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. 

ESG - Dance

Happy Wednesday people! We are half way through the week! Here's a bit of ESG. Mega awesome New York band who released this song 'Dance' on their album Come Away with ESG in 1983. They mashed together everything from hip-hop to disco with their pulsating rhythms, and influenced many too-cool-for-school artists I haven't heard of...but I know Friends are often referred to alongside them...

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.   

             

First On Mix #005 NZCA/LINES

First On Mix #005: NZCA/Lines by Diy on Mixcloud

A mix for This is Fake DIY accompanied by an exclusive interview. I like the dude's mixtapes although that section has now disappeared from his website and unfortunately I don't have a tracklist. I DO know though that two of the bestest tracks were a Boards of Canada remix of Midnight Star's Midas Touch, Kelis' Good Stuff and Sa-Ra Creative Partners' Goldmine. Top toons.

This is just as good though, if not better : )

NZCA/LINES - Compass Points

Ok so I’m gonna be honest I was a little disappointed with NCZA/Lines’ album, especially after the awesome awesome track ‘Compass Points’ above. Michael Lovett is clearly an intriguing talent, though.


You can download a FREE copy of 'Okinawa Channels' on the website.  

James Carr - A Man Needs A Woman

A common misconception about alternative music is that people buy into it because they want to be different. More specifically, they want to be seen to be different. Music charts because it is ‘better’- by what objective measure I don’t know- and consequently, those who revel in non-chart music must be making an effort to do so. This is why it’s very easy to bash people who don’t like Lady Gaga, have an allergy to Adele or recoil at Rihanna.

I don’t believe in an objective standard of music, and certainly not once I met people who got a kick out of mad atonal music or twenty minutes of screaming. The reality is that we get turned on by different things. Music is after all an emotional experience, and the way you might be hooked is unique to you. It's a mystery in some ways. Sometimes it’s even simply a memory that ties a certain band or genre up with nostalgia that draws you in. For me, I don’t hear the ultra-simple ‘Tell Me Why’ by The Beatles and think ‘my god, this sounds like a nursery rhyme’. I think ‘I’m in the early 90s again. And I can smell the year. And I can see the old wallpaper on the living room walls.’ Had The Gladiators’ reggae sermon ‘Chatty Chatty Mouth’ been played to me when I was a kid like one of my good friends, no doubt its tune would be resonating deep in my belly instead. (So if you're one of these people who wants your kids to have a good music taste- firstly, god help you- and secondly, play them shit).

A second misconception is that non-chart music is ‘weird’. Some people I know are reluctant to listen to new things even though they love what they like and even that they heard everything for the first time once, so why not try something else? It’s silly to say 'if it's good, I've already heard it', notwithstanding the fact that even chart music is constantly changing week by week.

A music buff’s feeling is usually the opposite: there is so much more out there that you want to actively seek it out. It’s far more empowering and positive approach. Just as with the above misconception, the internet has made it clear that just because you haven’t seen an advert for it on the tube, doesn’t mean it will be ultra-left field. Not only does the above point apply here regarding one’s individual idiosyncratic and unpredictable taste, but if you are only concerned with commercial success as a measure of interest, every successful chart artist went through a period of anonymity at some stage. If you think that those without many likes on their facebook page aren’t worth your time therefore, remember that it is very often because they haven't yet been discovered. One day you might hear them on Radio 1. In my experience, people are reluctant to hear an apparently soppy band called Bon Iver when he’s an unknown quantity, or ‘this great new Brooklyn band called Friends’ when they’re small, but once word-of-mouth and radio play accelerates, it’s like you’re recommending a different band altogether. People are wary of the pub, the support act and the boutique festival, as harbingers of inaccessible music. But sooner or later if you're recommending things people will enjoy, they will be pleased to know you told them.

This has already been a very long post, but I want to move on to my featured artist who I think illustrates wonderfully the above ideas. Not many people have heard of James Carr. He’s almost a nobody, even though he had a couple of charting singles in the late 60s. However among southern blues and soul enthusiasts his album A Man Needs a Woman is considered a timeless great. He’s up there with Marvin and Aretha. He is considered one of the greatest soul artists of all time.

When I went into the record store Intoxica in London to buy this (yes, I am only in my early 20s but I still buy records), I learnt it was re-released in 2003 on Kent Soul, part of Ace Records, which has had artists as disparate as The Impressions (Curtis Mayfield’s original band), Joan Baez and speed metal giants Motorhead on its label-roster. A Carr record arriving at the counter woke the assistant.

A Man Needs A Woman is pretty much back-to-back gospel-inspired soul and longing, romantic lyrics. Carr has a raw, commanding voice, not dissimilar to Otis’. On ‘Life Turned Her That Way’ he sings in a typically personal style about a reason for a woman’s bitterness and on ‘A Losing Game’ he swoons over a shit-hot blues riff. It’s ballsy and passionate; he grabs your attention. Taken together, the full 14 tracks are an example of music that is a) considered a niche concern; b) very very underpublicised; and c) simply a straight awesome pop record, no different from any well known Motown or Stax artist, but possibly ‘better’ if you like that sort of thing. The original label Goldwax label remains the preserve of those who know.....or, those open to finding out.

See below to stream from youtube. I hope you enjoy- and please remember kids that if you don’t listen to it, you’ll never know what you might be missing.

1. A Man Needs A Woman

2. Stronger Than Love

3. More Love

4. You Didn't Know It But You Had Me

5. A Woman Is A Man's Best Friend

6. I'm A Fool For You

7. Life Turned Her That Way

8. I'm Gonna Send You Back To Georgia

9. The Dark End Of The Street

10. I Sowed Love And Reaped A Heartache

11. You've Got My Mind Messed Up

12. A Losing Game

13. A Message To Young Lovers

14. Let It Happen

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!

Fanzine - Roman Holiday

Fanzine hail from London and make scuzzy, lo-fi rock. We haven’t heard this kind of stuff in a while. 'Roman Holiday' reminds me of Weezer, a stonier Sum 41, and recent fellow London bands to cause a bit of a fuss, Mazes (see here) and The History of Apple Pie. It’s awesome. Out now on Fat Possum.

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)).