Janapdroids
Art and music is nearly always worth far more than the sum of its parts. I mean, all Van Gogh ever did was slap some oil paints with a horsehair brush onto cheap canvas. And all Shakespeare did was to dip a feather plucked from some poor bird’s backside into a pot of ink and scrawl on some cheap parchment.
Iron and Wine
It never fails to surprise me, the unexpected places you can find the music that you end up falling in love with.
Woods - Songs Of Shame
In another of our world-famous head-to-heads, we’ve got two people giving a miniature take on the same album. Because we’re socialists and that. Have a read…
Take One – by Russell Warfield:
Songs of Shame starts in a fairly promising manner. Some of the bands within the current lo-fi movement could be accused of employing low budget production in an attempt to bestow their songs with a false sense of texture through the layering of fuzz and noise whilst neglecting to actually write solid tunes. In welcome contrast, then, the opening tracks of Woods’ album keep the mix clean enough for the listener to easily discern vaguely infectious melodies and guitar lines. … Continue Reading
White Rabbits
When I first heard this offering from White Rabbits I thought I was uninspired to write about it because it was around 1am and I’d had a long day of lounging, but with the help of second opinions from third parties and repeated next day listens I’ve realised it’s just because it’s incredibly dull.
Fanfarlo
Shambling into earshot, the opening of ‘I’m A Pilot’ sounds like a kitchen just got up and walked. Drawers of cutlery rock back and forth, lino floors rise and fall, shimmying out of the house and into the outside world.
Emmy The Great - First Love
Take One – by Andrew Schagen:
Women
Alberta’s Women are all men and are possibly as lo-fi as you can get. They flip-flop between largely instrumental drone-like numbers (’Woodbine’) and more sixties-influenced poppier tracks (’ Black Rice’, ‘Shaking Hands’), the movement between which unfortunately doesn’t always quite work. Whilst the “proper” songs have shades of The Brian Jonestown Massacre and early Sonic Youth about them the instrumentals are kind of sub-Godspeed, You Black Emperor! and definitely the weaker tracks on the album.
The raw materials here and the fact he’s signed to Ninja Tunes give faith that Fink won’t be next year’s David Gray. It would be easy for him to go that route, and on paper (laid back, guitar-and-voice, little vocal sketches) that’s a worrying possibility.
There are problems with this sort of album. It’s the type of record you’d slip on for a cosy night getting tender with your love. It’s the type of record you’d want on a Sunday, winding down. It’s the type of album you’d want on for a nice relaxing bath and, even worse, it’s the type of score you’d give to a dinner party. A dinner party.
But it’s gorgeous, it’s intimate and it’s dense with layers. If you want parallels that won’t make you panic (yes, there is an element of Jack Johnson here), think Tricky and, particularly on duet ‘Hush Now’ with Nina Grace, Tricky’s one-time lover Martina Topley-Bird.
It’s jazzy without being Jazz FM fodder. It’s slow without being boring. Slow like making love, not slow like watching a casserole cook. Like deck shoes and a neckerchief: ideal for summer evenings.
Throw away your painkillers… I’ve found the perfect hangover remedy. Victor Malloy are the antidote to all that’s bad in this world – they’re soothing, funky, syrupy and gorgeously tuneful – all in the opening sequence of single ‘Night in Vegas’. I say “they†because Victor Malloy is not the ambiguous gentleman that one suspects. He’s the pseudonym of Russ Jones and Kenny Mackracken, who make like two Badly Drawn Boys with a mission to make the world smile.
Recent comments