Chimpomatic

My Latest Novel

Wolves

I first found out about this band sometime last year as I was recovering from post Arcade Fire blues and was searching the musical horizons for anything that might be on the way to satisfy my creative cravings that Funeral had just ignited. Their first single Sister Sneaker Sister Soul gave me a bit of hope. I then saw them support Sufjan Stevens and took their average performance as a warning that this was not where my next fix was going to come from. Then came Wolves, the debut album, and with it the death of all my hopes. It made me feel slightly embarrassed that I ever looked their way for what I craved.

It’s not that Wolves is a bad album, far from it, it’s better than a lot of stuff out at the moment. It’s just that it takes itself so damn seriously. If Wolves was one of my friends I think I would try to avoid them and make up some lame excuse every time they invited me out for a drink. They would constantly and predictably remind me of how bad McDonalds was as I stuffed a Big Mac and fries down my throat and would probably never buy a round.

But this purchase wasn’t a total disaster, due to Fopp's ‘Suck It And See’ policy I was able to exchange it for the new Morrissey offering which made me think that My Latest Novel need a lesson from The Pope Of Mope himself on how to take yourself seriously with your tongue firmly in your cheek.

Thank God Clap Your Hands came along and I got my fix in the end.

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5th Apr 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Show Your Bones

Wichita

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

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

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

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

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5th Apr 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Wilco

A Ghost Is Born

The other day during a particularly busy period at work I embarked on a ‘best of Wilco’ playlist and found that every track bar one off their most recent offering had to feature. Except for the 15 minutes of amp hummmmm on track 11 this is a perfect album. The reader may have just taken a sharp intake of breath at that controversial word ‘perfect’ that I just threw in there but I don’t care, I stand by that word.

When I first encountered Wilco they were way out in front on the ever-expanding alt-country scene and were making simple yet great songs. This style seemed to be changing with the release of 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and now with A Ghost Is Born Jeff Tweedy has taken his band into the realms of experimental rock genius. Largely due to the production, courtesy of the mighty Jim O’Rourke, this record sees Wilco turn a very important and difficult corner. From the outset you can see that the agenda has changed here. At Least That’s What You Said is one of the greatest and bravest ways to open an album, it’s soft bitter-sweet vocal intro turns in to 4 minute crunching guitar solo that leaves you breathless and exhausted and the album has only just begun. And if, during Hell Is Chrome, you found yourself relaxing into comfortable Wilco territory Spiders(Kidsmoke) soon jolts you to your feet throwing the alt-country rule book so far out the window you wonder if they ever read it, let alone wrote it. Clocking in at over 10 minutes and with a fantastic electronic beat for a backbone this song sounds more like early Roxy Music than our beloved Wilco with its occasional vocals and screeching, stabbing and totally freeform guitar solos. Then you’ve got Muzzle of Bees, Hummingbird, Handshake Drugs, the list goes on and on and the standard set in the first track is upheld right up to the very last note.

This is the album that convinced me to call my first born child Wilco, boy or girl. I’m just glad I’m not obsessed with ‘Pink Martini.’

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5th Apr 2006 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Why?

Elephant Eyelash

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

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

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

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5th Apr 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

CocoRosie

Scala, London

After the tragic let down (and probably the best sleep I’ve had in a long time) of the recent Bob Dylan concert I really needed Coco Rosie to restore my faith in live music. I was not disappointed. This was one of the most creative live performances I have ever seen. Sneaking on quietly amid a barrage of French rappers in tutu’s, the sisters captivated the audience from the first note. The music was totally live with classical piano and harp accompanying human beatbox, animal noises, delicate acoustic guitar and strange childlike vocals that sounded like a cross between Billie Holliday, Bjork and that freaky exorcist in Poltergeist. One of the sisters (Sierra) is a trained opera singer and it sure made for a refreshing contrast to hear such an enchantingly powerful voice booming out of a girl dressed in baseball cap and general hip hop gear, while her sister looked like she had just got out of bed and threw on her boyfriends oversized Tupac t-shirt. The stage seemed packed with lots of strangely dressed people doing their own thing around these utterly engaging sisters while a huge back projection played lo-fi images of Care Bears, Unicorns, Rainbows and all the other regulars from your average dream/nightmare scenario.

Their energy was electrifying. You really felt like you were witnessing something totally live and that anything could happen. When someone called out a request from the crowd they just said ‘OK’ and played it. During the encore people were pulled up on stage from the crowd and encouraged to join the free-for-all-sing-along finale that never seemed to end.

Despite the opinion of one guy in the crowd who shouted out ‘you’re a fucking sham’ this was a refreshing, unpretentious and totally unique display of creativity that respectfully nodded to it’s various influences but took the music and performance to places I have never seen before.

The following review of the new album Noah’s Ark on Spin.com just about sums it up: “Sierra and Bianca sound like humping unicorns spewing rainbows in a muddled watercolor field: fantastical and childlike and strangely pretty all at once.”

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2nd Dec 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet