I'd toyed with the idea of investing time into Animal Hospital, i was aware as some may well not be that the aforementioned band are not as twee as they sound and in fact one of a million recommendations last.fm had thrown my way care of my obsession with the Fun Years and other "drone"/"soundscape" types. Some intrigue, some disappoint, as always there will be a hundred poor/ average artists to every great one whatever the genre. Animal Hospital on first impression fall very much into the latter class, mesmerizingly brilliant and refreshingly innovative. Not afraid to drag songs past the fifteen minute mark, but not needlessly as bands of the instrumental variety have a habit of doing. Each note is gently pulled into the realms of sound with care and finesse, sieved to ensure that only quality comes through and the odd bit of experimentation, chilli and chocolate, peanut butter and jam, things that shouldn't work but do and in a more than pleasant manner. Note 5 mins 39 seconds into the glorious His Belly Burst, the guitars out of place, out of tune and yet fitting in like they'd been born to be there. 2 minutes into 2nd anniversary the guitars enter again, two notches too high on the amp, yet the contrast works perfectly.
The closing track Memory swells and ebbs and flows in a way not achieved quite so elegantly since Johann Johannssonns IDM Manual album, a quite beautiful discovery.
I was beginning to wonder whether i might be getting bored with Bearsuit, could they really continue to be so wonderful, could their ramshackle charm remain a charm without becoming annoying or repetitive, fortunately the answer is no and they remain as brilliant as ever, slightly electro, slightly no wave with their jagged guitar lines that those NME loving boys could well take a lesson from instead of spending so much time choosing which shockwaves product to use next. This is killer chorus pop perfection, a little bit chaos a little bit soaring boy/girl loveliness not a million miles from the Delgados of old but with the usual Bearsuit trademark brilliance. The perfect working out soundtrack or something like that...basically, its brilliant!
Another lovely discovery and quite possibly an early contender for soundtrack of the summer, The Ideal Husband make sumptuos music inspired by 1960's Hawaii, all grass skirts, lapsteel, ukelele and flowers in the hair.
I love that feeling when you discover an album that you instantly fall for, look no further than the Lovely Eggs review below for a recent happening where a track hit me so hard I listened to it 17 times in a row.
Despite being about as far away as possible from The Lovely Eggs, Ben Frost's Theory of Machines has hit me in a similar manner, you know how you read all those glowing reviews on Boomkat about the latest release from Machinefabriek and a whole host of other artists, and then you find that you're ever so slightly disappointed, i will step to one side to admit that not always do Boomkat dissappoint, in fact their end of year selection is normally amongst the most reliable, but if you're looking for pure drone perfection, pure drone perfection with a hint of noise, but restraintful noise, perfectly built up and executed then you should really look no further than the marvellous Ben Frost. Not since the Fun Years wonderful and ever fresh Baby, Its Cold Outside have i heard an album of such magnitude and natural, oraganic perfection. Static sounds and gentle, soothing soundscapes of epic proportions, so natural and inviting, a dream in sound, balancing the noise perfectly with the drone like a master of suspense. I can't recommend this highly enough, believe me, its on constant repeat.
It seems that this weekend i have been somehow ripped out of my droney hollow of dreamy soundscapes that i have become so accustomed to over the bitter winter months, content to put my hood up, snuggle under the blanket and fall asleep to the gentle clicks, whirs and drones of the Fun Years and more recently Ben Frost and Alva Noto.
Instead, i find myself back in the land of indie pop, fanzines and the least self consious dancing i've seen in years and it was the best feeling ever. On Friday night I kicked myself at least 300 times for firstly leaving before a Horowitz encore, a rendition of Chilwell Olympia, the home of my school and a hundred million games of football, but still worse faux pas' would follow.
