REVIEW: Tinariwen - Emmaar

Tinariwen are the face of gritty desert blues. Human, nomadic, lacquered with a relentless and hypnotic rhythm, the Malian group have carved an enduring critical and commercial niche from the blossoming wilderness of their homeland and the guitar style of Jimi Hendrix, whom they cite as an influence.

For those who don't know, the band were soldiers in Algeria/Libya (I won't pretend to know the details). As guitar slinging desert warriors fighting for their homeland though, they are pretty much musical mana for anyone with a belief that music means, and must mean, something. A political, social outlet. Whatever. That music has communicative powers  is what Tinariwen are all about. Watch the short 15-minute for their last album Tassili (it's the first result for Tinariwen on youtube) and the emotional pining of their beat dances unflinchingly to the fore.  

Emmaar, their sixth album, is the first not recorded in the sahara, but the States. But don't be worried. It retains all the self-possession of its predecessors and doesn't concede to fancy effects.

Like most of the tracks on this and other albums (which, I'm not gonna lie, all sound pretty similar) Imidiwan Ahi Sigdim is a brave, stomping slow-burner. Things get a little more unusual on Tahalamot where we get a more sombre vocal and guitar style, but otherwise this is business as usual. Standout track Chaghaybou thrives on chants and flickering licks.

      

JAI PAUL - JASMINE (DEMO)

In the background of Jai Paul’s website for‘Jasmine’ is a repeated and unexplained picture of a Mercedes Benz and a random dude smiling. Arranged in the headache-inducing style of Microsoft’s tile background option, it brings to mind a very bad graphics student’s attempt at a collage, or a teenager’s quickly thrown together Myspace page.

According to XL, Jai has a DIY ethic. Like the band website that seems deliberately shit and brings to mind nostalgia for the internet’s blocky early design era, Jai’s taste in an unwavering self-effacing public image chimes with the fact that offsetting music against an incongruous and shambolic aesthetic is distinguishing. This is especially when most around you are trying to do crisp, clear and easy to comprehend.

Jai Paul is far from that though. He is an iconoclast. ‘Taking a break’ or so it would seem after self-produced ‘BTSTU(Edit)’, he reclaimed the critical limelight with ease after five years out with only track, and formerly only one track to his name. Now ladies and gents, we have ‘Jasmine’. The song was on Pitchfork and other leading music blogs almost immediately after it was posted to Soundcloud and was invariably lavished with praise.

Despite being released by XL (Adele, The XX, Willis Earl Beal), ‘Jasmine’ has the interesting qualification ‘(demo)’. To me this is interesting because a demo that’s brill, as opposed to a single that’s brill, makes you think the ‘real thing’ will be even better. Except because the ‘demo’ is actually the ‘real thing’ / the version that’s being released in stores near you, this is clearly not a demo at all! ‘Demo’ both excuses ‘Jasmine’s vague crackly production and smartly suggests that this clearly brilliant record is not Jai in full flow, but half-formed, casual demo…ism. This might be the thinking anyway.

Also, when you hear ‘Jasmine’s cassette-like muffling, you’ll swear you’ve ‘discovered’ Jai, even if you do notice it’s already clocked 700,000 odd plays on Soundcloud. It has that demo quality; that personal touch that ‘BTSTU (Edit)’ had. Where the latter went "Don’t fuck with me, don’t fuck with me" in its disturbingly gentle opening, this pulses with a skittery funk beat whose distant production sounds like it was recorded in a church confessions booth.  

Jai is enigmatic. At only 21 odd when XL signed him, ‘BTSTU (Edit)’ was I believe his only available track online, which makes you wonder what XL knew about him that we didn’t (or don’t), particularly given that he seems to be a songwriter/producer first of all. Yet Stereogum have called him ‘possibly visionary’; in an interview with XL owner Richard Russell about XL's success, Russell said ‘Jai is a wizard.’ The BBC even cast him in their Sound of 2011 poll for 2011's most promising artist or band, such was the furore surrounding Jai’s exceptionally good but small output. That year, RockFeedback’s feature on Jai (complete with his provisional driving licence photo) just concluded “There’s not much we can do with Jai Paul nowapart from to carrying on listening to the pop genius of ‘BTSTU.” That’s then.

The story of Jai Paul is certainly intriguing so far. Whatever happens next though, ‘Jasmine’, I’m sure you’ll agree, is indeed superb, worthy of the praise lavished upon it. If ‘BTSTU (Edit)’ struck music’s beating heart once, ‘Jasmine’ can do so again.


Pre-order 'Jasmine' on limited vinyl here.

MADLIB & FREDDIE GIBBS - SHAME

Right, so- simply, this is the best song I’ve heard this summer. It’s making me so happy. The sample- The Manhattans’ 1973 ‘Wish That You Were Mine’ combines with Freddie Gibbs’ rapping to make this an epic track from Madgibbs’ Shame EP (that being the second collaboration between workaholic machine producer Madlib and Freddie Gibbs). The first was Thuggin’ and can be found here.

For those who don’t know, Madlib’s behind some of the rawest soul slash mashup hip hop shit to grace physical formats since J Dilla. Part of Jaylib with the late J Dilla and a prolific producer, you should check out Madlib Medicine Show which runs to over a dozen volumes of beats, spits, spats and crazy if you don’t already know him.  

Meanwhile, BJ The Chicago Kid sings beautifully on ‘Shame’. Smashed together with Gibbs’ majorly explicit, uncompromising rapping, he punctures that machismo one night stand posturing and turns it into something tender, smooth and sexy. After 40 listens, I can confirm that the BJ The Chicago Kid’s hook may have been sent from god.     

MUSIC AND VIDEO EXCHANGE, NOTTING HILL, LONDON

One of the things about doing this music blog is I listen to so much music I love that I feel compelled to write about it and share the word. However, often, I don’t actually have the time to write because I’m so busy listening. Consequently, the more I need the blog, the less time I have for it- a most frustrating irony.  

This is exacerbated by my ever constant music shopping, on early evening finishes at work and on weekends. Whether online or via haunts in London’s East and West, music shopping has become a prong of my music obsession in itself.

So this is the story of how my music shopping story began. Really this is appropriate for Record Store Day, but let’s ignore that because this post didn’t come together in my head until now. Shopping in shops for physical formats had an impact on me as a 23 year old man who grew up with the digitisation transition. For me, it would be a shame to see the extinction of the CD, but especially vinyl. This is not supposed to persuade you of the merits of physical record shops either way. You just read it if you like, and go about your business…

38 Notting Hill Gate, W11 - The flagship store

At 14, I was introduced to the London chain of retro/vintage clothing, music and bric-a-brac shops known as the Music and Video Exchange. For those who don’t know, primarily based around the upper class Notting Hill area of London, and with affiliate stores in Berwick Street (Soho), Camden and Birmingham (I have never been to this one), MVE, or the Record and Tape Exchange, as it was known, offers arguably the most interesting, unexpected and deliberately low key second-hand music shopping experience in London.

Its key feature is what first drew my attention. At 14 and running low on pocket money, I sought alternatives to expensive entertainment retailers. Even small discounts increased my leverage in the entertainment world. (You can imagine what I was like when Ebay arrived.) So on asking my brother keenly why it was that all of his vinyl- I had a mature range of twelve choice CDs at the time, mainly garage, aye- had these price grids on them, he confirmed my suspicion that MVE had a policy of knocking down prices until someone buys the item. "This is my sort of place", I thought. "By its very nature there will be bargains. I just hope they have that Oasis whatsit I love so much."

Music stores are the clear pillar of MVE’s vintage cultural offering. Although I did not know this when I asked the question, as London’s most serious and arguably well-respected second-hand music institution, MVE is a magnet for vinyl and CDs from all over the world, from every genre, of every quality, rotating relentlessly, unbendingly, as customers plunder its stock, leave a hell of a lot of Bread vinyl, and wait for the staff to slip in some new treats- hopefully- before your next visit.

At school, I notified the posse I was planning a visit. It hadn’t occurred to me to look on the net, so when we all rocked up one Sunday afternoon, it all came as a surprise. As I wandered the main floor that day, quietly pleased that I recognised some of the titles, the prices were at first a disappointment. This was ok, but no cigar.

Art Tatum, Fleetwood Mac...R Kelly

A sign however pointed to basement. My friends and I descended a flight of stairs and what greeted me at the bottom was a moment I can honestly say I still remember vividly. Rows upon rows of rock/pop CDs lined the wall, spines facing outward, with prices knocked down on each item pound by pound, to occasionally superb prices. Oasis’ What’s The Story Morning Glory (I think I was surprised they had this, such was my charming open-mindedness): £6, £5 right down to £2. In Virgin Megastore, this was no doubt at least a tenner. Beatles back catalogue? £4 for Abbey Road – a thank you- and £5 for Rubber Soul. No doubt such prices could be found elsewhere in second-hand retailers around, but with the concept of near-limitless browsable and affordable albums at my fingertips and the prospect of sudden discoveries and impulsive purchases suddenly revealed to me, the bargain CD floor filled me with excitement.       

Now as you can imagine, the sort of environment I describe can take a lot out of shop assistants and customers alike; row upon row of tediously monitored stock. As any music shop assistant will tell you, myself briefly included, cataloguing is a pain, but this place is that in over-drive. Due only to its immense success and dogged pricing/margin structure, the atmosphere is dominated by the ethics of a very specific but loyal part of its clientele- the die-hard anorak (often seen, majestically, in the English woodland countryside in the Fall), a product of years of plunder and discovery, with over-flowing knowledge (and sometimes unfortunately fewer social facets), now with a single-minded pursuit for purchases, that will allow him to rest easy (and it is invariably a ‘him’), until the next single-minded pursuit for purchases. While I hope frankly I don’t become one, serious minded affectionados rule the roost at MVE. This is arguably its second most well known characteristic, after its pricing.  A noticeable smell hangs in the air of most of its shops, of dirty, dusty vinyl racks and men’s unwashed trousers. Trendy Rough Trade East this is not.

Next door, Soul and Dance

The same prevalence of eclectic characters among the shop’s customers is also present among staff. There are some musico titans in here. I don’t know who they are ‘cos I’m too afraid to speak to them (I’ll come on to that), but they are a matrix of music knowledge you can be sure.

The downside this all brings though is a dose of music snobbery; an arrogance and hot headedness among its tireless staff. Customer service here is in a league of its own. Don’t try and talk about music, your music taste is invariably shit; don’t walk in laughing or talking too loudly with your friends (preferably you won’t have any friends); don’t try and clarify an answer or ask another question, and lastly, don’t request something such as, say, a carrier bag for your purchase, or something in one of the cabinets, because passive aggressiveness will invariably follow. When I walked in once and asked if I could get a combined discount on two records, I was met with a gruff ‘No’, from the man who has, although he might not know it, been serving me at that counter for nearly 10 years. “There is absolutely no negotiation on the price. The price is the price and that’s it” Ok fine. But why? “To avoid any confusion”. That was the end of that mystifying encounter. Once, I asked if they ever had in any Beatles Anthology on vinyl. ‘No’, was the response. "There wasn’t much call for vinyl in the 90s." End of conversation.

This aspect of the stores, which is unfortunate if you view extreme record buyers’ fetishisation as a slight case of ‘wood for the trees’ as I do, has even courted official recognition. Time Out in 2007 awarded its Most Unhelpful Shop Staff award (across all retail sectors, bear in mind) to the Music and Video Exchange. Its comment, in full, read as follows:

“The movie ‘High Fidelity’ won praise for Jack Black’s accurate portrayal of an obnoxious record store employee making customers jump through hoops to justify their own purchases. MVE makes this look like silver service on the Orient Express; staff here seem to delight in making the simple act of buying a record a baffling trial akin to crossing the Bridge of Death in ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’, with Anne Robinson asking the questions. It’s easy to understand their need to express their superiority – prospective employees have to pass a written music test before they’re considered for employment – but surely this attitude can’t be good for business.”

There you have it. As a result, I fully believe there are MVE shoppers out there who have frequented it for decades and are dedicated even emotionally to it, but have never received so much as a ‘hello’ from the staff. In an ironic sort of way, the fact that it continues to survive with such brazenly shit customer service is testament to the powerful enigmatic depths of its stock. If you want that post-punk 7” import that only you give care for, but don’t want to pay Ebay prices, then MVE is the only place it’s worth going to in search of it. And when you find it, there is no doubt you will be jumping for joy, as I sometimes do, and rush over to that counter.

Overall, my decision that day was pretty big. Two weeks or so later my friends and I went again, and then every fortnight or so for the next three years. I now go every week if I can, and rather than merely the bargain rock and pop CD section catching my eye, I am drawn across the shop like a skilled craftsman tending to his weathered tool-kit: from bargain vinyl, to the £1 CD section, to rare 7”, the soul store, and spoken word records upstairs. I have not yet mustered enough fortitude for the ‘soul basement’, which is where records go to die). It is very sad, however, that the classical music store has now shut down. I hope it is not a sign of things to come.

So, so ends my dedication to Notting Hill- my favourite place. I am aware people who are similarly fond of the MVE may have some comments about it, so please do post them below or message me on twitter @grapevinesound if you feel like sharing.

All pictures courtesy of the internet except pricing stickers.

FRIENDS - MANIFEST!

Stream the album here courtesy of The Guardian

Well this is quite simply the album I’ve been waiting for. Samantha Urbani’s uber-cool Friends finally release their debut album this Jubilee bank holiday Monday- well done Lucky Number, we knew your Britishness would be good for something- to the full spangliness of stars in the Sunday media supplements and lengthy blogger comment (see….what you’re reading). For some reason it seems like aeons since second single ‘I’m His Girl’ was first released (although it’s actually only eight months ago), but perhaps that’s because a lot has changed for that band who, on playing their first UK concertback in October 2011, had played only a handful of gigs in local Brooklyn venues and had barely formed long enough for their story about the band’s name to be more than a recent recollection. But, since then, ‘I’m His Girl’, freely sold on 7”at that gig days before release, flew off the shelves, and return gigs at The Lexington and XOYO this February sold out. The latter gig was filmed for Youtube, and despite being a little bit over-played for the cameras, it helped confirm the band’s joyous live reputation. Somehow, it feels as though the Brooklynites couldn’t get this album out soon enough. Urbani’s evident enthusiasm charmed many and irritated a few, but a bigger, 1000 strong throng headed to the seriously big venue, London’s Scala on 9 May, her band beating their headline capacity best by selling it out. Today (literally-ish), they eat swordfish with The Independent. Things just got serious.

So now that Manifest! aptly manifests on the horizon, the album delivers a topical title brimming with potential. We start at the chronological germination, first release ‘Friend Crush’, which is reassuringly at the top of the bill. Its breezy, stomping off-kilter pop was one of the best singles of last year in my view (we featured it hereski). Its younger boobier ‘I’m His Girl’ cousin is here too, but unfortunately not its lesser-boobier but even funkier sister, Ghost Town DJs cover ‘My Boo’. Are these the highlights of the now filled out repertoire? The Guardian seems tothink so, yes.

But that is not to say that it’s so. ‘Sorry’s percussive rhythm rivals ‘Feelin Dank’. Tropical touches and over-done chants make this a little song you can listen to over and over again, that belies its carefree triviality. But perhaps the biggest argument for Friends with this material is ‘A Thing Like This’. When Urbani thrashed this out at the Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen in October, where literally no one in the audience would have heard this song, my friend and I only looked at each other in knowing excitement: we knew we had just found a fucking awesome band. It’s one of those rare moments. The crowd injected with a sort of groovilicious liquid, girls started dancing, boys watched them dancing as they started dancing themselves, and secretly hoped Urbani would give them a cheeky sensual pout. This sort of carefree stuff doesn’t usually happen at gigs for cool people in London. So, with its translation to record, it should, if I was Lucky Number, have been Friends’ first single on/around the album’s release by virtue of it being radio-friendly (and representative) best foot forward. Sweet as a button, tough as a nut, it slips and slides with a synth-heavy, bass-heavy arrangement that epitomises their sound. Urbani sighs sensually, swoons delicately and confidently. She’s sexy again. And you can hear it. And the band is sexy too.  

‘A Light’ is another funky number. One of the more serious groovers, crumply lo-fi production gives Urbani a dampened touch, giving way to eminently danceable ‘Ideas on Ghosts’. That is three seriously danceable tracks in a row by the way, in case I should have made that clear. If that level of result makes Friends more self-conscious trying-too-hard than disconnected whatever dance-groove effortless tropical-pop, then so be it. The fact that this album isn’t rougher around the edges shouldn’t be held against it. ‘Ruins’ is clearly the attempt at off the beaten track, rocky rebelliousness, and really it doesn’t quite work. But fortunately, the band have stuck to what they know best: much like their American sitcom namesake, using every living moment to dance (ok, maybe not that bit) and have fun. Live favourite and closer, Swedish sung ‘Va Fan Gor Du’ retains its immediacy and swings around with the half-drunk stupor you just wanted from it. Finally ‘Mind Control’ wades in to pull down the curtain.

There are small signs that Friends’ luminous ascent from formation to fringe-of-the-mainstream may be gently stabilising. The band play 500-capacity Dingwalls in a couple of days, not a venue comparable to with the Scala, and Matthew Molnar, on bass and keyboards- although I don’t want to say it- has looked more than a little tired or bored (well....both) at recent gigs, perhaps due to the amount of touring. But, to judge longevity on these things would be ridiculous. I’m going to see Friends play Rough Trade East on Monday 4 June when this album is released. Because for all Manifest’s sophisticated fun, they retain the looseness on record to keep me intrigued; the hooks to keep me horribly hooked. And will the band continue to jostle for their ‘tropical pop’ DIY ethic to be seen and heard? As long as they’re having fun, you can be sure they will.

HOLY OTHER - TOUCH

Nestling in the middle of the EP, ‘Touch’ is arguably the entry point for those uninitiated with Holy Other. The EP as a whole (With U) is terminally austere and disconnected, but the tension is just marginally slackened on ‘Touch’, which turns a turgid sludge into fantastical, inverted onanism with careful manipulations. The fine line between hideousness and beauty, excitement and fear, ecstacy and depression, is briefly explored and traversed here.  

 ‘Touch’s main tension comes from its reticence. It refuses to give itself away, and only concedes short breaths and rhythmic interludes. But when they hit...well.....The track layers effects over a repeated vocal phrase. Initially, only two notes of inconspicuous synth will slip in, followed shortly by a tinny drum effect you might find on a really shitty 80s keyboard.  The pithy hiccup juxtaposes with deep bass. As the vocal samples build and the clicks’ marauding mischief reach a gentle and muffled climax, the track peaks, gently slowing, like a roller-coaster reaching the pinnacle, holding, balancing, quietly tipping and then hitting a point of no return, where it viscerally disappears into mayhem. It plunges for seconds, dispersing bass and waves and waves of sound. 

Michael Kiwanuka - Home Again

Being the winner of BBC’s Sound of 2012 comes with some stresses. The champion of a panel of music experts naturally draws huge industry attention, especially in recent years when the competition has acquired a sort of officialdom, and analysis, expectation and counter-analysis ensue in near-molecular detail. Industry hopes revolve to a certain degree I feel, around the idea that the champion will bring music sales up, and cultivate a new collective confidence in mainstream music.

 History has shown there are two generalised ‘camps’ available for such labelled messiahs to fall into. They can either rise above the circus and keep on like nothing has happened (which it hasn’t) (Adele in 2008, Arctic Monkeys’ Mercury Music Prize in 2006): GOOD. Or spin into an over-exposure nightmare, fight media radiation poisoning, and finally supernova: BAD (The Bravery, 2005 and Little Boots 2009). Nuff said. Well it isn’t quite as clear as that, but evidently the award is no Willy Wonka ticket, self-fulfilling prophecy for glory and recognition.

Anyway, if you’re a cynic, the fact Kiwanuka won the BBC poll in 2012 is as big a revelation as PJ Harvey taking the Mercury Prize for Let England Shake (not a very big one). Putting aside his voice and songwriting- which are probably the real reasons why he won, let’s be fair folks- his warm, folksy image and familiar sound fitted perfectly with the anxious public mood. Our country is facing financial hardship in case you didn’t know; we are all suffering socially, and we want an easier time, back when things made sense. So cue the present day Bill Withers slash Otis Redding, slash nice guy with a nice voice wearing a nice wooly jumper. Aw. If that deconstruction sounds quite close to home, The Observer took similar cues from the artwork, for its inspiration: “it desperately wants to be a 33rpm vinyl record with a faded sleeve that first entered thesecond-hand record market around 1973…” Yeah, so 1973 wasn’t all roses. But that needle hitting the worn out vinyl is powerful and iconic. The nation inhales its sound and smell wistfully, into its deepest recesses at times of worry. 

Yet the guy really is good. Contemporary scepticism shouldn’t detract from what a marvellous voice Kiwanuka has, and so gentle and nuanced. He writes with a composed maturity that is wise beyond his mid-twenties years too. *….Scratchy beardy….* It can be beautiful. It is often remarkably precocious. So who cares if Kiwanuka is what we want? Let us have him!

It was with the fanfare of 2012’s bestowed honour that debut LP Home Again was ushered in on 12^th March on Polydor (part of Universal Music). On the day, Kiwanuka played a low key set at Rough Trade East (review), London, his home taaan. Back in November 2011, he was first introduced to mainstream audiences on BBC’s Later with…Jools Holland, arguably the perfect medium for his music, with its liberal, intelligentsia-leaning mid-thirties fan base. The wonderful performance was followed by a sold-out live UK tour, and the limited numbers ‘Tell Me A Tale’ EP quickly became hot property. ‘Tell Me A Tale’ and ‘I’m Getting Ready’, which he performed on Jools, became the album’s two openers. Following generally favourable live press, ( although some note he is quite the better performer without accompanying musicians), Kiwanuka will take to the road, touring Europe, before playing UK festivals at home and abroad.  

So what about the album? Is it much cop? Well the good news is Home Again is easy to get a grip on. Its melodies are soft, warm and the arrangements bristle with familiar flourishes of jazz, folk and soul. You won’t take much adjusting, and your mum can sit comfortably in the next room (or with you even). But, as much as Kiwanuka should be nailing that whole mature, soulful  tenderness thing, which he does at times, something is missing. Sometimes, the band’s accompaniment makes a steady groove languid, rather than heartfelt; a bit glazed, rather than reflective; such as ‘Bones’, in which the band arrangement makes it sound like it should be sung by Amy Winehouse a la 50s supper club style, not a straight-talking guy in a wool jumper muddling his way through. Compare the recording with the version you can hear live at the Union Chapel, and you can see, easily and plainly, that Kiwanuka draws a better solitary, impassioned figure, guitar casually slung around his front, than a sassy know-it-all with sophisticated backing. I wouldn’t direct that possible shortcoming at Kiwanuka but it is an observation I would make, and it has the potential to breed disappointment, or at least, confusion.  This style sits in stark contrast to ‘I’m Getting Ready’, perhaps the album’s most multi-faceted track, with its bare and simple arrangement. It just shows how brilliant Kiwanuka is as a talent, that he is more captivating alone.

The latter part of the album contains some aesthetically wonderful accoutrements to the lounge style (‘Always Waiting’ notably, and ‘Any Day Will Do Fine’), but it’s noticeably more coffee shop pleasantries than tender momentum. Closer ‘Worry Walks Beside Me’ is an enjoyable ballad laced with troubling minor chords, but somehow you want Kiwanuka to be leading this homage to fear and worry, not his band, and for some of the smooth edges of the album's rich, oaky construction to be chipped away a bit, with the imperfections but reality of Kiwanuka’s own personality, whatever that might be.    

Overall, Home Again is a mixed prospect. To this novice’s ears, the songs you’ve already heard might be the best (‘Tell Me A Tale’, ‘I’m Getting Ready’ and ‘Home Again’) but there’s no doubt they are great. Additionally, ‘I’ll Get Along’ is another blitz of retro pop equal to those tracks. Yet, much of the rest sounds a little bit too much like an album going through the motions, hitting all the right references for vintage Seventies soul, from jazz flute to rich marinated verses, but for the personal touch that executes a great record. Home Again was charged with lofty things, but Withers’ Still Bill it most certainly is not.

On the upside, the label should realise what a prodigious talent Kiwanuka is and perhaps cut him some slack for a freer reign in the production process of his next album. Home Again did not conjure rave critical responses, and its commercial fate is unknown, but the strength of the appeal of an artist like Kiwanuka should not make numbers a problem for record bosses now. I don’t know what impact the artist had on the arrangements here but instincts tell me it would be surprising if Kiwanuka, with his gentle vocal style and immediate emotional proximity to the listener when alone, doesn't prefer little accompaniment; the maximum of, say, bass, a second guitar and brush drums.   

             

Eluvium - Copia

I should say from the off that Copia effectively sounds like nothing. Its genius is that it is a mirror, reflecting back on to you what is projected on to it. But, in and of itself, it is…well………..nothing. And it is, quite possibly, my favourite album ever.

When I first heard this record, in my dorm room at university in 2007, it took me so far in to my own head that I couldn’t tell if I was creating the next bars to the song or it was a pre-made record. It felt as if I was orchestrating music inside my own mind. That it was organic, human, and inseparable from me. (CUE DiS' REVIEW OF THIS RECORD.)

Matthew Robert Cooper wrote Copia under his moniker- ‘Eluvium’. It is twelve tracks long, around 60 minutes and instrumental. It is a stew of solemn strings, dulled horns and occasionally a gentle piano chord. There’s really very little else. And unlike Explosions in the Sky, there is no dominant emotion. It is faceless. It isn’t tiring and it isn’t sleep-inducing. It's just blank. Listening to this record might therefore induce some kind of mild temporary mental paralysis; a dissociative numbness. It is either a brief escape, a pointless vacuum or a moment of exquisite clarity that charges into your conscious mind when the album does its thing.

