For the last year or so, Grouper have hogged the top spot of my Last Fm Top Artists for the last rolling 12 months, I don't check every day but for a long time my love affair with Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill has left all other artists lagging behind...until this week that is, when Grouper finally made way for, of all people, Belle and Sebastian.
I find it almost hard to believe that the first band (well maybe second or third, as Blur and the Foo Fighters filled much of my early teen listening years) I ever really obsessed over have stuck so firmly in my playing selection. I say this because I'm the kind of person who always wants to hear something new, always ready to discover something different and I get easily bored of albums. Seven or eight years ago i could firmly tell you my 5 favourite bands, that being Belle and Sebastian, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Hefner, Clinic and The Delgados, these days Iseem to be able to discover five new bands a week, i could hardly begin to squeeze down to a solid list of my ten favourite bands, maybe not even 20. Since these humble beginnings my tastes have evolved through indie pop, electronica, post rock (to the point of boredom), drone and more recently dubstep and even house and yet subconsciously and admittedly with the help of a new album, Belle & Sebastian are still doing it for me, more so than any other band over the last 12 months it would appear.
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09:06on Saturday, 13 December 2008
4 Bonjour Parties - Pigments Drift Down to the Brook (Mush Records)
4 Bonjour Parties are a really quite wonderful discovery. As i find myself becoming more and more convinced that Japan is the saviour of music as we know it, the distraction to take our minds off the awful hype that is constantly thrown in our faces, 4 Bonjour Parties are just one of many wonders i've discovered from Japan. Although the majority of my favourite Japanese music is minimal and extrasperimental 4 Bonjour Parties are quite certainly pop, if not quite the pop we're so used to. Lovely textured songs that build up over the 4, 5 minute mark and even longer at times, delicious and folktronic in approach, occasionally calling to mind the lush arrangements of the Delgados. Its not often i make it all the way to the end of an album but i'm glad i did with Pigments Drift Down to the Brook, the closer, beautifully entitled Crimson After The Sunset, slow building pop gently melts into a glorious trumpet or horn section coda. Of equal loveliness is Satellite with flutes this time building playfully like kittens with a new ball of wool before the slow horn soaked breakdown. Ruins twinkles along just dreamily. Amalthea and Nostalgic Was Broken to Pieces are also worth a mention. This is like Maher Shalal Hash Baz had they been brought up in shirts and ties, lovely, lovely stuff.
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ben
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13:11on Wednesday, 17 September 2008
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Come Saturday (Fortuna Pop!) A lovely blast of summery noise pop, contagious as pop music gets with its ooooo-ee-oooo’s and its laid back slacker cool attitude. With the melodic charm of the Lucksmiths getting covered by the Shop Assistants this is a summer classic certain to bring a smile to your face and have you dancing your socks off at every indie disco you attend between now and forever.
El Ten Eleven - These Promises Are Being Videotaped Dianogah – qhnnnl A refreshing pair of “post-rock”ish bands, perhaps both veer more towards math rock. El Ten Eleven remind me of two of my favourite discoveries, back in the day when I’d purchase albums simply based on how much I liked the look of the cover, State River Widening & 33.3. Simple and understated, staccato melodies picked out on deep strings. These Promises Are Being Videotaped, the latest offering from El Ten Eleven sees a move towards dance, like Justice covering Tortoise, and is a successful attempt at pushing the boundaries of “instrumental” music. Both their previous albums are less beat driven but come highly recommended. Dianogah’s strangely titled qhnnnl is a dreamy autumnal album, some tracks are more “Alternative/American Indie” but the unusual core set up of two basses and a drummer makes for an interesting listen. When they are instrumental they are at their strongest particularly on the gorgeous Andrew Jackson, don’t be fooled by the Always Look on the Bright Side of Life intro, this is a dreamy number with delicately arranged strings that add the garnish to an already superb musical offering. On A Breaks B they could be mistaken for the Delgados, which is no bad thing in my eyes. Sprinter is lovely too, easily the best of the vocal tracks, again reminiscent of the Delgados Emma Pollack, though please don’t expect a new Delgados album of smooth Scottish pop, this is definitely “instrumental” and “math-y” but tuneful and upbeat in its approach, maybe in the same way that the aforementioned Scots always had a lovely bass line holding their songs together. Certainly two bands well worth your careful attention.
And finally a mention of two rather welcome returns, guitar shredder Marnie Stern and indie pop anarchists Los Campesinos...i like them both rather alot :) :)
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ben
at
14:46on Saturday, 29 September 2007
Emma Pollock & Alaska in Winter Reviewed
Posted on 2007.09.29 at 22:20
Current Music: Gel-Sol - Unifactor
Tags: 4ad, a hawk and a hacksaw, alaska in winter, beirut, daft punk, emma pollock, silver mount zion, the delgados Emma Pollock – Watch The Fireworks (4AD) It was just last night that I and a good friend were discussing how difficult we were finding it to write songs of late, to come up with something new, in the past songs have come easily or at least there would be those days once or twice a week, maybe a month if I think deeply enough, the days and years all seem to float into one these days, when a song would fall together just out of nowhere, or a melody or riff would almost play itself. Just lately it all seems to sound so uninspired and as if it’s all been done before, I personally put my new deficiency down to the wider world of music that the internet has enlightened me with, an endless library of inventive tunes, too clever for me and more time consuming than I can justify, still although there is no shortage of people out there still bashing tunes out left right and centre in the traditional way, few do it so simply and so consistently as it would appear Emma Pollock does. I had previously concluded that she was simply a voice to Alun Woodward’s thoughts in the excellent Delgados but it would appear that she has more talent than I’d ever given her credit for.