Let me introduce the Lovely Eggs, a simple two piece, her on guitar and vocals, him on drums and backing vocals and retardedly simple songs of such simplicity that it defies belief that anything more could possibly improve this pure simplistic device. Remember your first encounter with Scout Niblett? the stripped down brilliance, the rawness, the pure delight and proziacical feel those songs gave you, then remember when you first heard Kenickie, their poptastic hooks and their pure comic genius, then remember how Slow Club stole your heart with their onstage banter and simplistic joy and ecstaticism at the fact that peple care enough to come along and see them let alone the fact that they know every single word to each and every song, you should by now have a feeling of the pure euphoria i felt i we walked in to a song that repeated "I want to fall off my bike" again and again with relentless glee.
Things only got better with what i think may possibly be my favourite song ever. Have You Ever Heard A Digital Accordian can not be explained in words, its outright genius and gets better with every listen, even the most cynical person in the world would struggle not to smile at the retort "if you've never heard a digital accordian/ then you've only ever heard an acoustic accordian!"
Whats better is that you can stream it from Last Fm free... a great song, a great band and a kick in the teeth that this was their last song of the night :(
Husband and wife duo's are normally a winner in my eyes, mates of state being the most immediate example to come to mind, two people in love making great music together, who could want anything more? or maybe more bizarrely the ever wonderful divorcees that form Quasi. Here though we have a fairytale set up, high school sweethearts, Laura & Alfred Darlington, better known as Daedelus, team up to deliver some bittersweet and melancholy pop.
The voices meld together quite beautifully, similar to Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, his deep, hers high and sweet, recalling names such as Vashti Bunyan, Trish Keenan of Broadcast and perhaps most accuratley Kerry Shaw of late nineties band Whistler. Each song a delicate pop number given the appropriate twist that you'd expect with Daedelus at the controls yet never over doing it. Happy to throw in the occasional sample, electronic beats and some great vocals but never taking over. Particularly fine is third song, Sibilance, repetitive and lullaby like for the first minute before the marching drums and toy piano join in, leaving it for another minute before exploding into full glory and finally the icing on the cake as Alfred joins in with a glorious counter melody of she sells sea shells on the sea shore gently sending you into dream land, you can only wonder if this is how they send their children to sleep at night, magical and perfectly executed.
Overmuch has an icy melancholy about it with its repeating line "The curse of perfect vision" so elegantly delivered. Ballroom Dance Club starts off like a scene from one of those Saturday Afternoons sixties film before kicking into another great track. Cat Fancy is lovely too, the sampled lady sounding like the mother from Requiem For A Dream. Domestics a near perfect call & response him/her duet with an upbeat catchy feel, like Beck collaborating with Vashti Bunyan, a delightful disc to help us through these cold months.
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09:14on Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Automobile, Swift - Enemy, Enemy
Another day and so it would seem another great net release. I read with eager anticipation the press release to the ridiculously prolific Machinefabriek that his new release(one of them anyway) IJspret that claimes "Rutger Zuydervelt turns his ear towards that most fertile of creative themes for the microsound artist: winter. Ijspret was inspired by the timbral properties of ice, and features contact microphone recordings of all manner of frosty textures and interactions with the frozen ground, from the noise made by ice skaters to the strange commotion of the defrosting process." i expected extreme beauty and the sound of winter to be caught graciously, i was disappointed as i tend to be by his releases, apart from the lovely Drawn. Automobile, Swift on the other hand capture the sound of winter, the crispy crunch of frozen snow that paves the streets of England right now, so well and without trying. Slow Ocean is all crackles and crunching set to whirring swells of drone and distant seagull calls. The rest of the five track EP is of a similarly high quality and far more worthy of your attention than any of the seven new releases that Rutger Zuydervalt is likely to release this week.
Chazz Knapp - Vie comme un Parasite Faisant la fête (Phantom Channel) I remember being completely blown away by the first Our Brother the Native album, bought simply because it was on FatCat, a strange mix of Cocorosie and Four Tet folkish tapestries. Here on his solo album, Chaz Knapps musical genius shines through strongly once again, maybe not as original but stunningly beautiful. Steeped in classical roots the five songs, for the majority of the time minimal piano based tracks, are melancholy and as beautiful as the piano can be when placed under the right set of fingers. Dreamy walks through secret gardens, the impatient anticipation of a reunital with a loved one mixed with the gleeful reminiscence of past memories.
