Category: Music

Mercury Prize: The Invisible – The Invisible

15th August 2009 / / 2 Comments

Video: ‘London Girl’

The Invisible, a trio from London, are the first really obscure act on this year’s Mercury shortlist; and the first thing I’ll say is that they don’t deserve to be obscure. Their music is quite hard to describe, but I’ll have a go: guitar-based, yes, but drawing on elements of jazz, soul, dance, and probably a few other styles as well.

Anyway, it might difficult to capture in words, but this music is certainly interesting to listen to. Some songs take unexpected turns, like the opener ‘In Retrograde’, which starts off with a minimal ‘nursery-rhyme’ backing, before bursting halfway through into something odd and spooky. Others take a particular sound — like the funk of ‘OK’ or the dance of ‘London Girl’ — and make it ‘coalesce’ into a continuous whole (I’m not sure if that truly captures what I mean, or if it will make sense to anyone else, but it’s the best description I can think of).

There are a couple of moments on The Invisible that don’t quite work for me, such as the spiky guitars on ‘Spiral’ — which I guess are meant to reflect the title of the song, but had a nails-down-blackboard effect on my ears. I think the biggest weakness of the album, though, is that Dave Okumu’s vocals tend to fade into the background a little too much. Perhaps, of course, that’s the intention, so that they become part of the texture of the record; either way, I still think the album would be stronger if the vocals were more prominent.

That said, this is a grower of an album that could be a strong contender for the Prize.

Video: ‘Monster’s Waltz’ (live)

Read my other Mercury Prize 2009 posts here.

Mercury Prize: The Horrors – Primary Colours

14th August 2009 / / 2 Comments

Video: ‘Who Can Say’

What did I know about The Horrors? I knew they were from Southend, and that Primary Colours was their second album. I’d never listened to them first time around; but there seemed to be a broad critical consensus that the new record was both very good, and a significant change in direction.

To test this out, I decided to give the début a listen first. Let’s just say that we didn’t get along. But it’s Primary Colours on the Mercury shortlist; and that album is a dark, moody, melodramatic species of rock. Perhaps that’s inevitable from a band with a name like ‘The Horrors’ and a singer like Faris Badwan, who doesn’t so much sing his vocals as intone them. But there’s more variety than you might expect (even a three-minute pop song, in the title track); and there’s a furious energy to the playing that stops it all feeling ridiculous. I can see without doubt why someone might love this record.

But I didn’t.

I don’t know why, but there’s something about this album that stops me from getting into it. Perhaps it’s the way the music seems to turn in on itself, whereas I prefer music that opens outwards (if that makes any sense at all). Whatever, the end result is the same. Don’t get me wrong, there are still moments that catch my ear — I keep humming along to ‘Mirror’s Image’, for example; and there’s the way ‘Sea Within a Sea’ transforms over its eight minutes into what sounds like an attempt to recreate the soundtrack of a ZX Spectrum game. But still, I find Primary Colours a difficult album to like.

Video: ‘Mirror’s Image’ (live)

Read my other Mercury Prize 2009 posts here.

Mercury Prize: Glasvegas – Glasvegas

12th August 2009 / / 3 Comments

Video: ‘Geraldine’

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.3181896&w=425&h=350&fv=]

First, the name. Glasvegas, it will not surprise you to learn, are from Glasgow; but their name is more than a throwaway pun – to me, it sums up the essence of their songs: a combination of grit and escapism. Their lyrics touch on harsh social realities, but the music is far from dour: this is big, epic indie-rock.

My favourite three songs on the album (all released as singles) illustrate this contrast well. There’s ‘Geraldine’, which paints a heroic portrait of a social worker; and ‘Daddy’s Gone’, an optimistic tale of someone getting over their father’s absenteeism and making a new start. Perhaps best of all, though, is the stunning ‘Flowers and Football Tops’, a seven-minute track sung from the viewpoint of a parent whose son has been killed. It’s a sweeping anthem that closes with an adaptation of ‘You Are My Sunshine’, which brings out a tender side to James Allan’s vocals.