As epically reminiscent of purgatory as this record is, I have perhaps listened to it more than any other in the last five years. That such a title should be held by such an inoffensive record is not surprising. I don’t want to listen to something that gets intrusive over and over again, or predictable. But I want something that is the alternative music fan’s version of sorbet. I want something that is multi-faceted, pleasant and light. I have slotted this artist into so many playlists, sandwiched between songs of differing genres (or courses, to continue the meal analogy) that I don't know if it's a compliment or suggestion of epic blandness. Between Vanilla Ice, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Upsetters, Prince, Star Slinger, The Velvet Underground: whatever. I just listen to it loads. And rarely get bored, or feel it has nothing left to give.

Anyway, to me, this is the universal LP. I have listened to it perhaps once or twice a week every week for five years (and am now on a twelve step dependency programme) and it is very close to my heart. If there is one record I could recommend to everybody, it would, in fact, be this. Not Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours; not a biggest selling album of the last 10 years like a Lady Gaga record; not Susan Boyle. I would give you a record that you would pick something up no matter who you are or what your musical persuasion (maybe you don’t even have one) and I would tell you to just listen to it. Something that sounds universal. And, such a thing, that can be all things to all people, is, simultaneously (and confusingly), nothing, to nobody. This is a tantalising and devastating juxtaposition to me. Unity and loneliness are prisms for the very trials of life.

Ambient is easy to do, but it is hard to do this well. Copia is almost unnervingly synchronised with something human. It drifts with effortless calm; a natural, almost earthly serenity. The chords on an organ will change just as your mind takes a pause; the grandiose airiness of ‘Indoor Swimming at a Space Station’ reminds you of a feeling that you are, well……indoor swimming at a space station, and ‘Prelude for Time Feelers’ floats above you, with a blinding, almost religious gaze. Forever patient; forever willing; forever still.

It’s easy to listen through in one listen, and I recommend paying attention to the longer tracks like ‘Repose in Blue’, ‘Indoor Swimming…’ and ‘Ostinato’, that you can really get into. I would also say it’s best listened to with headphones.

This album is not like other contemporary ambient records, and Matthew Robert Cooper is not like other contemporary ambient artists. While others use either melody or atmosphere (or a combination of both) as a weapon to steer you to feel certain things or draw energy at certain points, Eluvium eradicates all self-awareness to achieve lightness and room for relaxation. It is like taking a deep, deep breath. In the hardest of times, in the complexity and chaos of life, Copia brings total stillness. Time almost stops, when I hear this record.

Philco Fiction review - Live @ The Lexington, London, 26 January 2012

I featured Philco Fiction a few months ago on this blog, and last night they played their first gig in London since their debut released in Norway. It was a great experience. I had heard that they were good live and they didn’t disappoint. The trio play a brand of electro pop that is something like The Knife covering every genre under the sun. Folk is on the record (‘Take it Personal’), as is experimental Bjork-type stuff and just some simply brilliant hook-driven tunes. What’s so exciting about them though is that they do their own thing. Lyrically, they they're intelligent and silly, and they have a humour and self-effacingness that doesn't take anything too damn seriously.

On the night they hit it. Taking the stage wearing an eye-catching slanted hat, Turid Alida Solberg did this upper-bodydis.loc.a.ting.shoulderdance.thing. Her singing is confident and outward looking. She is also really quite beautiful...which made me want to go to Norway a bit.

This album is a must buy when it comes out in the UK. The Norwegian release on Brilliance Records is stupidly difficult to find and you basically have to import it from Norway at present (not fun with exchange rate and shipping costs), so kudos to anyone that bought it at the gig (although if you bought vinyl, there’s no mp3 despite the claim on the sleeve, unless I'm completely retarded). In fact, I now think you can’t even stream this album online! It was taken down from Ja Ja Ja.

Radio 1 recently played ‘Portrait of Silence’, and there was a bloke there who said he had introduced Philco to Huw Stephens. So good work! If you saw the show, there’s plenty more tunes where that came from.

Set went something like...

Finally
Help!
The Youth
The City
Too Close
Portrait of Silence

Can't remember it now exactly, so apologies if it's wrong. Also if anyone can get a me digital download for the vinyl I'll be your friend!

Vondelpark- nyc stuff and nyc bags

I remember feeling pretty indifferent when first introduced to the XX back in 2009. (I know, is it blogger sacrilege to say that now?) However I realise the debut's enormous impact. That album took simple, sparse, emotionless dance beats, and ordered them in such a way when combined with vocals that they could conjour deep emotion. A neutral beat with gentle infusions of R&B created a feeling that was on the one hand deeply loving, compassionate and sensitive and on the other alone, detached and bleak. Like The Weeknd, with whom comparisons have been quite forthcoming from House of Balloons onwards, the XX’s minimalism had a stony profundity. Black American R&B titans famed for their rich production (Aaliyah, R Kelly, D’Angelo, Destiny’s Child) have since been spotlighted, heralded by certain artists as marvels, and then with the precision and detachment of a surgeon’s knife, had their hearts teased out, distilled and dripped into arid digital concoctions, or ones primarily composed of silence or echoing clacks. The XX’s debut was a key moment. It magicked depth out of bareness. It took R&B’s emotion and made it alone and monochrome.

Vondelpark are one of many artists striking that chord: let’s call it the Higgs-Depression. They are, according to the BBC’s review, “How to Dress Well with a slightly superior budget [insert: that’s still bugger all]; RnB for heartbroken bloggers more likely to send a loved-one files than flowers.” It’s probably true. The Guardian’s New Band of the Day (No 1,039- June 2011) considered that if you had to listen to constant grim music or constant happy music for the rest of your life, they would choose the former if it meant listening to Vondelpark. (I’d choose it anyway. After all isn't Barney & Friends used to torture hostages in Guantanamo Bay?) Yeah, all the elements of that disconnected yet soulful compound reveal themselves: Feedback-layered production, barely discernable vocals and loose hums that drift through each track of their second EP. Called nyc stuff and nyc bags, even the title hints at lethargy.

From three young Surrey boys, nyc stuff and nyc bags is the follow on from debut Sauna (2010), and more radiant. Its songs are alike: they’re all cyclical and quasi-hypnotic, which creates this extreme XX-like melancholia. R&S noticed it- the label behind James Blake- and released it. “TV” loops a ringing guitar lick over echoing voices, and snippets from porn (or at least I think it’s porn). “Hipbone”, a defeated mire, is wonderfully representative of the soul v. disconnection juxtaposition. The push and pull of its feeling is complicated; its merry dance is pure anxiety. Muted, hushed, it is more likely to creep up on you than the no holds barred staring of How to Dress Well. “Camels” gently calms and drags you into a numb universe, with similar results.

