Much as with the last time I reviewed a Max Richter album (2009’s re-issue of Memoryhouse), this is a record it’s taken me ages to get around to reviewing. In truth, it’s the “absorption” part of the review process that has stumped me this time around. Whilst ostensibly having thirteen tracks, Max Richter’s latest effort, Infra, is in essence one forty-five minute piece of music. Now, finding time to listen to a record of this nature shouldn’t have been too much of a challenge; I almost exclusively listen to albums in their entirety, and I have a strong academic interest in what – for want of a better word – I shall call “classical” music, which commands much more interaction from the listener that the usual fare that graces these pages. So why was absorbing Infra such a laborious process?
Much like Memoryhouse, Infra lies in a muddy hinterland. Richter’s compositional style sits well with those who embrace a more overtly cinematic aesthetic, such as the excellent John Murphy (who earned his epithet as a result of his work for Danny Boyle on both 28 Days Later and Sunshine*), but his work with soundscapes and found sounds – which make up a substantial part of Infra – suggests that Richter is yearning to be thought of as more avant-garde than any mere “film composer”. Thus the question of how to approach an album like this remains a tricky one; Infra was initially commissioned to accompany a Royal Ballet piece by Wayne McGregor and artist Julian Opie, but now surfaces, in slightly re-worked form, as a stand-alone album, so how does one actually listen to it? Much of the issues I’ve had with Richter’s earlier works were centred around the fact that they sound like soundtracks; hearing them is isolation left the listener wanting more. The scope was there, but the music felt like it was only a part of a much bigger whole, and to hear just the one element was to miss the point. And with Infra there is certainly the same feeling of this being merely music for the accompaniment of something else.
Many works that were conceived as soundtracks can stand on their own two feet and have artistic merit as pieces in isolation, but those are the ones that feel “complete”. Although the themes are simplistic – after all, soundtrack music is designed to fulfil one purpose alone; to invoke a scene-specific emotion and no more – the work of people like John Murphy (an overtly commercial and “wham, bam” approach) and Michael Nyman (widely accepted as a “real” composer, despite working extensively in the soundtrack field) has a depth of timbre that allows it to have an independent life of it’s own. Richter’s efforts, by comparison, feel more like sketches than finished works. There’s a space and atmosphere on Infra that is clearly intended to invoke strong emotional currents, but which on balance feels far too superficial to actually achieve anything. In fact, the more potentially outré and avant-garde elements do little more than break the “fourth wall” and make the listener acutely aware of the composer’s ambitions.
Sadly, beyond this superficial “ooh, isn’t this experimental” vibe, there’s nothing at all innovative here, either. At his best, Richter’s chordal work can be majestic and evocative, but most of the time it feels formulaic and overly simple. And not as the result of any kind of academic rigour, either – there’s no sign of serialism or extended technique at work here, the tonality is extremely conservative, and although there could be an argument that his approach is that of a minimalist, it’s too simple even for that. That may sound facetious, but the melodic simplicity of the minimalists was tempered by a rhythmic and timbral complexity that is depressingly absent from this work. In fact, closer examination reveals that the melodic lines that do rise above the rest of the morass are in fact nothing more that an “homage” to Schubert’s dark and moody Winterreise, with Richter directly quoting on several occasions. Richter’s one saving grace is that he appears to have the occasional moment of melodic and harmonic inspiration, but now even those moments are cast into suspicion.
In the final summation, it seems the question of how to approach Infra was not the most relevant one. The real question was “should I be listening to it at all?” And, well, the only answer I can come up with for the moment is: maybe. Despite my vitriolic rant against the processes at work here, when listened to purely as an autonomous piece of music Infra does deliver plenty of great moments. The soundscape parts do still sound tacked-on, but when one strips those away what you’re left with is ten minutes or so of good ideas. The trouble is that Richter’s finesse with a string quintet and synths is most definitely sullied by his own ambitions. The more he attempts to push the envelope, the more his traditional elements look shaky and out of place. I feel terrible for chastising a composer for their ambition, but in this instance there’s a clear case to be made for staying within your abilities. Max Richter can produce a moving, compelling and emotionally uplifting tune when he puts his mind to it; if only he’d do it a little bit more.
If you’ve ever had a tune stuck in your head then you’re perfectly normal, it would appear. There’s plenty of scientific research going on at the moment to unravel the phenomenon of “earworms”, as they’re being called, and it seems that about 90% of us get one at least once a week. Sadly about 15% of us say their earworms are “disturbing” and up to a third think they’re “unpleasant”. Check out this link to find out more about the earworm research, as well as this episode of Radio 4’s phenomenally excellent program Material World.*
I know first-hand that it can be dreadful when you get a rubbish song (more often than not, just one line) going round and round and round in your head, but every so often I get an earworm that actually improves my day. I’ve had Ten Paces by Toodar running through my head on-and-off for well over a week now, to the point where I even catch myself humming it when I’m trying to listen to other songs. Thankfully the reason for this obsession is that Ten Paces is by far and away the best song I’ve heard all year.
Toodar first came to my attention a few weeks ago, when the endearingly quirky home-made video for their track Toy dropped into my inbox and compelled me to investigate their myspace, and last night I finally got to see them live. They were playing the Camden Barfly in advance of a mini-tour which starts on Monday, and I’m pleased to report that the Toodar live experience is equally as good as their recorded output. To be honest, that took me by surprise. The production on their recordings is so taut, so refined, so precise, that I was fully expecting the inevitable sloppiness of most live acts to seep into their performance, but somehow they managed, if anything, to be even tighter when playing live. The rhythm section was the slickest I’ve seen in a long time (by a country mile), the keys and electronic ephemera were handled with a discerning touch and subtlety that one doesn’t normally come across in venues such as the Barfly, and the vocals were expertly delivered from a fine set of lungs. What impressed me most, however, was seeing a front man who was quite clearly an adept guitar player, but also one who knew when not to play (a skill most emphatically not displayed by the first act on the bill, I might add).
Of course, all this precision and virtuosity would be for naught if Toodar didn’t have the songs to back it up. I’ve already stated my love of Ten Paces and Toy, and thankfully I can report that the rest of the set was of an equally high standard. If you’re stuck in the Big Smoke you can next catch them live in December, but for those of you further afield (though perhaps not too far) be sure to check their myspace for details of next week’s tour; you’d be a fool to miss out on a chance to see them.
This is another big release of early 2010 that I got very excited about and have taken a good long while to absorb before reviewing. Since being introduced to The National through their 2007 LP, Boxer, I’ve taken the time to hunt down and get my grubby paws on pretty much everything they’ve released. In short, I’m now something of a The National fanboy. That said, they are still not beyond reproach; when I say I fell in love with Boxer what I really mean is that, like most people, I fell in love with Fake Empire; easily the standout track not only from that album, but from the whole of The National’s catalogue.
Having one or two tracks that dominate the rest of the record is becoming something of a trend with The National. As well as the Boxer/Fake Empire instance, there’s Slipping Husband off 2003’s Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, as well as both Abel and Mr. November from 2005’s Alligator. That’s not to say for an instant that the rest of their songs are bad, it’s just that each album has one or two songs that stretch just that little bit further that the others. So it comes as quite a surprise to find that on High Violet no one particular track rears its head above the others; this sounds like one whole musical work.
This is certainly something that The National have been threatening for some time, and it could be said that, hit singles aside, their whole catalogue can be viewed as one gestalt entity. If you put all their Peter Katis produced records (everything from Sad Songs… onward) into a playlist and hit shuffle, only the ear of one familiar with The National’s back-catalogue would be able to distinguish between one record and the next. This is a band that would have an absolutely killer “best of” record, but instead have several albums that are merely “very good” (and how many bands can say that?). Consistency is their very essence.
“And how does High Violet fit into their oeuvre?” I hear you cry. In short, very well, thank you. Whilst it doesn’t have any of the band-defining hits that The National are wont to write every now and again, it is of a uniformly high quality. Fake Empire is the kind of feat that few manage more than once in their careers; you certainly won’t find it’s like here, but there are some cracking songs and the production is, as ever, sublime.
What links James, U2, Talking Heads, Devo and Coldplay? Bugger all, you might be forgiven for thinking, but you’d be wrong. Their best albums were all produced by the same man: Brian Eno.
This is something of a first for the Bearfaced Podcast; practically a documentary, this episode features not only a stellar line-up of songs, but also extracts from all sorts of interviews and TV shows. The aim of this ‘cast is to serve as an introduction to the more populist side of Eno’s work; possibly the most influential producer of all time, who’s had a huge influence on a veritable cornucopia of genres and styles.
He’s got a new record out this autumn, which you can find all about on his site, but for now sate your appetites with this sample of his biggest hits, inter-spliced with some enlightening footage stolen from all sorts of places.
As usual, you can get the Bearfaced Podcast through iTunes, download the mp3 directly from the Bearfaced website, or just by using the embedded player below:
I’ve taken a lot of flack in the past for liking We Are Scientists. I’m often derided by my close friends when I mention in conversation that I think With Love and Squalor is a great album. It’s an opinion I still stand by, but it’s increasingly the case that when I talk about it I have to add a whole lot of caveats and explanations – “just their first album”, “I only like their early stuff”, “I know, I know; the new stuff’s dreadful”, and so on and so forth. I’m a man who enjoys standing up for overlooked records that haven’t gotten all the respect they’re due, but I’ve reached the point with We Are Scientists where it’s just become far too much hassle to stand up for them.
I mean, they really haven’t done themselves any favours, have they? 2008’s Brain Thrust Mastery wasn’t actually a bad album as such, but it certainly wasn’t a good one either. After Hours was a nice single, Impatience had a great video, and Spoken For harkened back to some of the softer moments from their (major label) debut, but nothing on there came even close to setting the world alight. It was clear by this point that I liked the idea of We Are Scientists far more that I liked the actual music; they look really cool, the overall sound gives off an air of thoughtful, studied nonchalance and they give the impression that I’d really like them if we were to meet in the pub.
Now, with this year’s new album Barbara on the scene, I’ve given up entirely. If Brain Thrust Mastery sounded like off-cuts and B-sides from With Love and Squalor, Barbara is even more so. To my ears there has been absolutely no sonic development whatsoever since their debut. BTM added some acoustic guitars and synths to the mix, but the songwriting, both on BTM and now with Barbara, seemed to be coming from exactly the same place as their previous work. I’m all in favour of consistency, and if they’d made two new LPs at the standard of WLaS then they’d most likely be one of my favourite bands by now, but sadly it’s looking ever more likely that their first record was a flash in the pan, a one off never to be repeated.
I almost feel bad including mp3s with this post; it’s just so bland. It feels half-baked, underdeveloped; only half the tracks on this LP manage to survive past the three minute mark, and most only by a whisker, and rather than feeling like a focused, . But, (and this will probably be the last time I can be bother to stick my neck out and say this) go and listen to With Love and Squalor; it’s a paragon of indie-pop that’s absolutely stuffed with great songs.
Well this review has been a long time coming and no mistake. In the run up to the release of Frightened Rabbit‘s third LP, The Winter of Mixed Drinks, I got very hot around the collar and posted all sorts of FR related news; any single or free download was lapped up and devoured with all the fervour of the newly-converted. So it may come as quite a surprise that I didn’t review it as soon as the promo copy arrived on my doormat. It seems all the excitement meant that by the time the actual record arrived I had exhausted all my FR enthusiasm; I was well and truly spent.
Now we’re several months on, and I’ve had plenty of time to absorb this record – as I mentioned in my Band of Horses review the other day, my sabbatical from the blogosphere has allowed me to give certain albums a little longer to be assimilated. So what’s the verdict? Is the most hotly anticipated LP of 2010 worth the wait? Does it deliver? Yes it bloody does.
It was never going to exceed the greatness of The Midnight Organ Fight, but I knew that before diving into this new record; there was always the hope that it might be even better, and to be honest it didn’t seem to surpass it’s predecessor on first listen, but there’s still hope for it yet. The thing about TMOF was that it amazed from the very first listen; it was one of those rare examples of a record that is instantly accessible but yet still has enough depth to hold ones fascination long after the first flushes of attraction have faded. Even now, nearly two years after I first heard it, it remains one of my all-time favourite records. This new effort from Scott Hutchinson and his ever-increasing band of accomplices doesn’t have the same “instant attraction” that TMOF had, but now I’ve been listening to it pretty steadily for several months I can say with some certainty and conviction that they’ve hit the bulls-eye again.
It’s a much more euphoric experience than other FR records have been; much like Kings of Leon did between Aha Shake Heartbreak and Because of the Times, they’ve obviously adapted their songwriting to better suit the larger venues their recent success has left them playing. My one complaint with Frightened Rabbits previous work was that at time they drifted towards the “anthemic” territory so beloved of UK rock acts that have been big hits in the states (will Coldplay and Snow Patrol please stand up?), and that is a criticism that could be levelled at The Winter of Mixed Drinks more than any other of their albums. In the past the songs were kept on the ground by the dirt and grit of the lyrics, but even that tone has changed for this record. The out-and-out grime has been replaced by a subtler sensibility; one where the lyrical currents run a little deeper, where the emotions aren’t quite so heart-on-sleeve as before. All this means that this record represents a step forward for the band; they’re not simply resting on their laurels, they’re pushing forward and exploring new ground.
So maybe The Winter of Mixed Drinks is not quite as immersive or emotionally charged as their last record, but it’s easily the best album of 2010 (so far) by a country mile.
Considering I’m a relatively stable, happy kind of guy, my musical taste is strangely focused on the maudlin and dreary. Not so much in terms of actual melodies and chords, but certainly when it comes to lyrics I have a distinct appetite for the acerbic and bitter – which is usually accompanied by musical textures in a similar down-beat, dark and moody vein. Invariably, when an acid wit and taste for the gloomy is combined with cheerful, happy-go-lucky music my ears are instinctively pricked and eager. With Portland’s The Ascetic Junkies this balance between the joyous and the the spiteful is a tricky one to measure.
At first listen, This Cage Has No Bottom (released on Timber Carnival Records at the end of last month) comes across as merry romp through vaguely Americana-tinged acoustic pasture. This is a style that has a considerable cultural cachet this side of the atlantic, particularly here in London, where every nu-folk [sic] act you can think of is incorporating banjos and tea-chest basses into their sound with reckless abandon. The difference being that over here bands tend to wear their dour natures on their sleeves; to come across as “happy” just wouldn’t do at all! The Ascetic Junkies clearly have no such qualms, and to my miserable ears it took a couple of listens to get to the meat of this record. Just under the surface there is a vein of taught aggression, but the join between this and the superficial cheeriness is seamless.
Another delicate balance they’ve managed to pull off is that of having dual male/female vocalists. Often this kind of approach can leave a band sounding as if they’ve yet to pick a direction, but yet again the fusion here is seamless. If I’m brutally honest, there’s something about Kali Giaritta’s vocals that sets my teeth on edge, but this is tempered by Matt Harmon’s Colin-Meloy-esque drawl as well as the faultless production. I guess that coming from Portland the Decemberists must cast a long shadow for anyone creating music with this distinctive “Portland sound”, but nevertheless they seem to have learned their lessons well; much like the Decemberists at their best, this record walks the tight-rope between being slick enough to actually sound good, whilst maintaining the home-made sound that this style of instrumentation demands.
This really is a record of balancing acts. The dual vocals, the production, the cheery/dour question; the tension between all these elements is expertly managed here. Whether that makes for a good record or not still remains to be seen. The lyrics – particularly the sledge-hammer rhyming schemes – often sound trite and either rushed or over-thought (a balancing act that The Ascetic Junkies haven’t pulled off with such aplomb) but when one takes a broader view the record does make for a surprisingly rewarding listen.
I like to think of myself as a logical, scientifically-minded man; one not prone to superstition or a belief in anything that even borders on the occult, and certainly one to steer well clear of the “healing power of crystals”, lay-lines and all that nonsense. And yet I find myself compelled to confess that I was witness to some mysterious alchemy whilst preparing for this review.
But before we delve further through The Scary Door, there’s some background we should cover first: Tom Stephens has appeared twice before on this blog, first in a review of his old band, Tom Stephens and the Retreat‘s first EP, and then again when the band were kind enough to record a session and interview for the Bearfaced Podcast. So it almost goes without saying that I’m predisposed to look favourably on this, his first proper solo effort*. Or so you’d think…
Truth be told, I was gearing up for writing a non-too-complimentary review of his Division EP. Not because I thought the record was bad per se, but more because of my own personal tastes. For starters, knowing Tom’s full-band work as well as I do I had certain expectations for this EP; expectations that left me somewhat blind-sided on my first listen. An all out “classic rock” record this is not, and it’s most definitely not simply Tom Stephens and the Retreat minus the Retreat. Given how the band stuff came as an evolution of Tom’s early solo stuff, I expected Division to be much in the same vein, just with less guitars and no drums. I took a couple of listens to realise that Tom was approaching this EP as something totally distinct from his work with the Retreat; the goals are different, the style and pace of the songwriting is different, the whole project stands on it’s own two feet. At no point does the listener feel that there ought to be a band accompanying these songs. Now if all of this sounds pretty complimentary, that’s because it is. I admire the process and the strength of character on display here, but crucially I didn’t find myself responding to it on an emotional level. For some reason I just didn’t really like it very much. And this is where the alchemy comes in.
I must hold my hands up and confess to a terrible crime: all my first impressions of this record were based on listening to it through the built in speakers on my laptop. I know, I know, mea culpa, how can any of you ever look me in the eye again, and so on and so forth… In my defence I’ve only just moved into a new flat and have yet to set up the stereo (I take these things very seriously, it’s better not to do it at all than do it half-cocked). I do however, have a pair of very tasty (if I say so myself) headphones, and when I listened to Divison on those I was so shocked I nearly spilt my scotch… This record sounds phenomenal through headphones! Normally one expects a bit of difference (boosted bass response, reverb reduction, etc, and even more noticeable when the switch is from the tinny things one gets in laptops these days) but this was a remarkable transformation. The strings on Family Tree were a tsunami of lusciousness, and the acoustic guitar around which the rest of the record hangs morphed from a slightly 90’s-sounding twang to a much meatier beast (although still not quite as much as I’d have liked).
If there’s a moral to this story it’s this: sort out your speakers before judging things, and download Tom Stephens’ current EP from his Bandcamp page – it’s free, and pretty good to boot.
*Of course, before his days with …and the Retreat he was a simple singer-songwriter, and he’s been featuring his solo efforts on his blog for quite some time now.
Now this is a band it’s taken me ages to get in to. Given how much post-space I’ve dedicated to the current crop of Scottish indie bands in the last couple of years, I imagine some of you are surprised I’ve taken this long to feature The Twilight Sad on this site. The simple fact of the matter was that I just didn’t really like them, but slowly, by degrees, I’m being won round. What started the process was being sent the video to their single The Room; by a quirk of fate I ended up downloading and watching it without having any idea who the band actually were. As it turned out, I quite liked it – it wasn’t amazing, or anything, but certainly not as bad as I would have expected a Twilight Sad single to sound. It’s strange how ones expectations colour the way one views a band.
In the past I always found them slightly too chaotic; despite my taste for the raucous and filthy, they just seemed too, well, grubby for my gentle sensibilities. But having had a not-unpleasant experience with The Room, I was far more willing to give their latest EP, The Wrong Car, the time necessary to digest it and review it.
On first glance this release looks much more like a single than an EP. It divides nicely into two parts: the first two tracks are off-cuts from the band’s latest full-length, Forget the Night Ahead (although “off-cuts” might be a misleading term, as allegedly these tracks simply weren’t finished by the time the LP was released), and the second tracks are a couple of remixes by two more Scottish acts – Errors, whom The Twilight Sad are just embarking on a co-headline tour with, and the ever-excellent Mogwai. Much as with The Room, the first two tracks reaffirm my initial mistake in dismissing The Twilight Sad out of hand without so much as a by-your-leave. Both songs, particularly the title track, are consummate indie-rock; my impression is that this band have picked their niche and intend to fill it as well as they’re able. Neither of the tracks set the world alight with their amazingness, but I’ll certainly be keeping a semi-eager eye out for future Twilight Sad releases.
Surprisingly enough, it’s one of the remixes that has compelled me to write about this record. I already caused some controversy on these pages when I announced that I unilaterally despised all remixes*, but I’m a big fan of Mogwai’s back catalogue (although I’ve yet to hear this year’s live album, Special Moves), so I find myself oddly conflicted in this instance. In many ways this track does display all the traits of remixes that upset me so; there’s the depressingly monotonous programmed drums and the all-we’ve-really-done-is-slap-on-a-filter-or-two vocal “processing”. But then every now and then a moment of clarity emerges from the fug and reminds you that it is Mogwai after all. As much as it pains me to say it, this remix does invoke a certain atmosphere and sense of place – admittedly it’s one that’s slightly ineffable and therefore doesn’t come across too well in print, but it’s there nonetheless…
* To paraphrase: there are good remixes out there, but ratio of good/bad remixes makes it next to impossible to find the good ones, so now I don’t bother listening to any remixes at all.
It’s really strange how some acts can have a smash hit of an album, and then promptly drop off the radar completely for the rest of their career. Jim Moray certainly can’t be described as a one-hit-wonder, but since the phenomenal success of his debut EP, Sweet England, his releases have become ever more low-key. I’ve followed his career closer than most*, but it was only a chance find whilst browsing the racks in a local record shop that led me to his last record, 2008’s Low Culture, and the same thing has happened with his latest offering, In Modern History. Now I don’t claim to be totally immersed in the current UK folk scene, but I am a somewhat obsessive consumer of music journalism and I hadn’t heard so much as a whisper about this album.
There’s a chance that this obscurity is a deliberate choice by Moray himself; he’s always been fiercely independent, and he produces and records by himself. One could be forgiven for thinking that his success at the 2004 Folk Awards** was a spanner in the works for his career plan, but that might be reading too much into things. If I’m brutally honest, Sweet England is by far and away his best record, but I still can’t make up my mind on whether the three albums he’s released since then are either criminally overlooked or merely got the coverage they deserved.
In many ways I admire Moray’s work more than I actually like it. He is without a doubt a beacon for all that is good and progressive n the folk world today, but there’s something about the music itself that just doesn’t sit right with me. After some close listening to In Modern History I’ve come to think it’s the mixing that lets him down. The parts are all beautifully constructed, Moray’s arrangements of traditional English folk songs are simply magical, and the quality of the musicianship of display is admirable, but there’s just not enough dynamic range to this record. You can almost hear where the listener is supposed to be swept away and where one should be drawn in closer to the speakers, but it never quite gets there. In short, In Modern History feels more like an academic exercise than an actual record, which is a crying shame because all the ingredients are there for it to be an astounding document of a true visionary at work.
Much as with the last time I reviewed a Max Richter album (2009’s re-issue of Memoryhouse), this is a record it’s taken me ages to get around to reviewing. In truth, it’s the “absorption” part of the review process that has stumped me this time around. Whilst ostensibly having thirteen tracks, Max Richter’s latest effort, Infra, is in essence one forty-five minute piece of music. Now, finding time to listen to a record of this nature shouldn’t have been too much of a challenge; I almost exclusively listen to albums in their entirety, and I have a strong academic interest in what – for want of a better word – I shall call “classical” music, which commands much more interaction from the listener that the usual fare that graces these pages. So why was absorbing Infra such a laborious process?
Eaten by Monsters 