There are no songs on Glasvegas that don’t work; if there’s a problem, it’s the same as with the Friendly Fires record – a little too much similarity in the songs over the course of a whole album. But, as I said, I’ve no gripes with the individual tracks; and there are a couple which are a real departure from the rest – ‘Stabbed’, a spoken-word piece which is as stark as its title; and the near-ambient ‘Ice Cream Van’, which ends the album on a call for unity.

The sound of Glasvegas is quite traditional, yes; but the album has a big heart and a social conscience. It’s a joy to listen to.

Video: ‘Daddy’s Gone’ (live)

Read my other Mercury Prize 2009 posts here.

Mercury Prize: Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires

6th August 2009 / / 2 Comments

Video: ‘Skeleton Boy’

Friendly Fires are a band from St Albans whose music falls somewhere between dance and rock. Their début album is a set of ten slick numbers just as suited to an indie disco as to listening at home.

Opener ‘Jump in the Pool’ sets the standard, with frenetic beats in the verses, and a chorus that floats along in between. Great stuff. The rest is essentially variations on that theme, but with a good amount of variety for all that. The band try their hand at a number of different styles, whilst maintaining a distinctive Friendly Fires sound. Ed Macfarlane is not that great a singer, but that’s not so important for music of this nature, and his voice fits in just fine. Out of all ten songs, I’d say that only ‘On Board’, though it bounces along nicely to begin with, ultimately outstays its welcome. Generally speaking, however, it all comes together well.

The thing is, though… I find myself flagging by the last couple of tracks. This is no reflection on the quality of the songs themselves, but it does make me think that Friendly Fires’ music may be best appreciated in short bursts. Or maybe it depends on context, because I get a sense that they’d be great live. What I’m certain of is that the band sound as though they had a ball making this record – and their enthusiasm is infectious.

Video: ‘Paris’ (live)

Read my other Mercury Prize 2009 posts here.

Mercury Prize: Bat for Lashes – Two Suns

22nd July 2009 / / 2 Comments

Video: ‘Pearl’s Dream’

Bat for Lashes is Brighton’s Natasha Khan, whose first album was nominated for the Mercury Prize back in 2007 (but didn’t win). I’ve often meant to give her music a proper listen; this marks the first time I have heard one of her albums in full. And… Khan has a beautiful voice that suits her style of music perfectly; Two Suns is epic, diverse, mysterious, full of texture – all these are things that I like in music. Yet the maddening question that kept niggling me as I listened to the album was: why am I not enjoying this more?

Well, the song on Two Suns that I keep returning to is the lead single, ’Daniel’. It’s an absolutely fantastic song that sounds as though it came from the playlist of a high-school disco in the Land of Faerie – and knowing that it’s about the Karate Kid reduces its power not one bit. But it also sticks out like a sore thumb for me, because even after several listens to the album, it’s the only song on there that really stays in my mind properly.

Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t mean to say that the rest of Two Suns is forgettable, or leaves no impression – on the contrary, the album as a whole leaves a very strong (and favourable) impression. But the music I love best gets into my mind and stays there, comes back to the surface every now and then to be hummed or sung along  to. Two Suns is great while I’m listening to it, but most of it doesn’t stick afterwards.

I am impressed with the diversity of the album; it covers a lot more bases than I expected it would. There are many great moments: the way that ‘Glass’ builds from a simple a cappella vocal to a thudding crescendo; and the soulful call-and-response of ‘Peace of Mind’, to name just two… I like Two Suns very much, but I don’t love it. And I very nearly loved it, which is what frustrates me all the more.

Video: ‘Sleep Alone’ – live

Read my other Mercury Prize 2009 posts here.