All are of equal merit in my view, and are like a controlled explosion taking place in a sound-proofed room. Vondelpark are the muffled alarm that gently triggers suppressed distress. In my view though the most interesting track is "Outro for nyc", which closes the EP. Its emotional dance is as tender as the wind that shakes the barley. Vocal washes mix with glassy guitars and a funky dance beat to hit a cold, lost, isolated chord that makes depression by the hand of freshly laundered pillows.

Ultimately I think Vondelpark could be a critical success, even if, due to their 'sadder' sound, they might be less conventionally appealing to a non-indie audience than even the XX. If you want a track from the first EP, try opener "California Analog Dream", and be sure to look out for them. nyc stuff and nyc bags is out now on R&S (buy it here (UK) or here (US)).

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

Approaching that time of year again- ‘best of’ lists- and as with last year’s attempt- I’m going to shun the idea and pursue something which will hopefully be far more interesting: 20 posts in 20 days. There’s no such thing as a best album. As a very good article for The Guardian blog re-iterated (although it was in fact also accompanied by a top 10 list), our habits are rooted in time and place, and not some surgical, disinterested dissection of merit. In that vein, my posts reflect thoughts and habits at the time, what I'm listening to, and similarly, what I think others might enjoy.

So, George Harrison. What’s there to say? ‘Third’ Beatle, the quiet Beatle, and the one who was often seen as stifled by the juggernauts of Lennon/ McCartney. When The Beatles began to fall apart in 1969, slowly Harrison came out of his shell. His debut solo effort All Things Must Pass is widely regarded as the best of the four’s solo debuts, and a mature, serious, full-on record. Its often gentle song structures and easy on the ear melodies belie the balance and strength that is now often seen as one of Harrison’s core personal strengths. His self-assuredness and quest for self-enrichment came through in this monster LP, and now it is a small part of pop history.

First, its length. A triple-LP of 23 songs, five of which are strung together as a big ‘Apple Jam’ is not exactly a marketer’s idea of a cautious entry into the solo sphere. All Things Must Pass is powerful; Harrison put himself into it, and he wasn’t going to compromise. He never did anything by halves: just watch Martin Scorsese’s documentary Living in the Material World. Second, religion. Harrison’s strong belief in Hindu spirituality, mediation and mantras, developed after The Beatles’ visit to India in 1967, and shaped this album, which is now regarded as one of the 500 greatest of all time (…or at least it is by Rolling Stone magazine.) (Interestingly, many of the extensions of his religious ideas still have resonance today.) See ‘My Sweet Lord’, see ‘Heard Me Lord’, see ‘Awaiting on You All’; arguably three of the most sensational songs of Harrison’s song-writing repertoire, and they all promulgate spiritual philosophies, but also, they are constructed and delivered with a lightness, peace and simplicity only imagined by those who feel truly enlightened and at one. ‘My Sweet Lord’ is a reassuring journey to spiritual well-being. As with his mantra from The Beatles' 'The Inner Light', “the farther one travels, the less one really knows”, it isn’t intimidating, over-the-top, sarcastic or ironic. It is direct and simple. Harrison hopes to exist in the moment, the aspiration of those following a path of meditation and zen. ‘Hear Me Lord’ is a similarly striving ode to self-embetterment.

His religious journey was not so all-consuming as to make All Things Must Pass a purely religious record, however. There are many shades of grey, and on a superficial level, you might be interested to know that Harrison doesn’t make much use of Eastern sitars on this record. Still, at the more familiar end of the scale is Apple Jam stuff/rambling ditty ‘It’s Johnny’s Birthday’. This juxtaposition makes it obvious how multi-faceted and complicated Harrison really was. Lennon went on marches and made bold political jibes; McCartney was a clean-cut pop king, and Harrison sat at the back taking notes, figuring out what it was all about. Did he let go? Well of course. ‘Apple Scruffs’ is one of my favourite pop songs, comprising a harmonica and acoustic sing-a-long, and I love it because it’s so whimsical and poignant at the same time.

All Things Must Pass carries itself with both a pride and an honesty that I don’t think any album today can. Can you talk about spirituality with a straight face? Can you put the words ‘Hare Krishna’ at the end of a song repeatedly and deliver a message that will resonate with the man in the street as well as a swami? Sounds hard, doesn’t it? Sure, our lack of interest in pondering things long and hard has much to do with our cultural shift, and being more closed off to sitting down and thinking, but it is also a great compliment to Harrison that he had the confidence and single-mindedness to straddle pop and spirituality, and he continues to be able to pry into us in such a marvellously subtle way even today. We might notice, but we are generally too impressed with the songwriting. ‘Isn’t It A Pity’ works for 7 minutes to achieve it; ‘Beware of Darkness’ tugs at your heart-strings with plain-as-day life advice. If it makes All Things Must Pass sound like a self-help manual, then it some respects it is. If it makes it sounds like one hell of an awesome record, it is certainly that too...

LIVE REVIEW: Hypnotic Brass Ensemble @ Jazz Cafe, London

Twirling care-free in a field of anonymity like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, Grapevine draws resolve from all your charming reading. You survive this tautological word racket, and hopefully gleam some new music in return. It’s for you that I tune in, turn on and drop out or whatever it’s called, and do this wacky nonsense after work when the laptop flickers and the world is but a husk of numbers on a computer. Yet, despite this, if a tree falls in woods and no one is there to hear it, it makes a seismic sound...because that tree will soon be on Grapevine, heralded as some brilliant new band and splayed like a drab strumpet for all her glory in the naked stocks of Soundcloud shame.

Could being covered on here really sound anyyy more saucy? Maybe...if there were pictures.

Today’s post is from a Hypnotic Brass Ensemble gig. The Chicago band who played London’s Jazz Café Monday night, but missed the pages of the national press (it soon transpired) are not your ordinary show-stoppers. Fans include Jude Law and Damon Albarn, the Blur liberal world arts genius. The band have tirelessly toured their back yard for 10 years, busking (check out some of their videos on youtube), ducking and diving, making self-released records- working their way towards these sorts of moments: gigs with roomfuls of warm, pre-disposed crowds. Their self-titled album- their first in the UK- was released by distinguished label Honest Jons in 2009 after the band were spotted busking near the record store in Ladbroke Grove. Sooner or later they were on Later…with Jools Holland. This, quite literally, is an urban hip-hop nine piece brass band, EIGHT of whom are brothers (awkward for the ninth member, eh?) and sons of jazz musician Tony Cohran. HBE smack you with something so direct and- as anyone who was there will testify- insanely loud, that you will be jolted to recall that brass is not only something heard in the grounds of Buckingham Palace or at the local arts centre. It has a historic place in music: the street, community life.

The nine are lively, spinning their four trumpets, two trombones, one sousaphone (yeeeaah, that’s this) and baritone in different directions to Gabriel Wallace’s drums. Their unified and determined symphony is great, aesthetically as well as sonically. It’s a powerful, raw image, these nine lads bopping to brass. They punctuate the drive with raps, each taking turns to draw in the uncertain crowd and re-assure them. You can see this is something they’ve honed. Whether due to their roots on Chicago’s south side, personal gigging experience or a wilful effort to integrate rap into their recordings (see this year’s EP Bulletproof Brass, which has vocals), heavy crowd interaction is necessary for things to fully come to life and break down a difficult fourth wall that haunts many a contradictory musician. HBE look different, even if they’re just another band. Cynics won’t know what to think when nine men with tattoos and bristling egos turn up and start pushing their trumpets on everyone and then take off their shirts. What’s English popular culture’s point of reference for this? None. Audience interaction is necessary for the uninitiated to understand what HBE are to them. Lots of cheesy call and response gets the crowd going. Chanting before ‘Touch the Sky’, ‘Kryptonite’ and ‘Party Started’ among other tracks warms them to dancing and trusting this lot of American orchestra men before the raps step aside for brass. It doesn’t take long for these gestures to become reciprocal and soon we're part of the mix. The crowd finally chant the band back down from the Jazz Café’s high restaurant balcony in appreciation. HBE get the crowd down on the floor. Everyone- (even closet killjoys…it’s hard to tell what proportion of the audience are engaging in this sort of act of obedience because they genuinely want to) was down, groovin, before rising to touch the sky. THAT sort of infectious enthusiasm is hard. HBE must have realised that certain audiences want to be led, and once they are, the atmosphere can just build.

HBE’s music is assertive. The Hypnotic in their name, derived from when the group were busking and a subway passenger missed many trains to hear them play, is certainly apt. Each song marches to a defined formula; a deep, jagged groove rather than the soft melodies often heard in jazz. Tycho Cohran- who to me seems like the leader of group for his massive sousaphone - settles into a bass groove that the rest of the band follow. Energy is then brought on by trumpets. On ‘War’, their trademark track that they must have played hundreds if not thousands of times, this formula is clearest. Rumbles blaze from Tycho, and his brothers swirl around him with repetitious horns.

Looking ahead, how will HBE avoid being labelled one-trick ponies? They deliver hip-hop’s rhythm, but songs from the UK debut didn’t allow much room to manoeuvre. Most importantly, the band ultimately have to do what they want to do. The moment Gabriel, Seba, Tarik, Gabriel, Uttama, Jafar, Saiph, Amal and Tycho’s love for their instruments and inquisitiveness dies out, so too will everyone else’s. They’re integral. This is the same with many bands I’ve seen live who come out of leftfield to mainstream tastes, particularly jazz and ‘world’ musicians. The moment the love and soul is lost between the artist and his music, uninitiated music aficionado get all aloof from it. Bulletproof Brass is a good indication of future direction. The rapping works well as an extension to their energy, live and on record, and the samples show an interesting change of style. I hope, personally, that we get something like a brass version of The Roots from HBE: a band that’s reflective, single-minded and soulful, to join a great collection of modern popular hip-hop artists. HBE certainly have the independence to do that, and the road-hardened experience to find their way. As we’re seeing fleetingly on the new EP, and most notably in the calmer ‘Black Boy’, Hypnotic’s awakening might yet be to come.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble - War by ChoiceCuts

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble bit at Jazz Cafe by MiCloud

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin- Tape Club

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin- Tape Club

(2011, Polyvinyl Records)

For when there’s a lull with nothing to post about, I’ve kept this back in reserve. One of my favourite bands of the last 10 years who create music that occasionally hits me like a truck (‘House Fire’, ‘Some Constellation’) or takes a while to sink in (most of Broom), but always succeeds in wriggling inside my brain-box and building a nest for itself: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. I wrote about them earlier (see here) and as you may know, they were an "of the moment" band on US-based indie blogs around 2005 when recording Broom, their first album. This was a home-recorded, extremely lo-fi record and had very little to say for itself in the way of production, but stood out promisingly for its tunes. An internet following was born.

Since Polyvinyl picked Broom up and released it, the commercial fortunes of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin- or SSLYBY for short, arguably waned slightly according to speculation from loyal adherents. Thankfully though, their music and passion didn’t. Two diverse, lively and enjoyable records followed in 2008 and 2010, Pershing and Let it Sway respectively, filled with shamelessly catchy pop tunes. Broom, re-released for Record Store Day in April this year with some new tracks- that first home-recorded record, now sits atop a small number of dreamy indie kids’ post-2000 lists as a cult pop classic. I give mine a listen quite regularly, and often wonder what in those loosely formed arrangements and hushed vocals keeps me coming back. But it does. And regularly.

Their honeyed sound and image isn't for everyone. However, if you’re a fan of good music without pretence; a follower of healthy tunes over fashion, SSLYBY are one of the best bands to draw into your listening arsenal. Cavorting with my ears through train journeys, helping while away 40 minutes in town or sound-tracking an evening with friends before heading out, SSLYBY can be taken anywhere (and will take you anywhere) with their infinite lightness.

I turn to the reason for this post: Tape Club, a 26-song compendium of b-sides that SSLYBY will release in October. How impossible to imagine that a band as lo-fi as SSLYBY would even have b-sides. How much more demo-like could they be, especially the b-sides from Broom?! Well in their seven-year fringe-of-the-public-zeitgeist tenure, and ten years as a band, their production values have wilfully soared and plummeted as much as a kite on the breeze. It makes SSLYBY sound like two different bands, one playing at Will Knauer’s house in a suburb of Springfield, Missouri, and one recording in a high-tech, gee whizz, sound-proofed studio. (In reality, even the uber-polished Pershing was recorded at Knauer’s aunt’s house).

So sound varies wildly. At the end of ‘What We’ll Do’, you can literally hear the tape stop; on ‘Song 1000’, the band just about hold things together while they muck around with (what sound like) kazoos. At the other end of the scale, Let It Sway’s lush mid-range pours out of the speakers on ‘Bended’ and ‘Letter Divine’, a richness and warmth, employed from Pershing onwards, to give singles like ‘Think I Wanna Die’, ‘Glue Girls’, ‘Banned (By The Man)’ and ‘Critical Drain’ their glamour and anthemic charm.

