious running pace. As with a lot of people, many of the songs threaten to end but seem to hang on to life until they feel it's time to go, and only then do they gracefully fade away to silence. The reason for this is obviously their eclectic source of influences. The band cite bands such as Spiritualised, Tortoise, Elevator's, The Velvet Underground and Neu! as source points and that more than explains their ability to handle ambient noise, motorik beats, drones, feedback and melody all in the same song.

The Early Years are a 3 piece which is hard to believe once you have heard their sound. They create the grandeur of at least 5 musicians. They can do heart wrenching ballads, epic swells and they can certainly rock when they want to. They seem to have everything and although there are a few less than exceptional moments this debut suggest greatness.

#Music
#BC

12th Oct 2006 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Nouvelle Vague

Bande A Part

In 2004 Nouvelle Vague put out their self titled debut album of catchy cover versions of 80's indie classics. Their sweet bossa nova lounge style was a joy to listen to and they really brought something different to these well known songs. However I quickly tired of the formula and was quite surprised to see their follow up album follow exactly the same pattern.

"Bande A Part" covers a similar era and the only difference here is the introduction of a second singer. On its release I had very little interest in it as it looked like more of the same, but after hearing the opening version of Echo & The Bunnymen's Killing Moon I was snared in its delightful trap. With The Buzzcocks' Ever Fallen In Love the grip tightened and I couldn't believe I was falling for the same trick a second time. Thankfully I managed to wriggle loose of its clutches and soon realised that this album was going nowhere. The novelty wears off soon after the first 3 tracks, as the formula sets in once more. I remember when I used to eat in McDonalds as a kid and they would play their own musak versions of popular songs. My mind would automatically search through it's database to tag the tune they were playing and once located the attention would come to an abrupt halt. This is the same here, after the song has been identified it holds no more intrigue. I think I would pay more attention to this band if they stopped the cover version gimmick and wrote some of their own material. They have such a beautiful style of easy listening, washed out and sun drenched bliss that at first went so well with their choice of covers but now is lost. If they dropped the covers their music would become the focus. Until then it fades to the background and becomes little more than lift music.

#Music
#BC

12th Oct 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Lemonheads

The Lemonheads

I thought I'd misread the details on this album. Seminal 90's under achiever Evan Dando is back with a new Lemonheads album, backed by Bill Stevenson and Karl Alverez of my 80's Santa Cruz-skate-favourites Decendents/ALL. A potential dream come true.

With a slow intro quickly being upgraded to breakneck punk pop, we're off to a great start on Black Gown, and with no time to waste between songs we roll straight into Become The Enemy and the album is already bearing all the hallmarks of it's main contributors.

While the album certainly starts off great, and never really fails, unfortunately both Evan Dando and Bill Stevenson can be a little methodical with their song writing and combining the two of them just highlights that in places. Dando never seems to know when to stop rhyming, and the lyrics/guitar blast/lyrics/guitar blast style of ALL often raises it's (non too ugly) head, which although not that common is strangely predictable.

Although most songs feature these hallmark sounds somewhere, they usually move on to something else. For example Poughkeepsie starts off very predictable, but as interest slides it stages a come-back turning off into new instrumental directions. The best moments on this album are when the songs veer of into just such unpredictable territory, such as on Let's Just Laugh, or current favourite Baby's Home - written by Aussie Tom Morgan of Smudge/Godstar.

There's further cameos galore, with The Band legend Garth Hudson playing keyboards on a couple of tracks, and J Mascis turning it up to 11 - most notably on No Backbone. Although Stevenson is only credited with writing two and a half tracks, the album often sounds almost like an ALL album with Dando singing. Stevenson's two solo credit tracks are both highlights (angsty older man tracks Become The Enemy and Steve's Boy) and the more punk-rooted support that Stevenson and Alvarez supply for Dando seem to give him a focus and urgency that he has previously often lacked. For 34 minutes of it at least.

#Music
#CSF

12th Oct 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Lupe Fiasco

Food & Liquor

If Jay-Z was about 10 years younger and hadn't been paid so much or jaded by police harrasment he would probably sound a bit like this. "Food & Liquor" is Chicago based rapper Lupe Fiasco's long awaited debut album. Long awaited due to it's hefty list of collaborators and a troubled record deal that pushed back its release until now. Lupe is only 25 and through most of this album that's hard to believe. Intricate and profound lyrics are woven together so tightly and are complimented by intelligent beats. My enjoyment of Food & Liquor is similar to that of Murs and his 2003 debut for Def Jux, "The End Of The Beginning". Both rappers are young enough to give us a new insight into hip hop but intelligent enough to make it interesting. The times when Lupe's age does show are to his credit. We get so much thug rap these days and whether it's real or not it gets so boring after a while so its very refreshing to hear a rap about skateboarding as on "Kick, Push" and then carried on to the fantastic "Kick, Push II" towards the end of the album. "I Gotcha" is a jazzy little number with a heavy piano based beat while on "The Instrumental" and "He Say She Say" he proves he can deal with more serious issues.