You can still hear the Delgados in the general sound, 3 minutes into opening track Paper and Glue its classic Delgados piano breakdowns and sweet vocals, slightly tainted by an icy fear as it slowly moves into a lovely waltz outro and at times echoes Reasons for Silence. Acid Test is upbeat and fresh sounding, slightly more “pop” than the Delgados by and large were, Adrenaline likewise an ascending piano tune that needs no help in introducing itself to you.
If this does nothing more than make you aware of the existence of the Delgados and their excellent back catalogue then it will be a success, hopefully though it’ll help you realise what a rare talent Emma Pollock is.
Alaska in Winter – Dance Party in the Balkans (Regular Beat Recording Co.) By simultaneously mixing Piano & Vocoder, Alaska in the Winter have created what may be the most original and ambitious pop albums of the year. It will not surprise you upon listening to them that their line up is as follows Brandon Bethancourt, Zach Condon (of Beirut), Heather Trost (of A Hawk and a Hacksaw), Hari Ziznewski (of Rap), Stefanie Lamm, Rosina Roibal (who played in the Kanye West live string section), Hilary Bethancourt, and Naila Dixon. There are obvious references to Beirut and A Hawk and a Hacksaw but here they are mixed with vocodered vocals that almost give some songs a daft punk feel.
Other songs such as Harmonijak and Horsey Horse have piano chords as sparse as A Silver Mount Zion, mixing these tender sounds with electronic drums and the aforementioned vocoders, this really is something special.
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ben
at
08:28on Sunday, 16 September 2007
Múm - Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy Reviewed Posted on 2007.09.16 at 16:10 Current Music: Mom - Little Brite Tags: fat cat records, fatcat records, kanda, mice parade, silent ballet, stereolab, the books, the delgados
Is the new Múm album really so bad?
Múm – Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy (FatCat)
I’ve been quite surprised to see how badly the new album from Icelandic (currently) septet Múm, described on the reliable Silent Ballet website as follows:
“let's just say this is one to put on the shelf and watch it collect dust…this album fails at accomplishing any sort of goal, and even raises the question if one exists in the first place. There's an anxiety behind the track, and many others that really prevents anything from being carried out completely. Thoughts are left completely abandoned, mid-sentence, and rarely do we see anything fleshed out to form any sort of understandable statement.”
Rating it at a measly 3 out of 10, it seems that there has been further negativity towards the album from other reliable sources and so it’s with caution that I stick my neck out, that I pipe up above the crowds and ask “Is it really that bad?” I started this fanzine in paper format initially with the idea of promoting good music, sharing with people music that I have fallen in love with, hence why you will normally find just positive reviews on here, I see no point in telling people what I don’t like, what’s disappointed me. For one of the first times though I feel that I could be wrong, how can there be so much disdain for an album that I have loved from the very first listen to now where new songs keep popping out into the foreground, is it because although having the Múm back catalogue I’ve never given it the time I imagine it deserves, yes I loved Green Grass of Tunnel but really who didn’t? maybe those devout followers were expecting something more spectacular, something more progressive and I’ll admit that at times the timid production does sound like that of a band debut opposed to their fourth/fifth (?) album but to me that adds a certain Icelandic magical charm to it, the delicate icy frozen nature of the twinkling lullaby’s within are made that little bit more childlike and naïve, slowly tip toeing through the snow on cold winters nights.
Perhaps it’s the new line up, after all now not only one of the twins that famously graced Belle & Sebastian’s Fold Your Hands album cover have left the band, with Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir following her sisters footsteps departing at some point in 2006. It was her voice that alongside the electronic glitches, beats and effects, and the variety of traditional and unconventional instruments that made the band’s sound so distinct. So now we have the inclusion of more prominent male vocals not too distant from those of the excellent Mice Parade and particularly on the Books-ian cut up glitch of single They Made Frogs Smoke ‘Til They Exploded the much missed synth pop of Kanda. Marmalade Fires are what the Delgados would’ve sounded like had they purchased a laptop rather than split up. Dancing Behind My Eyelids is again lovely and playful, again reminding us of Kanda and mixing amstrad-esque loading screens with truly delightful melodies. School Song Misfortune is again naïve and playful like some strange childhood dream sequence, lullaby’s for an Icelandic kindergarten.
