My Girls - Animal Collective

This is the video for "My Girls" by Animal Collective from their latest album Post Merriweather Pavilion. It is a beautiful and joyous record, hazy and indistinct before becoming blisteringly intense. It is far from the homogenised mainstream that alternative music has collapsed into through a succession of marketing strategies, opportunism, rank conservatism and pure laziness. When I have had enough time to digest it and process meaningful thoughts regarding it I may post a review, but this is my favourite song from the new album. It matches "Fireworks" in terms of woozy, hypnotic beauty. There is an elusive quality to their best work, as the waves of sound blend with your own thoughts and you feel all cognition ebb away in a Pantheistic haze. That much of the lyrical content concerns itself with domesticity and personal values only reiterates the basic humanity that runs through much of the record, as they find joy in the most prosaic of subject matter.

"I don't mean to seem like I care about material things, like a social status, I just want four walls and adobe slats for my girls..."

Lullaby - Keith

The latest single from Manchester based band Keith sees them expanding on their eclectic debut Red Thread with a more focused approach and sound. While “Up in the Clouds”, the first single from second album Vice and Virtue, sounded like Kasabian covering “Elevation” by U2 their new release sees them venturing into the area of upbeat, intelligent pop inhabited by acts such as Guillemots. Taking a scattershot approach to genre and a non-elitist approach to influence it posits them with other acts that propagate this ‘new’ pop. The tight locked-in groove of the drums and elasticity of the bassline recall early post-punk pioneers A Certain Ratio before the descending piano melody that provides the song with its leitmotif intervenes. Guitarist Mark Nicholls adds splashes of colour, effortlessly counterpointing the melody before adding jazzy chords to the mix.
Brayston’s caterwauling vocal pronunciations inhabit the same style as the so-called ‘Brit’ school by way of Morrissey, although disappointingly they are not region specific. Producer Dan Carey, who has previously remixed CSS, Hot Chip and Franz Ferdinand, layers the track in shimmering electronica which lends an ethereal and aspirational aspect that Brayston’s keening vocals mirror and build on.
The whole edifice is consummate and well crafted but ultimately lacking in punch to really render itself in your cranium. The escapism of the lyrical content is too staid in the images drawn to capture the listener. But across the three minutes of the track there is much to commend sonically. With a keen ear for texture the band and producer Carey have constructed an interesting artefact that will lend itself well to remixers.

This article was originally produced for http://www.clickmusic.com/. To read the music review of Lullaby by Keith on the site, please click on the article title.

2008: Rant and Celebration

2008 has been a strange year for alternative music. It has fragmented and dispersed. Many genres and sub-genres have been reanimated this year, such as electro, IDM, shoegaze, techno (of the minimal variety) and various other slumbering leviathans. Of course, the majority of these ‘genres’ are simply all encompassing labels half-heartedly and lazily applied to new acts, in particular if a new act references a previous canonical act. There is a huge difference between being influenced by someone and ripping them off. The problem I have with revivalists is that they lack any sense of context; Rubbish Band 2008 may dress like The Specials or Madness circa 1981, but their songs lack any sense of social or political comment leaving them as empty ciphers, an attenuation of the original genre.

World music has also enjoyed a renaissance this year, being dragged from the domains of the wholefood cafe into the popular sphere. This is mainly due to the use of Afrobeat polyrhythms by Foals and the numerous name checks for Peter Gabriel by Vampire Weekend et al.

Many of the bands that arrived in the first wave of the indie explosion in 2003-04 have either disappeared or produced disappointing follow ups. The whole industry is beset by short-termism; acts are marketed and promoted heavily on the back of one or two singles. The hype and pressure is immense, and invariably the resulting album is dissatisfying. Bands are pushed into the studio with little real experience, little songcraft. Fashion and hype have distended the alternative music community, but this perversely has its upsides. A real sense of DIY has slowly crept through over the last few years, inspired no doubt by the success of The Smell and other US meta-venues, and this can be attributed to the dissatisfaction and alienation many feel from the appropriation of alternative music.

2008 has also been the year in which the technological advances of recent years have allowed artists to step out of their bedrooms and release their records. There is a huge proliferation of ‘bedroom’ artists out there at the moment – whether they be electro acts, acoustic performers, singer/songwriters, DJs – that have been unleashed in the last 12 months. One thing that has also been noticeable is that there are various artists who are reclaiming the label of ‘indie’ – that is independently released music, with little or no involvement or interference from major labels. Of course, the music industry is a corporate beast, and beset on all sides it resorts to dirty tricks to ensnare its audience and make us part with our filthy money. Thus the knuckle-scraping monotony of ‘landfill’ indie, coffee table indie, mortgage indie that is peddled to a receptive audience who listen to the songs in indie discos and hairdressers. Most of these acts are ELEMENTAL, interreferential and more interested in ticking boxes and appealing to a set demographic – asymmetric fringes, skinny jeans, leather jackets, jangly guitars, closed hi-hats – than providing any depth or intensity. I call it record collection music; bands cannibalise various ‘canonical’ acts so that the end result comes out as paint by numbers effort. Music has a grammar and a teleological design, and this can be shamefacedly ransacked and appropriated. Example: About eight seconds into “Obstacle 1” by Interpol a chiming lead guitar line enters above the minor key riff. This lead ‘style’ has been purloined by many bands, but none so obviously as by the Pigeon Detectives. In almost every of their songs this lead guitar ‘style’ is utilised. But hopefully things are changing. What is also apparent from the last 12 months is that the audience themselves are evolving and maturing – those fans that would once have been happy with a Killers album in their Christmas stocking would have been requesting M83, or Deerhunter, or Cut Copy or Crystal Castles, or Welcome to Mali by Amadou and Mariam, or a minimal techno mixtape.

We as humans have an innate desire to catalogue, and alternative music fans have a greater desire than most it seems to immerse themselves in ephemera. End of year lists are subjective and slanted, frankly rank and full of absurdities. I tried to avoid compiling my own. But there were many things last year that have rocked my boat. Here’s a small subjective list, in no particular order.

The return of Portishead
If I’m completely honest, I had forgotten about Portishead. I own their two studio albums Dummy and Portishead and the subsequent live album Roseland NYC Live, but hadn’t listened to them in a long time. If it hadn’t been for Third they would forever be linked in popular consciousness to trip-hop, 90s dinner parties and This Life. But it turns out they had been busy pursuing solo careers and other projects before reconvening to write for this album, rejecting whole swathes of material, agonising over the final content before re-emerging with this behemoth of a record. There is a theme of separation, of dislocation that runs through the entire record that living in a city as rich in cultural history and the history of segregation as Bristol (racial/social/economic) can only exacerbate. Yet they haven’t escaped the cultural formations of human community, and their return is welcome. There are many crucial cuts on Third, from the tribal drums of opener “Silence” to the familiar chiaroscuro of “Hunter” and “Plastic”. Yet this isn’t Dummy 2 as much as Beth Gibbons voice provides a dialogue and continuation with their past, and this is proved irrefutably by two outstanding tracks, both of which convey a sense of mechanised humanity. “Machine Gun” sounds like New Order with all the heart and soul ripped out, the euphoric hope of redemption stilted, ossified, and is relentless in its brutal disarticulation. But it is “The Rip” that is the central song on this album, with its portents of junctures, breaks, death (RIP), and ruin. It is as pastoral folk bleeds seamlessly into motorik synths, as Gibbons’ vocal is elongated across the divide that I knew this would be my favourite moment of 2008. In fact it was so good Radiohead covered it.

Eraser - No Age
I was turned on to No Age by a friend (who knows his music) while we were chatting about Liars, who No Age were supporting at the time. I duly bought Weirdo Rippers, which I thought was good, and awaited their debut proper expectantly. There is something heroic about a two piece band, and this is particularly true of No Age. Every song sounds massive, tumultuous but they juxtapose this with passages of noise and harmonious melodies. “Eraser” is the most perfect song on Nouns, the opening choppy guitar bars delaying gratification before exploding into the verse. The progression in production values and songwriting is noticeable, and Dean Spunt does more than just shout over the top of the songs. Underneath the spiralling walls of noise laid down by guitarist Randy Randall lays an acoustic guitar, gently picking out a counter-melody. They are punk rock, but so much more. They are the closest a band has got to the credence laid down by Hüsker Dü and Mission of Burma, that you can create a right racket while underpinning it with the sweetest of melodies. No Age is deconstructive, reductive yet slowly rebuild on each track. The whole effect is exultant, psyche-hardcore. A real triumph and a rare instance of a band living up to their hype.

Lakes
Not many people know about this band yet (I only do as I am a Kentish lad, and they have been involved with Unlabel, a fine record label based in Royal Tunbridge Wells). During 2008 they have endured line up changes and began recording a debut album. You can find a split EP with fellow Men of Kent Honey Ride Me a Goat on Unlabel’s site here. I’m going to try and avoid the usual slew of hyperbolic verbiage, but they are a very good band, combining the minimalism of post punk with the more expansive sounds of US hardcore. Key track on the split is “Van Ritters”. Starting off with a discordant chord ringing out, the spoken word refrain is inscrutable, de-centred. Guitars are taut, brittle, heavy but without heavy use of distortion. Lakes throw stark relief upon the alabaster face of flaccid uncertainty of this woebegone decade. Their fractal, dissolute mini-narratives are perfectly suited for this age, combining grit and subtlety. Their songs aren’t purely a list of elements or influences; in a postmodern age where the very notion of authenticity is constantly brought into question they attempt to escape questions of categorisation. By refusing to compartmentalise their art they escape formula. Expect big things in 2009.

L.E.S. Artistes – Santogold
However much you may question her motives (and it is true that artifice does loom large on her eponymous debut) “L.E.S. Artistes” is an unquestionable triumph, cold and remote in its refined majesty. Maybe it’s the image of Santi White bestride a horse in the video that lends this song its aloofness, but as White disseminates the idea of creativity and authenticity it is impossible not to be cowed. The title recognises the derogatory term of ‘artiste’ – traditionally the idiom used in the film/entertainment industry to describe the talent, and implying the sense of procurement and ownership the industry has over the artistes. The song propagates the eternal struggle against objectification, being pigeonholed and attempting to remain creative under this pressure.

Minimal techno
2008 was the year in which the influence of minimalism in music (and in music criticism) began to be realised. Foals name checking Steve Reich at the start of the year, as has every other pseudo-intellectual music publication (print or web) since. Skeletalism vs Massification. Structural repetition. There’s something liberating in losing yourself in a particular layer or groove, in the fabric of a song. Check out Robert Hood, Audiojack, Perc, and Kompakt. Listen on the internet, go to a club and get involved.

Radio Heart – The Futureheads
I have a lot of love for The Futureheads’ debut album; its jerky, angular rhythms and tightly layered vocals (performed by all four members) were concise, brittle, and perfectly formed. Fifteen tracks came in at around 35 minutes. XTC, Gang of Four, Wire and many other post-punk bands were frames of reference, but The Futureheads made the sound their own due to their region specificity (they were Mackems and proud of it) and the aforementioned vocals; the a cappella “Danger of the Water” sounded more like the The Flying Pickets than Devo. After the rush of their debut their follow up News and Tributes was savaged by many journalists simply for being different. It is a strong album, dowsed in a wistful melancholia that showcased their pop sensibilities. But it is clear listening to their third album This Is Not The World that their sound has changed. The minor key guitar lines and erratic cadences of before have been replaced with choppy, major key power chords. This isn’t always a bad thing, as “Radio Heart” testifies. A glorious song that manages to be both strident and introspective simultaneously, that apparently they just threw together in twenty minutes during recording sessions with producer Youth.

Street Horrrsing – Fuck Buttons
As was perhaps intended Fuck Buttons first came to my attention (like Holy Shit and Fucked Up) through the absurdity of their name. Checking them out on Youtube (research tool of the gods) I found a camera phone video for “Bright Tomorrow” and was instantly entranced. I then saw part of their set when they supported Battles at the Astoria in May. Equal parts My Bloody Valentine, drone, electro and ambience they are another act who distil everything I think and believe about music at the moment. Reflective and then coruscating they construct beautiful ambient passages and then defile them with overdriven keys and atonal dissonant noise. Gossamer strands of twinkling keyboards are clawed back from their cerebral peaks by more earthbound synths. Produced by Mogwai’s John Cummings and Tim Cedar from Part Chimp, the duo have created a subterranean delight. Yes they have embraced by the cool set, but don't hold it against them.

My Bloody Valentine
Truth be told, MBV reunited in 2007, yet it is in 2008 that their reformation began to be fully noticed and appreciated. For years they had appeared as a spectre, the band that almost made it, the Banquo’s ghost of the alternative scene and the creation myths that surrounded the genesis of 1991’s classic set Loveless are legendary. Yet last year their cultural importance began to be felt once again – they were referenced constantly by the music press, and any band that bore even the faintest resemblance to the hallmarks of MBV (waves of distorted guitars, gently nuanced vocals sublimated within the mix, unfocused dreamstate passages, ambiguity) were instantly branded as their natural successors. Thus the dreaded ‘nu-gaze’ term was born, but as usual this was a misnomer. 2008 was a good year for reformations, reissues, re-releases and has provided a healthy jab in the arm for the music industry; in terms of both CD and ticket sales (see my earlier piece on this cult). What has also happened is that there has been a revival in interest of other bands that either echoed or simply appropriate MBV’s core elements. Some are good, such as Ride (a mooted reunion is apparently blocked by a clause in Andy Bell’s contract with Oasis), but others such as Slowdive were simply Johnny-come-lately bands riding on the tailcoats of their more illustrious predecessors. None could touch the almost imperial majesty of Loveless though, and for this reason 2008 could be said to be MBV’s year.

Microcastle/Weird Era Cont – Deerhunter
Every now and again an album will come along that will possess you, an album that you cannot stop listening to, cannot stop thinking about. Microcastle was that album for me in 2008. It is a distillation of everything I like about music. At some point I will post a full review of the album, but for me it was the best guitar record released last year.

I Will Possess Your Heart – Death Cab For Cutie
I have never really been a fan of this act, but as soon as I heard this song I was bewitched. The tumbling piano chords, rolling bass and echo laden guitar of the four minute intro captivated me; maybe it’s the bravado of releasing an eight and a half minute song as an opening single for their sixth album Narrow Stairs, but it’s a spectacular rebranding.

Receivers – Parts & Labor
More expansive than previous outings, their third features a new guitarist who adds extra layers of textural tension, heightening the drama on each track. A very good album.

Skeleton – Abe Vigoda
Coming from the same LA scene as No Age, HEALTH, Mika Miko et al has proved a blessing and a curse for Abe Vigoda. Sometimes being associated with a scene can detract from the reception a band obtains, but it also provides a necessary leg up. Their second album is less abrasive than their debut, and contains lush ‘tropical’ (to use their term) punk. The whole sound is so organic and tactile and is a major development in their career.

Real Magick
Thames Estuary ‘scenesters’ These New Puritans began 2008 in a flurry of activity. Their debut album Beat Pyramid was released in January, held over from 2007. There is a plurality of sounds and influences in their music, codes, numerology and cryptograms that need to be deciphered. The very name Beat Pyramid implies a geometric precision to the (macro) music. Consider the precise beats and samples of “Swords of Truth”, and how this washes into the ethereal “Doppelgänger”. The album starts and closes with the same piece of music in a cyclical fashion, so the album could be looped forever, drifting slowly to infinity. This idea of repetition is perhaps derived from The Fall. Listen to Jack Barnett’s colloquial regionalism, the way they attempt to create their own lexicology, and then listen to Hex Enduction Hour. Images of the uncanny and images of banality are prevalent in both. “Elvis” is a reductionist pop song, perfect in every way and showcases TNP’s ability to write a gorgeous chorus (check “Numerology AKA Numbers” for further proof). Their scattershot approach and the collage like effect of the album don’t always strike the target but they are genuinely one of the most interesting British bands around.

David Andrew Sitek – Praise Be!
Responsible for producing two of the best albums of the year (Foals debut Antidotes and his own band TV on the Radio’s Dear Science) as well as the surprisingly good Anywhere I Lay My Head by Scarlett Johansson, Sitek became the most sought after producer this year. He worked on Telepathe’s debut Dance Mother (released 26th January 2009) and I think his intelligent use of space and dynamic will work well on their dub heavy sound. The Foals album is good, I think the band have a lot of potential although I wouldn’t consider their music to be as leftfield as many in the music press as there are definite rockist elements to their songs. But Sitek has covered the cracks in this record with a glossy sheen, and the use of horns in both records is particularly effective.

There have been so many good releases this year that I haven’t been able to touch on – Oxford Collapse proving there is life in the post-hardcore dog yet, This Town Needs Guns and their other Big Scary Monster brethren, Visiter by Dodos, Beck’s eerie and apocalyptic return Modern Guilt with Danger Mouse behind the desk, the insanity of Pulled Apart By Horses, Kong, Department of Eagles’ In Ear Park providing solace for those waiting for the next Grizzly Bear album, the baroque Americana of Fleet Foxes, Shearwater, The Raveonettes continued reimagining of Spector/Jesus & The Mary Chain, the Animal Collective EP, M83’s nostalgic look at growing up in the 80s, Cut Copy, Wolf Parade, Crystal Castles 8 bit robot love songs, Jaguar Love, David Byrne & Brian Eno’s wonderful return, and Little Boots and Lykke Li showing that even if Björk or Goldfrapp make a bad album there is more than enough synthesised female-fronted pop around to suffice – to prove that all things considered 2008 has been a good year for alternative music. Beyond the shallow hype and calculating marketing there is a lot out there, not all of it London-centric as there are vibrant scenes emerging all over the country. Embrace and enjoy.

RIP Davey Graham 1940 - 2008

This guy could play, but never made any money from music. Life is not fair.

The Cult of Reformation

So, Blur have reformed and joined the ranks of all those other museum pieces that will be gracing vast corporate arenas and the great parks of this sceptred isle. When their reformation was announced their web forum received 60 hits per second and the 45,000 tickets for their initial show in Hyde Park next summer sold out in two minutes. An additional date has been added due to its success.
Blur went on an indefinite hiatus after touring their seventh record Think Tank (guitarist Graham Coxon had left the band halfway through recording to continue with his nascent solo career, branding singer Damon Albarn an “egomaniac”). Since then Albarn has acceded to his wanderlust and been involved with the Gorillaz project, the Monkey: Journey to the West stage show, the Africa Express revue, Amadou and Mariam’s album and The Good, The Bad and The Queen group (whose eponymous album I believe to be one of the finest this decade). Coxon has continued his solo career with mixed success, bassist Alex James is a farmer and writes a column for The Guardian on his exploits while drummer Dave Rowntree is a prospective politician.
The problem with reformations is that the majority of music fans will have a frozen image in their mind, a snapshot of an artist suspended in time. So when they have drained the aspic from themselves, how do we react to the reformed band? There is huge demand to see ‘classic’ bands in a live setting, and in the very recent past there has been a rash of bands that have reformed. Our collective cultural nostalgia means the bands are effectively fetishised. My own image of Blur is that of a young band on the brink of releasing Parklife, arguably their career high and the album that entrenched them in popular cultural memory (via the Britpop ‘war’ with Oasis).
The history of rock is an illusion; its historicism presents such a narrow viewpoint, surrounded by mirages, becoming a double aspect rather than a singular truth. Blur will always remain thus in popular consciousness: estuary twang,” Woohoo!”, Blur vs Oasis, cocaine addiction, the Mogwai t-shirt. In all probability they won’t be able to escape this image, and will have this imprint of a collective cultural memory superimposed upon them for ever more.
Blur’s reformation is mainly due to a deal struck with the American promoter Live Nation, who have extensively transformed the landscape of the music industry. Realising that the real money was to be made in the live arenas from ticketing and merchandise, they sign artists but not in the traditional sense. They sign the artist as their promoter rather than as the owner of the copyright of the material. It suggests that Blur have reformed for money rather than for their art. The power of promoters such as Live Nation, the demand to see classic artists or even the whole of a classic album, and the flexing of the spending power of the music fan (even in these constrained times) means that this trend for reformation will continue unabated.
What is depressing is that it smacks desperately of corporatism. There may well be unfinished business for Albarn and Coxon, but the people that buy the tickets will be going to see Phil Daniels mug his way through “Parklife” and not to hear new material from Albarn and co. Do we wish to be infantilised by the cult of reformation? The success of recent reformations and the Don’t Look Back series of performances suggest we do. Alongside big acts such as The Police, Take That, The Spice Girls countless alternative acts have reformed, from My Bloody Valentine to Dinosaur Jr. It seems that money and a receptive audience can melt even the staunchest of grudges, the largest of “over my dead body” rifts. Even perennially optimistic English pop-punkers A are rumoured to have reformed. I mean, what is so bad with the current crop of bands that has allowed this bunch of American punk aping no hopers to lumber (or pogo) back into view is beyond me. Music should be about genesis, evolution, forward movement – yet this cult of reformation will only lead to stasis and inertia.
I genuinely hope that Blur’s new material extends beyond the inevitable specially recorded new songs that will be bundled on the end of a repackaged greatest hits collection, to a full length album that showcases the best of their talents. Only time will tell.

Keep Me In Mind Sweetheart EP - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan

Musical history is littered with anomalous musical pairings. Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan always appeared one such pairing – she the ethereal siren who featured in Scottish folksters Belle and Sebastian and he the world weary troubadour of Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age repute. Traditionally the male is the dominant party, the aggressor, while the female plays the part of his muse but this traditional delineation is inverted by their partnership; in many of their narratives Lanegan plays a tormented soul, tortured and led on by Campbell in a psychological war of the sexes. The songs are written primarily by Campbell, with Lanegan’s baritone taking lead vocal. With such a pairing it is hard to escape an air of contrivance, yet the juxtaposition between them has always been arresting. The tracks on their latest release Keep Me in Mind Sweetheart were recorded at the same time as their latest album Sunday at Devil Dirt, but this EP reveals itself to be more a companion piece than craven cash in.
Opener and title track “Keep Me in Mind Sweetheart” is the only song to be taken from this year’s earlier long player and it is an affecting acoustic lullaby sung by a lachrymose Lanegan. The easy melodicism of “Fight Fire with Fire” employs barroom piano and brushed drums beneath Lanegan’s Waits’ like croon, while the lyrics deal with the differences between two lovers. He opens by proclaiming “Wild is the night that keeps me from you” but goes on to say “When I see grey, I know you see black, I dig the Stones you dig Sheer Heart Attack”. Campbell’s delicate vocals wash over Lanegan’s leathery tones, intertwining and caressing them. The lamentation of “Rambling Rose” showcases their fascination with Americana and the West, the rolling backdrop propelling the song down a dusty Lost Highway. There are undercurrents of unresolved tension between the two singers, and this interplay between them remains one of their key potencies. Closing song “Hang On” features Campbell alone, and shorn of Lanegan’s mournful baritone the track feels aimless while instrumental “Violin Tango” is neither long enough nor developed enough musically to fully engage the listener.
Lacking the darker themes of their Mercury nominated debut or the seedy motel feel of their sophomore album, this EP suffers from a somewhat staid approach to the rootsy passages. Their evocation of a lovelorn past comes across as artifice, and at times on this EP they feel constricted and strangely joyless. The intimacy of their arrangements and the combinations of their vocals mark out their best songs, but these highpoints are not as evident on this release.

This article was originally produced for http://www.clickmusic.com/. To read the music review of Keep Me In Mind Sweetheart by Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan on the site, please click on the article title.

Godspeed - Jenny Lewis

Basking in analogue warmth, “Godspeed” is the second single taken from Jenny Lewis’ sophomore album Acid Tongue. Lucinda Williams, Patsy Cline et al were obvious frames of reference for this retro-styled piano ballad which proffers counsel to a female mired in a dangerous relationship.
“Godspeed” is an elegantly poised torch song blending various alt country influences with the more mainstream FM sound of their forbearers. The album was recorded using analogue technology rather than modern digital applications, and the effect is stunning. The space afforded to each instrument and vocal brings to mind Phil Spector’s best productions. The fact that the chord progression of the chorus and walking bass lines echo a late era Beatles arrangement does little to discourage this sentiment.
There will be a temptation for many to simply dismiss Lewis’ new sound as adult contemporary, yet her vocal performance and the impeccably judged nature of this track demand attention. True, it is not as idiosyncratic and is steeped in tradition rather than presenting a blueprint for future pop as anything on Rabbit Fur Coat or Rilo Kiley’s latest work. Shorn of the ethereal backing harmonies of the Watson Twins the song could also be perceived as lacking in dynamic but the songwriting is of the highest order and pulls it through.

This article was originally produced for http://www.clickmusic.com/. To read the music review of Godspeed by Jenny Lewis on the site, please click on the article title.

Say Aha - Santogold

Santogold (née Santi White) is a music industry insider, so it is no surprise that her musical output be so polished and consummate. It would be unfair to describe her oeuvre as ‘pop’; Santogold has a contemporary aspect on music, bestriding various genres and approaches. What she is trying to achieve is an eradication of genre, of classification. Her music challenges the notion that you cannot find art in the stultifying confines of a genre, particularly one as traditional and conservative as ‘pop’.
Latest single “Say Aha” is a bass heavy, groove oriented dancehall meets pop number, ornamented with ska style 2 Tone keyboards. It has a sound vaguely reminiscent of No Doubt or Gwen Stefani’s solo work, but the production captures the space and echo of Ark style dub. They certainly share many of the same reference points (new wave icons mixed with 80s sirens such as Grace Jones) and Santogold’s raucous vibrato vocal line strikes a similar chord.
Keenly aware that repetition is the key to any successful pop song, “Say Aha” sticks to the form. Santogold’s songs are brimming with ideas, but “Say Aha” is lacking in the invention that characterises her other works. The overall impression is strangely clinical, as if the song is a mere essay in the formula.

This article was originally produced for http://www.clickmusic.com/. To read the music review of Say Aha by Santogold on the site, please click on the article title.

Electric Arguments - The Fireman

Paul McCartney describes his side project with producer Youth “The Fireman” as electronica and that it promotes “pure musical possibilities”. The Fireman exists as an avatar for McCartney to explore looser song structures and less traditional instrumentation, and their first two albums (Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest released in 1993 and Rushes from 1998) were explorations of instrumental post-ambient soundscapes. This is abandoned on new release Electric Arguments, which opts for the pop structures and sensibilities of McCartney’s 2007 solo album Memory Almost Full.
Electric Arguments takes its title from a line in an Allen Ginsberg poem, and McCartney admitted that he utilised a William Burroughs’ style cut approach to the lyrics. The idea that this will be a lo-fi experimental release is forsaken by the opening bars of opener “Nothing Too Much Just Out Of Sight”. McCartney was persuaded by Youth to add his distinctive vocal to the album. On this Zeppelin-esque blues stomp, McCartney truly hollers over the top. You only have to listen to “Lady Madonna” to know that he once had an impressive pair of lungs, but like many of his peers they have sadly diminished.
Where the album excels is in its more low-key moments, where McCartney’s vocal is sublimated into the mix. “Two Magpies” is a hushed acoustic number, reminiscent of “Heart of the Country” from Ram. “Travelling Light” is a pretty folk number, with McCartney’s vocal low in the mix amongst the commingled acoustic guitars, brushed drums, flutes and strings before showing the extent of his range in the chorus. It showcases just how consummate a songwriter McCartney is, and how a good producer can bring out the best in him. “Light From Your Lighthouse” takes a stomping country tune and adds a soaring gospel vocal melody. Elsewhere “Sing The Changes” has Youth’s trademark ‘Big Sound’ all over it, from the cavernous vocals to the reverb laden guitars, while “Sun Is Shining” is the most Beatles like cut on the album. There are few better at this type of transcendental, sky scraping pop than McCartney. Considering the upheaval he was going through, it is a surprise that the album is not a maudlin affair. While certainly there is a melancholy, keening air to some songs (such as the cry to fill his life with passion on “Lifelong Passion”) there is always a chance of redemption.
Along with the opener there are a few low points – “Highway” never escapes sounding like some session muso workout, “Universal Here, Everlasting Now” ruins two minutes of well observed aural texture with a drum beat and guitar sound from 1985, while the pan pipes that herald “Is This Love?” were an unnecessary addition on an otherwise well crafted song.
Recently McCartney has displayed a worryingly revisionistic view of his ‘legacy’ – witness the Lennon/McCartney, McCartney/Lennon authorship fiasco. The current notion proposed by McCartney himself that he is a pioneer of electronic music in Britain is yet another example of him purporting to be the experimental Beatle. His place in the canon of great 20th century songwriters and as a cultural icon is already assured, but this latest claim for the experimental high ground is both unnecessary and irrelevant. The public perception of McCartney – bowl-cut hairdo, Frog Chorus, two thumbs up – is so entrenched it is surely too late to be changed. John Lennon called him the best PR man in the business, and that belief still rings true. Electric Arguments is not the deconstructive album it professes to be, merely a continuation of McCartney’s recent dalliances with a looser version of pop. Despite the odd weak moment, it shows there are still few finer purveyors of the genre.

This article was originally produced for http://www.clickmusic.com/. To read the music review of Electric Arguments by The Fireman on the site, please click on the article title.

Rest In Peace Oliver Postgate 1925 - 2008

IBJSM loves Bagpuss, and so should you. It mixed whimsy and anarchy perfectly. As a tribute please click on the article title to watch the video to "There, There (The Bony King of Nowhere)", the Bagpuss referencing single from Radiohead's 2003 album Hail to the Thief.