But It's not all skateboarding and fatherless childhoods though, the Jill Scott collaboration "Daydreamin'" has a reassuring amount of references to jacuzzis full of big tittied women but that's not surprising seeing as production duties on much of this album are shared but the likes of The Neptunes and Kanye West to name but a few. Much of the production sounds like a hip hop album from the early nineties with lots of synths and piano but it comes across as intentional and really works. The guest list is impressive yet not allowed to outshine the main star and for a 25 year old and a debut album he certainly has a lot of people to thank judging by "Outro", the 12 minute long 'peace out' dedication song often found closing a hip hop album.

"Food & Liquor" isn't smashing any boundaries or redefining the genre but it's quality from start to finish and due to the recent DJ Shadow memo that he's taking a break from good hip hop Lupe Fiasco is a pleasure to behold. He seems to have come to hip hop from a slightly different angle and provides us with a freshness and honesty that is so welcome after The Outsider's cop out cliches.

#Music
#BC

11th Oct 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Clinic

Visitations

This is the fourth album from the eclectic Liverpool four piece and the best way to describe it is to let the man who is responsible for its greatness sum it up. " The rule is: surprise yourself," says singer Ade Blackburn. "We went for something direct and primitive – surreal ballads next to subhuman riffs." Visitations is a grimy, tense and moody affair that is utterly compelling from start to finish and it's largely down to the pent up ferocity of their front man. If you got into a fight with Clinic you'd be wise to keep your eye on Ade Blackburn. He'd be seething silently in the background but would be the one most likely to do serious damage. His buddies with the instruments do a lot of shouting but he manages to keep his cool for just over 32 minutes and it's gripping to witness. For the most part the guitars are fierce but fuzzy and often threaten to drown the almost indecipherable vocals. Blackburn spits his lyrics through gritted teeth and that's where the power lies. He breeds a tension and urgency from this delivery that keeps you on your toes and locks in your attention like a rabbit in the headlights.

From the outset Visitations lets you know that this ain't gonna be pretty and some people may get hurt. The fierce guitars and heavy drums of Family herald the start of a rough but rewarding road ahead while Tusk does its best to pulverise your eardrums. Although these are typical of Clinic's ability to produce hard hitting, gritty rock gems the most arresting moments come in their down time. Animal/Human is a beautiful tripped out Velvet Underground moment while Paradise recalls the sparse, hollow melodies of Cowboy Junkie's cover of Sweet Jane. But as fine as these moments are the best of all comes in the form of Harvest (Within You). This is to be the first single off Visitations and it's a wise choice. It's a dirty little bitch of a song and I'll be damned if it isn't the most toe tapping, funky number I've heard in ages. It builds up in subtle layers of instruments and just as you feel you could nod to this rhythm all day it rises gracefully to almost Doors like majesty.

Clinic manage to change tempo with effortless confidence but never take a drop in intensity. Their music stares you in the face and challenges you to look away. Blackburn ends proceedings with the title track that is based around the repeated line "Don't get close" and although Clinic do their best to keep you at arms length I strongly urge you to defy Ade's words and get as close as you can to Visitations. It won't be a comfy snuggle by the fire but it's guaranteed to be a friend for life.

#Music
#BC

10th Oct 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Four Tet

Remixes

The release of a new remix album hardly sends me running to the shops these days but when it has Kieran Hebdan aka Four Tet's name anywhere near it I tend to take more notice. Although not everything Four Tet has given us recently has quite matched the master works of his earlier albums he is still pretty consistent and always strives for integrity and quality. His recent collaboration with Jazz maestro Steve Reid shows the breadth of this man's musical appreciation and this collection of remixes hints at that breadth too. The first disc showcases Hebdan's reworking of artists like Aphex Twin, Bloc Party and Radiohead, while the second is the reverse and has remixes of Four Tet's back catalogue from the likes of Caribou, Battles and Boom Bip.

The first installment is the one that demands the most attention. Hebdan's remixes are far superior to anything that is made of his work and it really shows what he brings to this art form that along with the B- Side has been severely damaged by the MP3 culture. The difference between Four Tet's remixes and a lot of his competitors is that on hearing the rework you don't wish you were listening to the original. The best examples here are his take on Radiohead's Scatterbrain and Bonobo's Pick Up and each one really shows how his vision allows for the best parts of the original to remain while totally making the song his own. Two of the longest pieces here are his beautiful alteration of Rothko's Roads Become Rivers and the epic 11 minute version of Beth Orton's Carmella ...and they show that quantity does mean quality. He strips away the meat on Bloc Party's So Here We Are and provides a solid-as-hell backbone beat for Madvillian's Money Folder.

The second disc contains much of the failings of many remix albums and that is it's flow. Though many of the remixes are good it stops and starts and unlike the first disc does make me want to listen to a Four Tet album. He has such a distinctive style and tweaks his victims with a ramshackle of sampled noises, off kilter drum beats and trumpet squeaks and a grouping of his remixes really flows like one of his own albums.

Judging from his web site there is a mouth-watering array of artists about to get the Four Tet treatment like Archie Bronson Outfit and The Longcut. This heralds a bright future for the remix and many compilations of this quality to come.