At times similiar in sound to Becky Foons Fifths of Seven project at their very best, in Chaz Knapp there has been found a healthy dose of musical genius and you'd be a fool if you weren't to take a spoonful.
On a similiar note we find the fatcat label on fine form as always, kindly delivering the compilation Floored Memory...Fading Location, the names will be familiar and if they are not I would seriously recommend checking them out, especially if you like the above album, names like Max Richter, Hauschka and Sylvain Chaveau should become firm favourites of yours, each giving three tracks here (max gives four) alongside two new(?) tracks from Set Fire to Flames, try Chazz Knapp first, then check these out.
I love this time of year, lists upon lists of people’s favourite albums of the year, you learn the ones to trust and you see how you’ve moved on. I vividly remember buying the xmas editions of the NME and Melody Maker back in my late teens and spending the early months of the following year catching up on what I missed out on, it was on one of these lists that I discovered bands I treasure now, Sparklehorse, Grandaddy, Elliott Smith, I look this year and nothing grabs me, maybe the Nme has moved on, undoubtedly I have and now I have new people to trust, new musical guidance and thanks to the world of blogs a hundred and one opinions and views from people of high musical compatibility, ones that will introduce you to albums that you will love and remind you of albums that you forgot about, so here I present my favourite discoveries from other peoples end of year lists and the blatant omissions from my own list.
Emeralds – Solar Bridge
I’ve harped on lately about my recent discovery of drone, or more relevantly my recent understanding of the genre, one that I’ve struggled with in the past and not really “got”, it left me bored, it gave me a headache but now I can’t escape from the soothing swathes of sound that resonate through the speakers so dreamily, music at its most naked state, stripped bare to the basic elements and dragged through static radio waves to the innermost part of you, dreamy drones that make me wonder whether the sound of drone may have some kind of embryonic connection, the kind of sounds we hear in the nine months we spend within our mother’s womb growing and developing into the individuals we now find ourselves as.
Emeralds much like The Fun Years touched me instantly; other drone loves such as Johann Johannssonn & Fennesz took their time to gain to my trust and approval and I am glad of my own persistence, Emeralds needed no such persistence, such natural organic sounds, surely impossible not to love even for the most traditional of listener. This two track EP / album has stolen my heart, you should let it do the same to you.
Fitting nicely in to the same niche as Flica and Akira Kosemura I'm Not A Gun produce a deeply melodic sound with wondrous glitchy electronic, a natural progression from the “normal” guitar based post-rock that has lately begun to bore me so much.
D_rradio – D_rradio
I can’t but feel bad to have neglected this album over the year, it’s one of those albums you continuously rediscover when you hit the random button, again it’s not a million miles from the kind of IDM Japan has been producing in such great quantities, yet your very own British version to cherish and prove that deep beneath the new musical culture there is genuine talent and melodic greatness to make us proud and soundtrack our daily existence. A spectacular release.
Myspace
Dom Mino’ – Time Lapse (Schole)
From the very first few seconds of this record you are treated to pure loveliness, gentle twinkles echo in a small child’s laugh before the piano comes in set to glitch beats that have become so recognisable amongst the fore players in the world of Japanese experimental IDM, except in this instance Mr Domenico Mino is a London resident, whether he is of British origin or not I'm unsure but in Time Lapse he’s created an album worthy of its place on Akira Kosemura’s excellent Schole label, a welcome addition to both the owner himself and Flica.
Magical and sweet and peppered with subtle rubbery bass lines, a small treasure.
D Chong - Compositions & Miniatures for Shortwave Tape
I know incredibly little about this release, I call it a release though I can’t even vouch for whether this actually was released, a recommendation from a friend and a recommendation that required several revisits before its true worth became evident.
Dark ambience, broken radios and apocalyptic strings combine deep down to create a murky beauty that will transcend you in to a world of its very own, The Melancholy Suite trilogy standing out as a theme of hope amongst a traumatised society.
The School – Let It Slip
An emphatic feel good stomper of a track, perfectly executed northern soul tinged pop guaranteed to bring a smile to your face, effortlessly wonderful. If Strawberry Fair was a little too Shangri-las then this is for you. Can’t wait to hear an album.
