The much maligned “comedy record” would appear to be cutting it’s own path through the cultural ether at the moment. Like them or not, there’s a lot of them about, and the best of them manage to artfully sidestep the issues of genre and authenticity that often hound more serious acts. The last couple of years, in particular, has throw up some very artful examples that walk the fine line between comedy and real music; we’ve seen some excellent albums from Flight of the Concords, Duckworth Lewis Method, and Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, all of which have been ostensibly “funny” and yet at the same time manage to tap into some deeper level of engagement.
The example I’m turning my critical eye on today is quite an old one – Flattery Not Included, by Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer was released all the way back in the blue remembered hills of 2008 – but my reasons for examining it now are twofold: firstly, Mr B will be providing the entertainment for The Chap magazine’s annual bash, The Grand Anarcho-Dandyist Ball (a “night of 1000 waistcoats”, so I’m told), and secondly, our boys in white stand on the cusp of an historic victory (one hopes) over the Aussies on their home turf in this year’s Ashes. As a result, all things cricket are at the front of my mind, and when it comes to cricketing songs there are only two acts that spring to attention; The Duckworth Lewis Method’s 2009 album*, and the song Straight Out of Surrey by Mr B. The latter has a rather amusing youtube video, and if that weren’t enough, it’s a beat-for-beat word-for-word parody of NWA’s Straight Outta Compton.
And there’s the rub that lifts Flattery Not Included above the bog-standard comedy record. This record is most definitely on the “funny” side of the comedy/music divide, but there’s a love and respect for the source material being parodied that is palpable. Mr B clearly knows his Hip-Hop**, and that gives his “Chap Hop” a sheen of respectability that allows him to legitimately mock Tim Westwood (on the track called, euphemistically, Timothy) and turn DJ Kool’s Let Me Clear My Throat into Let Me Smoke My Pipe. And it’s still bloody hilarious. So, dig out your best brogues, cravat and blazer, and bask in the chapish wonder of it all.
*The Duckworth Lewis Method being the side project of the Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon, and their eponymous album was one of the best LPs released last year.
**Or so I am reliably informed; I imagine it’s already apparent that this is a step away from my more regular milieu…
Tomorrow I embark on my most daunting critical venture yet: I’m becoming a dee-jay. Tune in to Wired Radio tomorrow night and you’ll find me presenting my very own live-to-air radio show. You may or may not be aware that I present a semi-regular podcast for the super-cool, super-small, super-indie label Bearfaced Records, but they are all recorded and put together before hand; this will be a different kettle of fish entirely. For every minute of speech on a Bearfaced Podcastthere’s usually at least half and hour’s worth of stuff on the cutting room floor, so trying to get my head around the discipline of a live broadcast is going to be challenging, to say the least. Add in the fact that I’ve never even seen the studio I’ll be using before, let alone knowing how the gear works, and you’ve got a sure fire recipe for disaster. Hilarious consequence, as they say, will surely ensue…
So in order to snatch triumph from the jaws of disaster I’m doing my damnedest to make sure my first playlist is absolutely marvellous. The way I see it, if I keep the talking to a minimum and simply play great songs then hopefully the opportunities for it to all go pear-shaped will be few and far between. That’s the plan anyway; as we all know, a plan is just a list of things that don’t happen. So wish me luck, and tune in at 9pm (English time) to hear what could be a glorious victory or an abject disaster. Either way it’ll surely be entertaining…
The show will be called I Sing the Body Eclectic (see what I did there? Clever, eh!) and while I’ll most likely post the odd reminder on these pages, I’ll provide more info (playlists, comments etc) on a new blog created solely for the purpose, which you can find here.
Back in 2008, A Larum – the début LP from English “nu-folk”* troubadour Johnny Flynn – crept out into the world with hardly a whisper. Move forward a couple of months and A Larum was a solid feature on a whole slew of “Best of 08” lists (my own included) and pretty much everyone I spoke to had good things to say about it. Of course, prior to the record’s release Johnny had already become a darling of the blogosphere, but the whole incident still felt like a case of an album becoming successful purely because it was great. To listen to A Larum was to do so much more than simply enjoy some great music; it was a way of sticking it to “the man”, showing the majors that success could be achieved on merit and not simply off the back of huge marketing budgets. It was all the good things about the internet’s musical revolution writ large.
