A Tale Of Two Cities
Ahead of the forthcoming hype that there will be regarding Mr Ben Hudson’s second album, Straight No Chaser, executively produced by a certain Kanye West, I thought that I would take some time to recall the first Mr Hudson album.
Of Montreal
We had the chance to chat and dine with a red skinny-jean-clad Jamey Huggins from Of Montreal before the band played the first of two sold-out shows at Boston’s Paradise Rock Club. Read on to find out about on-stage battles, the bustle of being on tour, and Jamey’s new solo side project as James Husband.
Muso’s Guide: So the tour’s been going well so far?
Jamey Huggins: Um, yea, all the shows have been sold out; audiences have been enthusiastic, if not maybe a bit misbehaved. We’ve had a few ejections.
MG: What happened?
JH: You know just, them jumping on stage and getting drunk and stage diving. A couple of our people got hurt [laughs] because of our own antics on stage, fighting. Not really fighting, but choreographed fights, a couple of bumps on the head, you know. I’ve got some wretched calluses. … Continue Reading
.jpg "The Maccabees - Wall Of Arms")
The Maccabees - Wall Of Arms
The Maccabees’ debut album Colour It In, released in 2007, featured some sterling tunes but was perhaps a bit too derivative for its own good: drawing on influences like XTC and Gang of Four, the Brighton-based five-piece were late contributors to the then-fading post-punk revival that had been instigated by bands like Franz Ferdinand, The Futureheads, Dogs Die In Hot Cars and Bloc Party. Still, there was plenty of potential evident in their jerky, energetic compositions and singer Orlando Weeks’ trembling vocals had a distinctive charm of their own.
The release of ‘No Kind Words’ a few weeks back indicated a change of direction: the vocals sounded meaner, the guitars more menacing, the atmosphere more charged and tense, while the similarly dark lyrics alluded to infidelity (“Dear friend of mine is testing his body/Tempting disaster/Testing water with another’s daughter”). It seemed that slightly twee ditties about toothpaste kisses were firmly a thing of the past.
Wall Of Arms’ opening track, ‘Love You Better’ doesn’t dispel the notion, but it’s not quite in the same vein as ‘No Kind Words’ (included here) either: it’s an earnest, impassioned, ‘big’ sounding composition; steadily and deliberately paced, its echoing guitars and reverbed vocals build a sense of anticipation as the song swells into a brass-propelled crescendo. It also proves to be more representative of the album as a whole. On paper, that sounds like the kind of thing that’s going to have many people running back to their Animal Collective records: the world certainly doesn’t lack for fervent, well-meaning guitar bands at this point in time, and being subjected to ‘soul-stirring’ music from the likes of Editors, Snow Patrol or Razorlight over the last few years is enough to make Metal Machine Music sound like a merciful alternative. Nevertheless, the Maccabees bring a pleasing lightness of touch to the formula, avoiding the overblown pompousness that sunk An End Has a Start or the insufferable mawkishness that did for Snow Patrol’s last two records.
Many reviewers have already made copious references to Arcade Fire, and it’s not hard to see why: Weeks’ tremulous, impassioned warbling is highly reminiscent of Win Butler’s style, and the wordless choral vocals on songs like ‘Dinosaurs’ and the title track have the stamp of Funeral all over them. It’s probably no coincidence that the album is produced by Markus Dravs, who also worked on Neon Bible: the intro to ‘Young Lions’, indeed, is a dead ringer for that album’s title track.
Musically, however, it’s less complex and ambitious than all the Arcade Fire comparisons might suggest. ‘One Hand Holding’ is driven along by a limber bassline and a guitar riff almost as catchy as the “Why would you kill it before it dies?” chorus, the exuberant ‘Can You Give It’ will probably prove a live favourite with its bouncy rhythm and handclap-friendly outro, while ‘Wall of Arms’ has enough off-kilter charm about it to overcome its painfully obvious influences.
Overall, it’s enjoyable stuff, if hardly in danger of pushing any envelopes. It might be a stretch to call it essential, but we’d be quite happy to hear this blaring out of car windows come the hot summer days.
Kill It Kid
Recently signed to the ever brilliant One Little Indian, Bath-based five-piece Kill It Kid are, well, how do we put it, er, STONKING? Stonking is the word, yes. To utilise a standard music journo cliché, they are like a feverous Antony Hegarty gone on holiday to New Orleans. That’s actually pretty accurate.
And we were lucky enough to have them answer a series of questions for us. Here’s what happened…
Do you get excited if you hear your song on the radio/someone talking about you?
It really is a thrill to hear praise coming from someone you admire, to some extent it’s a relief to know the effort and hope you’ve put into a band and the songs is being appreciated and accepted! Also it is pretty strange, it’s a personal thing and hearing peoples first impressions. A lot of people say my voice sounds “whiskey-soaked ” for example. I hate whiskey. I’m not very good at eavesdropping but it seems a lot of people are glad we are doing something against the grain. Something separate from the indie bands that seem to have a monopoly over young music fans right now. … Continue Reading
You Am I - Hourly, Daily
Quite possibly the best kept secret in Australian music since The Saints had to leave down under and break London to get noticed, this album should by rights be part of the collection of anyone who has even a passing interest in guitar-based electric music – following on from the proto-grunge of debut Sound As Ever and the poppier Hi-Fi Way this is pure mod-pop heaven.
The Beach Boys
There are probably a few people reading this that have the following timeline in their head about The Beach Boys; early songs about girls and surfing, Brian Wilson hears Rubber Soul and replies with Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson hears Sgt Pepper which drives him to attempt to better that and he goes so far off the rails he ends up with a sand-pit in his living room trying to perfect an album that until 2004 was the most famous lost masterpiece in rock history, Smile!. He then descends into mental illness and drug addiction. In the mean time the other Beach Boys tour without him and release ‘Kokomo’.
Kenickie - At The Club
So it’s early 1997. Oasis are a matter of months away from strapping Britpop to their motorbike and heaving its tired carcass over the metaphorical shark. Blur have already evolved their way out of the scene by indulging their Pavement fantasies on their eponymous classic. And Kenickie, with characteristically disastrous timing are about to unleash their debut album At The Club.
Jeff Buckley - Grace
I find it difficult to listen to Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, and Elliott Smith’s Figure 8 without bringing to mind the tragic events that they foreshadowed. The softer part of my consciousness is prone to rewarding the music with more credit than is warranted, perhaps out of sympathy. With Jeff Buckley’s Grace however, I have no such afflictions.
Having said this, it’s not as if Grace doesn’t try to lure its listeners into that trap on more than one occasion. From the outset, the echoing guitar harmonics of ‘Mojo Pin’ work alongside Buckley’s eerie, wordless vocals to create a soundscape evoking images of the supernatural, the uncontrollable and the inevitable. The proceeding title track goes one further. “Have a little wine, we both might go tomorrow”, Buckley murmurs over a relentless picked guitar pattern, unknowingly poignant in his instruction.
But as I’ve said, Grace is an incredible feat – regardless of the unfortunate circumstances that we now know it in. The next three tracks -’Last Goodbye’, ‘Lilac Wine’ (written by composer James Shelton), and ‘So Real’ – are a chance to evaluate the album from an unbiased standpoint. ‘Last Goodbye’ is perhaps as close as Grace gets to a standard pop song, with Buckley howling “kiss me, please kiss me, kiss me out of desire, baby no consolation” over a background of jangly strumming and wonderfully orchestrated strings. Then enters the slow-burning ‘Lilac Wine’, an altogether more refined affair sure to send any listener into the persona of a dreamy recluse. Following that is ‘So Real’, hiding just around the corner. It’s the heaviest song of the record so far, complete with a startlingly feedback-drenched bridge.
A criticism is that Grace isn’t as concise as it could have been. The idea of Buckley as a small child often crosses my mind, a child unable to remain concentrated on any given thing for a prolonged amount of time. Even within these last three songs, we’ve seen him swing through chart-topper, almost operatic crooner and impassioned rocker.