Mercury Prize 2009 shortlist

21st July 2009 / / 8 Comments

The Mercury Prize is upon us once again and, since I had such fun blogging the shortlist last year, I’m going to do it all again this year. The shortlist has been announced today; so, without further ado, here it is:

Bat for Lashes – Two Suns
Florence and the Machine – Lungs
Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires
Glasvegas – Glasvegas
The Horrors – Primary Colours
The Invisble – The Invisible
Kasabian – West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
La Roux – La Roux
Led Bib – Sensible Shoes
Lisa Hannigan – Sea Sew
Speech Debelle – Speech Therapy
Sweet Billy Pilgrim – Twice Born Men

Now, that is an interesting list, not least because I don’t even know what half of it sounds like; actually, I’ve listened to precisely none of these albums all the way through.

Still, some initial observations:

There’s a distinct lack of any really big names, certainly more so than last year.

Historically, the Mercury shortlists (and winners) have been dominated by male acts; this year  the shortlist is almost  a fifty-fifty split between male and female, and the favourites to win are all female.

As for the nominees themselves: there have been quite a few hotly-tipped female acts to emerge this year; they’re represented here by La Roux and Florence and the Machine. I’ve yet to hear anything by either of them which is as good as Little Boots, but time will tell.

Of all the established ‘indie’ bands who released albums in the past year, I would not have anticipated that Kasabian would be the one to make it on to the shortlist, but that’s all part of the fun of the Mercury.

Friendly Fires and Glasvegas are both new ‘indie’ bands: I’ve heard a couple of songs by the former, which I quite liked; I know I’ve listened to the latter, but can’t remember what they’re like.

Bat for Lashes is the only one of this year’s shortlist to have been nominated previously. I’ve meant to listen to her album properly, and now I will get around to it — likewise Lisa Hannigan’s album.

The Horrors are on their second album; I’ve heard of them, but don’t know what they sound like.

The rest, I’d never even heard of until today. I gather that Speech Debelle is a female rapper, and Led Bib are a jazz act. I’m going to let the sound of The Invisible and Sweet Billy Pilgrim be a surprise.

Normally, I would not get into the game of ‘X should have nominated instead of Y’, because I don’t know the nominated albums and am in no position to judge things like that (yet). But there is one album I’ve heard this year that I thought could match up to The Seldom Seem Kid, and that’s Doves’ Kingdom of Rust (I meant to blog about it before now, and still plan to at some point). It’s a shame not to see that album in contention for the Mercury; but maybe there’s an album on the shortlist which is as good. I’m looking forward to finding out.

The Duckworth Lewis Method – The Duckworth Lewis Method

17th July 2009 / / 3 Comments

Audio: ‘The Nightwatchman’

One of my favourite musicians is Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy. It’s been a while since he last released any new material, but it seems we can expect a couple of albums from him this year: a new Divine Comedy record later, and first this — a concept album about cricket, made with his friend Thomas Walsh (of a band called Pugwash, whom I know nothing about, but will have to look up, if the present album is anything to go by).

Of course, the concern with any album of this nature is that it’s going to be a novelty, or only of interest to fans of the subject matter. Well, there’s no danger of that with The Duckworth Lewis Method. Which is not to say that the album pays lip-service to being about cricket (some, though by no means all, of the songs go into minute detail about the sport), or that it lacks a sense of humour (it certainly doesn’t) — just that it was a made by a pair whose ears fro a good tune are clearly as great as their love of cricket.

What of the actual songs, then? They’re (perhaps surprisingly) quite a diverse bunch. There’s the terribly civilised ‘Gentlemen and Players’, about the Victorian game; and the tongue-twisting ‘Jiggery Pokery’, about Shane Warne in the 1993 Ashes. There’s ‘The Age of Revolution’, a funky number celebrating the spread of cricket around the world; and the gentle ballad ‘Flatten the Hay’, where Walsh recalls playing cricket in his childhood.

All in all, The Duckworth Lewis Method is a lovely set of songs that deserves a listen, whether you’re into cricket or not.

Video: ‘The Age of Revolution’ (live)

Little Boots – Hands

22nd June 2009 / / 1 Comment

Video: ‘New in Town’

For the last few years, the BBC website has run the ‘Sound of…’ poll, in which a bunch of music industry bods are asked to vote on who they think will be the new acts to watch in the coming year. Topping the Sound of 2009 poll was an electro-pop artist from Blackpool named Victoria Hesketh, aka Little Boots, who got a record deal after leaving her old band and posting videos on YouTube of her playing songs at home.

It’s not hard to see why Hesketh came first in the poll. Hands begins with the single ‘New in Town’ which is, to be frank, an absolute corker of  a song. A stuttering opening gives way to an intrguingly odd melody, which then explodes into a mighty chorus that promptly takes up residence in the mind and refuses to leave (I’m still humming it now). One of the best songs of the year so far, no doubt.

And that’s not the only great song on here. There’s the weird clattering of ‘Meddle’, the skewed disco of ‘Remedy, the drum-led march of ‘Ghost’… There’s also something notable about Hesketh’s lyrics: not so much particular turns of phrase, but she pulls off the neat trick of building entire songs around single metaphors (all the mathematical language on the aptly-titled ‘Mathematics’, for example, or the driving-themed ‘No Brakes’) without it seeming strained.  This doesn’t quite work on ‘Click’, which tries to pack too much in; but I’d say that’s the only sub-par song on the album.

More than this, Hesketh is a good singer (although the spoken interlude on one track was a bad idea), and she’s amde an electronic album of heart with its own distnctive feel. If good pop music can be defined as music that stays in your head and is welcome there (well, that’s how I’m going to define it here); then Hands is an album of good pop music, and Little Boots deserves to be a star.

Video: ‘Meddle’ (live)

Super Furry Animals – Dark Days/Light Years

10th May 2009 / / 1 Comment

darkdays

If anything I wrote about on this blog were ever likely to make me lose all sense of detachment, a new Super Furry Animals album would be it. After all, they are my favourite band — I don’t think any act recording today can match them in terms of breadth and consistency; and I’d recommend that anyone reading this who is not familiar with their music gets acquainted as soon as possible.

And there is a lot of music to get acquainted with. Dark Days/Light Years is SFA’s ninth studio album and, as usual, it’s very different from the last one. Their previous album, 2007’s Hey Venus!, was short, sharp, and concise; this, in contrast, is the longest yet — but it’s a wonderfuly expanisve hour of music. Each song is different, so the only way to do the album justice is to take it one track at a time…

1. ‘Crazy Naked Girls’

Every SFA album starts differently, and Dark Days/Light Years continues that tradition. Whereas the opening track of Hey Venus! was over in 45 seconds, ‘Crazy Naked Girls’ doesn’t even get underway until after almost a minute of studio chatter, and then continues for another five meandering minutes that I just cannot get into. Gruff Rhys sings the verses in an oddly breathless, high-pitched fashion that I don’t think really works, before guitarist Huw Bunford comes in for the chorus, and the whole thing goes on too long.

2. ‘Mt.’ [link to audio]

Grumbling over: the rest of the album is fine. With ‘Mt.’, keyboardist Cian Ciaran takes lead vocals on a fast song for the first time; he should do so more often, because this is fantastic. A song that might seem at first to be too restricitive and repetitive in structure for its own good turns out to have a real swinging groove and momentum.

3. ‘Moped Eyes’

Another song with a groove, though one of a rather different sort, ‘Moped Eyes’ gives the album its title (‘Dark days seem light years away’) and simmers along nicely for four minutes; and you may well find yourself, as I did, nodding along to the beat.

4. ‘Inaugural Trams’ [link to audio]

This is the kind of SFA song that, if you try to describe it, sounds ridiculous. Here goes… A song about town planning (chorus: ‘It’s the first day of the integrated transport hub’), that sounds like the theme to a cartoon, and has guest rapping by Nick McCarthy from Franz Ferdinand — in German. It shouldn’t work, but it does.

5. ‘Inconvenience’

A straight-ahead (for SFA) rock song that almost defies you not to sing along with the chorus. Which is exactly what I ended up doing.

6. ‘Cardiff in the Sun’ [link to audio]

Now this is an example of why I think Super Furry Animals are such an extraordinary band, because their music ranges so widely. SFA go almost ambient with chiming guitars, treated vocals, and trademark ‘sha-la-las’. It’s compelling for all its eight minutes, and sounds completely otherworldly.

7. ‘The Very Best of Neil Diamond’

Rather more serious than its title might suggest, this is another electronic song, though more aggressive tham the previous track. Gruff’s vocals are perhaps even more distorted, making them so distant the effect is almost hypnotic.

8. ‘Helium Hearts’

The closest thing on Dark Days/Light Years to a ballad, this song poses the question: with all these body parts that do such useful things, what is the chin for? The answer, we learn after three minutes, is that it helps you smile. Lovely stuff.

9. ‘White Socks/Flip Flops’

Apparently, the title refers to ‘the type of footwear one needs to write a good novel’ (never having tried to write one, I must reserve judgement on whether that is so). Vocals by  Huw Bunford, and I think this is his best song to date; again, it has a nice ‘groove’ to it (can’t you tell I’m not very well-versed in describing music?).

10. ‘Where Do You Wanna Go?’

The shortest song on the album, at two-and-a-half minutes, and also the most straightforward. A great showcase for the Beach Boys-style harmonies that SFA do so well.

11. ‘Lliwiau Llachar’

Here’s a neat trick: this song uses the same melody as the previous one, only this time the lyrics are in Welsh. But it’s not the same song (the title translates as ‘Intensely Bright Colours’), and the structure is different enough that it doesn’t feel like a carbon copy of the last song, which is an even neater trick. Incidentally, this is the first Welsh-language song to appear on an SFA album in nine years.

12. ‘Pric’

And here’s another one (I leave the translation of the title to your imagination). Actually, this is almost an instrumental, apart from brief vocal sections. A suitably chaotic way to end the album, ‘Pric’ is a stew of guitars, whistling and who-knows-what-else that goes on for six minutes, then spends another four slowing to a halt. Rather over-indulgent, yes; but, after all that’s gone before, I’ll let them off.

So, that’s another reliably dazzling SFA album. Ah, why can’t all music be as good as this?

The double-edged sword of Spotify

26th March 2009 / / 0 Comments

I’ve come across an article at MusicOMH by music producer Mark Moore (of S’Express) about Spotify, the new application that allows you to (legally) stream music over the internet, either for a monthly fee, or for free if you don’t mind a few adverts in between tracks. Moore’s argument is essentially that, though Spotify has been endorsed by the record industry, it’s actually detrimental to the long-term survival of that industry, because who’s going to buy music when you can listen to whatever you want for free?

Now, I’m a monthly subscriber to Spotify, and I think the program is a great idea. I’ve never personally been interested in carrying music around with me, and so never been interested in downloading — but I like listening to music when I’m working at the compter, and the ability to listen to whatever I want whilst doing so was very appealing. All the music posts on the present blog were done with the aid of Spotify; and it would have been a boon when I was blogging the Mercury Prize last year.

Nevertheless, I can see Moore’s point. I am not going to stop buying music: I’ve no plans to stop paying for Spotify, and I will still be buying the CDs of my favourite artists, and any other albums and hear and love. But it’s true that I feel less inclined to take a chance on an album where I’ve only heard a couple of songs, when I can listen to the whole thing on Spotify instead. And I would imagine I’m in the minority of Spotify users when I pay the monthly fee — ads can be ignored, and who doesn’t like getting things for free?

I’ll agree, there is a real issue over how musicians, now and especially in the future, are going to earn enough money from making music to make it worth their while. And I can’t offer any suggestions as to how that issue might be resolved. I am sympathetic to Moore’s idea of  having a six-month gap between an album’s release and its appearance on Spotifty (though, perhaps selfishly, I’d want to see that gap closed, or at least narrowed, for paid subscribers) — but Spotify would lose one of its major selling-points if that were to happen, so I can’t see it myself.

And in conclusion..? There is no conclusion, really. I’ll continue to use Spotify, because it’s convenient; and I’ll hope that artists are able to make all the music they want in the years to come.

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