Been Listening, Flynn’s sophomore effort, has been out since June this year, and has yet to recapture the excitement of it’s predecessor. It’s received favourable reviews from all the usual suspects, but it hasn’t captured the imagination of my musical peer group the way A Larum managed. In theory this is something off a surprise, as all the ingredients are there for it to be a hit. It has the obligatory Laura Marling collaboration, and following the continued ascent of Mumford & Sons, Noah & the Whale, et al, the success of a new record by Johnny Flynn – who appeared at first to be the doyen of the increasingly incestuous London-centric nu-folk scene – seemed pretty much assured. And Been Listening is not a bad record by almost any measure, so why has it pretty much sunk without trace?
If you want my opinion (and the very act of your reading this page is a tacit acceptance that you do), it’s because all he’s doing is retreading old ground. It’s all well and good to pick a style that works and stick with it, but when you’ve produced something as accomplished and adept as A Larum, the pressure is certainly on for you to better yourself. Follow-ups to classic albums are never easy – the expectation is always too high, the assumptions far too grand – and often bands get slated for going off in a completely different direction (just look at MGMT for a case in point). But however great the risk of alienating a fan base may seem, Been Listening serves as a poignant reminder that the alternative – simply trying to cash the same cheque twice – is a far more suicidal option.
Maps & Atlases, a four-piece hailing from Chicago, have managed an unusual feat with their debut full-length, Perch Patchwork. They’ve built a sound that fits very nicely with all the current trends in what, for want of a better word, I shall call “indie”, without ever sounding at all derivative. The accusation of “jumping on the bandwagon” is one that can quickly put paid to any fledgling band’s ambitions and credibility, and while it is certainly one that can be levelled at a whole slew of recent bands, it’s not a charge that Maps & Atlases need worry about.
Most of the elements of this record sound reminiscent of some band or other, but the end result is a truly distinctive record. In their approach to guitar parts and their a playfulness with the rhythm they put me in mind of the Dirty Projectors, yet the songs are too well crafted and the production’s too polished for that comparison to bear any weight. And of course the easy leap for any reviewer will be to compare the vocals to those of Vampire Weekend, but on Perch Patchwork there’s a sense of barely controlled chaos and a languid delivery that renders that comparison moot as well.
This album stands out from most of the other new records I’ve heard lately in another crucial manner; the more I listen to it, the more I hear in it. I often praise the bands that appear on these pages for creating records that stand up to repeat listening, and that could well skew your opinion on the state of new music today. Everything that appears on this site has been run through the filter of my taste – I presume to act (as do all music bloggers) as an un-elected arbiter of what is worth listening to. I write about records that I like, or find interesting, and every so often something comes along that is so bad that I feel it deserves a public whipping, but there’s a veritable morass of records that fall into the muddy middle ground; records neither good enough or bad enough to warrant mentioning. And it’s when viewed against this backdrop of average and mediocre records that albums like Perch Patchwork really shine. I can’t see it becoming an all time favourite – it’s maybe a little too happy-go-lucky for my tastes – but it is very very good indeed.
Well here’s some news, and no mistake. The Decemberists spent the early part of this year whipping up a new album, and now its release is finally on the horizon. The due date for the LP, to be called The King is Dead, is slated for mid January next year, and the band are doing their best to curry favour with their fans by releasing one track as a free download. You can get your grubby paws on track six – Down by the Water – by signing up to their mailing list on their website (or just download it below, if you’re feeling lazy).
First things first, this song is not a cover of either PJ Harvey or The Drums; it’s completely new. And, in what is becoming de rigueur for the Decemberists lately, the list of collaborators for this single is rather impressive. BVs are provided courtesy of alt. country doyen Gillian Welch, and there’s the unmistakable twang of Peter Buck’s twelve string plastered all over this track. So the pedigree for this release is pretty darned mighty, but is it actually any good?
Following the might and majesty of 2006’s The Crane Wife, expectations were high for the next Decemberists record. Their last three LPs had all been better than their predecessors, so The Hazarads of Love was an odds-on hit. Sadly that record was ghastly – I’m a huge Decemberists fan, and had lapped up pretty much everything they had released up until that point (I even quite enjoyed the bloated and self-indulgent long-form EP, The Tain) but Hazards… was just a bridge too far. I grew up on a diet of my dad’s prog collection, so I’m more amenable than most to concept albums, but that record and I never saw eye to eye, and since then I’ve contented myself with the Decemberists’ excellent back catalogue and cast thoughts of their future escapades from my mind. Despite all that, though, at the first whiff of a new Decemberists album I felt my pulse quicken and the unmistakable feeling of nervous excitement began coursing through my veins.
To be honest, Down by the Water hasn’t done anything to heighten my anticipation, but equally it hasn’t done anything to diminish it either. It’s standard fare for the band; slightly folky country-rock with a distinct americana lilt to it, and Colin Meloy seems to be in fine fettle vocal-wise. It kicks off with some harmonica – which by rights should be the first instrument up against the wall when the revolution comes – and while it’s nice to hear some REM guitaring, Buck’s contributions could do with being a little lower in the mix. But despite the downsides, Down by the Water still delivers as a song, and you never know; come the new year The King is Dead could well surprise us all.
As a rule, I avoid making comparisons when reviewing bands. It’s all too easy to slip into “they’re like x crossed with y” mode, and while it may often be the most direct way of illustrating a band’s sound (lord knows there’s tonnes of bands out there that do sound exactly half-way between two other acts…) it’s not an approach that appeals to my sensibilities as a blogger. I like to think I’m often one to avoid the line-of-best-fit at all costs, and I’ll be the first to admit I’m often deliberately contrary at the expense of rationality and legibility… But in this instance I feel a comparison is unavoidable. So I must being by apologising to the act in question for stooping to the obvious comparison right at the start of the review, but there’s just no way I can talk about Becoming a Jackal, the Mercury-nominated debut from Villagers, without mentioning Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning.
On first listen I didn’t think much of Becoming a Jackal at all; I dutifully gave it a couple of spins when it was nominated f0r this year’s Mercury, but there wasn’t anything on it that jumped out and grabbed me. Now usually at this stage in a review I reveal that some chance encounter re-introduced me to the record and, seeing it in a new light, I gave it a second chance and actually quite liked it. In the spirit of mixing things up, that’s not at all the story in this instance. My re-acquaintance with Villagers was a calculated move, and even now I’m not one-hundred-percent sure if I do like this record or not yet. And this is where the Bright Eyes comparisons come to the fore. Bright Eyes are* one of my all time favourite acts, and it was Wide Awake… that acted as my gateway drug into the muddy and mystifying world of the Bright Eyes back-catalogue.
Beyond the obvious parallels – both acts are the work of one central man, both of whom are called Conor – I can’t help but be reminded of Wide Awake… whenever I approach Becoming a Jackal. It’s not so much the aesthetic but the approach that does this; Irish Conor (lynchpin of Villagers) actually has quite an assured, competent voice, and there’s not sign of the Alt. Country vibe that defined the sound of Wide Awake…, but there are touches in the production that hint at the same kind of mind at work. This album feels like it was put together with the same spirit of mischievous auteurism that made Bright Eyes’ work so appealing. So after noticing these parallels I am now endeavouring to get to know this record much better. So far, repeated listenings keep throwing up new facets and opening new doors of comprehension. The song on display here smack of pop perfection – considering this is a debut LP, the strength and maturity of the songwriting is astounding, and the production walks the fine line between professional smoothness and the raw DIY aesthetic; a feat not often managed with such assurance as Villagers manage to pull off.
All in all, a resounding success, then? Well, no. Despite becoming increasingly enamoured of the techniques and abilities on display, I still don’t actually like Becoming a Jackal. I admire it, and I think that on balance it is undeniably a good record, but it just doesn’t quite connect with me. Maybe I’m waiting for the next Villagers LP, or possibly just the right set of circumstances to actually fall in love with this record, but for the moment I’ll keep on playing it, but it’s not quite there yet.
*or maybe ‘”is”; I’m never sure about the grammar to use when discussing acts that have proper band names and plenty of members but are still in essence the work of one singer-songwriter.
The much maligned “comedy record” would appear to be cutting it’s own path through the cultural ether at the moment. Like them or not, there’s a lot of them about, and the best of them manage to artfully sidestep the issues of genre and authenticity that often hound more serious acts. The last couple of years, in particular, has throw up some very artful examples that walk the fine line between comedy and real music; we’ve seen some excellent albums from Flight of the Concords, Duckworth Lewis Method, and Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, all of which have been ostensibly “funny” and yet at the same time manage to tap into some deeper level of engagement.
Eaten by Monsters 