#Music
#BC

10th Oct 2006 - 5 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

The Strokes

First Impressions Of Earth

After 2004's disappointing second album Room On Fire, I had almost zero interest in checking out First Impressions Of Earth when it was released back in January. I stumbled across a copy a few weeks back, and since then is has been slowly grinding me down and winning me over.

The raft of Strokes imitators that have emerged over the last few years have forced the band to move further and further forward, and the song structures of this album are much more involved and complex than Is This It?'s catchy pop rock. The superb opening track You Only Live Once starts things off with a great bass line and the rhythm section builds up the trademark catchy pop into a fine rock sound. Heavy rocking first single Juicebox then ups the pressure straight away and gives the polished album a sense of urgency.

The development of the band's sound really starts to show them off as more of a band than just a backing band for Julian Casablanca's lyrics. It is the guitars that shine on nearly all of the stand-out tracks, with Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr's dual guitar's adding an important layer to the sound. The cascading guitars of Heart In A Cage or the singing guitars of Red Light bring almost as much personality to the band as Casablanca's voice.

The album dips slightly towards the middle, but recovers well, with Ize Of The World's building up an ever increasing pressure, until it abruptly ends. Red Light finishes the album off, and at 14 tracks and 52 minutes it is by far the bands longest release.

After this surprise turnaround I went back to Room On Fire, thinking I must be wrong there too - but it's still a stinker (...for now).

#Music
#CSF

7th Oct 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Jason Molina

Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go

Secretly Canadian

Since 1996 Jason Molina has been delivering his sparse tales of woe in various forms from Songs: Ohia to Magnolia Electric Co. he has done collaboration albums with artists such as Alistair Roberts and My Morning Jacket and more recently has begun trading under his own name. Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go is his second full length and his best yet.

Molina opens his album with a song entitled It's Easier Now. This sends a shudder down my spine at the thought of what it was like, as Let Me Go is as bleak as it gets. But if anyone can do bleak it's Molina. The whole album sounds like a last gasp cry for release as expressed in the title through to the final note of this trickling 34-minute slope into blackness. We get bombarded with albums with the same agenda as this all the time, but most of them are a struggle to get through and the only thing that moves quickly is your emotional shift from interest to boredom. This is far from the case here. Molina has an absolutely captivating voice and coupled with the impeccable production his words chime with crystal clarity that keeps you listening and hanging on his every devastating word. Though he rarely rises above a whimper his voice has a dormant strength that threatens to roar.

All of this, and his ability to write lyrics that break your heart faster than a Live Aid appeal interlude, make this a powerfully empty experience. In Alone With The Owl, he asks "while I lived was I a stray black dog, while I lived was I anything at all?" then describes the stagnancy of his life as he "stood beside the ocean not a single wave." But it's on Get Out, Get Out that he really shows his poetic skill with the achingly sad line "I live low enough that the moon wouldn't waste its light on me, what's left in this life that would do the same for me?"

#Music
#BC

7th Oct 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

James Yorkston

Year Of The Leopard

2006 is shaping up to be another fine year for music with releases from old veterans like Yo La Tengo and Grandaddy more than fulfilling expectations. But it definitely lacks a few things that we all need. After their stunning tour and appetising glimpses of new songs we need another Radiohead album and it's been so long since A Ghost Is Born that I think everyone would agree that we certainly need a new Wilco album but as Mr Yorkson shuffles his feet up to the plate to make his mark on this year it soon becomes clear that we don't need Year Of The Leopard. I don't come to this opinion lightly as I am a huge fan of Yorkston's honest and strangely uplifting style of folk but this new offering seems to lack all those attributes and is dull to say the least. A great deal of (dish) water has trickled under the bridge in the world of nu-folk since Yorkston's beautiful second album Just Beyond The River, so to emerge after 2 years with this is just not good enough.

We were dazzled by his presence at the Homefires festival and it was clear that he was a trailblazer for the impressively low key yet fiercely progressive Fence Collective, but since then his subordinates have lapped him in creativity and even though he pumps out new music all the time I could certainly handle another King Creosote album.

Yorkston has eased off on the lush orchestration that layered his previous albums opting instead for Homefires organiser Adem's stripped down style of drowsy folk and that's where the problem lies. Where Adem's voice has the intimate closeness that commands your attention, Yorkston just seems too tired or bored to command anything and before all you blinkered fans out there argue that Yorkston's understated and low-key style is the what makes his music work I would have to refer you to the latest Jason Molina offering or fellow Domino artist Bonnie "Prince" Billy as examples of just how captivating this style of music can be.

Each song follows the same structure with delicate finger picking ushering in hushed, whispering vocals until a feint swell of violins brings the whole thing to an easy close only to begin again and again. The Athletes seem to have all but disappeared and the only song that strives to break from this structure is the aptly titled Woozy With Cider, where Yorkston uses ill considered spoken word to tell his crazy tales of drunken debauchery.

Year Of The Leopard just proves that in a highly competitive market, feet shuffling simply won't do and illustrates perfectly the phrase 'If you snooze, you lose.'

#Music
#BC

7th Oct 2006 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet