Minnaars came on to the stage well after midnight, but were clearly looking to have a great time. They bounded onto the stage with youthful enthusiasm and immediately started up with some crowd interaction. This didn’t go down so well however. As it turns out drunk Aberdonian old codgers don’t appreciate English people. This made for an interesting atmosphere for the first half of the gig, though the band had a humorous comeback for anything and everything. This is much to their credit, rarely have I seen a crowd chuckle away so often between songs.
With that note out of the way, on with the important stuff; the music. Minnaars immediately broke out into the excellent Busy Hands. Given that this is what I would consider a genuine dancefloor filler, that’s some statement of intent. Between the pulsating synth, delay-laden, staccato, dueling guitars and dynamic drums and baseline it would be difficult not to dance. The breakdown in the middle with the refrain “I’ve been falling into bits, been like this since the blitz” has always been something I’ve found hypnotically good. This was even more true live. The song has been reworked since it was last put on record and now has an extra bit at the end where a recording of the vocal line has been cut up and placed over new synth lines, before breaking out into an outro. It was a fantastic re-imagining of an already great song. Below is the original version of Busy Hands.
From there the band went on to play a mix of old songs and songs which have been written for their debut LP. This was their first gig since recording some of that album, but you wouldn’t know it from the performance. The band are nearly all extremely dynamic and charismatic performers. Special mention here has to go to the frontman and the two guitarists who were almost always doing something else, different, new, or unexpected. The new material all sounded very interesting, exploring a similar shouty, danceable guitar based area in a number of different ways.
The gig finished with an interesting new song (possibly just an intro for Are Lovers) which had 3 members of the band doing almost nothing but singing at the same time, all over the top of the drums, bass and synth. This led into the fantastic Are Lovers, before the band left having pleased at least a significant subsection of the crowd and it looked like they had fun along the way.
Hopefully their album will come out later this year. In the meantime I’ll make do with the compilation of their work to date “Of Our Delirious Former Loving Hours”.
I seem to be fashionable late with this again. Yes, it’s that time where I round up my favourite releases of the past year and write a small amount about each one. Months late. I’m restricting it to a top ten this year, though I may go back and go over a few disappointments from the year in a follow up post.
10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz
Had I been quicker off the mark with this, this album wouldn’t have made this list. As it is its relatively lowly position in the list is perhaps due to limited exposure to its charms. This has some excellent synth pop, some of which is true dance floor filler stuff. Heads Will Roll in particular is the sort of pounding, pulsating song which I would genuinely like to hear in clubs. The album has this strong synth pop edge, but a gentle heart of fragile songs like the brilliant Skeleton. So synth pop + fragility + clean guitar = a highly enjoyable album.
9. Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications
With his second solo album, Jarvis Cocker brought his trademark witty lyrics to bear with an album which was much more satisfying than The Jarvis Cocker Record. There was something which I just didn’t enjoy all that much about The Jarvis Cocker Record in retrospect. Further Complications is the album I was looking for. The heart of this album is all about good fun, with songs like Caucasian Blues featuring the whitest instrument known to man (the recorder) playing the blues. Jarvis’ lyrics usually delight on this album, be it lines like “I never said I was deep, though I am profoundly shallow” from I never said I was deep, or the corny “I met her in the museum of Palentology, and I make no bones about it” he finds a way to delight in most songs. What lets the album down however is that its best song is a million times better live. You’re In My Eyes (Disco Song) this version including an amusing improvisation with the lyrics at the start.
8. Sky Larkin – The Golden Spike
Sky Larkin are a band I find hard to explain in the context of most of what I listen to. They are easily the closest thing to pure pop that’s on this list. The album is all about simple hooks, a clever vocal harmony here, a well placed breakdown there, it is pop and unashamedly so. There’s something undeniably likable and honest about the band, they’ve made an album that’s just good honest fun and you can’t really ask for much more than that. Katie Harkin’s vocals really make the album in a way, it’s unlikely the album would feel even remotely the same with another singer.
See also this fantastic video for the song Molten (not the album version if I’m correct though).
7. Grammatics – Grammatics
Grammatics are a band whose album I was really looking forward to in the early parts of last year. In all honesty they only appear so low on the list because of the sheer quality of the releases higher up. They are everything I like from a band, male falsetto singing, female backing vocals, super clean – super delayed – guitar, an interesting extra instrument (double bass), a good sense for the stereoscopic and some fantastic songs. One or two songs prevented the album from being a real great. Check out D.I.L.E.M.M.A. but my favourite song (Relentless Fours) wasn’t a single, so here’s a live version.
6. Graham Coxon – The Spinning Top
The Spinning Top is a return to form and a return to the more acoustic stylings of Coxon’s earlier solo albums. Coxon’s last effort Love Travels At Illegal Speeds seemed to indicate that as an artist he was determined to plough the successful commercial furrow first explored in Happiness in Magazines. Instead Coxon has brought things back to a simpler, yet more satisfying folk style. More importantly the album is whimisical in places and doesn’t take itself too seriously. The two combine to ensure that the album feels enjoyable and also achieves true beuaty in some places. Caspian Sea even manages a riff that sounds like it’s straight out of a 1970s children’s television show.
5. 65daysofstatic – Escape From New York
I won’t dwell on what was essentially a live album. They’re very good. It is very good. The only downside was the relative lack of new material, that has to be expected on a live album though. A band who can only be described as emotional and visceral.
4. The Appleseed Cast – Sagramartha
A band line-up that constantly changes probably helps the sense of progression, or at least difference, from album to album. This may well be their best to date though. As a band they’ve developed to a point where they create truly affecting soundscapes. It ticks all the boxes for something I like, clean guitar, delay, slow build ups, interesting percussion, all mixed together with a hint of piano. South Facing Col is probably the best track on the album. It builds to a crescendo then morphs into something altogether more beautiful, before crumbling in fragility near the end. Excellent stuff.
3. Johnny Foreigner – Grace and the Bigger Picture
Grace and the Bigger Picture is definitely Waited Up ‘Til it was Light’s smarter, wiser older brother. The album was constructed in a much more careful way than its predecessor. There’s a lot of call and response between different tracks, not least the excellent duo Choose Yr Side and Shut Up! and Illchoosemysideandshutup, Alright. These also help form the perfect live trifecta with the addition of Salt Pepa and Spindarella from their debut album. The album pulsates with energy moving at a quick pace before finally ending in relative chaos by the end of album closer The Coast Was Always Clear. The album isn’t without its quieter moments, though most of them come in the early part of the aforemention Illchoosemysideandshutup, Alright and Every Cloakroom Ever.
2. Dananananaykroyd – Hey Everyone!
A brilliantly constructed album. Every song is an absolute riot. The album doesn’t quite convey the energy of their live shows, but that it comes close is testament to its quality. Standout tracks are probably the hand-clapping, “woo”-ing pop number that is Black Wax and the simply brilliant Some Dresses. Not forgetting The Greater Than Symbol and the Hash. Some Dresses is probably just about my favourite song that ever deconstructs itself and re-emerges in a completely different state.
1. Jeniferever – Spring Tides
I once rather cruelly said that while Jeniferever are a great band, I could never see them being anybodies favourite band. That was after seeing them play songs from their debut album Choose A Bright Morning live at King Tuts. Their second album Spring Tides made me eat my words. It is a marvellous piece of work and hardly a week has gone by since its release that I’ve not listened to it at least once. Spring Tides takes the post rock of the first album and infuses it with more strings and more Bowie. Somehow that’s a combination which works fantastically well. They know how to build up a song and then release the tension with a rock out, followed by a calming soothing section which almost always leaves you wanting more. While Nangijala is definitely the centrepiece of the album, Green Meadow island is probably my favourite track.
Just a quick note for any ¡Forward, Russia! fans still lurking around these parts. The band have started putting up some recordings on their forum. I already had everything that’s up so far, but it served as a good reminder of how enjoyable a lot of these live recordings are. Hopefully there’ll be more to come over time.
¡Forward, Russia! are still undoubtedly my favourite band and it’s good to see that things aren’t completely quiet on that front. Though a number of the members of the band have been involved in various things which I’m going to be talking about soon, so that’s a positive.
It seems there’s barely ever any good news here. It is with a heavy heart that I note the end of another of my favourite bands.Youthmovies announced their split shortly before the end of last year. It’s not unexpected as things have been quiet on that front for quite some time, and it is well known that the band members no longer live near enough to make being an active band a viable option. Still it is galling as they were spectacularly good the last time I saw them live. Rarely have I seen a band play so tightly, accurately and with such confidence.
