Iron and Wine’s latest collection of loosely coined folk-pop continues where 2007’s The Shepherd Dog left us, with Sam Beam continuing to shed his heart-rending plucking of old for a more richly produced, soft-pop sound. However the cryptic story-telling is still very much at the heart of Beam’s songs so his new adventures in hi-fi shouldn’t alienate fans of his previous more rustic work and should, if there’s any justice, see Beam be embraced by a much wider audience.

‘Walking Far From Home’ is a grandiose opener, with a canvas of distorted keys and joyful ooo-aaah backing vocals, building gradually with poetic lines: “I saw a car crash in the country, where the prayers run like weeds along the road”, and “”I saw flowers on a hillside and a millionaire pissing on the lawn”, Beam is rarely off his game in the lyrical department and this is no exception, sometimes though the metaphors and juxtapositions are almost too assiduous, it’s fickle to say but on occasion it sounds like an academic practice on beautiful prose as opposed to emotive auto-biographical scribbling. That’s a minor gripe in the grand scheme of things; its studious nature is only a result of Beams increasing aptitude as a writer, which he’s honed considerably throughout his career.

Some of the finest moments on Kiss Each Other Clean see Beam pushing out the envelope and embracing soul and funk, much like Joan As Police Woman’s recently released album, The Deep Field, in your head the thought of alto-sax squirts and fretless bass funking off sounds pretty horrible to say the least, but on ‘Me and Lazarus’, ‘Big Burned Hand’, and the epic closer, ‘Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me’, these disparate elements combine to startling effect, which is testament to the song-writing chops, it would appear you can throw any amount of shit at these compositions and it will turn to ear-tickling gold. Undeniably talented, Beam is tapping on a rich fountain of form and long may it continue.

Following the release of their orchestral folk pop album Let Me Come Down, Scotland’s Broken Records have announced they will be stepping out on a UK tour in the New Year with Freelance Whales. The six-piece have also finished recording five stunning songs as part of 4AD’s session series, which can be watched in full here.

January
30 – Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh

February
1 – Crawdaddy, Dublin
2 – XOYO, London
3 – Deaf Institute, Manchester
4 – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
5 – Audio, Brighton

The title of tonight’s show as ‘fan-only’ seems a little far-fetched. Not to pick holes into it too much, but with Ariel Pink’s storied past and pretty expansive canon, it’s safe to say that his is a status that could quite simply be defined as ‘cult’, and by default inherit a level of devotion that the usual ‘fan’ may not be able to live up to in comparison to the consistently adoring. His is a character that is either loved or hated; but Before Today and the fruitful emergence of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti as a larger, more direct entity – seems to have changed that idea almost entirely. His career has been brought a new life by the incorporation of a more stable set of musicians in his company and an album that has brought attention from further afield than any of his previous work. There were always bound to be fair-weather fans, but what were we all to expect in this environment now?

Well, you’d be hard pushed to say that old or new fans would be left disappointed by anything on show tonight, with a brilliant double-header opening of ‘Bright Lit Blue Skies’ and ‘Beverly Kills’ immediately affirming the love in those new hearts and reinvigorating those of old. It proves to be the beginning of a tightly woven set that twists and turns with the same level of delight that is so brilliantly displayed within the confines of that so-adored last album.

What is so efficiently brought forward in this new live encapsulation is just how intricate every musical element is. Whilst on record there is a deliberate proclivity towards the nostalgic – despite the toned down nature of Before Today, Pink’s material is resolutely heaped with analog effects, obscure twists of production and his iconic home-taped style – live there is a sonic freedom that refreshes the material immensely. Tim Koh underpins this whole process perfectly – the bassist is a subtle whirlwind of grooves; not a bum-note throughout and proving to be an essential lynchpin to this cathartic new beast. ‘Menopause Man’ proves to be a restrained highlight, with the bass’ simplicity playing faux until an all out pop freak-out ensues, encapsulating the new joy that seems to be pumping through the collective veins. ‘Butthouse Blondies’, as well, loses none of its inherent psychedelic charm, but the emphasis resides purely on the destructive distortion of the chorus, which reaches a euphoric level of live melodic power;  the band moving from solo like shredding to acoustic replications with surprisingly consumate ease proving a diversity in sound that few others can come close to replicating.

Each band member may play their incredibly specific role brilliantly and nigh-on flawlessly, but all of them are merely support to the star of the show that is Pink himself. Known for his own eccentricities, he does not leave those in want of his character disappointed either. From the moment his blonde locks hit the stage of this packed-out room, there’s (only band apparent) sound issues which he is unwilling to let go, shouting ‘triple’ at the monitors, berating the sound man for the reverb he is so besotted by and cutting a straight forward figure throughout.  It’s the climaxes of the sets sections that bring him to a sudden tumult – ‘Round and Round’ sends the crowd into expected raptures and Pink himself into a staunchly glue-footed frenzy of husky vocals  backed by ever-present and unabashed choral harmonies, whilst ‘For Kate I Wait’ feels like some sort of exorcism. It’s brought to a new high with absolutely everything that surrounds it, from band, to crowd, to sound – it’s no wonder Pink cracks a brief smile and seems positively grateful at this end of their European leg.

Comparisons to Kurt Cobain may be readily thrown his way, and his Tad style lumberjack get-up may only enhance those sort of hapless musings, but this new slightly departed ethos to his art now seems to be bringing a level of demanded creative fruition as well as new reams of disciples. And whilst they may never reach that level of mainstream reverence, for whatever reason, with performances like this you’d be hard pushed to say that Haunted Graffiti aren’t destined for larger ‘fan-only’ performances in the very near future.

What better way to banish the Autumnal greys then focusing on good stuff that’s happening in the future. In this case, Iron & Wine tour dates for March next year.

Having just announced they’ve signed to 4AD for a new album, called Kiss Each Other Clean, which will be release in January, they’ve confirmed the following shows:

March
8 London Roundhouse
9 Brighton Corn Exchange
10 Birmingham Town Hall
11 Edinburgh HMV Picturehouse
12 Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
14 Dublin Olympia
15 Manchester Academy 2
16 Gateshead Sage
17 Leeds Metropolitan University

Only a few years ago now Broken Records were arguably one of Scotland’s (and certainly Edinburgh’s) great hopes for another big crossover success. Understandably really; their self-titled EP was unashamedly ambitious and heartfelt orchestral folk pop which was by turns intimate and cavernous. Then they were snapped up by 4AD, and the Scottish music community seemed to hold it’s collective breath for the debut album that was sure to propel them in to the spotlight. Then Until The Earth Begins To Part was released and most sighed in disappointment. Not that it was necessarily a bad album but it lacked the gusto of their early tracks and felt horribly over-produced and a wee bit vacuous. At least that’s my interpretation of it, perhaps if I hadn’t become so attached to some the tracks in their original form then I wouldn’t have felt so apathetic towards the album. Teething problems are to be expected though I guess; here we have a batch of entirely new songs for the septet to demonstrate what they’re really capable of and thankfully, for the most part, they seize it.

There’s a little more bombast in some of the tracks on Let Me Come Home with the band notching up the tempo and allowing things to get a little frayed around the edges. When this happens the juxtaposition of the more ramshackle arrangements with the beauty of their rustic instrumentation is quite enthralling. Opener ‘A Leaving Song’ is symptomatic of this with it’s vast canvas of scattered percussion and fizzing brass, it doesn’t even matter that they hit the crescendo several times before the two minute mark and don’t quite recover. This is covered well by the fact that the production is spot-on throughout, finding a perfect middle ground between rough and sheen. ‘A Darkness Rises Up’ as well is the opposite of what it’s title might suggest, if anything it sounds more like a purging of negativity with it’s rolling drums and glimmering piano line dancing amidst swooning strings and lashes of guitar managing to find a wonderful clarity in it’s disorientating waves of sound.

Similarly it’s in these moments that they’re at their least lachrymose, not to say that Jamie Sutherland doesn’t still has a tendency to spit lyrics like a sullen teenager who thinks nobody understands his pain – he does, but it’s less common and with his vocals having been reigned in a little he mostly gets away with it. This is most apparent on standout ‘Dia dos Namorados!’ as his vocals billow gently over a skeletal piano and string arrangement without ever straining beyond mid-tempo, it’s a refreshing counter point to their usual grandiosity. The brooding reverberating piano lament ‘I Used To Dream’ does a similar job and these help to break up the album and offer some rest-bite that was somewhat lacking on their debut.

By the time we finally arrive at closer ‘Home’ things have reached a perfect balance, it’s a beautifully forlorn piece to close things on. The delicate strings and lilting guitar slowed to walking pace and Sutherland’s vocals gradually eased down to quiet, almost whispered speech; it’s a completely arresting comedown from all of the intoxicating splendour which precedes it. If Broken Records were to settle here and call this home, then I’d be more than happy. If they can retain this level of focus and self-restraint then album number three might just garner the success that was initially expected of them, if this one doesn’t do it.

4AD have just announced they’ve signed the Alt-country / Americana greatness of Iron & Wine. They also mentioned that I&W will be releasing a new album, called Kiss Each Other Clean, at the top of 2011. It’ll be their first long-player in three years.

The band will be touring the UK around the release of the album – more details soon!

Porcelain Raft: not a life-saving flotation device. In a way this was a shame, as the Biblical rain outside suggested Shepherd’s Bush would be under 10 foot of water by the time tonight’s show had finished, but whilst Mauro Remeddi would be pretty useless in a flooding scenario, he’s certainly a dab hand at fuzzed-out indie loveliness. Unlike many of his peers, he’s reluctant to settle into one predictable groove, at times going for hazy, claustrophobic minimalism, at others shifting into more traditional synth-pop territory, maintaining the same high quality throughout. Yes, there’s moments where his vocals let him down (he’s better at instrumentals), but as chillwave performances go, this is pretty impressive stuff.

Blonde Redhead

Pitchfork’s assessment of Blonde Redhead‘s new LP Penny Sparkle as “profoundly boring” may be a little harsh, but it’s hard to deny at times it feels like the veteran dream-popsters are going through the motions; a feeling not entirely dispelled by their live show. It’s perfectly competent, reasonably energetic…but nothing more. Kazu Makino’s vocals are always a delight, but the lack of volume and a surplus of bass reverb meant they were swamped under the guitars; the stage design is doubtlessly effective, but is more than a little derivative of Fever Ray (replace the flickering light bulbs with lamps and buy a few more masks and you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference.) Whilst shoegaze has never demanded much dynamism from its performers, Blonde Redhead’s reliance on backing tracks highlights the lack of vitality that besets the show at times, and even The Big Hit (’23′) fails to stir the emotions or the enthusiasm of the crowd as much as one would expect. True, they can still muster up an almighty squall of noise when they want to, but even then the sub-par mixing meant that moments that should have been breathtakingly intense were merely mildly impressive. Subtlety is no sin, but that’s no excuse for aimlessness – a little more focus could have gone a long way.

Photography courtesy of Sebastien Dehesdin

You can hear the precise point at which Deerhunter emerged. It was about halfway through Cryptograms as the sprawl of sonic discovery and noise dimmed and out of the darkness came a string of psychedelic pop songs. Until then the band seemed obtuse in the same way that Sonic Youth sometimes came across, making a listener work for the best stuff. Disguising songs and hooks can be a little obtuse, but it’s a move that at its best smacks of confidence; the staple of a band in control of the tension and release dynamic at the heart of some of the best records of the past twenty-five years.

Deerhunter have come a long way in a few short years – a slew of EPs, three albums not to mention the endlessly prolific Atlas Sound. It’s this restless creativity that makes the band so interesting, you can almost feel the process, whether or not it makes for a slightly hit-and-miss variance in their work. Even before spinning it, you sense Haclyon Digest is an important album for the band – one that should be a grand statement if they want to take their place at the table of indie big boys.

‘Earthquake’ inches in the doorframe with it’s super-slow BPM and reverse drums as a guitar swells somewhere off in the distance.  The song sweeps forward collecting a swarm of delayed guitar lines on its way. There is so much room for the song to breathe that it practically heaves under its own weight. It’s a glorious start to the album and ranks along with Deerhunter’s very best moments.

Elsewhere the band continues to mine staples of sixties sound on ‘Revival’ with buzzing guitars and tambourine infused snares. ‘Revival’ is a taut little pop song, under three minutes, and together with ‘Memory Boy’ make up what is probably the bands most accessible work to date. Bradford Cox’s love of yesteryear pop is well documented and he adds a charmingly dewy-eyed spin on things. His cadence rasps and slips at the end of words, a now signature tic, ghostly in its effect.

It also helps distinguish Lockett Pundt’s emerging talent too. At the centre of the album is ‘Desire Lines’, a standout moment, written and sung by Pundt. His delivery is more straight – the Lee Renaldo to Cox’s Kim Gordon – and frames the best guitar-jam on the album. Around the four-minute mark the song ascends on a cloud of some pretty great guitar playing, lines interweaving and darting around, it becomes a psychedelic carousel with all its movement and colour. It’s an all too rare moment on the album where the band comes alive. Accomplished as it is Halcylon Digest lacks a little excitement.

The record closes with the stretching ‘He Would Have Laughed’ about Cox’s close friend Jay Reatard, a singular talent in his own right. It’s an aching tribute and despite the longing lyrics shares an odd sense of contentedness that streaks the whole album. The band sound like they are comfortable in their own skin, something at odds with so much of Cox’s previous work, which has always been characterised by an obsession with the human body, a yearning to escape it. Hacylon Digest misses some of the stream-of-consciousness magic from previous releases but it’s a fine trade off for a more thought out and accomplished piece of work.

Penny Sparkle is the eighth release by New York based dream-poppers Blonde Redhead and given that 2007′s 23 hinted at the potential for crossover success, you could be forgiven that this could be a fairly big album for them, but Blonde Redhead just aren’t that kind of band. Instead of straining for the big time they just go about their business, crafting superior electronica; drenched in reverb and melancholy, and this release finds no change on that front.

As ever Kazu Makino’s gorgeously sultry vocals are at the centre of everything, always commanding attention with a whisper rather than a shout. Opener ‘Here Sometimes’ opens with some typically rich imagery and the chorus finds her cooing “Now it’s day /and I am dreaming” with typically spaced out aplomb.

‘Will There Be Stars’ is one of a couple of tracks where Kazu takes a back seat and while these sections work well as a break, it always seems exactly that and you find yourself waiting for Makino to return.

This is music for the subconscious, perfect for the state between sleep and wakefulness. ‘Love or Prison’ again finds Kazu on blissful, downbeat form, and at times it is almost too easy not to recognise how perfectly placed every element is, they are a band who clearly know their sound buit always manage to avoid sounding as if they are on auto pilot.

