Music Record Reviews
INDIE THE CINEMATICS Love and Terror (The Orchard) ●●●●●
Raging across the hit parade with urban comrades Chipmunk, Wiley and Tinchy Stryder, N-Dubz are a cartoonish paradox: for every ‘street’ misogynist caper (see ‘Duku Man Skit’), there’s a moral
ballad advocating safe sex (‘Shoulda Put Something On’). But whatever: this is the sound of every car stereo and mobile phone in town. Resistance is futile. (Nicola Meighan)
SINGLES & DOWNLOADS
plucks, horror movie piano and sonorously whispered vocal interventions, repeated for two-and-a-half minutes during the closing ‘Coda’. It’s eerie and inventive, although possibly unlistenable to all but those who appreciate the art of noise. (David Pollock) COMPILATION VARIOUS Bite Harder (De Wolfe) ●●●●●
music worlds. Produced by man of the moment Alé Siqueira, arrangements using piano, accordions, guitars, percussion and more in unusual ways are intricate yet catchy. The result is a series of songs which make the eternal themes of love and memory sound devastatingly original. For world music fans, this is undoubtedly a disc of the year. (Jan Fairley) GUITAR POP PAUL HAIG Relive (Rhythm of Life) ●●●●●
The List is getting in touch with its feminine side this fortnight; hoping we can get through this latest selection of singles and downloads while pretending that boys don’t even exist. Ewww boys. Much fuss has been made of the fact that lots of female pop artists have broken through this year, but would it be wrong to suggest that patronising gender-based division has actually been the biggest musical vogue of ‘09? Well, that and an uncanny ability to be taken
for absolute suckers by the Emperor’s New Quiff which is La Roux? God, her music is awful, and ‘Quicksand’ (Polydor) ●●●●● – all plastic production and synthetic vocals like hairspray down the throat – is pretty far from being her best track. If only she could muster a little attitude. Like Lily Allen, who’s back with ‘Who’d Have Known’ (Regal) ●●●●●. And yes, who would have known that she’d cover a Take That ballad and dash it off with such tired efficiency? Not us – just like we didn’t expect Lady Gaga to turn into the autotuned Annie Lennox with ‘Bad Romance’ (Interscope) ●●●●●. Okay, so who’s next? How about Paramore,
whose ‘Brick By Boring Brick’ (Fueled By Ramen) ●●●●● already outdoes everyone we’ve heard so far by offering a bit of noise and spirit, and – despite obviously being pitched at a tween emo crowd – a good deal less marketeering cynicism than La Roux and Gaga. Similarly, Noisettes’ ‘Every Now and Then’ (Mercury) ●●●●● is a decent enough pop song for those who were fond of Morcheeba and Beatles copyism. The heather remains defiantly unignited, though.
Err, how about Alice in Chains then? It’s a
tenuous link, but what the hell. ‘Your Decision’ (EMI) ●●●●●, a muscular slab of middle-aged grunge, is no better than anything which preceded it. Newton Faulkner? Because girls like him, maybe? And mums who like Radio 2 will approve of ‘Over and Out’ (RCA) ●●●●●, a mild improvement on previous form?