On the flip side, this range in genre and style also presents itself as a talent; if you’re not convinced by the original ten tracks alone, have a listen to the bonus disc of the Legacy Edition of Grace. It sees Buckley cover influences ranging from country blues on ‘Parchman Farm Blues’ to soul and gospel on ‘I Want Someone Badly’. The disc is a totally separate achievement. … Continue Reading
Orbital II
Rave culture emerged with such a bang in 1988 that most of its vast following was left in an ecstasy fuelled daze for the remainder of the decade. It wasn’t until the early nineties that some of the producers of the era’s finest tracks began to realise the artistic potential of the acid sound. After all, the warehouse parties weren’t about standing around watching men with long hair masturbate guitars. It wasn’t about image or attitude or ego. It was about the crowd, and it was about dancing.
Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
Colossal Youth is likely the least instantly complex album you’ll ever hear. Yet at one at the same time, it could very well also be the simplest and most addictive album to’ve graced your ears by the time you’ve reached the 31st playback. A mere glance at the monochrome album cover (left) would give a hint of that.
Cardiff’s Young Marble Giants are playing their debut (and only) album back in its entirety at ATP: The Fans Strike Back really quite soon, which means that there’s no better time than now to run a load of new converts through a true classic.
The harsh yet metronomic beats of ‘Searching For Mr. Right’ open Colossal Youth, setting the scene for a bass-framed, turn-peppered, termite-infested snapshot of loneliness. The creation of a defining solitude is simply masterful, and the effect of the break at around 2.13 is so as to throw the sound out into the open like a cold hard blow. ‘Credit In The Straight World’ couldn’t be more current, going for broke on timeless threads of popular culture and terminating in a sudden cut-off, subsisting through the posing of heavy syncopation against comforting quavers.
Wispy, tripped-out vocals feature thoughout, notably heavily on ‘Constantly Changing’ with the lyrics reflecting the instabilities of a world out of the voice’s control. The mammoth variation in sound on this album is remarkable, with ‘N.I.T.A’ sounding a little like Medieval plainsong through the eyes of Philip Glass and the Cocteau Twins. Mini-climaxes and flinchy deaths abound, it’s space-like and strangely disconcerting.
The title track is apoplectic, an apt and perhaps subconscious precursor to The Strokes. It’s also clear to see the influence of Young Marble Giants in the material of Maximo Park, namely in the techniques employed by Duncan Lloyd in ‘Books From Boxes’ and Archis Tiku in ‘A19′, the method of using the density of rhythms to deploy emotion.
‘Brand-New-Life’ potters along, luring the listener in via an oh-so-clever pastiche of other music, a reinvention of self-imposed standards with a slipping façade knocking against the protagonist’s nose until the winner finally makes himself known. ‘Wind In The Rigging’ is somehow epic, surely sampling the sound of switching the channel on an analogue portable TV from the ’80s.
The sound throughout is that of only a guitar, bass, vocals and drum-machine, and can be best described as wilfully teetering the line between under-produced and produced to pedantry. Not just that, but the drum machine was one that they assembled themselves from a set of diagrams in a geekish magazine. Rough Trade’s flagship darlings approach their impending apocalypse to truly skin-crawling effect, Alison Statton’s single-note phrases screaming their existences into some pole opposite the mainstream solipsism of the generation.
‘Include Me Out’ has a shufflier bass and a twangier guitar, setting its garagey motifs against each other. And the descending bass melodies on ‘Eating Noddemix’ sounds like voyeurism, somehow creating and sitting within the persona of someone overlooking a scene like a door into a personalityless commentator’s observations. ‘Wurlitzer Jukebox’ is altogether more frantic, sung from a new persona, a faux-cutesy one at that so as to hammer home just how much Statton’s sweet vocals are at odds with their own portrayal.
‘The Man Amplifier’ has a grainy, nigh on 12-bar-blues quality to it, a cinematic dichotomy of circus lines and solitude, whereas ‘Choci Loni’ is quite simply the poster boy for how Colossal Youth, an album so texturally bare, can succeed in having such grandiose ambitions.
‘Salad Days’ is Colossal Youth’s eyesore, with an even lower and more sinister bass. It’s astonishing that it’s part of the same piece as ‘The Taxi’, so ahead of its time and full of blips that it effectively synopsises Ratatat’s back catalogue in just over two minutes.
Both stark and emotionally interwoven, this album hasn’t lost any of its context; it’s precise, mechanical, wistful and limbering, and all within the confines of a limited palate. It’s a middle-class take on a decaying society, an album that exists within the vacuum/spacelessness of its reductionist yet unguarded background. … Continue Reading
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