In fact everything is so well done that at times the record just coasts by, which is it’s biggest strength and weakness. With such soporific splendour it is easy to take for granted but then after just a couple of listens you realise you already know the songs better than you have any right to – deft, subtle hooks the cause. At the same time it would be interesting to hear what would happen if they really did break off the shackles, it’s not that the tunes are unenergetic or uninspired, simply that sometimes it would be nice to really hear them topple over the edge and lose it.

After an imperious middle section, Penny Sparkle does peter out somewhat but overall this is a stronger more consistent work than 23, albeit one that is likely to maintain their position as influential elder statesmen and 4AD traditionalists rather than dragging in any new followers. Despite the strength of the record, their dedication to such sleepy atmospherics mean that they are likely to stay a niche act, while School of Seven Bells et al receive wider acclaim thanks to their somewhat more adventurous use of dynamics, but hey, you’d imagine Blonde Redhead are quite happy that way.

4AD has announced their latest signing is one George Lewis Jr., more commonly known to you and me as Twin Shadow. Initially discovered by Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor, 4AD will release the debut album Forget outside of the US on November 15 (Forget will be issued in the US on Taylor’s new label Terrible Records).

Lewis Jr., the troubled son of a hairdresser and “a teacher who lived many lives” spent his formative years in suburban Florida. Later, George escaped and travelled north to New York where the slow gestation of Forget took place over a duration of many months in his Brooklyn apartment. Impressed by the unknown Twin Shadow, Chris Taylor lent his considerable talents as a co-producer, getting behind the dials to add a final flourish to the eleven tracks that would become Forget.

Talking about his debut, George Lewis Jr. remarks, “I can say without shyness, Forget was and is a product of the hardest work I’ve ever put into anything. Please listen closely to the last song [title track 'Forget'] on the record, as I wrote it for you.”

Commenting on signing to 4AD, Twin Shadow says, “Four or five months ago I was watching Lost Highway with a beautiful Swedish girl, we both fell in love with This Mortal Coil’s cover of Tim Buckley’s ‘Song To The Siren’. I remember thinking, “Man I wish I had seen that band, I wish I had been around at that time, I feel like my record belongs in that family.” …Here I am joining that family, for which I couldn’t be happier.”

For a taster of what to expect from Forget, grab the latest edition of the TLOBF Podcast to hear album track ‘I Can’t Wait’.

Taken from the rather impressive new album Penny Sparkle, ‘Here Sometimes’ is the first track to be unveiled from Blonde Redhead‘s recent 4AD Session. If you’ve missed out on past 4AD Sessions, fear not – they’re all available to view in swanky HD quality here.

Penny Sparkle drops on 14 September.

Broken Records have announced a new album. Let Me Come Home will be release on 25th October.

Jamie Sutherland has this to say about the inspiration behind their second album:

“An idea started to form about the direction of the new record based on several films and albums that I became gradually obsessed with at that time. Watching the widescreen emptiness of films Badlands, Rumble Fish and East of Eden, as well as records such as Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads, Calexico’s Feast of Wire and REM’s early back catalogue all became a strong influence on the direction of the new songs. It was also during this time that the lyrical theme of the record started to take shape, thinking about what was going on around me in the form of fears and concerns over making relationships work, and a need for security.”

As a taster, you can download the opening track ‘A Leaving Song’ here.

Catch the band playing live at the following dates:

August
28 Edge Festival @ Liquid Room, Edinburgh

September
23 Arthur’s Day, Dublin (venue TBC)
28 Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, London

Deerhunter have announced their fourth LP, Halcyon Digest, though an interactive xerox art project and the launch of a website, halcyondigest.com, will be released by 4AD on September 27th (28th in the US).

Frontman Bradford Cox describes “…always being fascinated with the ephemera of 70′s – 80′s artrock in record stores like Wuxtry in Athens where I hung out as a kid or Wax ‘N Facts in Atlanta. You’d see a photocopied faded B-52′s flyer next to a poster for Lou Reed or XTC. It was like an artpunk scrapbook on those walls. It made my head spin. Who are these people? Who are the fucking Residents with these weird-ass eyeball faces?”

Cox has designed a flyer by hand in the cut-and-paste style of his new-wave heroes. Fans are asked to print the flyer out, photocopy it, and paste it around town – in their favorite independent record store, co-op, bedroom, library, etc… They are asked to take photos of the flyers where they hang them and send them to flyers@halcyondigest.com, where they will be posted. Fans are asked to include the city where the photo was taken in the email. People participating are asked to respect local laws regarding the posting of flyers, and to ask permission before posting them on private property.

Those who send in images will be the first to hear (via an e-mailed link) Halcyon Digest’s first single in the next few weeks. They will also receive an exclusive non-album track that will not be available anywhere else.

Download hi-res poster here.

I’m not sure whether my headlines are getting worse or better…

Anyway, one of our favourite bands on the 4AD roster, Blonde Redhead, have announced details of a new album.

Called Penny Sparkle, it will be released on 13th September, and will be the band’s third release for 4AD.

You can download the album opener ‘Here Sometimes’ from this link.

Kazu Mazino from the band speaks of the record;
“I can’t say what Penny Sparkle is about just yet.
I remember talking to Ed (from 4AD) one day and telling him that I had a vision that I was traveling to far away places to complete it.
(Then) I landed in snowy slippery Stockholm….. and here.
I fell in love with the music like falling for someone you’ve known for a long time.
It was dreamy and sometimes was very stormy.
At times I felt like a shepherd who was trying to herd five stallions into a yard (unsuccessfully).
I felt like I was a link to everyone. I remained still and the others were constantly moving around it.
I am not sure what Penny Sparkle is but I hope I offered to them as much as they offered me.
I know that we have never made a record this way and if I could go back in time, I would do it exactly the same way again.”

Lovely.

Oxford based four piece Stornoway are perhaps the perfect realisation of what outsiders think people from the dreaming spires are like; lyrics allude to days spent breathing in the rural beauty of the shire while embarking on pulse raising romantic encounters taking place in some kind of endless Indian summer. And while this admittedly pleasant idyll is some way from truth, Stornoway were clasped to the musical breast of Oxford some time ago and the city’s love for the band shows no sign of weakening despite the impending hugeness that seems inevitable in the wake of BBC Sound of 2010 votes and the announcement their debut would be released by the legendary 4AD label.

Beachcomber’s Windowsill opens with the almost gregorian choral backing vocals and exuberant brass of ‘Zorbing’; those that are familiar with the track already won’t be fooled by the claims that the song is about rolling around in a bubble; Brian Briggs thirst for knowledge finds him using all manner of metaphor and analogy for what are in truth an album’s worth of songs about “relationship issues.”

While Briggs vocal embrace of nature and commanding baritone is the focal point of the record, the instrumentation should not be overlooked. These are simple songs played by excellent musicians and it is easy take arrangements for granted when everything seems so perfectly placed that it just should be where it is.Much credit for this should go to Jon Owen who is the musical conscience of the record, popping up on keys, strings and guitar and giving Briggs arrangements greater breadth and form.

‘Fuel Up’ is a superb example of the band at their best; an entire life transposed to a car journey and features gorgeous organ and some extremely natty dulcimer work, it’s moments like this that show a lightness of touch and attention to detail that few match at such an early stage. Of course it helps that it’s followed by the absolute stand-out that is ‘The Coldharbour Road’ – a mournful yet somehow euphoric rumination on nature, love and the moment of realisation when you know there’s no point fighting something any longer and are content to just get swept along by it.

The only misfires are the somewhat glib “technology is bad – get outside” lyrics and the hoe-down stylings of ‘We Are The Battery Human’ and the closing ‘Long Distance Lullaby’ – which feels a slightly superfluous closer after the delicacy of the superior ‘End Of The Movie’.

Perhaps the most interesting moment on display here is ‘On The Rocks’, wide-screen, wide-eyed and itching to rock out, the track positively creaks into life before drums and guitars tumble while Briggs soaring vocals remain the constant as the crescendo builds.

Hype can be more of a curse than a blessing when it comes to indie music and while it’s nice to listen to records in a vacuum it sometimes just isn’t possible. Beachcomber’s Windowsill is a superb achievement, a record moulded in the band’s own image and one they will be deservedly proud of but still one which reads as a signpost as to what may come rather than a definitive statement.

It was with some trepidation that I arrived at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire for tonight’s Efterklang show. Having seen the band a number of times before I’ve come to expect a certain type of gig from them; pin drop silences, off-mic vocal parts and an audience that loses themselves completely in the spectacle before them are all part of what really makes an Efterklang show. The last time I went to a comparable gig at this venue was Explosions In The Sky. People talked. It ruined it. Add to that a new album under their belt which seems to be splitting critics into two camps of “a brilliant progression on Parades” and “it lacks the brilliance of Parades” Efterklang had something to prove tonight.

The set was, understandably, Magic Chairs-heavy. Opening with ‘I Was Playing Drums’ the band aired the lion’s share of the record tonight and, for the most part, they cemented its worthy place in their canon. The glitchy electronics of ‘Alike’ were loud and dominating, while the band created a soft bed of accompaniment; ‘Raincoats’ hand-clap intro was gladly taken on by the audience; ‘Mirror Mirror’, with Casper’s calling vocal and its off-kilter rhythms, was engaging and exciting; and ‘Modern Drift’, originally out first taste of Magic Chairs, takes on a new life when performed live. There were however a couple of moments — ‘Harmonics’, ‘Full Moon’ — where, when placed alongside older material, the small cracks in Magic Chairs were exposed.

Fans of old were treated to a few greatest hits from the back catalogue. Parades‘ ‘Mirador’ and ‘Caravan’ were met with big cheers and then hushed silence as the band executed the tracks with near perfection — not surprising given that they’re not long back from touring the record in its entirety. Even Tripper favourite ‘Step Aside’ received an airing tonight, its frenetic beats, swelling brass and beds of harmonies gaining one of the most rapturous responses of the night. Closing the set and cementing the audience’s involvement in the gig was ‘Cutting Ice To Snow’; after the opening bars of vocal harmonies and Casper’s whisper of “Si-lence” a pause followed. There was not a voice or a whisper to be heard in the venue. It’s a strange experience being in a room of 1,500 people where no one is making a sound; it’s a testament to the bands hold over an audience that they can achieve such a thing.

Though the band are more suited to playing in venues like The Barbican or the Queen Elizabeth Hall Efterklang shined tonight. Material both new and old was played and met with excitement and respect from both the band and the audience. After an encore of ‘The Soft Beating’ the exiting crowd chatter was made up of “amazing” and “I can’t believe how quiet everyone was” sentiments. I got the impression that this was a lot of people’s first time. You never forget your first Efterklang gig.

Photos by Amadeep Chana

Los Angeles’ Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti have confirmed details of their debut album for 4AD. Entitled Before Today, the record consists of twelve tracks (including the freely available ‘Round And Round’) and will be released worldwide on June 8th 2010 on CD, LP and digital formats.

That’s the Ziggy Stardust-esque cover art up there…

The outfit, now consisting of Ariel Pink (vocals), Tim Koh (bass/vocals), Kenny Gilmore (guitar/vocals) and Aaron Sperske (drums/vocals) will tour Europe this summer (we’re still awaiting details of this) and have confirmed a headline show at New York City’s Mercury Lounge on May 4th.

Prior to the album, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti will release ‘Round And Round’ (backed with ‘Mistaken Wedding’) as a limited edition 7″ and digital download single on April 26th. Fans can hear ‘Round And Round’ on 4AD.com and new subscribers to the band’s mailing list can also download the track as a free MP3 by following this link.

Denmark’s Efterklang are a band of seemingly constant reinvention. On paper they’re a meagre four piece band; on stage their number sprawls as the likes of Peter Broderick, Anna Brønsted (Our Broken Garden) and a myriad others to help fill rooms with swathes of strings, piano and euphoric choral voices. Their first album, Tripper, was a quiet, brooding piece of work characterised by its use of minimal, glitchy programming, breathy vocals and sweeping arrangements. Favourites like ‘Step Aside’ still get a live airing today. 2007 saw a step-change for the band on the release of Parades. Its extensive use of vocal tapestries, arrangements heavy on strings and brass, and standard song structure entirely ignored it was an accomplished and spiralling album which saw the glitchy programming that served as a backbone to their debut play less of a focal point. After an extensive touring schedule, on which the band took Parades on the road with a symphony orchestra, they’re back with Magic Chairs — and yes, they’ve changed things up again.

Parades was arguably the album which launched Efterklang into a wider consciousness; it was my first contact with the band and, like many others I’m sure, it’s the album which defines the band’s sound. On investigating their back catalogue it’s easy to see where they’ve come from (especially as Tripper is a pheonominal record) but, with our expectations so rooted in Parades, changing the formula could loose the band fans. However, I’ve always got the impression that Efterklang make music for themselves, it’s just lucky for them that we all like it so much.

Magic Chairs sees the band take their existing formula and give it what some would (and I’m sure will) call a pop slant. Everything on the album feels more structured, more accessible than the bands previous material — all the while still retaining a sound which is definitely Efterklang. As you would expect, every note, beat, pluck bow and strike of this record sounds like it’s been carefully considered. The arrangements and attention to the importance of dynamic is spot on. There is no showmanship to be found; no one is fighting for virtuoso glory.

For all those who may bemoan the band’s leaning to a more accessible sound there’s no denying that, as ever, we find Efterklang at their most inventive. ‘Raincoats’ is built on a rhythm of handclaps, layered vocals and simple guitar chords, ‘Full Moon’ is born of bold, aggressive strings, and, from a programmed beat, ‘Alike’ builds with layers of soft synths, sparkling guitar lines and dancing brass — all finished of with an optimistic, almost euphoric vocal performance “Ooooh, and it made us feel alright.”

If Efterklang were ever write a song to launch them onto the playlists of mainstream radio then it is, without doubt, ‘The Soft Beating’. From its simple infancy of slack guitar the track, built of three parts, is possibly one of the best things the band have written to date. As Casper Clausen starts to pine “Over the top ’till it all comes down,” which finds the reply of “I can imagine it, I can imagine it,” you know that this thing is going break. When it does it’s a cacophony of synths, cymbals and, without doubt, a lot of people in the audience with both arms aloft. If the BBC ever hear this expect to find it over all sporting montages for the next 18 months.

Although on its first listen Magic Chairs might worry anyone already familiar with Efterklang, by the time it’s reached its conclusion you’ll be a convert, safe in the knowledge that they’ve done it once again. This is an album of magnificent achivement and if it’s not featuring on the Best Of The Year lists it’ll have been quite the year.

Buy the album on Amazon | [itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/gb/artist/efterklang/id45467996?uo=4" title="Efterklang" text="iTunes"]

I’ve been to plenty of shows at the Cargo. The audiences are characteristically restrained and reserved, rarely ever showing any real enthusiasm or emotion. But not tonight at Cargo. This was something very special.