A few songs don’t really fit into either of these two categories and float innocuously between them: ‘Sweet Owl’ is the sort of tune I thought SSLYBY would never record, just because it’s so folksy, and ‘Yellow Missing Signs’ (the first song leaked from Tape Club) adopts an electro edge that makes you wonder what the band were up to when non-rock influences took hold in jamming sessions.

Diamonds in the rough tease themselves out, as is often the case with SSLYBY. Campfire ditty ‘Bigger Than Yr Yard’ could have made it onto Broom to close it with a late-night sing-a-long. Some of the newer, cleaner production stuff also grabs hold of you after a few listens: ‘New Day’ and ‘Coming Through’ are a class act placed by side by side. They’re probably my highlights of the album and shimmer with an innocent, harmonious glow. They're much like the flowering of confidence that seemed to resonate in Pershing: the realisation of the group's creative energy and pop prowess.

It's a great collection. There's no doubting that. I say it as a fan and as an advocate, but also because I think Tape Club shows quite clearly how enjoyable a band can be with a few chords running round their heads spontaneously knocked out on tape. Purveyors of lo-fi fun, nonsense and slivers of brilliance, SSLYBY are pop stalwarts.

Indie-blog praise hasn’t quite lived up to expectation: the objective 'standard' that artists are supposedly aiming for, but that is too crude. Even if ubiquity doesn't come calling, it doesn't need to, for many of us are just happy listening to SSLYBY….and occasionally writing about them.

Tape Club is in stores on 18^th October and comes in all sorts of formats (see here). The band are currently touring the States, as always. Fingers crossed for European dates. See above to stream the album.

Neon Indian- Era Extraña

Neon Indian- Era Extraña

(2011, Static Tongues/ Mom+Pop)

Neon Indian: pioneer of 2009/10 phenomenon ‘chillwave’; talented young 23 year old from Texas; man who sellotaped together some random electronic flotsam and jetsam in 2009 and stood back to reveal a completed work called Psychic Chasms that stunned and excited listening hoards in equal measure. Neon Indian’s creator Alan Palomo has been treated kindly by the internet. His music is innovative, bright and colourful; he is also clearly serious about his machines and the way they are used so prominently and consistently in his work, which is I think part of his wide appeal.

For an album title, Era Extrana sounds like it was rejected as a wacky Coldplay concept name. Mixed by the guy who recorded Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker and both MGMT records, it picks up where Psychic Chasms left off. Fizzling with synthetic spark, beats and video game samples, it delves back in to the fun but delicate papier-mâché universe that Psychic Chasms created for itself to indulge in spaceship dreams and psychedelic story-telling.

Best start with the equivalent of the debut’s hit ‘Deadbeat Summer’ and look at ‘Polish Girl’: overall an incredible poppy stunner to rival Deadbeat’s breezy underplayed emotion and playful energy. There’s no doubt this will be a favourite for Neon Indian sets. The video is also representative of what it seems Palomo wanted to achieve: that eccentric Flaming Lips-esque abstraction. A world that wilfully will not be placed in space or time. Posing like the opening video for a Daft Punk gig, a futuristic astronaut-cum-welder DJ is teased away from his twiddly noise boxes by a young woman and goes on a journey to re-connect with her using what seems to be VHS, or Betamax, or some quasi-vintage equipment cobbled together in the year 2050 because all technology is sort of wiped out but we’ve invented this weird hybrid breed. It’s kitsch and textured. Computers rule in Palomo’s world, even in his videos.

The album is divided into three parts: ‘Attack’, ‘Decay’ and ‘Release’ but some bits struggle to find their voice. ‘Blindside Kiss’ (from ‘Attack’, it seems) tries this kind of detached, drug-infused drudgery that just seems a little aloof for my taste and sort of floats off into space. ‘Future Sick’ (mmm, lovely name) and ‘Suns Irrupt’ follow it into the dark-matter abyss. Feedback and hiss on this album threaten to stop Palomo in mid-song at every turn, even though many of them are strong, and drag him into the vacant dreaminess of his artistic universe. His feel for a good melody is in attendance on ‘Hex Girlfriend’ with its catchy backing vocal and ‘Heart: Decay’ is a classic 1980s Sci-Fi throwback, steeped in muffled effects. Indian acquired his chillwave credentials from the dimension of nostalgia that underlines his oddly apathetic party music, and that is clearly not lost. ‘Halogen (I Could Be A Shadow)’s indie pop structure and danceable tendencies are wrapped by echoic effects added to the vocal and the gentle thrum of high-end hiss.

The detachment of the latter half of the album is arguably annoying. It’s the result of Neon Indian’s insistence on delivering woozy futurism very persistently and deliberately. But you can’t begrudge him for that. The electronic, future….mash concept is clearly strong and sounds like Lucky Charms marshmallows might do if they scrapped cereal and did music instead. Sometimes that can be a little too riddled with synthesisers but the good bits make it worth it, (much like Lucky Charms themselves!) Luck Charms and Neon Indian are surely a marketing tie-in made in heaven when you think about it.

What Palomo does for his third album will really be interesting (not to diminish the obviously considerable effort he must have put in to making this one.) I guess when you’ve made an album as mad as this, what do you do next?!

The album is out now so you can buy it, or you can wait till 10th October for one of these deluxe synthesiser bundles that Rough Trade are doing. Up to you really, innit?

Friends- Friend Crush

Friends- Friend Crush

(2011, Lucky Number Music)

Friends only formed in spring 2010, yet their debut 7” ‘Friend Crush’ set firm intentions about the sophistication Friends can channel into their jilted dance pop. Signed up by Lucky Number Music for this record (although not for an album), the band share the UK label with Caged Animals, another band practising droning, slurred music oozing listlessness. “That first practice went so incredibly well, we knew we had something going on”, songwriter Samantha Urbani told Stereogum this April. “After that we really threw ourselves into practising almost every day, and playing 2 or 3 shows a week, only because we loved what we were doing so much.”

Hailing from Bushwick, New York and constituting five stylish, good-looking boys and girls, there is a partial gloss of cool about Friends even before you’ve heard the music. However it is tunes driving their appeal. ‘Friend Crush’s 250 print run sold out fast (I bought one on Ebay) and no doubt their debut London show with Caged Animals on 27^th September will be a big draw too.

The song is immediate. It is pressing, anxious and tense, as though always on the precipice of a lick that never comes. Consequently the band have been compared with great new-wave inspired, alternative 80s acts like ESG and Tom Tom Club. Another infectious number ‘Feeling Dank’ is on soundcloud.