For a seven year career (in their various guises) their two mini albums, two EPs and one album perhaps seems like a poor return. However the quality more than makes up for the relative paucity of releases. There is to be one more tour, for which I will definitely make my way to at least one date. Rumour has it that they’ll again be supported by their excellent sometime collaborator Adam Gnade once more as well. Here’s to another great band, which will be missed by many.
The next few weeks sees two of my most anticapted albums of the year released. They’re both debuts from bands which really gathered momentum throughout 2008.
Grammatics
Grammatics are a band who concentrate on creating intelligent pop songs. They’ve occasionally been accused of being too clever for their own good, though I have to disagree based on their output to date. The really interesting dynamic is that a cellist features prominently, something not often seen in modern popular music. The cello is integrated really well with the rest of the music, it makes you wonder why it isn’t more common. Vocals are likely to be a point of contention for some, falsetto is a bit of a love/hate thing so it’s easy to see why. The really interesting point for me is that one of my favourite songs of last year, New Franchise, hasn’t even made it onto the album. Usually this is a good sign.
Dananananakroyd come from almost the opposite direction. It’s still clever music but, instead of seeming careful and considered, it’s a big, fun punch in the face. The lead single for their debut album Hey Everyone is a bit more relaxed, but features nearly all of their trademark musical touches. Based on their output so far, you can expect intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle eight-outro, but it’s executed in such a way as to make it irresistable. They’re probably going to be more famous as a live band, but I have high hopes for their studio recordings too.
It’s unfortunate that these albums are being released during a hectic period in my year, it will make digesting them a slightly harder process. Expect reviews sometime near the end of May at this rate…
With this album, context is important. Silent Alarm put Bloc Party firmly on the map with what at the time soudned like an astonishing record. With time though, the album sounds distinctly two dimensional. It’s a brilliantly focussed record, and one that I love, but the songs just don’t have a lot of depth, or texture. When their second album A Weekend In The City was released, it initially seemed amazing. However with time, the album revealed itself to be a little top heavy and the second half of that album is generally regarded to be below par. A shame, because much of the work in the early half of the album is stunning.
So what expectations can you have when the new album is shock released, prefaced only by Mercury; a song which divided Bloc Party’s fanbase in two. Mercury with it’s mashed up vocals, up front drums, synth noises and brass instruments was the perfect example of a marmite song. It’s tempting to say that your opinion of Mercury is likely to give you an idea of what you think of the album, but that’s not quite true. The focus certainly isn’t exclusively on guitars in this album, though Bloc Party were always quite good at shifting the focus. Inevitably most peoples’ memories of Silent Alarm will be of one of those amazing guitar hooks.
I imagine the siren like guitar hook of Ares may have the alarm bells ringing for many. Particularly when the rest of the track comes on a bit like an awesome version of The Chemical Brothers. It’s an amazing assault of lyrics, squeals, guitar and synth stabs; all anchored by a slightly tinny drum beat. In short, it’s awesome. Similarly Trojan Horse assaults the senses. Sounding like a crazy sonic version of sparklers mixed with the sound effects from a bad science fiction film. Only not quite, somehow under it all it manages to be a guitar led tune, much more in keeping with old Bloc Party than at first apparent. The back end of the song comes on almost like a new take on Postive Tension, a cast iron Bloc classic. One Month Off is in a similar vein to Trojan Horse, only much more visceral. It’s perhaps the most exciting track vocally from a traditional point of view.
Halo initially seems like it’s harking back to the Silent Alarm era and getting it all wrong. In short, there’s too much distortion. However the classic trick of suddenly breaking it down to guitars and bulding the song back up works its magic. Suddenly that trademark clean guitar sound re-appears, before the drums kick everything towards a scintilating conclusion.
Sandwiched between Halo and Trojan Horse is the song I’m tempted to call the centre-piece of the album. Biko is a very delicate guitar tune, with a focus not only on the main vocals; but also the ones that jump in saying “You’re not doing this alone,” these dance between your speakers, making for a truly interesting effect. By the time the beats drop in, and yes that’s beats, the song already feels magic. It feels like they managed to re-imagine their old delicate songs, but with a spin lifted from Thom Yorke’s The Eraser. Signs is another re-imagining of a slow Bloc Party song and comes with quite simply the most beautiful glockenspiel introduction I have ever heard.
Another song which includes prominent electronics is Zephyrus. It also features that oft used trick of using vocals as an instrument, with a few vocal loops staying throughout the length of the song. It also feature excellent use of a choir, which while almost making it sound like something out of Final Fantasy VIII; also ensures it’s utterly captivating. The choir gives the song a textural depth and emotional weight it wouldn’t otherwise have had. Towards the end of the song the quiet extra vocal trick from Biko re-appears, once again to great effect.
Better Than Heaven and Ion Square probably offer the strongest ending of a Bloc Party album to date. Silent Alarm struggled, stringing Plans and Compliments together where perhaps Compliments could have ended the album and Plans could have been utilised elsewhere in the album. The entrire back half of A Weekend In The City lacks weight, being mostly comprised of ballads. Intimacy doesn’t make this mistake. Better Than Heaven is dark, with an exciting end. Ion Square is a typically uplifting final track. It is worth noting though perhaps, that these two tracks still probably represent the weakest tracks on the album.
That’s not a criticism however, it merely shows the quality of the rest of the album. I can’t wholeheartedly reccomend the album to fans of older Bloc Party off by Mercury. Furthermore the album isn’t as revolutionary as Ares and Mercury suggests. This is not Bloc Party’s Kid A, though it seems evident they intend to evolve their sound to the point where they make that record. Evidently though, they’ve lost a lot of shock value with this album, by already showing they’re going in that direction. The shift will never be as seismic as that between OK Computer and Kid A.
Still, that’s a consideration for another time. This is a fantastic album that I would love to recommend to everybody, though I suspect if you didn’t like Mercury, you’ll find the album as a whole difficult to get in to at first, if you can get in to it at all.
Well I’ve had a couple of listens now and it’s fair to say that I think I really like it. My reaction so far can be summed up by the following.
First listen = “What the hell was that?”
Second listen = “Wow, awesome.”
On first listen it’s very definitely a bit much, it comes at you from a direction you don’t quite expect. On second listen it’s all started to make a bit more sense and I can really appreciate that this album will take a long time to digest.
Stand out tracks so far are Biko, Signs and Zephyrus. Signs has the best glockenspiel in music ever. Zephyrus somehow manages to sound like something from Final Fantasy VIII and get away with it.
This is definitely one for the good headphones and a bit of a chin stroke.
(Check out my claim for the best glockenspiel in music ever at myspace.)
Given the recent run of bad news about bands I’m in to, this piece of news went down very well indeed. Yesterday, Bloc Party announced that their third album, Intimacy, is to be released on the 27th of October. More importantly however, they announced that if you choose to pay just £2 extra (a total of £10) you can receive the album digitally on Thursday. This was an easy price for me to pay.
Given my love of the recently released single Mercury, I fully expect to enjoy this album. Hopefully it’ll live up to my expectations. Expect impressions some time in the next few weeks. The next week might be a bit hectic and may prevent activity here.
Yet another post in a series of bad news about bands that Onebrow and I are very fond of.
This time the spotlight falls to iLiKETRAiNS, or more specifically their cornet player/animator/projectionist, Ashley. I posted a few months ago about the DVD that iLiKETRAiNS brought out to accompany their debut album Elegies to Lessons Learnt. This DVD was soley the work of Ashley or his animating alter ego Broken Pixel. I always thought that the animation brought something unique to iLiKETRAiNS, and the addition of the projection screen to their gigs was always very interesting. I remember the first couple of times we were lucky enough to see iLiKETRAiNS live, Ashley was using an old slide projector and one of the most haunting but beautiful things I have ever seen was BEFORETHECURTAiNSCLOSE (Part i I think) being shown with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing to the beat on the projection screen. The projections were then upgraded to digital versions, and videos animated by Ashley accompanied the songs, making for a truly unique live experience.
However, Ashley announced at the end of July that he would be leaving the band. It seems to have been a mutual decision in the end and I think it was mostly so that that Ashley could have more time to pursue his animating and further the success of Broken Pixel. I personally wish him the best of luck, and hope that the unfortunate break with the band can open up new doors for him and he can continue to do what he loves.
His website can be found here and YouTube channel here. Hopefully there will be a future collabiration with iLiKETRAiNS but we can only see. For now we are told that iLiKETRAiNS are working on their second album so there is good news to be found somewhere in the music world at least.
Here is what I consider to be one of the best examples of Ashley’s work with iLiKETRAiNS. Enjoy.