Nope, our female thread for the fortnight has been lost amidst a slew of objectionable averageness. Only one thing for it now – Single of the Fortnight goes to the biggest diva of the bunch. Yes, it’s Ian Brown, whose ‘Just Like You’ (Polydor) ●●●●● at least swaggers rather than slouches. If only Lily had decided to disco rather than slow dance this time round. (David Pollock)
68 THE LIST 19 Nov–3 Dec 2009
conjured up by two geeks from Bristol, who cater in the kind of intense and arty electronic mind-melters that make Crystal Castles sound like The Saturdays. Did they slap on space suits, head into outer space and record thousands of particles gossiping to get the weird noises that drive their music? Layers and layers are added, galloping beats explode into life and the seven tracks build gradually in momentum to a really quite swoonsome climax. They even make producer Andrew Weatherall seem relevant again. No mean feat. (Camilla Pia) ROCK THEM CROOKED VULTURES Them Crooked Vultures (RCA/Sony) ●●●●●
It’d be foolish to try and ignore the pedigree of Them Cooked Vultures – a suitably enticing line- up of Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Dave Grohl (Nirvana/Foo Fighters) and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) – but therein lies the crux of the problem with all supergroups, you can’t help but compare their output to past glories. And while the Vultures succeed far more than most supergroups before them, you have to bear in mind this is three mates jamming and what they produce is a sleazily seductive no frills rock album. There’s a lot to love, like the dirgy stomp of ‘No One Loves Me & Neither Do I’, the swirling ‘Interlude with Ludes’, the lascivious ‘Caligulove’ or the snarling ‘Reptiles’. TCV could never add up to the sum of their parts but what they have produced is a record of raw rock played with passion and power. (Henry Northmore)
As helmsman of Edinburgh post-punk vampires Josef K, Paul Haig cast an immortal shadow over the guitar pop landscape. The opening track from Relive, however, is a dead ringer for Girls Aloud. Sure, the rock props
abound: there are nods to New Order (‘Ambition’), Bloc Party (‘Round and Round’), Franz Ferdinand (‘Horses’) – Josef K, of course, influenced them all – plus a homage to Postcard Records, via the trebly guitars of ‘So Contemporary’.
But album highlight ‘Trip out the Rider’ is energised and unexpected: it comes on like Girls Aloud’s ‘Wake Me Up’, and proves there’s pop fire in Haig’s belly yet. (Nicola Meighan)
EXPERIMENTAL FUCK BUTTONS Tarot Sport (ATP) ●●●●●
If Mogwai had listened to more techno they might have ended up producing something a bit like Tarot Sport. Instead this sonic masterpiece was
Glaswegian quartet The Cinematics have been doing the rounds for a few years now, with only the odd brush against success to show for their efforts. Tales of record company collapses, studio eviction and the attempted firebombing of the pub below their flat suggest it isn’t their fault, however.
This is a strong and confident album, albeit one which wears its influences like a bandana. Larry Reid’s guitars during the title track, for example, are ringers for those of The Edge. ‘Wish (When the Banks Collapse)’ sounds like The Cure, and there are strong hints of Editors and Franz Ferdinand elsewhere. Yet such obvious homage isn’t a big problem when it’s done so well. (David Pollock)
EXPERIMENTAL IAIN CAMPBELL A No Place (Unverified Records) ●●●●●
From deep within the bowels of the De Wolfe music library has been unearthed this bawdy 57 varieties of funk from the late 60s and early 70s. So, we have the Hendrixy funk of Peter Neno’s ‘Street Girl’, the porno-cop funk of Nick Ingram’s ‘Down Home’, the thrusting horn funk of Barry Stoller’s ‘Funky Spider’, the big band lush funk of Reg Tilsley’s ‘Warlock’ and even the steel-band funk of Johnny Hawksworth’s ‘Sandy Beach’. A compilation which would surely settle the music arguments on a Mighty Boosh roadtrip. Once Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’ gets played to death, of course. (Brian Donaldson) WORLD MAYRA ANDRADE STÓRIA STÓRIA (Sterns) ●●●●●
Having previously played in defiantly eccentric Glasgow- based bands Lapsus Linguae and If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now, Iain Campbell was never going to make a solo album of pop standards. Quite the opposite, this unsettling diptych of cut-up instrumentation and field recordings is as outré as they come. It works, though. The main piece, entitled ‘A No Place’ is 20 minutes of scything backwards loops, frayed string
Mayra Andrade is an award winning singer of the world music scene, charming fans with both her gorgeous voice and captivating performances. With Stória Stória this Cape Verdean continues moving towards Brazil, with an appetising roll call of key musicians from Brazil, France and Cuba who embrace jazz and contemporary