First were Canada’s Think About Life. With a fun, tongue in cheek light-heartedness similar to the style of YACHT they warmed up the crowd nicely. Set highlight was disco pop tune ‘Set You On Fire’, in which Tune Yards’ Merrill Garbus couldn’t resist climbing on stage to dance to join in with the infectious sing a long chorus.

Trash Kit followed, taking to the stage adorned in tribal face paint. Their tunes were all momentarily enjoyable but ultimately uninteresting with the songs never properly developing into anything truly exciting. Admittedly, they are not my usual cup of tea and so I was perhaps unable to fully appreciate what they had to offer.

There was a real buzz before Tune Yards took to the stage. Tune Yards is the stage name of Merill Garbus. Merrill Garbis is incredible. Absolutely incredible. Amazing in the true sense of the word. Watching her perform is fascinating; she’s completely unique and there is no one like her.

The room was totally packed and the atmosphere was electric. Merrill was centre stage joined by bassist Nate Brenner, who subtly added so much to each song. Garbus meticulously loops her voice and drum beats and plays ukulele while she sings. It sounds like something you’ve seen before, but you really haven’t seen this before. Her eccentric vocal delivery and inventive song structures make for a thoroughly exciting listen. The crowd LOVED it. Every time she’d put her foot down on the loop pedal to bring the drums back in you could hear the crowd roar and cheer, with the whole room swaying and dancing to the rhythms.

They performed songs from 2009′s word of mouth success Bird Brains as well as some newer unreleased songs, including the ridiculously brilliant ‘Gangsta’ which has everyone in Cargo bouncing. The set went by far too quickly. It was endearing watching Merrill, who had no self consciousness but a really wonderful presence that was in no way overly confident or too self assured. She is naturally brilliant, and you could tell she was genuinely surprised and taken aback by the rapturous applause and yells of ‘I love you!’ from the audience. She deserved every single clap and cheer, her set cannot be faulted.

She left the stage only to come back after what has to be the loudest and most relentless encore request I’ve ever heard (and I’ve been to over 300 gigs in the past year and a half). When giving the crowd the option of a new song or ‘Sunshine’, the cheers were so loud she had no choice but to play both. The new song, titled ‘You Yes You’ had a jump-a-long part in which Merrill invited the crowd to jump with her. And everyone did.

Leaving Cargo you could feel the excitement. Complete strangers started talking to each other just to gush praise together. Phrases like ‘gig of the year’ and ‘hard to beat that’ were floating around, and I’m pretty sure nobody left that venue without a smile on their face. Very special indeed. Merrill Garbus is a true, natural talent and a wonderful performer.

Do not wait to go and see Tune Yards.

Well, this has come as something of a surprise… 4AD have been got their cheque book out again and signed the wonderful Gang Gang Dance, who’s Saint Dymphna album was a fantastic burst of experimental pop music.

There’s a new album in the works and will see the light of day towards the end of 2010. We look forward to that…

Los Angeles’ notorious lo-fi pop oufit Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti have been unveiled as the latest signings to 4AD. The group are currently recording their first record for the label, due spring 2010.

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti will perform a small number of European dates in December, taking in the following climbs:

December
04 Bristol Qujunktions @ TBC
05 Minehead All Tomorrow’s Parties
06 Cardiff Buffalo
07 Nottingham The Bodega
08 London The Rest Is Noise
09 Manchester Deaf Institute
13 London Lexington

We’re a planet of organisers; rock, pop, indie, electro, americana, country and a myriad other genre and sub-genre exist to allow us to group our eclectic record collections into perfectly formed sections. However, every now again you find yourself in the record shop looking for that must-own release and you think to yourself: “Well, it could be in the ‘Dance’ section I guess, but then there’s nothing stopping it being in ‘Rock & Pop’ either.” What happens when points of comparison and reference are so disparate? It’s ruining the filing system! Well, there’s another record to add to this “Where are HMV going to file it?” list: tUnE-yArDs‘ BiRd-BrAiN.

Taking the idea of the DIY aesthetic very seriously, Merrill Garbus – the one woman that makes up the full tUnE-YaRdS line-up – recorded the vocals for the record on a digital voice recorder and then mixed the record on the free Audacity software. So, that’s pretty lo-fi then. This small list of tools is even proudly declared on the inside cover along with the statement: “You can do it”. The result is a smorgasbord of lo-fi folk, world music, R ‘n’ B pop and processed beats. All styles and reference points deployed seemingly at will across the record’s 13 tracks with Garbus having a firm grasp of each ones eccentricities.

Most of the album is scratched out on a ukulele, untold melodies weaving their way though a selection of sinister ditties that play out like fairytales of old – the versions where everyone didn’t live happily ever after. Behind the uke is the album’s biggest strength: a selection of some of the best beat sampling you’re likely to hear this year. ‘Sunlight’ features a tape-fuzz breakbeat that wouldn’t sound out off place on a DJ Shadow record; ‘News’ opens with what sounds like a child banging a toy on a table; this becomes the backbone of the rhythm which is built on with milk bottle percussion.

The album’s other biggest strength (yes, it had two) is Garbus’ voice which flits effortlessly between soft lullaby, fork tongued snarl and, well, MIA; delivering messages to ex lovers: “I’m not going to stick around here anymore if you treat me badly,” and clever turns of phrase: “What if my skin makes my skin crawl?”

It’s possible to take each track on BiRd-BrAiN and dissect it – ‘Jamaican’ with its Timberland beat, ‘Lions’ sounding like a Four Tet playground rhyme – and in doing so it can reveal the album’s double edged sword. Ostensibly the album is a one-trick pony: create a beat, loop a uke part, sing over the top. Although each track is incredibly well conceived and executed, it could be argued that 13 tracks is a little over long.

That said, it shouldn’t detract from the skill and ingenuity on display. Garbus has crammed so many ideas in here it demands repeat listens to open up all the idiosyncrasies and often witty lyrics hidden in this Pandora’s Box of an album.

Buy the album on Amazon | [itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/fiya/id323238458?uo=4" title="Tune-Yards-Bird-Brains_(Album)" text="iTunes"]

Two months after joining the 4AD stable, Efterklang have announced details of Magic Chairs, the band’s third full-length studio album and their first for the label and is slated for release on February 22nd 2010 (23rd in N. America)

Tracklisting:
1. Modern Drift
2. Alike
3. I Was Playing Drums
4. Raincoats
5. Harmonics
6. Full Moon
7. The Soft Beating
8. Scandinavian Love
9. Mirror Mirror
10. Natural Tune

Talking about Magic Chairs the band say “We are very proud of this record and feel that it introduces a new Efterklang sound. The songs draw inspiration from pop song structures, created and recorded with a live approach and we wanted to display every sound source clearly so that the listener can hear every ingredient of the music.”

Have a sneaky listen to some new material through the clever widget below!

As previously announced, Efterklang are set to perform their magnificent album Parades with the Britten Sinfonia Orchestra at The Barbican on 28th October. To prelude what will undoubtedly be one of the concert highlights of the year, our friends at Arctic Circle (promoters of The Barbican show) caught up with the band in Shepherds Bush last month to talk about what we can expect from the show.

Support comes from Norwegian 10-piece Jaga Jazzist, plus a free pre-show performance in the foyer by Sons Of Noel and Adrian. Tickets are still available for the show. Priced between £15-£25 and available direct from The Barbican website.

Every day it seems, another folk-pop hopeful superstar, either they make it or they don’t make it, but Young Husband or Noah & The Whale or David’s Rusty Mountains or whatever, or even actual fucking megastars like Bon Iver, they all have the singular drawback of being really really boring and why anyone could ever even possibly begin to care is impossibly beyond me.

Meanwhile, every year with the clockwork regularity that John Darnielle’s now-aging bowels must be beginning to strain to reproduce, another Mountain Goats album, and is it just me but don’t they always sound the same, and yet that’s the strange thing because this is all the mostly-one-guy-but-also-sometimes-more (actually I think even always more but it seems like the focus is always on this one guy) folk maudlin I’ll ever need, Darnielle’s sad, ringing voice chiming transcendentally over the admittedly now especially dull music, but on The Sunset Tree it was possibly beautiful, or maybe I just hadn’t had the soul ripped out of me then.

Of course, the twist for this album is that all the songs are named after line references from the Bible, but I don’t have one handy to look them up. So, what I mostly get from this is the thought that this is all somehow strangely appropriate, and that John Darnielle is probably exactly the kind of troubled, sensitive guy who maybe in times gone by would have grown up and joined the priesthood, but in this post-religious world who can really, actually believe in all that, I mean sincerely, even religious people must know their certainty is threatened (and do), so how else to respond to the loss of this one-time refuge than to grow up to become a maddeningly consistent and somehow non-crap cult folk hero?

No one, of course, needs The Life Of The World To Come because it doesn’t add anything remotely new or interesting to The Mountain Goats’ catalogue and they have vastly better records you can buy just as easily still, but nevertheless I’d still advocate a law replacing all the other acoustic guitar-toting acts out there with just The Mountain Goats, because the results would be all the same muchness, it’s just a muchness with possibly the most beautiful voice in all of music, maybe. (probably not, but, that’s hyperbole for you) I’d keep some acts with acoustic guitars though, the good ones. But that’s incompleteness for you.

The Mountain Goats on MySpace

And so here it is, one of the most anticipated releases of the year. The coming together of Milo Cordell (him from the Merok Label) and Robbie Furze (him from the Alec Empire band and numerous Lily Allen tabloid stories) has created no end of fuss. The question of course is whether or not The Big Pink is going to stand up regardless of the hype and the apparent “Fonz” factor of the protagonists.

Dredging their inspiration from various Shoegaze sources and coupling it with a few dance beats might not sound likely to induce infatuation but for at least 70% of A Brief History of Love it works perfectly.

Opening things up with ‘Crystal Visions’ and some chiming delayed guitars, we seem to be in for a fairly gentle ride. Of course someone flicks the My Bloody Valentine emulator into life and all of a sudden we’re talking about an entirely different beast. Massive guitars thunder over the chorus and Furze surfs over the top of them with a perfect Jim Reid impression. Elsewhere there’s plenty of space to be explored which is filled with chaotic noise courtesy of any number of cascading guitars which fall into each other fighting for space like beefed up, pissed off Gods. A cracking start then, and one that’s followed with the highlight of the album in the shape of ‘Too Young To Love’. Yet more soaring guitars colliding with each other, feeding back, and generally creating an awkward soundscape, but this time an incessant drum pattern and some perfectly pitched bass keep things together just enough for Furze to emote over the top. The point where the programmed meets the frenzy of guitars on free reign is fascinating, with the band clearly capable of moving within defined parameters with ease, and most importantly, not being so concerned with structure as to allow it to affect the emotion of the song.

‘Dominos’ follows and is a clear attempt at something approaching a pop song. A huge catchy chorus, and a very basic structure does the job perfectly. Just in case there was any stone unturned there is of couse plenty of bragging about success with the ladies (they fall like dominos apparently – slightly disturbing for anyone who might have enjoyed a night with these guys’ “big pink”. If you find yourself covered in white dots after such a night, get yourself down the clinic people).

‘Love in Vain’ borrows heavily from The Verve, pinching not only their sound, but with Furze putting on his best Ashcroft impression. At this point, it’s probably advisable to try and avoid finding comparisons and influences because A Brief History of Love is so crammed with them it should probably come with a dedicated I-Spy book. If you can let it go and embrace it for what it is, you’ll probably enjoy it a lot more.

So what is A Brief History of Love? Well, it is a well executed trawl through a history of love which is of course something of a torturous journey. From the uninhibited rutting of ‘Dominos’, you’ll eventually find yourself at the point where it all goes wrong. Title track ‘A Brief History of Love’ sums this point up beautifully with its mournful backing bring the most out of the heartbroken duet between Furze and Jo Robertson. Like all love stories there’s a considerable mixture of highs and lows, and a great deal of confusion. The Big Pink get the balance about right here, and although at times this is an album that can seem a little derivative, for the most part it’s a success.

So is it worth all the anticipation? There’s little doubt that A Brief History of Love will have many people enamoured with it for the next few months, it is after all a pretty strong album. Will it be looked upon with love and fondness in a few years? Only time will tell, and of course that rather depends on whether a younger, better, model comes along. Ain’t love grand?

The Big Pink on Myspace

Efterklang have become the latest addition to the 4AD roster. The Copenhagen-based group will join 4AD for a worldwide deal, minus Scandinavia where they will continue to release records through their own Rumraket imprint. The band are currently working on the follow-up to 2007′s universally lauded album Parades and it will see the light of day in early 2010.

In the mean time, Efterklang will release Performing Parades on October 19th via The Leaf Label. This special release is the band’s most ambitious project yet, comprising both audio and visual recordings of the band’s performance of Parades in its entirety with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra at Copenhagen’s Koncerthuset in September 2008. The live recordings will be issued as a limited edition deluxe CD+DVD/2LP+DVD packages.

Coinciding with the release of Performing Parades, Efterklang will play across Europe throughout the rest of this year including a headline show at London’s Barbican Centre on Wednesday 28th October. For this show the band will join forces with The Britten Sinfonia to perform Parades. Full dates below More dates to be announced shortly.

Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell, the musical orchestrators behind The Big Pink, have confirmed full details of their debut album A Brief History Of Love which will be released by 4AD on September 14th.

Featuring previous singles ‘Too Young To Love’, ‘Crystal Visions’ and ‘Velvet’, A Brief History Of Love was recorded and self-produced at Electric Lady Studios in New York and with help from an ever-evolving line-up. The job of mixing fell to Rich Costey (Mastodon, Muse, New Order, Rage Against The Machine) with the exception of ‘Velvet’ which was previously mixed by Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine, NiN, Smashing Pumpkins, Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

Download the latest single, ‘Dominos’ for free here!

A Brief History Of Love tracklisting:

‘Crystal Visions’
‘Too Young To Love’
‘Dominos’
‘Love In Vain’
‘At War With The Sun’
‘Velvet’
‘Golden Pendulum’
‘Frisk’
‘A Brief History Of Love’
‘Tonight’
‘Countbackwards From Ten’

The Big Pink will be making a number of festival appearances this summer:
August:
1st – Field Day, London
28th – Reading Festival
30th – Leeds Festival
September:
4th – Electric Picnic, Stradbally
11th – Bestival, Isle of Wight

Also, catch the band live on their biggest headline UK tour so far this autumn:
October:
8th – Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
9th – Digital, Brighton
10th – Academy, Oxford
14th – King Tuts, Glasgow
17th – The Duchess, York
18th – Cockpit, Leeds
20th – O2 Academy, Liverpool
21st – Academy, Manchester
22nd – Electric Ballroom, London

Deerhunter’s lynchpin Bradford Cox returns to his solo guise, Atlas Sound, for another round of ethereal pop with his second solo album, Logos, which will be released on 4AD on October 19, 2009.

The tracklisting is as follows:

The Light That Failed
An Orchid
Walkabout ft. Noah Lennox (Panda Bear)
Criminals
Attic Lights
Sheila
Quick Canal ft. Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab)
My Halo
Kid Climax
Washington School
Logos

New track ‘Walkabout’ (featuring Noah Lennox of Panda Bear / Animal Collective) available to download here…

Bradford Cox on Logos…

“My last album was a bedroom laptop type thing. Very introverted. Logos is an album that was recorded all over the world. It’s not about me. There are collaborations with other musicians. The lyrics are not autobiographical. The view is a lot more panoramic and less close-up. I became bored with introspection. This was also the case with Deerhunter’s Microcastle LP, which was written during the same period.

I started recording December of 2007. I recorded the first version of the album, which was not intended for release. Due to some unfortunate mistakes on my part, this ‘sketch’ of the album was leaked. Many of the songs where simply ‘placeholders,’ songs I created quickly to help design the ‘arc’ of the album.

I did not react well to the leak, in retrospect. It became the kind of internet-fueled drama that I was quickly learning to despise. I had always desired to speak through music, not blog posts and interviews, etc. I considered abandoning the project.

I toured for a period in Europe with Animal Collective, whose band dynamic was very inspirational to be around. On the bus, we often played improvised iPod games. We would take turns formulating a theme or unifying concept and then play three songs. The goal would be for everyone to try and figure out the theme. During one of these games, someone played ‘What Am I Going to Do’ by the Dovers. I was amazed at the hook – a weird organ thing with drums and electric bass. I mentioned to Noah [Lennox] that someone should really sample that riff. He agreed and he taught me a little about sampling and matching up beats. This ended up as the collaborative effort ‘Walkabout’.

Each song on the album has a similar story. That might be my favorite thing about the album. It’s a collection of songs. There is no ‘filler.’ There are little scrapbook details everywhere. Sasha Vine [of Sian Alice Group] provided a double-tracked improvised violin part to ‘Attic Lights’ which was recorded backstage at a Deerhunter/Sian Alice Group show in Brighton. It might be my favorite moment of the album. I played it for some younger friends of mine. They cringed. They wanted more songs like ‘Walkabout’. Something with a big beat. I told them when they get older they will appreciate things like harmonicas and violins more.

Laetitia from Stereolab, who I idolized as a teenager and would later befriend on tour, contributed words and vocals to ‘Quick Canal.’ The song was originally about 15 minutes long. I had zero ideas for vocals and asked if she could give it a shot. Andy Ramsay [drummer for Stereolab ] took a dub of the original and recorded Laetitia’s vocals at his Press Play studio in London. It was quite a treat to hear the finished product, now at an economical nine minutes.

Almost everything you hear on the album is a first take. This makes it almost like a ‘live album’ where a band sets up in a studio and just rolls tape. There are songs on here I don’t even remember recording.“

“I can’t see the future but I know it’s got big plans for me,” sang Annie Clark on Actor [TLOBF Review], her latest record as St Vincent. Judging by the coy smiles and avoided looks as we ask her about collaborations and film soundtracks, it’d seem that the musical world is now her oyster, but frustratingly, she’s not allowed to spill the beans. However she’s more than happy to discuss R Kelly’s oeuvre, preconceptions and community with Leah Pritchard and Laura Snapes on a rainy afternoon prior to her phenomenal show on Bristol’s Thekla.

We heard you soundchecking earlier with some crazy vocal warm ups, and your voice live sounds pretty different to on record. Do you have to work hard to keep it in shape?
I do vocal warm ups, just so I can make sure I get the whole range. I took a couple of singing lessons in Dallas when I was about 20, from a gospel teacher, but earlier I was just riffing on an R Kelly song – R Kelly and Sparkle, from the late, mid 90s? [1998] It has typical R Kelly style, the funniest most ridiculous lyrics. We were riffing on Real Talk too, it’s them in the studio fighting – it’s so hilarious, he’s singing along to the record, the words are just special – “Bitch I wish you weren’t wearing my clothes!” I think it’s pre-Trapped In The Closet. ‘Sex in the Kitchen’ is another good one to YouTube, it’s incredible!

Have you ever thought of doing some R Kelly covers in your set?!
Oh man…! I might work up that song he did with Sparkle. It’s a male female duet, so I’ll have to find someone to do it with me.

Did John Congleton have a lot of influence on the sound of your record? His stuff with The Paper Chase is really intense, using scissors as percussion and so on, and to a certain extent that comes through on your record, but it’s a lot more toned down.
We certainly had dialogue about all the sounds, he’s so fast at getting sounds and so creative at sound, it was very effortless sonically. He’d say, “that’d sound cool”, and it did! I think everyone should make a record with John Congleton, he’s the best.

So was the process a lot quicker than when making Marry Me?
Yeah, Marry Me was made over more time. All told, minus me doing some days on my own with woodwind, and little bits of tracking, I think altogether we had about 30 days including 10 days break. So we did about 20 days of studio time, which is not a lot. We had to break it up ‘cos of John’s schedule, so we’d have six days here, three days here. He’s the busiest bee on the planet. I’ve never met somebody who works as hard! He fit me in every day he could.

Did many of the songs change a lot from their Garage Band origins?
Oh yeah. I could pull up MIDI files right now on my laptop, of like, the clarinet parts in ‘The Strangers’, or all of the notes in ‘Marrow’ I have sketched out, but it all got transposed and rearranged and given to different instruments. So they were more just notational templates as opposed to sonically fleshed out.

Are the sound limitations of recording like that frustrating?
Well, John was instrumental in making the music tangible, because it was very esoteric for most of the writing. He’d talk about songs feeling good to play, or sounding good but not feeling like anything. So he brought it to life.

Your technique of soundtracking Disney movies on mute has been referenced a lot. What do you make of the whole new wave of CGI, 3D Disney animation, in comparison to the romance of the films from the ‘30s and ‘40s that inspired Actor?
You know, I saw ‘Wall-E’. Is that Disney Pixar? I cried at ‘Wall-E’. It was so good, right?! “Wall-E! Eva!” Other than that, I don’t really have much of an opinion on them, the ones from the ‘30s are my favourite brand of cartooning, but yeah, I cried at ‘Wall-E’, so there’s some emotional resonance there!

Did you get any offers as a result of showcasing for people who commission soundtracks? The next Michael Bay movie, right?
Got my fingers crossed! I think if I did have something in the works, I couldn’t talk about it…!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ohh! Well moving on, are the people in the songs intentionally characters?
Haha… [looks down]. Umm… Yeah, I found it was helpful to be a little bit…not removed, but to try to look at a situation from a lot of different sides, and often in the writing of the new record, even if I’ve experienced something emotionally similar to what’s going on in those little stories, I’m not necessarily the narrator. I might be the antagonist…

With the darker lyrics especially, do your parents ever worry about you?
My mom used to be cute about it. “Are you ok?” [sulky teenage voice] “Shut up mom, it’s art…come on!” I never tell my mom to shut up, by the way. I don’t really get asked by them any more!

On Actor, domesticity is presented under quite a bleak light. Do you miss the vagabond touring way of life when you go back to that?
I don’t miss domesticity at all. I like touring. I was home in New York for about seven days after the US tour, just a little time. I didn’t even really unpack, just did the laundry. We recorded Letterman in that little window. How are people responding since Letterman? Well I don’t get followed or anything! I was eating dinner in New York, and a guy came up and said, “I saw you on Letterman, I loved it so I bought your CD,” which was really cool. No one has yet come up and said, “I saw you on Letterman. It was terrible, I did not buy your CD!”

With people like you, Bat For Lashes and Beyonce, there seems there’s a lot of negativity towards women who take on alter egos. How do you find people respond to your pseudonym?
I find that sometimes when women who go under their own name there’s more preconceptions, but if you hear…I’m trying to make up a name…“Jane… Whatever!” that carries a different sort of connotation, that that’s going to be an acoustic guitar, I feel like that’s on a lot of people’s minds. Aside from getting asked over and over where the name comes from, there’s no backlash to it.

I read Marnie Stern saying that often when she goes to play shows, a stool is put out for her ‘cos they think she’s going to play acoustic guitar!
Aww! She can shred people’s faces off…

I wanted to ask about ‘Chinese Democracy’, I heard you were playing it a lot in the studio because it was so bad. Did you seek out a barometer of bad taste to work against?!
Yeah, John and I were talking about it, whether we’d heard it or not, so he put it on, and we were listening through really nice hi-fi speakers, and you can just hear this huge digital mess! I’m not a digital/analog snob or anything, but it sounds like somebody let this man play with a hamster until it was dead. It sounds modern and confused, like they didn’t make any decisions anywhere. I’m gonna get hate mail from Axl Rose, I’m sorry! It’s tricky. We listened to the whole things a couple of times, and usually you can say, “sing me that tune!” and get some idea of melody, but I don’t know what happened, it was so confused! Axl Rose is gonna hate me! All of it was terrible. And I’m not a hater, but it was remarkably bad.

Have you been back to Texas or Oklahoma since the Bush administration’s been over?
Yeah, I was there for Christmas. Dallas went for Obama, Dallas is blue!

With songs like ‘Jesus Saves, I Spend’, if you find yourself playing in the Bible belt, do you have to adapt your set at all?
I think on the first tour it happened a couple of time, people gingerly asked, making sure that I wasn’t being irreverent. So much of that is word play, not that it doesn’t mean anything, but it’s subtle enough.

The idea of preconceptions about names reminds me of Queens of the Stone Age, they got sued by a group of deaf people who thought that ‘Songs of the Deaf’ was an album of vibrational music.
Ohh! I was wondering about that actually, because when we played Bonnaroo my sound engineer asked if I wanted someone interpreting, signing the words of my set! I was thrown! But that was awesome. I don’t remember if we actually had the person doing it. But it would have been very cool.

Is there a particular movement or group of bands that you associate or align yourself with? A lot of the people you’re compared to don’t actually sound at all like you, like Grizzly Bear or Dirty Projectors.
I’m glad to be thought of in the same vein as them. The Dirty Projectors are probably my favourite band ever. I think there’s something really vital happening in New York with Grizzly Bear and the Dirties.

How do you find NYC as a place to live in terms of music, the way that trends come and go? Or is it quite supportive?
It’s wonderfully supportive. My friend Bryce Dessner, who’s in The National, he’s like a powerhouse. He curated ‘Dark Was The Night’, he’s a mastermind, doing stuff with Steve Reich and Phillip Glass, he’s kind of a genius. He has his hand in this established New York minimalist compositional thing, and he’s also in a fucking great rock band. Nico Muhly’d be in there too. This new wave minimalism! It’s really sweet – you don’t think of it as such a scene, but these are friends or people you’re friendly with, they’re all so talented and “wow!” that we all want to do stuff together.

Do you have any exciting collaborations coming up?
I do! But I can’t say! But it’s a very exciting time to be in New York.

St. Vincent on MySpace

Check out Valerio’s constantly fascinating photography blog LiveOn35mm here.

So you’re having a bunch of shows in Hyde Park, during the (brief) height of the Great British summer, and what do you do? Why stick it in a tent, of course. Granted, everyone would be eternally grateful if, true to form, it was pissing it down tonight,  but it’s not and it seems a damn shame having to shuffle inside a big old circus tent when it’s so nice lazing around outside on the grass. Which may explain why there’s a fairly small crowd for folk-tress Alela Diane, tonight’s main support act. Those who did head inside were rewarded though, as she delivered a warm, glowing rendition of highlights from her debut To Be Still. With her dad on mandolin duties, and a full band, she pulled of a gloriously golden sound that rivalled soaking up the sun outside.

The tent did, of course, fill up though, as Bon Iver took to the stage around 8:45pm. Opening with a long, anticipation-building intro to ‘Lump Sum’, it was a fairly low-key beginning to the proceedings, even by his low-key standards. But after he’d eased in gently he whipped out that battered old steel guitar and smacked the audience round the face, dropping what must’ve been the track most them bought their ticket for –  the trademark ‘Skinny Love’. It wasn’t wasted early on in the set though, but set a very very high bar for the rest of the show, which Bon Iver cleared easily. And, of course, it was bloody beautiful. There was a rare outing for’ Brackett, W9’, featured on the Dark Was The Night compilation. The warm, fuzzy guitar sounds combined with swelling vocals were lovely to hear live, and then progressed surprisingly well into ‘Blood Bank’, as though the two songs were brothers.

Generally a man of few but always kind a humble worlds, Justin said the past two years had been ‘indescribable’, so he therefore wasn’t going to attempt to describe it. A solo ‘Re:Stacks’ was definitely one of the most heartbreaking moments of the evening, with an entire tent brought to it’s knees by the beautiful rubato delivery on the chorus. ‘Babies’, from the Blood Bank EP was also surprisingly epic, building towards a huge, all-encompassing final chorus. Ending on the warm, amiable  tones of ‘For Emma’, the band leave stroll off the stage to rapturous applause. It seems they’re picked up a few bad rock and roll habits, as there’s more than a pregnant pause before they return. Covering the classic Jayhawks track, ‘Tampa to Tulsa’, Mike Noyce takes over vocal duties, and it’s a full and accomplished voice that comes from this delicate, still-wet-behind-the-ears slip of a boy. ‘Creature Fear’ sends the audience off into the (still light) park, with huge reverberating drums sounds and a final cacophony of sounds, giving this track a new lease of life.

This show is yet another dollop of icing on the Bon Iver cake. Consistently good, consistently challenging, consistently pushing themselves -  they truly are an audience’s bands, and they certainly knocked this show out of the park.

Fresh from reviewing the new second album from Future of the Left, I leapt at the chance to have a chat with the band’s frontman Andy Falkous. We talked about the writing and sound of Travels With Myself and Another, as well as the complexities of music piracy and merits of the words “ace” and “psyched”.How pleased are you and the rest of the band with the new album?

We’re very very pleased. We did the previous album two years ago, written three years ago, and we were very proud of that record [...], we were particularly inspired at that time and wondered at one stage if we were ever going to better it. But I think after about nine months of doubt when nothing was really happening, all of a sudden we had two months where absolutely everything went right and we wrote about 16 songs in a two month period. Certainly in terms of the band it’s our favourite record, there will be people who prefer the first record which they’re in their rights to do.

You think as a band you managed to top the first album then?

Yeah definitely – I mean not exactly to take it on in its own terms, because Curses is a sort of nastier, more angular record, it’s got sort of more bite to it. I mean this record is just massive, I don’t mean in terms of commercial reach I just mean in terms of the way it sounds, it sounds as if it was recorded in crumbling caverns underneath mountains or something, it’s just sort of this gigantic sound which wasn’t really what we were reaching for, it’s just the way the songs pushed us, I suppose.

It sounds to me like an anxious, sort of agitated album, where do you think that comes from?

You see I was just saying exactly the opposite in the last interview we did – I think Curses sounds like an anxious, aggravated album… I mean I haven’t listened to [the new album] that much, if I’m at my mother’s house and I go for a run or something I’ll put it on, because 33 minutes is the right sort of time to go for a run, but to me it sounds incredibly confident and it has it’s natty little moments, don’t get me wrong – stupid little lyrics about dinosaurs and the like, but anxious isn’t something I get from it, to be quite honest with you.

Fair enough… it’s funny that you mention that dinosaur lyric (on “Yin / Post-Yin”) because that’s always one of the ones that stands out for me. There are quite a few surreal moments like that aren’t there, lyrically speaking?

Yeah absolutely. And it’s the only way it can be for us really, trying to write about the things which are important to you, unfortunatelyyou can end up sounding very worthy and po-faced. And obviously there are songs on the album which are about subjects which are close to our hearts, there are love songs on there and there are songs about people which are cleverely (or not, as you may choose to look at it) interspersed with bits of pure bollocks, but it’s fun to write a song about dinosaurs, as opposed to some girl who left you and broke your heart. I mean how distinctly uninteresting and unoriginal is that? Maybe it’s the age, but I’m not interested in hearing about somebody’s heartbreak really. Maybe if it had some new and exciting spin… there’s nothing new you can say to me about that. I don’t mean you personally, I’m sure you have lots of incredibly invigorating tales of heartbreak, but the way rock bands write about heartbreak just isn’t something that interests me at all.

Less heartbreak, more dinosaurs?

Well you know that’s a little bit of a generalisation, but if it looks good on a T-shirt then let’s have that as the manifesto.

It’s a really fun song, that. You were saying that the album is quite strong in parts, it is quite strident isn’t it… it doesn’t feel overtly serious a lot of the time.

Absolutely. Like you say there are moments on “Yin / Post Yin” there are moments, there are lines in it which are very serious lines and when those particular people hear those lines they’re meant to basically sit back in a leather chair, light a cigarette and go “that’s so true about… stuff” but you know to intersperse that with little bit about dinosaurs going back to college after doing a part time job for a while is pretty much how I choose how to write songs, it’s not neccesarily true of lots of bands that I like, but our strengths are – I wouldn’t say stupid lyrics – but more inventive uses of language. The problem is of course that then you get into something of a comedy band ghetto where having a sense of humour makes you exclusive from the rest of rock bands, which isn’t true because lots of people in rock bands are funny individuals who understand and appreciate comedy, but who for some reason are scared of showing that in any kind of way in their music, and as a result we stand out a little bit more than we should for that factor, because humour is a part of our music, rather than being waved around in a plastic booby kind of way, a la the Bloodhound Gang or some shite like that.

It seems that whilst there may be bands out there that might have funny personable people in person, but they seem to see music as a serious business.

It’s a manifestation of an idea of what music should be. The bands I love, their music conveys their personalities, for better or worse, all the foibles, all the good and the bad bits. The curmudgeonly nature perhaps, the humour, the excitement, the genuine aggression, the love, the loss, the whole picture, as opposed to some quasi-gothic fucking distillation of a failed love affair. That’s not everything that life’s about, life isn’t about jumping around a stage in shorts screaming about “society”. Society’s a very complex thing and it isn’t all just about you know, singing about what “the government” does to them, fought with getting tattoos and wearing shorts on stage, which is a great way to “stick to the man”.

Just reminds me of a Bad Religion song called “You Are (The Government)” which seems like quite a good retort to that…

Well yeah it is. The power exists in people’s minds and ultimately in their hands. The problem I find with political music… I mean we’re relatively political individuals, all left-leaning, but the problem with explicitly political music for me at least is that it’s preaching to the converted and as such I choose not to put my best efforts into that direction. And also musically it can sound very po-faced. Putting a personal perspective on an issue is fine, but when a band sing about politics they’ve got to do something particularly special musically in order to engage me at least.

Besides the surreal lyrics, there are a few songs on the album and particularly titles which even very abstractly made me think of topical things as well, a bit.

Well “Drink Nike” is about branding, for example… the beginning of “Lapsed Catholics”, the final song of the record, is something of a stream of consciousness rant which was inspired by Sky News announcing that Morgan Freeman had died which reminded me again of what happened on Sky News on September 11^th when the presenter announced that the entire eastern seaboard of the United States was under attack, it’s not news really is it, it’s soap opera dressed up with occasionally convenient fact. The only really difficult song to explain on the record is “Yin / Post Yin” which is just a meeting point of surrealism and well-meaning bluster about ex-girlfriends. But “Arming Eritrea” is a very difficult song to explain, I’ve already tied myself in knots trying to explain that on a couple of occasions… but all the other songs have a much more linear sense to the lyrics, and you have stories underneath them which is a new thing for me, I’m quite proud!

One of the songs which springs to mind is “The Hope that House Built” which I believe is going to be a single is it not?

It was a single a while ago now… and it was spectacularly unsuccessful. [laughs]

That would explain my confusion then… but what would you say that one’s about?

Well musically the song comes from wanting to do something completely ridiculous. I mean personally I’m a huge Queen fan, [...] I just love the unashamed, undiluted over the top parts of classic Queen, particularly mid-70s things like Sheer Heart Attack which is one of my top 5 albums ever. And also in a totally unashamed way I wanted to write a record which part sounded like fighting music but part sounded like a series of a Klingon war chants or something, not that I’m a huge Star Trek fan but I just found that notion particularly appealing. That’s musically where that song came from, lyrically it’s about hopeless causes. We feel like a hopeless cause a lot of the time, I mean we love playing shows, the people that like our band seem to really like our band, and believe me we appreciate that but the song is about feeling that you have a pre-destined fate, that being a good person and endeavouring to succeed in the best kind of way isn’t going to be enough but shouldn’t stop you falling lemming-like off the cliff. Life isn’t always about the end, the process can be the end in itself. I think a lot of bands get that sometimes, I think records become a means to success and money or a particular tour, or getting their dick sucked by a sucession of women with low self-esteem. But it’s important to step back sometimes and realise that sometimes the process of the album can be the end in itself as well, it’s not simply a device to attain another level of existence but it is the thing it itself. Sorry that’s a little profound for one song! But that’s kind of what it’s about, we sometimes see ourselves as a hopeless cause but that doesn’t make us any less proud to be in the band.

Calling yourselves a “hopeless cause”, which is of course a phrase used in that song, reminds me of your recent anti-piracy rant on MySpace, talking about the lengths you’d gone to as a band to try to prevent the album leaking. How do you feel about that whole situation now?

It was absolutely heartfelt, and it wasn’t put out there to judge people for downloading the record, I mean it’s human nature. If you can get something for free, the chances are you will. Unless you’re a morally stoic individual, you are going to take what you can for free. I was just trying to add another angle to the whole narrative of what pirating of music has become – to give a different angle in a sense that most of the argument is people who are pro-downloading going “I’m sure Metallica doesn’t need the money”. I’m sure that Metallica don’t need the money, unless you’re talking of a fourth holiday home or whatever, but it doesn’t really change the moral issue. Theft is still theft, whether it’s from Metallica, Puddle of Mudd, Echobelly, Pulled Apart By Horses, it doesn’t matter. As far as I’m concerned, if people want to steal stuff then that’s on their conscience, it’s not for me to step in and tell them what’s right and wrong, that’s their personal morality. But once they’ve taken that decision they should really run and hide in a corner and consider their ill-gotten gains rather than come on the internet and morally justify how music should be available for free. I’d say that if we were really living in this agrarian hippy fucking free-for-all there are more basic human rights than free music…. free clothing, free food, free water, free electricity, I’d say they all come before free music. As far as I’m concerned the way to end the pro-download argument now is to accuse everyone who downloads music of being middle class. It is such a convenient, middle class attitude to take, believe me there are working class kids out there making music, wanting to make a living out of it, which shouldn’t neccesarily mean that they’re artistically compromised in any way. I’ve made what you may laughingly call a living out of music for the last couple of years and it hasn’t compromised me one bit. If somebody tries to give their music away for free believe me they’ll fucking headbutt somebody. Has anybody suggested to the Wu-Tang Clan that they give their music away for free? It’s such a middle class thing to come up with ridiculous notions of how life should be. At the end of the day we live in a first-world economy, but the people I’ve met who out forward the argument that music should be free are the sons of rich financial advisors and as a result their opinion on the subject is almost invalid. But it is funny, and they should keep it coming.

One of the things I thought that was a bit different about what you had to say, was the way that you managed to communicate with a lot of people using MySpace, and that your perspective was quite different from that of the major labels.

They’ve tried to portray it as just black and white, which is never the way to deal with a problem, or an issue. It turns the whole thing into a one-dimensional cartoon debate, as opposed to a very real issue which actually affects people. It’s a real shame because it didn’t come out of nowhere, pirating, it’s not a simple matter of the technology becoming available, it comes from record labels overcharging for CDs for years – new releases, £14 or £15. Which didn’t all begin in a vacuum, maybe in that sense piracy was stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, and unfortunately that mindset imbues a lot of people these days but believe me, stealing from a band like ourselves or the kind of label we’re on, you’re not stealing from the rich, you’re simply putting the artist out of business, and it’s as simple as that. If people understand that and still steal, then well I’ve done my job. There’s an argument that they should just sit and consider the effects of their actions.

I guess there comes a point when you feel you’ve done what you can do, and you have to just let this album and everything else you’ve done stand up by itself?

Yeah absolutely. We’re very much of that mindset as a band, things rarely go as smoothly as you might like. But we put everything into our live performances, we put as much love and pride into every performance whether it’s in front of 550 people as it was in London the other week or 28 as it was in Carlisle 4 or 5 days ago. I mean I can tell you obviously which one I preferred, it was the bigger show with the great reaction, as opposed to the room full of a support band, who were Oasis wannabes and a selection of rather bemused-looking locals, but as a band you give you everything to every particular situation and the things we can’t affect, we can say about how the different ways they play out affect our lives, but there’s only so much we can let those things worry us. Expressing an opinion about downloading is one thing but then we just have step back away from the debate hopefully having added something to it and let people get on with their lives, and the formation and re-formation of their moral codes.

I think you’ve certainly added something to it, and certainly something rather different to the sledgehammer approach which is what the big labels seem to do, that whole “you’re either for us or against us” idea.

They don’t help anyone with that, and the silence of the big labels over the last few years shows that they’ve realised that doesn’t work any more.

Let’s get back to the band – do you feel like now, you can bury of the axe of being ex-members of bands and you can be seen as Future of the Left as a unit?

Yeah, to a degree. Maybe not quite yet at this early stage. I really do hope so, because it is like talking about an ex-girlfriend every day, three and half years after you split up. It’s understandable, because she had great fucking legs, and those kind of eyes which can enchant any man, but it does get a little bit tedious for a lot of reasons. We’re proud of what happened with Mclusky and Kelson’s proud of Jarcrew but all three of the people in this band have far more belief and excitement in their current endeavour which is understandable… but the consistency we’ve shown on these two records dwarfs anything that myself and Jack did in Mclusky and anything Kelson did in Jarcrew, as far as I’m concerned. Some people prefer the previous bands, and I understand if they do if they’re into a more particularly straightforward type of music. It would be nice to move on from it one day. I would suggest that even if we end up being ridiculously successful it will still never happen. People love talking about what no longer exists. They love to romanticise the past and thanks to the medium of the internet people can always find out about bands. And believe me if everyone who talks about Mclusky with such fervent love and attention had been there at the time I’d be conducting this conversation from a golden sofa on a golden phone and after I’d finished talking to you I’d take a helicopter ride to my local baguette shop where I’d get two thai sweet chili baguettes, one which I might choose not to even eat.

Maybe give it a few years and you might be there! I’m sure that’s not what you really want though…

No of course not… if everybody who wanted to said they’d seen us at the 100 Club the capacity would have been about 1,500 instead of about 300 which is what it actually is. The amount of times people have come up to us at shows and said “I love your music I can’t understand why you’re not bigger” and we say “did you buy the record?” and they say “no I downloaded it”. You think, you need to go and sit somewhere, and think about what you just said.

I think you’re right about people wanting to talk about things that are gone, despite being The Beatles, The Beatles still could never kill off the Quarrymen.

They just love it. The path of criticism follows – the new album is not as good as your old album. There are a few exceptions to that where it’s beyond debate but there’s always people who prefer the previous album. The amount of angry emails I’ve got from people over the course of my career saying “I don’t like your new album as much as your last album” and you just think, start your own band, listen to the album again, you’re not getting the same album again, grow up.

And then if they got the same album again they’d moan about that…

There’s a particular type of fan who does just want the same record over and over again. Mclusky Do Dallas was very successful in Germany, but the next album [...] just didn’t work there at all. But particularly in Germany, Curses didn’t get any following at all, and it’s only now getting a cult following and the new record is coming out, and people aren’t liking that! So it’s all about the revisionism, all about the “yeah this is good and everything, but remember when it was so much better?” I’ll tell you what shows us the mindset of this type of person… there was something on our forum the other day, which is something I only check every so often, and it was somebody saying they didn’t like the new album as much as the last album, which they’d loved. But that was the first post on our forum – their first action was to come on and criticise. Everyone talks about Mclusky Do Dallas as this classic album but believe me when it came out it was not regarded as a classic album. Because it wasn’t – it was only a classic album two and a half years later when the next record came out. It’s the way people work critically I suppose.

The people that love something just tend to shut up and not mention it…

Yeah they just tend to be drowned out by people whose only way of discussing music is by using words like “ace”. Personally the word “ace”doesn’t exist for me, an “ace” is a fighter pilot. The same if someone tells me they’re “psyched” for one of our shows… that one just passes me by. Generally speaking the people I’m going to like don’t use those words. Generally you dip your toe in the wider lexicon with me but “ace” is the kind of way that people who like twee bands talk about those bands. The bands I liked were never ace. Wire were never “ace”, Shellac – never “ace”. Different words, more human words I would use to describe.

I ought to ask you about the live shows, I know that playing live is something you’re all enthused about, how has that been going?

The shows – apart from when things break and believe me my friend, they always break – have been fantastic. We’ve just done a difficult run of shows, Carlisle, Edinburgh and Crewe… not the kind of thing you talk about unless you want to have the kind of depression which breaks the heart of most sober audiences but the tour we just did was meant to be at the same time as the album release but that hasn’t happened as the album isn’t out until June 22^nd. But the attendances generally speaking have been OK, they need to be better though if we’re to sustain ourselves as a band. But the live shows have been enjoyable, I think we’re quite lucky in that we played the songs from the last album just long enough, we didn’t get bored of them. But if we’d been on a bigger label, if they’d tried to milk that album, maybe we’d have been on tour for three or four more months playing that same set and it would have become tedious. I think we manage to turn it around at just the right time – we always approach each show with the same level of conviction and enthusiasm, like I say if it’s for 550 people or 28 people in Carlisle.