The Just Joans – Hey Boy...You’re Oh So Sensitive
If you couldn’t get along with the new Ballboy album like I and just wanted some good old Scottish Tweeness delivered with more than a pinch of salt and some fantastically broad Scottish accents.
Whilst Goldmund and Balmorhea received the coverage at least amongst the underground, it was actually Andrei Machado that delivered the goods when it came to simple dreamy piano, the kind that no one I know can fail to like, using all the magic that the piano seems to carry and delivering some of the most lovely stripped down music of the year.
As a general rule I hate the word and the genre of Jazz but Bohren & der Club of Gore seem to have pulled something truly enchanting from this difficult genre. Deep deep down in the darkest realms of jazz, lies the beautiful sound as borne out by each and every piano note that accompanies the deep bass that sits octaves and octaves beneath. Music full of distrust, secrets that are better off not known, a gloriously sad listen.
No doubt a Heroes inspired title, the music however is simple and heart achingly lovely, another lovely net release from the Lost Children Net Label and maybe one that could give French Teen Idol a run for his money as the best artist on the label.
It took me a long time to get into this after my instant love of the Japanese Spy Transcript EP, at the time one of the most exciting post rock releases I’d discovered in some while, expertly fusing post rock, electronic, samples and a healthy dose of metal ethics into one delightful melting pot of sound and ingenuity.
The single that preceded the album Seraphim & Cherubim put me off, mainly due to the singing on second track Heartflusters, somehow I ignored the beast of an A-side which contained all their usual angst and haunting piano beauty joined by sweeping violins and brutal bass.
The Paris Hilton Sex Tape from the aforementioned tape is a welcome inclusion and possibly one of their finest moments
I have a terrible tendency of rarely reaching the end of an album, in this instance though the foolish listener like I will be missing out as the albums crescendos in style from the heaviest yet C.N.T.R.C.K.T passed the sequelthat is He Films The Clouds Part 2 with its actually welcome angelically building outro chorus, to my favourite Maybeshewill moment yet, Not For Want of Trying. Taking a fantastic sample from a film of which name I can’t remember and butchering up a behemoth of a song, guaranteed to make heads bang and air guitars strummed. Riff piles upon riff until a magical breakdown, recession like worry, desperation in the voice, frustration, anger, sick of hearing the same old stories, the same old lies, the uncertainty, the fragility of everything. It’s caught so unbelievably well, I can only wonder how amazing they must be live.
It goes without say that this really should have made my top 30, maybe even my top 10, effortlessly elegant and beautiful, and short short tracks, which for someone with an attention span as short as mine is a real blessing. A wonderful release from an artist that you really wouldn’t expect anything less from.
An attempt an exploration of the ringtone as a vehicle for music performance , ‘24 Postcards…’ is an experimental work made up of 24 classically-composed ringtones, set to be premièred in various gallery spaces. The première is intended to be in the form of a series of installations where pre-registered audience members switch on their phones to receive SMS messages, each message alert playing back one or more of the tracks, so making up the performance. In tandem with this release, will be a micro-website hosting 24 photographic images, one accompanying each track. As Max explains: “Thinking about how we listen to music today, I wondered why it is that ringtones have so far been treated as unfit for creative music… Who says ringtones have to be bad?.. It’s like saying LPs or CDs are bad – its just a medium….”
“Because the piece is a collection of tones, where I have no control of the order, I made a structure that holds together by use of shared material – like a cloud of pieces, or a handful of confetti, or a constellation of fragments – to be navigated as you like…” Max views the writing process in similar terms - shuffling basic elements into new constellations.
Tilly and the Wall – O
Potty mouthed as ever but also seemingly brilliant as ever, the idea of having three tap dancing ladies instead of a drummer is yet to lose its novelty, neither has their ability to write stomping pop tunes, this time borrowing a new rockier attitude extraspecially so on the thudding Pot Kettle Back, like what It must sound like if you have the mis/fortune on the floor below a Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert.
