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Recent Listening
In his oft quoted The Preface, a set of aphorisms forming a mandate for aesthetics, Oscar Wilde affirms that 'all art is quite useless'. I think the purpose of art is a fascinating question and I am, at the very least, open to challenging Wilde's statement. For me, the highest form of art is a reflection of the human condition, whether in part or in whole, an achievement which is anything but 'useless'. For most people inculcated in Western materialism, art's primary purpose is entertainment and in the same way that traditional academic subjects are now critiqued for their market value, so traditional art forms have become rather shallow commodities. Most of us get more out of the Far Side or Dilbert than out of Leonardo or Rubens, but we're also conscious how talented song-writing is buried under an edifice of boy bands and talentless manufactured pop.
I try and reflect this in these reviews by evaluating the music I'm listening to not only around song-writing, vocal, musical and production talents, but also against current industry paradigms: in other words, is this recording pushing at the boundaries of music either as an art form or as a technical achievement. Portishead's debut opus, 1994's Dummy, was certainly in this mould; a torch-bearer for the trip-hop genre, or Bristol sound, which also spawned Massive Attack and Tricky. It incorporated lo-fi samples, setting them against ambient electronic music, which accompanied Beth Gibbons melancholy vocals to create something truly haunting. It remains my fourth favourite album of all time. Three years later they followed it up with an eponymous album, which essentially followed the same formula to good effect. Subsequently, they disappeared into the ether.
Inevitably, therefore, the re-emergence of Portishead, more than ten years after their last studio recording, was an exciting and intriguing prospect. The result of the hiatus could easily have been an ill-conceived and nostalgic attempt to recapture those heady days of the nineties, but fortunately this is an altogether different beast. It certainly exudes experimentation and a desire for innovation, but it is without doubt largely inaccessible. The normal boundaries of pop are eschewed, no bad thing in itself, but it's difficult to evaluate what stands in its stead. Silence, We Carry On and Machine Gun just seem to go on changelessly on a perpetual loop; choruses no longer featuring in Portishead's musical repertoire. Hunter mercilessly provides some breaks, while The Rip is allowed to grow and emerge from a sort of folk beginning into a Kraftwerkian finale. Gibbons' acoustically-orientated solo projects have brought a certain influence, notably on Deep Water, which sounds like it was recorded on location in Alabama. I swear she's out of tune on Magic Doors.
Consequently, the unimaginatively-titled
Third appears to be set-up for labelling with that most ambivalent
of descriptive terms: 'a grower'. I have to say that I've had it for a
few months now and it hasn't really worked any subliminal charm on me,
which is really disappointing. It's not that it's pretentious, nor that
it's dull. If anything it's too imaginative and probably works better as
a study of music as art, rather than as art per se. I really like
Small and Threads in particular, but generally I found the
tracks themselves wanting empathy as a consequence of their
self-indulgence. As such this is probably going to be a marmite album
for most people: you'll either love it or hate it, and while I'd give it
five fish for effort, in reality, I'm unlikely to get it out of the CD
drawer too often in the future.
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Listen to: |
'Third'
Portishead
(April 2008)
Silence
Hunter
Nylon Smile
The Rip
Plastic
We Carry On
Deep Water
Machine Gun
Small
Magic Doors
Threads
Ah, now, Elbow. These five gentlemen from Manchester are without doubt the most under-rated band of our day. Three cracking albums out already and yet they've barely scratched the UK record-buying public's imagination. I can only say this is a sad reflection on an audience fed a diet of Pop Idol and X-Factor, rather than any failure on the part of Guy Garvey and co. I still remember coming across Asleep in the Back, their debut album, and falling hopelessly in love with it. The band have matured across subsequent releases and this, their fourth effort, has at least garnished a top twenty single in Grounds for Divorce.
Elbow are a little bit pop and a little bit indie, but they have always had a willingness to play around and experiment. Seldom Seen Kid starts slowly with Starlings, a love poem curiously interrupted by horn blasts, a slightly uncomfortable opener. The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver is similarly stark and epic, while the curious end note We're Away is vaguely reminiscent of the old Billie Holliday song Solitude. Mostly though, this is a pretty mainstream album: keyboard and guitar driven, radio friendly and inoffensive.
The sound is slick and, this time around, produced by keyboard player Craig Potter, but I found the song-writing a little variable. While The Bones of You and Mirrorball sound fresh, and Grounds for Divorce and One Day Like This are very catchy, An Audience with the Pope and Some Riot felt relatively uninspired. There doesn't seem to be quite as much invention as on previous albums and they are perhaps at risk of starting to become a bit MOR, which would be tragic. Fortunately it hasn't happened yet.
Garvey
continues to deliver his lines with almost trademark deadpan intonation, but one
of the great strengths of this band is in its lyrics, which consistently support
the kitchen sink drama on the surface with poetic depth. Take the opener, for
example: yes I guess I'm asking you / to back a horse that's good for glue
and nothing else / but find a man that's truer is more than a working class
love song, it's a corrective to the romantic fiction pervading television and
cinema. At the other end is the simply gorgeous farewell to a Friend of Ours:
never very good at goodbyes / so (gentle shoulder charge) love you mate
encapsulating homosociability.
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Listen to: |
'The Seldom Seen Kid'
Elbow
(March 2008)
Starlings
The Bones of You
Mirrorball
Grounds for Divorce
An Audience with the Pope
Weather to Fly
The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver
The Fix
Some Riot
One Day Like This
Friend of Ours
We're Away
So then, Radiohead. Five blokes from Abingdon. One of the most hyped alternative bands. Thom Yorke, their frontman, has been acclaimed a genius. There is no doubting their commercial and critical success. I remember hearing Creep for the first time at University and subsequently falling in love with The Bends. Yet Yorke's conviction, at the turn of the century, to explore different genres and move away from straightforward indie rock resulted in the rather anomalous Kid A and Amnesiac, confounding fans and dividing the critics. Their last release, 2003's Hail to the Thief, was a move back towards a guitar orientated sound and their seventh album In Rainbows, released digitally at the end of last year, delightfully continues that trend.
This is a fab album. There is really nothing negative I could say about it unless it were to pick on the length, which at 42½ minutes is a bit short, but also arguably cuts out the fillers. Each of these ten songs is beautifully crafted, layered with sounds, creating the textual depth one has come to expect from a Radiohead album. Yorke delivers the vocals with his usual evocation: passionate rather than classical, drawing the listener into the themes under exploration; making you a passenger rather than a spectator. The musicianship is clinically delivered, yet retains energy and pathos, while the electronica has not been entirely abandoned. Nigel Godrich's production is solid.
As well as complexities in the depth of sound, the songs here are also allowed to develop lengthways, particularly on Bodysnatchers, Weird Fishes/Arpeggi (my favourite track) and Jigsaw Falling Into Place; nuanced shifts as the tracks progress. Within this landscape the lyrics concentrate exclusively on disparate relationships, coping with change, sometimes for the worse: you used to be alright / what happened? and sometimes for better: why should I stay? / I'd be crazy not to follow / follow where you lead. There is some incongruity in the sentiments, such as I only stick with you because there are no others / you're all I need; but then life is often ambivalent and the pictures painted are all the more credible for it. Although the album feels dystopian, there is a subtle optimism: wish away the nightmare Yorke sings, you've got a light / you can feel it on your back.
Although
In Rainbows is far more experimental than your average rock album, it's
very accessible. The overall mood is laid back, yet redolent. These are love
songs with a twist. It's just a beautiful album; their best since OK Computer.
Well worth a listen.
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Listen to: |
'In Rainbows'
Radiohead
(October 2007)
15 Step
Bodtsnatchers
Nude
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
All I Need
Faust Arp
Reckoner
House of Cards
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Videotape
I still remember the day, towards the end of 1987, when I first heard Björk Guðmundsdóttir performing Birthday in Icelandic with the Sugarcubes on the Chart Show and rushed out to buy the seven-inch from Music Junction in Solihull (where Fat Face stands today). Yes, I know I'm showing my age, but the point is that Björk is rather like marmite: you tend to love her or hate her and I fell in love with that voice from the first. Now her problem was and remains the desire to experiment with everything, which in a sense is fine and certainly laudable, but it does make her an artist one is compelled to engage with. Debut remains her most accessible work and novices should start there, while Vespertine is her strongest album.
Now, back in the days of the Sugarcubes, the driving artistic force was Einar Örn Benediktsson, whose mantra of 'good taste is the enemy of creativity' legitimised his occasional appearance with a trumpet or shouting in the middle of songs. This was arguably 'experimental' but it certainly did not ensure good music and Björk's departure to begin a solo career in 1992 was warmly welcomed in Bates towers. Never the less, she's been less than prodigious, Volta representing her sixth studio release in fifteen years and her first since the bizarre acapella offering of Medúlla in 2004. At least this is a return to the staple diet of weird and wonderful electronica.
Eccentrically packaged and beautifully delivered, Volta was written (with a little help) and produced (also with a little help) by Björk herself. It comprises ten songs, all essentially pop. There are a number of guest appearances, notably Antony Hegarty (of Antony and the Johsnons) who shares the vocal duties on My Juvenile and The Dull Flame of Desire, a reworking of a poem by Fyodor Tyutchev. Timbaland produced Earth Intruders and Innocence and co-produced Hope. The songs themselves are, however, pretty bland and this is extremely disappointing from someone with so much artistic freedom. Maybe it is the R'n'B influence, but there are few real tunes here, just one sequence looped, and no hooks. Wanderlust and Pneumonia get there in the end, while I See Who You Are is the stand-out track for me.
Fortunately there is not much bad taste, although singing about the evils of a pregnant suicide bomber may raise eyebrows and the insipid Declare Independence has caused controversy relating to Kosovo and Tibet. Björk's themes are often deeply psychological explorations and the lyrics are very interesting. Earth intruders is apparently about the poor, but the imagery was lost on me, whereas Vertebrae by Vertebrae is a clear and clever excursion into growing emotional tension inherent in 'putting your back up'. I particularly liked Pneumonia in which the sorrow of unrequited love is (I think) an illness: your lungs are mourning TB style / all the stillborn love that could have happened, ending with the affirming, to shut yourself up is the hugest crime of them all / you're just crying after all.
So there
are things to enjoy here, but not enough I fear. The music is simply not catchy
enough to support the lyrics and it's not conceptual enough to move beyond being
a pop album. It sits in the middle, which potentially makes it a grower, but I
think Volta is likely to disappoint most people. In the final analysis I
think to myself, if this was the debut work of an unknown artist, would it get
the record-buying public's attention? Here I'm afraid the answer is no. I fear,
after Medúlla, this could be the end of the affair.
'Volta'
Björk
(May 2007)
Earth Intruders
Wanderlust
The Dull Flame of Desire
Innocence
I See Who You Are
Vertebrae by Vertebrae
Pneumonia
Hope
Declare Independence
My Juvenile
I See Who You Are (Mark Bell Mix)
The amusingly titled Pigeon Detectives are a five piece indie-punk band from Leeds. I caught them on the radio and also had a listen to Brabbs' copy of their debut Wait for Me before finally taking the plunge myself. The album has yielded four delightfully catchy singles: I Found Out, Romantic Type, I'm Not Sorry and Take Her Back all breaking the UK Top 40 over the last twelve months. As such they are now one of the leading acts in this genre.
Musically there is nothing not to commend on Wait for Me. The musicianship is solid, particularly Oliver Main's lead guitar, Matthew Bowman's vocals are adequate as is Will Jackson's production. The songs do not really deviate from the upbeat indie guitar sound, suggesting a lack of imaginative depth, apart from the beginning of I Can't Control Myself, which is bizarrely found at the end of Caught in Your Trap. The argument that 'if it ain't wrong don't fix it' only gets you so far in art; I like muesli, but I'm glad it's not all I ever eat. Never the less, Main and Bowman definitely have an ear for a good hook and this is a confident and encouraging debut.
Where the albums falls over is in the lyrics, which are comprehensively about getting laid. In this they join a long list of acts contributing to moral decay, teenage pregnancies and the rise of sexually transmitted diseases. A soap box? I hope not, but I recognise the significant influence of music on popular culture and in particular, youth. In the opener, Bowman defends himself: It's not that I'm not the romantic type / it's just that I choose what I choose to like, getting wasted and shagging obviously at the forefront of his mind.
Epitomising this lyrical nadir is You Know I Love You, in which the female tendency to equate sex with love is reversed: I gotta see that you care / you're going down tonight / I wanna feel you there / you know I love you / take off your clothes / it's alright. Only once or twice do they lift themselves out of the gutter, and then never with the poignancy of We Are Scientists or the wit of The Fratellis. The quip I see your conscience is wrapped round your ankles is perhaps the high water mark.
Great
music, but ultimately puerile and unedifying.
'Wait For Me'
The Pigeon Detectives
(May 2007)
Romantic Type
I Found Out
Don't Know How to Say Goodbye
Caught in Your Trap
I Can't Control Myself
I'm Not Sorry
You Know I Love You
Stop or Go
You Better Not Look My Way
Take Her Back
Wait for Me
I'm Always Right
The Reminder is the fourth album by Canadian singer-songwriter Leslie Feist, although it has garnished her with far greater commercial recognition on account of the success of the single 1234, which was used for the iPod Nano advert. Feist is an extremely active collaborator with other artists and it is in this context that I first came across her, writing and performing with Kings of Convenience on their excellent Riot on an Empty Street.
This is quite simply an excellent album. It blends a variety of styles, primarily folk, but also pop, soul and blues. There is plenty of playful experimentation, all of which comes off and adorns each song on the record with a unique air. The foot-tappingly addictive Sealion, which I believe is a play on a Nina Simone classic about high-class prostitution, starts out all jazzy but gets quite rocky mid-way through. Conversely, Honey Honey is minimalist. There are plenty of more thoughtful and introverted compositions here, the overall mood never being less than upbeat however.
Undoubtedly The Reminder has also benefited from calling in a few favours on all those collaborations as there are a number of guest contributors. Notably, Kings of Convenience's Eirik Glambek Boe duets on the closing track , How My Heart Behaves. The myriad of colour in this album is also blessed with some varied musicianship: banjo, harp and melodica all making pleasant, if unusual appearances. Vocal, instrumental and production work is all of a high order.
Feist is clearly capable of delivering a tune, but is also willing to characterise empathy in her method in order to evoke. So on The Park and The Limit to Your Love she is crisp and precise, while on Intuition in particular there is real emotion sticking in the lines of a relatively simple composition. The songs themselves are all rooted in love and relationships, particularly focussing on their frailties and emphasising themes of self-destruction: I'll be the one who'll break my heart she sings, and elsewhere, even if he wanted to / do you think he'd come back? Yet she retains a sense of optimism de profundis right to the end: Your shoulder / the mooring for me / like water lost in the sea.
Moving,
reflective lyrics, set to beautiful and optimistic melodies. Diverse, yet
delivered with confidence. This is a feast on the ears and I'm really, really
impressed.
'The Reminder'
Feist
(April 2007)
So Sorry
I Feel It All
My Moon My Man
The Park
The Water
Sealion
Past in Present
The Limit to Your Love
1234
Brandy Alexander
Intuition
Honey Honey
How My Heart Behaves
Honey Honey (live)
