Music Record Reviews
SINGLES & DOWNLOADS Frightened Rabbit
By the time you read this there will be no escaping it: the country will be brainwashed and swamped by X Factor mania, swaying in a zombified state to a bland and inspid version of ‘Hallelujah’ and I’ll have attempted to eat my own ears. Again. So here’s a few tips for survival . . . Get some Paw Tracks releases in your life. This lovely little record label is responsible for double 7in ‘Be Good to Earth this Season/ Wolfie’s Christmas’ ●●●●● by Reverend Green, and Drawlings ●●●●●; both of which are brilliantly creepy. And in a similar vein, everyone’s favourite musical Mormons Low are back with ‘Santa Is Coming Over’ (Sub Pop) ●●●●●, a Christmas ditty which is dark, menacing and maudlin too – excellent.
Now, in these troubled times, it’s true that the
temptation to reach for the Slade-esque stinkers may be hard to resist. But be strong: Status Quo’s ‘It’s Christmas Time’ (UMTV) ●●●●●, ‘Once Upon a Christmas Song’ (Polydor) ●●●●● by Geraldine McQueen aka Peter Kay, and ‘I’ve Met Jesus’ (MX3) ●●●●● by Justin Hawkins’ dire new act Hot Leg are definitely NOT the way to go. If you’re after infectious tunes try The Wombats’ ‘Is This Christmas’ (14th Floor) ●●●●●, ‘City Of Christmas Ghosts’ (Damaged Goods) ●●●●● by Goldblade and Poly Styrene, Glasvegas’ ‘A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss) EP (Sony/BMG) ●●●●● or even something off of Elvis Presley’s ‘Christmas Duets’ album (Sony Legacy) ●●●●● instead, making sure (obviously) to skip the track featuring LeAnn Rimes.
Finally, to the important business of crowning Single of the Fortnight. It’s a tough call with the beautifully wistful ‘Christmas TV’ (Moshi Moshi) ●●●●● by Slow Club around, but Frightened Rabbit just pip them to the post. ‘It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop’ (FatCat) ●●●●● caters in typically compelling lyrics, tinkling pianos, guitars, strings and huge harmonies. Epic, blustery and bittersweet – it doesn’t get more crimbo than that. (Camilla Pia)
AVANT-GARDE POP ANGIL AND HIDDNTRACKS Ouliposaliva (Chemikal Underground) ●●●●● Introduced to Chemikal Underground by shared acquaintance Jim Putnam of Radar Bros,
Angil and Hiddntracks are a quality addition to the roster, a bizarre but still indefinably soulful combination of chamber pop and jazz. While Mickaël Mottet, aka Angil, is often compared broadly to John Coltrane and Sun Ra, perhaps the high concept charm of Magnetic Fields might be another useful touchstone. Acting on a request from his saxophonist Francis Bourganel not to use the E key, Mottet
76 THE LIST 11 Dec 2008–8 Jan 2009
has gone so far as to excise it from the name of his band. The result is ragged and frayed, in that it dances around the fringes of musical convention and sanity, but there’s a blissful charm at the heart of the album which carries it towards minor classic territory. (David Pollock) ELECTRONICA /ACOUSTIC SANS TRAUMA Rushing Your Dragon (Sans Records) ●●●●●
Rushing Your Dragon comes across a bit like the Delia Smith of the music world: largely inoffensive and pretty mundane. There's no harm in listening to the six track EP (Sans Trauma's debut effort) but there's also little gain. Yes, the vocals are good and yes, the songs themselves must be given some merit, but overall this is nothing new.
'Away I Walked' shows the most potential, intertwining spoken word with soft electronic beats to produce a rewarding combination, but nevertheless, 'Rushing...' fails to produce anything of real spark, and fades from the memory quickly. (Zaineb Al Hassani)
PSYCHEDELIA THE AMORPHOUS ANDROGYNOUS A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind Vol 1 (Platipus) ●●●●●
The electronic two-team of Gaz Cobain and Brian Dougans, aka Future Sounds of London, share their love of what they call ‘cosmic space music’ on this
compilation – a trippy swirl through the 60s up to the present day, taking in Devendra Banhart, Tim Buckley, Espers and Can. Two CDs’ worth of
rolling sitars, birdsong, otherwordly harpsichords or Donovan’s whispering Scottishness on ‘Barabajagal’ have the same effect as a weightless magic carpet ride. It’s all packed out with enough acid-woozy beats and progged-up guitar wig-outs (not to mention a blurrily brilliant, psychedelic take on ‘Wichita Lineman’) to leave you feeling like you’ve transcended bland, dance music compilations and achieved some kind of higher consciousness. (Claire Sawers)
ELECTRO JON SAVAGE PRESENTS Dreams Come True: Classic First Wave Electro 82-87 (Domino) ●●●●●
After disco went saccharine and mainstream, producers returned to the stark optimistic futurism of the blueprint to make a new music, the spirit of which would later reach the mainstream via Madonna and the Pet Shop Boys. Jon Savage is a
master compiler, and like the best collections of the formative records that shaped an entire scene, witnessing the naive excitement of future clichés being invented in real time is compelling. Littered with the synths, drums and vocal styles that were the building blocks of a whole era of music, a selection of the tracks included here are pioneering records made with an honest passion and energy that, in this remastered version with extended vocal cuts, leaps from the speakers. (Hamish Brown)
EUROPOP LE LE Flage (Magnetron) ●●●●●
What do you get if you put together a cult graphic designer from Amsterdam’s red light district, an ex-writer from uber-arch Vice magazine and a Dutch electro-funk producer? A euro-trash, piss-take, party-mix of half- hilarious, half-horrific beats, that’s what. Piet Parra, Serge Faberge and Rimer London call their Franco-Dutch-Kraut mix ‘esperantology’, and with shouts of ‘bon soir’ and ‘extraordinaire!’ it sounds like Delboy taught them all they know about languages, but the surreal sprinkling of cut-and-paste foreign lyrics about Monaco yachts, good photography and cornichons loses its novelty value fairly soon. A blast of guttural German over dirty electro beats is exciting for a while, but like eating too much brie, you feel sick pretty soon. (Claire Sawers) ELECTRONIC FUNK SQUAREPUSHER Just a Souvenir (Warp) ●●●●●
Times change, beats get faster, slower, heavier, funkier, but Tom Jenkinson will forever be the geeky spiritual little cousin of Aphex Twin who synergised breaks and virtuoso bass playing into one monolithic Level 42- crushing funk beast in the mid-90s.
This, his 12th album, continues to explore familiar territory. Not quite as full on as his more power tool-driven past, but a more varied prospect on the whole. He explores a wealth
of textures – moments have as much in common with Lightning Bolt as they do Autechre – without straying too far from his original live funk’n’bass blueprint. It may lack the tension of darker drum & bass but it also lacks the macho pretentions. (Mark Robertson) JAZZ AARON PARKS Invisible Cinema (Blue Note Records) ●●●●●
The Seattle-born, New York-based pianist’s debut for Blue Note is an impressive one. Jazz piano is a currently crowded field, but Parks makes his mark in convincing fashion. All but three of the tracks also feature the guitar work of Mike Moreno, a contemporary stylist with a smooth but never bland approach. Bassist Matt Penman and the great Eric Harland on drums complete the line-up, and Harland’s contributions are one of the album’s strongest features. The music is all by the
pianist, and he has hinted that there is some kind of narrative hidden within the titles and music, but says no more. There is certainly an evocative, pictoral quality to some of it, and if he occasionally falls into a fashionable over-reliance on ostinatos-over-grooves, he charts an original and absorbing course through the music. Worth checking out. (Kenny Mathieson)
FOLK AIDAN O’ROURKE An Tobar (Navigator Records) ●●●●●
The music on this excellent disc was commissioned and first performed by An Tobar Arts Centre on Mull, and is characteristic of the fiddler’s lyrical synthesis of traditional folk roots with a much