The closing triplet of songs are somewhat more somber and melancholy in sound, and perhaps those will please long term fans, mainly instrumental and occasionally haunting, particularly so the dense and dark forest walk in the middle of the night that is I Was Her Horse. Guilty Rocks is everything you’ve ever read about Stereolab yet down several times better and closer Winter (What We Never Were After All) is again haunting and angelic icy keyboards set to choir like Viking film chorales, delightful and refreshing, as I listen again I can only convince myself further of how special this album is.
Future of the Left – Curses (Too Pure) It’s fair to say that heavy music rarely does it for me, and when I say heavy I don’t mean heavy in the sense of Let Airplanes Circle Overhead, Russian Circles, Pelican and the like, I adore them, no I mean heavy as in with screaming and intenseness, it’s the combination that I’m not that fussed about. However there will always be exceptions, in the past the main exception happened to be the highly underrated Mclusky and so its no surprise that my new favourite band (for 15 minutes as ever for me) are Future of the Left the new project of former Mclusky front man Andy Falkous and drummer Jimmy Egglestone. This is no nonsense full on aggressive in your face rock, yet for all its no nonsenseness it full on nonsensical lyrics, and melodies that will having you nodding your head and banging your steering wheel as you wait at the lights.
In the tradition of Mclusky amazing song titles are ever present (My Gymnastic Past, Suddenly It's A Folk Song, Adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood) and perhaps less familiar will be the excellent keyboards lines now present used to amazing effect on the fantastic Manchasm, I’ll let you discover this years best outro yourself, needless to say that like Mclusky, Future of the Left are a very special band.
Go! Team - Proof of Youth (Memphis Industries) I’m not ashamed to admit that I really never intended to hear this, planning to avoid it at all costs. I really enjoyed their debut album but was let down with the live performance, it was all very “put yr hands in the air, like you just don’t care” and didn’t do it for me at all and then a series of events, the plan b interview, to quote “I wanna be a cartoon! I wanna be a comic! I wanna be a watch!” why? why would you ever say that? And then the press shot in the latest Plan B, grotesque and utterly repulsive, again why would you let people print such bad pictures of yourself, and yet I eat each and every one of my words, I take back all my misconceptions, my past experience of bands never quite matching the exuberance and quality of their debut, my everything, Proof of Youth is one of the best albums you will hear this year, full to the brim and overflowing with feel good tunes, songs to pick you up, to make you dance, to let you forget about all the crap you have to deal with, I love this album, only a week ago I could never imagine saying such a thing. Its sends a shiver down my spine how good this album is. Taking the best of hip hop and mixing it in with a serious helping of motown, tracks like Doing it Right have no need to beg you to dance for by the time the first bar has kicked in you’re already there on the dance floor, and a series of chants likely to be echoed on a million dance floors “do it do it alright” “extra extra read all about it”.
If you thought Annie’s Chewing Gum was the song to get you in the mood then now you have a whole album, soo good that you’ll be tempted to stay in, it really is that good. I’m having trouble describing just how good, Fake ID is smothered in such northern soul magic where it not for the hip hop twist you’d swear you were down Wigan Casino on a Saturday night. Don’t let your musical snobbery put you off, Proof of Youth is awesome.
Back when I was a lad, or at least when I when I was first beginning to “properly” get into music, whereby I mean that my record collection no longer consisted of taped music recorded from and occasionally by friends too cautious to “lend” in fear of never seeing their beloved disc again. Instead my hard earned cash gave me the opportunity to fill every possible place I could ram a CD within my (shared) box room…and so I did…and so my findings led me to a pentateuch, so to speak, of bands that I both swore by and adored, bands who could do no wrong in my eyes…a list of which follows
It is from the final and perhaps weirdest and unpredictable of the bunch that arises my latest obsession, that being the solo project of former front man Euros Childs, going by the alias of…erm, Euros Childs. Gorky’s a their finest where able to produce both noise and melody, hush and chaos and ultimately a song for each occasion, whether that be the loud and chaotic Sweet Johnny, the literally barking mad Poodle Rocking, the sunshine pop of Spanish Dance Troupe, Diamond Dew and Patio Song or the heart melting four tracks that closed 1999 album, Spanish Dance Troupe, who could forget the “Jodie brown eyes” line, one that to do this day I find myself randomly singing. And so out of nowhere Euros has given us three albums in the space of sixteen months, Chops (13/2/06) Bore Da (05/03/07) and now The Miracle Inn (25/06/07), a treasure trove of Gorky-like pop. The piano led pop remains, songs like Horse Riding & Ali Day are instant classics, whereas the more ambitious 15 minutes of The Miracle Inn show the ideas and experiments are not running short yet. Costa Rita is a lovely love song told in the normal Euros way, quirky and normally from a distance, the way we all fall in love with that girl that we see on the bus each day, the one who walks past our window at work, the one who works in the florist down the road and yet we’ll probably never ever pluck the courage up to talk to her let alone tell her how we feel. Country Girl shows his fondness for country as previously expressed in the much loved yet little heard Johnny Cash Lawsuit Song. Euros Childs is a madcap genius who deserves your attention, let him put a little sunshine and romance in your life.