It just reminds me how long it is until the album comes out… I feel like a dirty pirate already for having heard it.

That’s the way piracy affects bands, in terms of momentum. A lot of the praise expended on [a record] in webzines or in the printed press can have dissipated. A lot of doing a record is about building a momentum between the different parts of the industry – playing live, the reaction on the internet, maybe the radio play in a fantasy land where John Peel is still alive, about all those things happening at the same time. The problem we’ve had as a bad is that people have said very nice things about us but it all happens in a really fragmented fashion, which means that there’s never really enough momentum to break through into a slightly more wide audience.

It’s really interesting to hear all that from a band’s perspective.

There’s a notion again that comes from what we were talking about earlier, that middle class ethos of pirating. With bands, you’re not allowed to say you want to be successful, whatever successful means. You’re not allowed to say you want to sell records, it’s not the cool thing to do. I have no shame about that at all. The second it compromises the music we make we should feel snowed under by shame but we want to take the music we make naturally to its biggest possible audience. Which we don’t see as being arenas or whatever… but as far as I’m concerned I can’t see why it’s unreasonable to play to a thousand people a night, and I refuse to see that as mutually exclusive to maintaining a sense of artistic credibility. Believe me, we are so informed by our pride and our innate sense of what credibility means in our own terms, that we’re not going to compromise that for something as crass as money.

You were talking about that idea of playing to a thousand people a night, but what other things are hoping to achieve, what’s next for Future of the Left and for you personally?

There’s going to be a lot of touring over the next six to nine months [...], touring that record. On a personal level, hopefully getting in more exercise than I have over the last month or two, reading a lot of books, working some other… I’d hesitate to call them side projects but other music, until we feel ready to write a new record, that’s pretty much it really. As a band we just need to step up a level in terms of the number of people we play to. We’ve stepped the music up on the album, we did that in terms of our live performances and frankly in terms our hilariously quick-witted comedy, we just need to tally that with the number of people. And if we do that there’s no reason why we can’t sustain ourselves over the next few years until the point where it eventually becomes boring for all concerned and we just stop just like that.

I’m sure that’s not too close… it is a great album.

Thanks very much for that, maybe speak to you around the time of the next record!

]]> http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/06/tlobf-interview-future-of-the-left/feed/ 0 http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/06/the-big-pink-announce-october-uk-tour/ http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/06/the-big-pink-announce-october-uk-tour/#comments Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:10:29 +0000 Richard Thane http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/?p=16972

4AD’s shoegaze wunderkinds The Big Pink are currently in New York putting the finishing touches to their as-yet-untitled debut album. In the mean time, the band are due to release their next single “Stop The World” on 29th June and will return to the UK in time to play a pre-Glastonbury Festival warm-up show at Bath’s Moles on Thursday 25th June. The band have also confirmed they will play a 10-date UK tour in October in support of the album.

Summer festival dates are as follows:
25-Jun : Moles, Bath (Glastonbury warm-up show)
26-Jun : Glastonbury Festival (Queens Head Stage)
27-Jun : Glastonbury Festival (John Peel Stage)
01-Aug : Field Day, London
28-Aug : Reading Festival
30-Aug : Leeds Festival
11-Sep : Bestival, Isle of Wight

October tour dates:
08-Oct : Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
09-Oct : Digital, Brighton
10-Oct : Academy, Oxford
11-Oct : Kasbah, Coventry
14-Oct : King Tuts, Glasgow
17-Oct : Duchess, York
18-Oct : Cockpit, Leeds
20-Oct : Academy, Liverpool
21-Oct : Academy, Manchester
22-Oct : Electric Ballroom, London

The Big Pink are playing at O2 Academy 2 Liverpool in October. Remember if you’re on O2 you can get Priority Tickets to other great gigs like this up to 48 hours before general release. Click here to register. Terms apply.

Deerhunter have been accused of many things in their time in the limelight, but being slackers can hardly be one of them. The seventh release related to the band to emerge in the past two years, following three full-length albums (and two under the Atlas Sound and Lotus Plaza monikers) as well as an EP, Rainwater Cassette Exchange seems to exist as a microcosm of Microcastle. The EP’s five tracks are all muscle and no fat; only two tracks go past the three minute mark, seemingly building on the last album’s diversions into taut, yet dreamy, pop music.
The strangely tropical title track certainly seems to pick up right where ‘Twilight at Carbon Lake’ left off, swapping its Everly Brothers affectations for an undeniable Joe Meek influence, which sounds at once alien, yet somehow unmistakeably Deerhunter. Characteristically drenched in reverb, the song chugs purposefully along for its two and a half minutes, with Bradford Cox’s languid vocal line weaving through the mix. Driven by a rhythm section that sounds positively kinetic, ‘Disappearing Ink’ certainly brings the tempo up, edging strangely close to Strokes territory, albeit if The Strokes dabbled in Krautrock. Still, the track sounds oddly by-numbers and, on an EP that’s comprised mainly of two-minute instant-classics, this is certainly its weak link. Fortunately, ‘Famous Last Words’ is that rarest of beasts – a muscular garage pop anthem with a killer theremin hook – and closes side one with a bang.

The least characteristic thing here is ‘Game of Diamonds’; an unexpectedly sparse ballad, the track is completely void of any of the band’s signature droning guitars, with Cox’s swirling melody instead decorated by some ghostly slide guitar and insistent piano chords. ‘Circulation’, the EP’s final song (and also its longest), brings things back to more recognisable territory being, as it is, the only point where Deerhunter take the decision to sprawl. Fading in on a spiralling guitar line, the track is powered by Moses Archuleta’s stuttering groove, while the song’s halfway point marks a descent into minimalist melodies and a creepy sound collage, reminiscent of Microcastle highlight ‘Nothing Ever Happens’.

Rainwater Cassette Exchange certainly seems much more lightweight than any of Deerhunter’s previous releases, but that hardly renders its contents inconsequential. The almost disposable nature of many of these tracks, at least in comparison with much of their darker, more personal material, simply seems to be another stage in the band’s ever-developing soundworld. Whether or not this is the start of an effort to rid the band of “all sickness and sorrow” (as ‘Famous Last Words’ would have it) is unclear; what is certain is that Deerhunter’s career is still developing at a pace that is as fascinating as it is frenetic.
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Deerhunter on Myspace

Future of the Left’s lead singer Andrew Falkous recently made a blog post on the band’s myspace page in which he vented his frustration at how early the band’s second album, Travels with Myself and Another, had leaked to the internet. I found the post interesting partly because of how it occurred to me that few people could avoid feeling some sympathy for the band’s feelings about the leak; but also because, having already heard the album, the way the post was written immediately clicked into place with the tone and style of the album itself. There’s something a little angsty about this album -  tense, tightly coiled, highly wrought, sometimes quiet but always liable to explode at any minute. They’re controlled explosions though – this is taut, cohesive noise rock, comprising an approachably concise album (under 33 minutes) which has been carefully thought out to make sure it can hold our attention from the beginning until the end.

It’s quite an addictive recipe – the brevity and controlled fury of the songs and of the album as a whole keeps you constantly coming back. This is a resolutely guitar-based album, and whilst the textures are occasionally soaring (as on opener “Arming Eritrea”), they’re most often tight, oppressive and claustrophobic. The vocals are vaguely menacing, the lyrics often observant and sometimes surreal, both modes showcased excellently on one of the album’s best songs, “Throwing Bricks at Trains”. It’s a stop-start, off-kilter thing, a story of “Reginald J. Troxfield” and “the fearsome Brown” with enjoyably out-of-place backing “aahs” and an abrupt ending. Another highlight is the closer, “Lapsed Catholics”, or more specifically its brilliant spoken-word intro, set against a quiet acoustic backdrop. “Who’s prison break is the most impressive?” it begins, soon labelling Sky News a “hysterical technicolour crapfest” and eventually breaking out one of those explosions, launching into a riotous guitar assault.

The standard is consistently high here – the sense of urgency and raucous vitality runs through all of these tracks, but it  does surface even more thrillingly on some than on the majority. “Drink Nike”, with its rapid-fire cries of “sma-lalalalalala”, the joint guitar and vocal melodies of “That Damned Fly”… it’s easy to find that the highlights rotate around the album, your favourites jumping around with every listen, and that’s testament to how strong an album this actually is. Always though, the main thing our attention is stuck to is Falco himself – there’s something about his delivery, combined with the intriguing lyrics (“but does it fuck like a maaaan?”) that’s completely riveting. Even then, those aspects are only the jewel in the crown of a very, very accomplished rock album.
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Future of the Left on MySpace

You get the idea that 4AD’s latest signings Broken Records are so proud of the orchestral grandeur present throughout their music  that they walk through the streets of their native Edinburgh with their violins in machine gun cases, these archaic strings and bones are their weapons. Not dissimilar in scope and scale to countrymen The Twilight Sad, Before The Earth Begins To Part is unashamedly epic from it’s title onwards.

Vocalist Jamie Sutherland sings like a great big Scottish bear of a man, genuine passion and gusto dripping from each and every raw syllable and he can do falsetto just as adeptly as son of Edinburgh.

Opener ‘Nearly Home’ is a-whirl with heart wrenching strings and trumpets that blast and mourn in equal measure. The lyrics tend to play a supporting role to the music and as such Sutherland’s delivery works more as an instrument, the varying textures of his voice mean that how he sings is more important than the words themselves.

Arcade Fire are an obvious but relevant touchstone and there are hints of British Sea Power’s epic sweep, not least in early single ‘If The News Makes You Sad…’, Sutherland this time finding a real depth of ire to unleash upon a backdrop that is slightly harsher and more up-tempo than much of the record before a slower, ornate coda closes the track in style.

The only complaint is that the record trails off slightly with the Beirut influenced of ‘If Eilert Loevborg Wrote A Song It would Sound Like This’ and ‘A Good Reason’. Both feature somewhat forced Balkan-isms,  are unwieldy in name and execution and leave the band in danger of sounding like Gogol Bordello.

These are minor quibbles when placed next to gems such as  ‘A Promise’, which shifts from stately piano twinkles to a cataclysmic wall of orchestral noise which sounds like the end of everything in the best possible way and is pretty life affirming stuff.

It seems that with Bat For Lashes and now Broken Records releasing two of 2009′s best albums so far that British music is once again something to be proud of. While for the last few years those of more discerning tastes have instinctively looked to the US let’s hope the that the next wave of home-grown successes aim to satisfy a musical ambition ahead of fame and fortune.
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Broken Records on MySpace

Following the release of sophomore album Actor (which received a rather controversial 100% score when reviewed on TLOBF), St. Vincent will return to the UK this summer for a spate of shows, including a headline slot on the Bella Union stage at London’s Wireless Festival on 5th July. Unlike her most recent trip to these shores (a sold-out solo affair at London’s Hoxton Bar & Kitchen), Annie Clark will be aided and abetted by a four-piece band and together they’ll be visiting the following locations…

July
Sunday 5th – Wireless Festival, London (Bella Union stage)
Monday 6th – Thekla, Bristol *
Wednesday 8th – ICA, London *
Saturday 11th – Oxegen Festival, Ireland
Monday 13th – Night & Day, Manchester *
Tuesday 14th – Nice & Sleazy’s, Glasgow *

* Support from Blue Roses

“Alas! When passion is both meek and wild!” John Keats once wrote. It’s the epigraph that Richard Yates, that great chronicler of the darker side of the American suburban dream, used to introduce Revolutionary Road, and it’s no less befitting an overture for St. Vincent‘s second record, Actor. For all Annie Clark’s doe-eyed physical delicacy and gentle vocals, there’s a fiercely shredded guitar riff and distorted beat that heads straight to the jugular, uprooting the white picket fences of the domesticity where she lays her less than rosy scene. Conceived by watching films such as The Wizard of Oz and Disney’s Sleeping Beauty on mute and reimagining their soundtracks, the follow up to 2007′s Marry Me eloquently negotiates the narrative arc of a relationship in freefall to the tune of a glorious orchestra redolent of Paul J. Smith’s work on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

But despite all of Annie’s humbleness, and self-dismissing as “a wife in watercolours” easily washed away on ‘Save Me From What I Want’, this is a record in full Technicolor that demands your attention; it’s impossible to work to, to ignore it when you’re in the room together, and blasphemously futile to try and use as background ambience, taking you back to what seem like ancient times where a whole afternoon could be passed just laying on your bed, wallowing in a record. Every second of music and quirk of vocal tone implies a nuance that goes beyond what’s being said, whether the acute kindly reprimand of a former lover, again on ‘Save Me…’, whose fuzzy percussion skips like Dick Van Dyke as she sings, “Honey what reveals you / Is what you try to hide away”, or during ‘The Party’, soul destroying with its soaring “oohing” chorus, where she exposes the rigmarole at the heart of social engagement that April and Frank Wheeler no doubt knew well – “Oh that’s the trouble / With ticking and talking”.

Whilst the lyrics to Actor remain often sombre, its chamber pop sensibilities mixed with King Crimson style guitar gravel bring it firmly into the realms of euphoria. ‘Laughing With a Mouth of Blood” is mindblowingly sexy (though it feels crass to call it so), as what sounds like whale magic chimes into the lines “Just like an amnesiac / Trying to get my senses back” melting from her lips over a grimy drum beat, before singing, “Laughing with a mouth of blood / From a little spill I took”. When was the last time you heard someone take a “spill” in a pop song?! The charm offensive continues with single ‘Actor Out of Work’, where she takes control, belittling whoever’s wronged her with saccharine vehemence, a contrapuntal mix of her sweet aria and stinging guitars that act as the choric illumination for ‘Marrow’ – if when December comes there’s been a better riff, I’ll eat my proverbial hat, shorts and ears. In fact, I can hardly bring my fingers to the keyboard to write about just how good it is – they’re too busy dancing to this ecstatic mix of load, shoot and fire dirtiness, all razor sharp filthy guitar and melodica exuberance atop oscillating shimmer. Kanye West is going to be all over it.

It really wouldn’t be hard to wax lyrical for a dissertation’s length about the sheer brilliance of this album. There’s not a dull note or word out of place, and the only annoying thing about it is how consistently perfect Annie Clark manages to be (she’s far too sweet to tread on even the tiniest nerve), but to detail them all would deprive you of the pleasures of discovering them yourself. She’s not nearly hubristic enough for this lyric to be intentionally self-referential, but when on ‘Save Me From What I Want’ she sings, “the future’s got big plans for me”, you can only hope that’s an understatement. Flawless.
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St. Vincent on MySpace

“I’m very suspicious of some of you” declares St Vincent (known to her mother as Annie Clark) with a wry smile to a hyper-enthusiastic sold out crowd of Hoxton Bar & Grill. A large portion clap a bit too whole heartily to the introduction of new song, ‘The Strangers’. It’s almost as if she’s genuinely surprised that people are already aware and well versed in her new record Actor, a full 2 (that’s right, count them, 2) weeks before it’s even hit the shops. “Some of you have been  downloading, I think”. To be fair, she can hardly be surprised people have heard it in this day and age. People are thieves! They are impatient! They want a free lunch! They want things NOW and they know how the bit-torrent sites to get them! But it’s okay, she still loves us. And she looks like she’s having a blast up there. During new track ‘The Strangers’, she sways from side to side, eyes closed and jerking in time as she boldly and fiercely assaults and jabs at her guitar to reach the desired tones, like a woman possessed.

Having plied her trade as part of the large ensemble of touring bands for  The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens (insert heart icon here), you might think Annie Clark would feel like a rabbit caught in the headlights, exposed to the World as she performs with just a guitar in hand and a sample/drum machine. But this is simply not the case. She freely banters away between songs, genuinely thanking the audience for their generous applause, and oozing an incredible laid back confidence which makes her so darn charming. Hell, she even cites severely underrated US comedy Arrested Development as one of her favourite shows [Her debut, Marry Me was a coy reference to a regularly spoken phrase on it - seriously if you haven't seen it, make it so. One of the Best. Shows. Ever. One small reason why Annie and I should be together, I feel…]

When she does drop the delightfully tongue-in-cheek ‘Marry Me’, (“Marry me John, come on, we’ll do what married people do…without the kid”) people warmly laugh in appreciation. “Try singing that in the bible belt!” . The latest single ‘Actor Out of Work’, sounds totally exhilarating with it’s thickly reverbed-drenched noise, echoing over the looped main riff that she laid down and sampled at the start. She drums out a beat then lets the keyboard take over repeating it, before she can get down to playing the guitar and singing – ensuring everything is in complete synchronicity, proving to be quite the multitasking queen. ‘Landmines’ sounds distinctly ethereal and other-worldy whereas ‘The Party’ was a mixture of delicate, brittle blues, brimming with a sad fragility her voice. Most people seem enchanted and spellbound as she spins her webs of aural splendor. Apart from the venue lights guy who was standing on the side of stage. His arms constantly raised up to the switch deck, tweaking knobs to fit the mood. That poor guy.

With her set complete, she found it impossible to leave the stage. Her pathway obstructed by fans and photographers (with there being no backstage at the Hoxton Bar & Grill.) “The plan was to go backstage, let you guys rapturously clap, begging for me to come back, while I’d be back there being fanned and fed grapes”…. Oh, what I’d give to provide her with that service… So anyway… She strapped back on her guitar and rewarded our faux-patience and fervor with ‘Paris Is Burning’. A song that sounds sweet and sinister in equal measures, and exudes a leaden tension delivered through waltz. A popular choice amongst the crowd who left with their hearts content as they filtered out onto Hoxton Square.

Setlist:
Jesus Saves, I Spend
The Strangers
Actor Out Of Work
Marry Me
Landmines
Black Rainbow
Your Lips Are Red
Marrow
The Party
==
Paris Is Burning

Deerhunter are set to release a new EP, Rainwater Cassette Exchange, digitally on May 18th and on CD and 12″ on June 8th.

The EP was recorded in February with Nicolas Verhes at Rare Book Room studios in Brooklyn, NY and features five new tracks from the band.

Tracklisting:
1. Rainwater Cassette Exchange
2. Disappearing Ink
3. Famous Last Words
4. Game of Diamonds
5. Circulation

You can hear the lead track now on the radio player on the 4AD homepage.

This release coincides with a European tour from Deerhunter (see below), which will be swiftly followed by a string of dates in Japan, Australia and New Zealand. They will be announcing summer US festivals and tour dates in coming weeks.

16th May : All Tomorrow’s Parties (curated by The Breeders)
18th May: The Scala, London SOLD OUT
19th May: Deaf Institute, Manchester (Matinee Show)
19th May: Deaf Institute, Manchester SOLD OUT
20th May: Stereo, Glasgow
21st May: The Black Box, Belfast
22nd May: Whelans, Dublin
23rd May: Sound City Festival, Liverpool
24rd May: Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
25th May: Concorde 2, Brighton
26th May: Noveau Casino, Paris
27th May: Paradiso, Amsterdam
28th May: Botanique, Brussels
29th May: Primavera Festival, Barcelona
1st June: LuxFragil, Lisbon
2nd June: Travasita, Helsinki
4th June: O-Nest, Tokyo
5th June: Club Metro, Kyoto
7th June: KD Japon, Nagoya
8th June: O-West, Tokyo
9th June: Fandango, Osaka
11th June: Manning Bar, Sydney
12th June: Corner Hotel, Melbourne
13th June: The Zoo, Brisbane
15th June: Kings Arms, Auckland
16th June: San Francisco Bathhouse, Wellington

This feels like a critical moment for Camera Obscura. These most unassuming six men and women of Glasgow, for so long seen as merely Belle & Sebastian’s Mini-Me playthings – Stuart Murdoch produced their first album – made the great leap forward in 2006. Let’s Get Out Of This Country came with a single that got radio interested and saw them cast off their unassuming past and fully embrace the Wall Of Sound. Marrying uplifting 60s-tinged skewed pop to Tracyanne Campbell’s lyrical ideas of vulnerable romance and empathetic self-absorption. Now they’re on 4AD and Steve Wright is playing the first single.

If there isn’t anything to match the glorious ‘Lloyd I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken’ on My Maudlin Career, it’s only because that song seemed such a joyous under pressure casting off of previous assumptions and approach. If anything it’s more consistent then that last album, adapting the girl group swoon and countrified lilt not necessarily to disappear off in another stylistic direction but to refine the elements and create a sound that is entirely theirs. Producer Jari Haapalainen was also behind the desk for much of The Concretes’ work, overseeing not dissimilar sweeping sentiments of love and regret. But the two bands never seem to be singing from the same sonic hymn sheet largely because Campbell’s voice is just far superior at expressing heartfelt bittersweet sentiments.

Interestingly, at least until the Motown strings really kick in, opener and single ‘French Navy’ is as close as they’ve come (for a while at least) to those Belle & Sebastian comparisons. Hints of Orange Juice and Felt added to Northern Soul via Phil Spector drums help to create something that indirectly reminds this writer of ‘The Wrong Girl’ off Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant. Meanwhile Campbell swoons over new love, the chorus declaring “I wanted to control it/but love, I couldn’t hold it”. Then, on the second track ‘The Sweetest Thing’, she’s singing about “trying to fall out of love with you… I don’t know what else to do”, even if the outcome isn’t entirely clear, the narrator is conflicted between hope and past experience. If the album has a theme it’s just that latter notion. Campbell dares not to get her hopes up too high knowing from bitter experience. Watching personal events conspire to fulfil her fears – in fact she has suggested that these are less lyrics, more straight up documentation of a period in her life.

Matching upbeat arrangement to downbeat lyrics is an old trick but very few have learnt to use it as well as Camera Obscura – even ‘Swans’ with its circular riff and glockenspiel aided hook reeks of indistinct heartbreak. ‘Away With Murder’ sketches out her “feeling something’s going wrong/I put my thoughts in a letter to send it when I’m feeling strong” over a Grand Old Opry beat which is much steadier than Tracyanne’s emotions. It forms a stately piece of melancholy in which Campbell admits it’s “been hard to be strong with the thought of this going on” albeit having already confessed “I told you all along there was no point looking to me”. ‘James’ is more lyrically direct in its rejection letter, Campbell telling the titular ex “you broke me, I thought I knew you well“. Following up, country ballad ‘Careless Love’ regretfully screws down the lid of the relationship: “I’ve been really struggling to see this thing through to the end… I don’t think we can really be friends, but I’ll try again.” Cue skyscraping strings and pan out from disconsolate figure, which returns with remorse on the spare, folky ‘Other Towns And Cities’, before closing track ‘Honey In The Sun’ and its defiant, brass aided rush of a chorus over which she admits “I wish my heart was as cold as the morning dew”.

“My maudlin career must come to an end/I don’t want to be sad again” Campbell sings through the tears on the chorus of the lilting ‘My Maudlin Career’, the closest thing on this album to the last. Then again she also confesses “in your eyes there’s a sadness enough to kill the both of us/Are those eyes overrated? They make me want to give up on love”. Those lyrics act as this tremendous album in microcosm. While there’s nothing here that would scare the horses of those that adored Let’s Get Out Of This Country, it’s the sound of a band who are tighter and far more aware of what they’re doing. They’re also more able to carry it off with the minimum of fuss. Aided by a panoramic production, exhibiting a level of confidence that’s the exact opposite of the lyrical content. While messy breakups aren’t something to look forward to, if Campbell’s declaration that much of this album is based on fact, then it’s left her at her genuine best. Such praise for her evocations of insecurity won’t help her self esteem much, granted, but for her band it seems to have spurred them on to even greater heights.
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Camera Obscura on Myspace

They basically sound like vaporous wafts of guitar and organ, reverb and feedback hanging above a river in the early morning whilst the bass pulse throbs and cottony cushioned drums live next door. You could easily pick out the influences of any number of bands here, but you don’t particularly feel the need to, they’re just really good at what they do (but I might as well mention Yo La Tengo, American Analog Set, Stereloab and Sonic Youth).

From the lulling abrasiveness of ‘Q’, to the sleepy gallop of ‘Don’t Know’, it’s clear the sorts of contrasts and themes the band are focusing on here – exploring the tensions between those seeming polar opposites. It’s great to be able to say that they do so successfully. Things would float away into yawnsville on some songs if the band didn’t have some keen tunes – you can only go so far on mood after all. Songs like ‘Back Down’ have killer hooks surfacing on a bed of that vapourous mood music they create, but more importantly a truly rocking sound is there too, letting you grab onto something concrete. ‘Now And Again’ is pretty fucking great, it has the same overt catchiness, but it also has chest-rattling bass and an ugly guitar sound, both of which are definitely good things in a pop song.

The album does, sometimes, feel a little samey over it’s length. The slower songs get lost in the haze and perhaps drag a little (‘Soon’, which is mighty fine while it lasts, but has this sort of weird effect of mushing up the songs that succeed it), but if you start in the middle or flit around to different tracks every now and then (not all the time though, I’m a big proponent of mainly listening to albums in sequence) then you notice the excellence of each track on it’s own. Such as ‘Remember’ which comes across as a slowed down soul song (much like Bright Black Morning Light’s Motion To Rejoin from last year), full of nice touches like xylophone, and a weepy plodding melody.

The catchy pop elements are smeared over, obscured, and to some extent so are the rocking parts. I think I would prefer the chaotic shredding that lies dormant to surface some more, there are one or two parts of feedback rending and they’re killer (such as ‘Rehearsal’ at the end, where guitar freakouts and cymbal abuse abound). As for the catchy pop it’s hard to find fault with. Maybe if they were more overt with it every now and then? But in some ways that defeats the idea behind the sound they’ve created, the rock and the pop is supposed to be glimpsed, never too explicitly seen, even though that can make an album’s worth of material hard to sit through. This is a pretty fucking cool album, basically.
80%

It Hugs Back on MySpace

Veterans of the Scottish indie-pop scene they may be, but Camera Obscura were still visibly nervous tonight. Although the Lexington’s a tiny venue by their standards- they’re playing the much bigger Shepherd’s Bush Empire next month- it’s the first time they’ve performed most of their new album My Maudlin Career (what a wonderfully fitting title!) in a live setting and they’re obviously worried. But despite Tracey-Anne Campbell’s perpetually apologetic demeanour, it soon becomes clear there’s little to worry about.

It could be argued that they rarely write dud songs, but then again, they’re not a band much noted for their adventurousness. They have a formula (Melancholy Tales Of Heartbreak + Twee-Orientated Indie Melodising A La Belle And Sebastian = PROFIT) and rigidly stick to it; there’s nothing from the new album that would be at all out of place on Let’s Get Out Of This Country. But as long as you can accept the lack of originality, there’s much to enjoy here.

The clear standout from the new LP (and indeed, the whole show) is the irresistible ‘French Navy’, which takes the band’s obsession with Northern soul and runs with it, resulting in one of the very finest entries in their canon. Even though it lacks the luscious strings of the recorded incarnation, the trumpet flourishes and sheer vitality of the thing prove exactly how good Camera Obscura can be when they’re on form.

Alas, they struggle to achieve quite the same highs throughout the rest of the set, although ‘The Sweetest Thing’ and ‘Honey In The Sun’ come tantalisingly close. ‘Swans’, with a melody that sounds like it was swiped from some 1980’s kids TV show, is a disposable if pleasant bit of fluff; the title track’s essentially a slowed-down ‘If Looks Could Kill’ (also played) which highlights the sense of over-familiarity that often creeps in during the lesser tracks. And although they play well, there’s still a certain “session band” quality about them. They’re not the most exhilarating viewing experience even at their most impassioned. Even the glorious ‘Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heart-Broken’ came across as a bit too gauche – a little awkwardness suits their style, but their restraint too often works against them. But ‘Razzle Dazzle Rose’ ends the night on a high note and despite my quibbles, come the end there’s definitely a feeling of “a job well done”.

Solid, dependable and blessed with occasional flashes of genius, Camera Obscura won’t ever change your life but they may very well make it that little bit better.

Photographs by Ama Chana

When did Matt “M.” Ward become so popular? Perhaps his musical dalliances with Hollywood actress Zooey Deschanel (A.K.A. She & Him) have raised awareness of the curly haired one, but it came as a bit of a shock to witness the sheer fervour that awaited him at London’s intimate Borderline. The attention’s obviously well deserved- the man’s got a fantastically characterful voice, but it’s a shame it was given so little time to breathe in a set that too readily traded substance for style.

The main issue was Matt’s backing band. Proficient musicians all, but too often a burden rather than a boon. Yes, they gave flavour and some variety to the set- unless you’ve got a particularly magnetic personality (Bon Iver, please stand up), it’s hard for singer-songwriters to capture an audience with just an acoustic guitar. Certain songs, ‘Poison Cup’ for instance, worked well with their new arrangements, turning things up a notch without sacrificing emotion for volume. Unfortunately, other tunes were delivered with the subtlety of a sledge-hammer, the upbeat bar-blues vibe undermining the more delicate moments of Matt’s oeuvre. I’ve no real problem with a band sounding like the Hold Steady, but it seemed out of place at times. Perhaps it would have been easier to accept if he hadn’t given a tantalising taster of his solo performance at the beginning of the set, enchanting all with the understated majesty of his voice- it made what came thereafter seem a touch shallow in comparison.

That said, there was still much to commend. What the show lacked in depth, it made up for in visceral, foot-tapping musical thrills, with Matt Ward’s impassioned piano playing and some top-notch old school blues jamming ensuring that things rarely got dull. Perhaps one might note the irony that the highlight of such a feted songwriter’s set were a medley of ragtime classics and a cover of ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, but for once the material and the musicians truly meshed and got the crowd roaring with appreciation. His own tunes weren’t so bad either; naturally the focus was on new LP Hold Time but his older works got a fair airing, with the five songs from “Post War” particular standouts. In a nice touch, he shifted from the third-person to the first for closer ‘Magic Trick’, crooning “I’ve only got one magic trick…I disappear” before promptly doing so. But if he’d performed the more satisfying trick of lending his shows the emotion his albums have in spades, I’d have been even more impressed.

The sheer volume of “kooky” female solo artists being served up for the indie listener has been well reported, you don’t need to hear those names again. Anni Rossi is signed to 4AD however which would appear to give hope that she may have more to offer than most of her contemporaries. Last year’s Afton EP seemed to hint that this was the case; six tracks of viola-led acoustic folk-pop featuring some seriously off-kilter melodies and some wonderfully individual vocal fluctuations.

The first impression upon listening to Rockwell is that the vocal idiosyncrasies which dominated earlier songs have been somewhat toned down, whether this was a conscious decision from Rossi or instruction from record company types is impossible to say. The effect of this levelling out of the such surprising vocal swoops and lurches wouldn’t be so noticeable were it not for the fact that all but one of the tracks from last year’s EP have been re-recorded for this debut long player. This of course will not matter to those coming to Rockwell without hearing Afton and the fact that she still believes in these songs would suggest Rossi is not aiming for an entirely a new sound and the opening line of ‘Machine’; “maybe we will starve and die, away from here”, confirms that there should be little danger of making exceptions for the Radio 1 A-list just yet.

‘Ecology’ has been slowed down, synthed up and stripped of woodwind but still remains a charmingly skewed pop song as Rossi sings of “pretty bears who’ve lost their cheque books” without ever sounding like she’s trying to be quirky. Meanwhile ‘West Coast’ doesn’t receive such a drastic overhaul, Rossi’s viola coming to the fore here and on the instrumental outro to ‘Venice’

‘Glaciers’ makes explicit themes of a oneness with nature and ecological preservation that are bubbling away under the albums’ surface, which culminate in penultimate track ‘Wheelpusher’; an outstanding tale of “Bee-keepers in the Himalayas” which sits atop some dazzling pizzicato.

With ten tracks weighing in at just 26 minutes, Rockwell is a short but sweet listen but with half the tracks already available (albeit in different versions) fans may not feel this is outstanding value for money although newcomers will find much to enjoy. The most exciting moments are still those when Rossi’s voice slips into an area where it isn’t expected and giving a wonderful sense of freedom and it is these slightly discordant moments set her apart from her more cutesy peers.

And although some of the sense of mischief that pervaded her earlier recordings has evaporated the uniqueness of Anni Rossi’s voice may have tired the ears over time and all in Rockwell is a charming, satisfying record and one which exposes a talent that at last may be worthy of “new Regina” tags that have been thrown around in the past couple of years.
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Anni Rossi Myspace

On May 4th, 4AD will release Actor, the highly anticipated new album by St. Vincent (née Annie Clark), and the follow-up to her first album Marry Me.

Speaking for the first time about Actor, Annie Clark commented, “I wanted to make these songs technicolour animatronic rides.”

Preceding Actor will be the single ‘Actor Out Of Work’ (out April 20th).

St. Vincent will preview songs from Actor with two shows at this year’s South by Southwest conference in Austin: Wednesday, March 18th at the Central Presbytarian Church as part of the 4AD showcase, and Friday, March 20th at Antone’s as part of the Billions Corporation showcase. Clark will also tour the U.S. and Europe this year and a full itinerary will be announced shortly.

Tracklisting:
1. The Strangers
2. Save Me From What I Want
3. Neighbours
4. Actor Out Of Work
5. Black Rainbow
6. Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood
7. Marrow
8. The Bed
9. The Party
10. Just The Same But Brand New
11. The Sequel

I’ll be frank. Over the years, I’ve had a somewhat love/hate relationship with Matt Ward. He, without question, possesses an uniquely timeless voice whilst his ditties float along crackling, hissing analog radio waves from a time, long ago. I remember when I first heard Transistor Radio and fell hook, line and sinker for the warmth and intimacy it exuded. But in small doses I hasten to add. Too much, I realized and I’d be grating my teeth to dust alá The Joanna Newsom Syndrome. I gave his previous offering, Post War, a couple of spins before resigning it to the “Good, but not OMG must include songs on future mixtapes for pretty girls” shelf. It was safe middle of the road territory for such a talent and unsurprisingly propelled him into mainstream acclaim as a result. Finger crossed, Hold Time will be more memorable, if not more challenging.On first impressions it has all the ingredients to be a goodie. Mixed by producer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis, and with guest appearances by Lucinda Williams, Zooey Deschanel (soon to be Mrs Ben Gibbard), Rachel Blumberg (Her from The Decemberists), Tom Hagerman (Him from DeVotchka) and one of my personal heroes, Jason Lyttle (Him from Grandaddy – insert heart icon here). However, namedropping an impressive list of the collaborating artists does not a good record make. Thankfully though, Hold Time happens to have some pretty darn good tunes. From the gentle swinging and sweeping orchestral score on ‘Jailbird’, to the luscious twinkles of ‘Stars of Leo’. One instant track which stood out for me is also the subtle title track. It’s a slow burner, cloaked in iridescent washes of electric keyboards and soothing strings as Ward aches about hanging on to those special moments of now and yesteryear. It really is quite sublime.

It’s clear that the tone of the record is more care-free, more content and, well, just darn more louder than we’ve previously heard. However, it soon becomes clear that nothing has pushed Ward out of the safety of his comfort zone. The best songs seem to be the covers he performs in a tribute for his deep appreciation for Americana circa 1950s and early ’60s (clearly forgetting the sheer brilliance of the mid to late 80s!). A dreamy rendition of Buddy Holly’s very own ‘Rave On’, one which features his She & Him partner, Zooey Deschanel. Elsewhere, melodies seem hard to come by, and the lyrics less profound to an extent where they can sometimes be cringe-worthy. One which springs to mind is the Jackson Five style “A,B,C just like 1,2,3″ in the swaggering, stomping ‘Never Had Nobody Like You’. And later, ‘To Save Me’ (that one with Jason Lytle) seems far too over the top for it’s own good with it’s saloon-esque piano chugs, frantic pounding drums and a flurry of layered vocals almost drowning him out.

These lounder songs make you realise that Ward’s strengths actually lie in the subtle, more tender songs and in the laid-back nature of his performance and delivery. The excellent Don Gibson’s ‘Oh Lonesome Me’ cover is one of these moments where he’s onto a winner. A slow paced number where Ward’s achey voice is at the very centre. It harnesses that powerful raw energy but with the utmost simplicity. Sure, long time fans and admirers will stay appeased with Hold Time but newcomers should perhaps investigate his earlier output for a richer M. Ward experience.
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M. Ward on MySpace

Dark Was The Night is a fundraiser for the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS, comprising 31 exclusive tracks. Moreover, though, much like a previous Red Hot effort, 1993′s No Alternative (Nirvana, Patti Smith, Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, Smashing Pumpkins, Pavement, Jonathan Richman), it acts as a snapshot of a certain time and place in North American alternative music (Stuart Murdoch, Devastations, Riceboy Sleeps, Antony Hegarty and Jose Gonzalez company excepted). The record takes in a healthy cross-section of the major players in the scene over the last couple of years; a period of unbridled creativity and critical hosannahs shone upon the music that not so long ago would have been quietly left to fend for its own cult following on the underground. So how do you approach something like this, with no thematic link or stylistic even keel, just a hell of a lot of proven quality intended, as the producers Aaron and Bryce Dessner (of The National) have reinforced, merely as a showcase for “the best in independent music, with an emphasis on traditional themes played and arranged in a contemporary way” (whatever that means)? By throwing traditional review narrative form out of the window and tackling it sequentially, I guess.

So… Dirty Projectors kick off with a David Byrne collaboration that he may have written the words to but in recording doesn’t seem to include David Byrne on anything more than backing vocals, although ‘Knotty Pine’ seems to funnel the wired shuffle of Talking Heads’ first couple of albums to a more straightened out version of Dave Longstreth and co’s eclectic culture surfing. Nick Drake’s ‘Cello Song’ is given The Books’ elegant glitch-folk treatment with Jose Gonzalez on restrained vocals, drifting gorgeously on a digital looped bed. Feist and Ben Gibbard come together on a spare, chiming countrified version of ‘Train Song’ (made semi-famous by Vashti Bunyan) that sounds more like Nancy & Lee than either’s proper work. The development of Bon Iver from solo project to full band expansion while keeping that necessary intimacy continues on ‘Brackett, WI’, brittle guitar and heavenly harmonies this time joined by organ and prominent bass; it wouldn’t have been out of place on the Blood Bank EP. Folk standard ‘Deep Blue Sea’ originally appeared in home recorded lullaby version on Grizzly Bear’s Friend EP last year and reappears fleshed out and warmer, Dan Rossen’s vocals and fingerpicking augmented by woodwind, electronic distortion and percussion. If their forthcoming album takes after this it’ll be unstoppable.

The National themselves take the spotlight next, ‘So Far Around The Bend’ less outwardly emotive than usual in a sawing back porch strum with decorative woodwind frenzy and a song about a woman lost and alone through choice in New York, apparently “praying for Pavement to get back together”. Yeasayer do their expansive otherworldly rhythmic thing a lot better than usual on ‘Tightrope’, and it’s far easier to get excited about than another version of ‘Feeling Good’, especially as My Brightest Diamond adds little to the original arrangement. Title track honours are left to avant garde San Franciscan string section the Kronos Quartet, and once four minutes of plucked string bending has sufficiently tested your patience Antony appears with Bryce Dressner on backup for a fairly perfunctory, vocal pyrotechnic-free version of Dylan’s ‘I Was Young When I Left Home’. Justin Vernon returns with Aaron Dessner backing him up on ‘Big Red Machine’, which pitches Vernon’s multitracked falsetto against insistent piano hammering. It’s an odd juxtaposition but no less intriguing for that. Hard to tell if ‘Sleepless’ is much of a preview of the Decemberists’ rock opera direction, given the stately nearly eight minute rumination sounds like it could have been an offcut from Castaways And Cutouts. Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam gives himself sixty-seven seconds on ‘Stolen Houses (Die)’, which means he’s reduced to vocal and guitar and so can’t ruin it with the soft rock settings of late, while Grizzly Bear and Feist both reappear with a reworking of ‘Service Bell’, originally from the former’s Horn Of Plenty debut album, which with its percussion loops and doo-wop backing vocals actually sounds more like Rossen’s Department Of Eagles, before the first disc closes with something of a war of choral folk attrition, more than ten minutes of Sufjan Stevens. ‘You Are The Blood’ – another cover, apparently – throws a curveball of electronic bleeps for its first thirty seconds and continues in a pattern of underlying electronic effects, samples and and found sounds in the background in a way he hasn’t explored since 2002′s Enjoy Your Rabbit, over which gradually develops a pattern of sympathetic male-female harmonies, cinematic brass and galloping drums before breaking down into cutting up his own vocals and instruments, veering off into heavily reverbed George Harrison piano-led contemplation for a bit, then back to the laptop, then explodimng into joyful brass-led fanfare, then distorted guitar solo over glitches, then solo piano voluntary, then a bit of everything to close. Phew. There’s as many ideas in this one track as those that have followed Sufjan’s path have ever had, and whether one-off playful experiment or signpost as to where he goes whenever he next deigns to record an album – three and a half years since Illinois now – it’s a masterstroke.

Still with it? Good, on to CD 2, which at least initially is something of a disappointment. Even Arcade Fire’s ‘Lenin’ turns the bombast down but ends up sounding more like their pre-Funeral EP, reaching towards something distinct without quite making it. Chief offenders are Beirut, still in underwhelming French mode, and My Morning Jacket, who turn in a song that sounds almost exactly like a British 80s AOR hit that I frustratingly can’t place (helpful, I know). As with most things it takes Dave Sitek to turn things around, who gives the Troggs’ ‘With A Girl Like You’ the fuzzy, synth layered production treatment he’s recently given Telepathe, plus horns and Sitek’s vaguely threatening lower register. Never mind knocking out a cover, Buck 65 reworks a track that’s already been on this compilation, turning Sufjan’s epic into the queasy, gospel choir aided ‘Blood Pt 2′, while the New Pornographers look inside themselves and knock off a version of their own Dan Bejar’s Destroyer’s ‘Hey Snow White’ that allows them to really indulge their AM radio rock fantasies and Yo La Tengo are in one of their relatively subdued Velvets moods on ‘Gentle Hour’. It says here Stuart Murdoch’s ‘Another Saturday’ is to the tune of traditional Scottish folk song ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’; whatever, it’s the type of ruminative, personal acoustic lament Murdoch hasn’t recorded in some time, and with references to his church background.

Riceboy Sleeps will be a new name to most but lead member Jónsi Birgisson of Sigur Ros won’t be, the eight and a half minutes of slowly shifting and drifting ambient waves almost daring the listener to use those ‘glacial’/'pastoral’ descriptions that have long since been deemed passe when describing Birgisson’s main project. An alt-countrified run starts with Cat Power’s interpretation of ‘Amazing Grace’ which is – shock! – Memphis bluesy and continues with Andrew Bird taking the warmer approach of his current album on as he grants the Handsome Family’s ‘The Giant of Illinois’ lush orchestration alongside his own multi-layered violin plucking and sawing and shimmering guitar, before Conor Oberst scratches a bluegrass country itch duetting with Gillian Welch on a reworked ‘Lua’. It suits him. Blonde Redhead are also in stripped back mode collaborating with shimmering Melbourne outfit Devastations, a laid back, comely Kazu Makino sounding oddly like Black Box Recorder’s Sarah Nixey against distorted piano, and it’s left to Kevin Drew to bring the whole charabanc home with the yearning slowcore of the Low-esque (if not Low-esque titled) ‘Love Vs Porn’.

So no, it doesn’t all work, and even by the nature of “previously unreleased tracks” for something promoting the fresh pickings of the very best available there’s quite a few reworkings and covers. However, despite the first CD being clearly the stronger, the hits clearly outweigh the misses, showing a new possible direction for some (Oberst, Sufjan), bringing the best out of others (Yeasayer, The Books) and doing what it should do, reasserting the claims of some of its most lauded (Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, The National, The Decemberists). This is where – oh, let’s say it – hipster music largely stands in early 2009, and we’re all the better for it.
79%

Dark Was The Night

4AD have announced that they’ve been doing some wheeling and dealing during the recent transfer window.

The trio of Broken Records (hotly tipped by our good selves), The Big Pink and Camera Obscura have all penned deals with 4AD to release new material before the year end…

We’ll have more news on each of these acts, plus some interviews no doubt, in the coming months.