www.list.co.uk/music
RECORDS Music
embraces the rich heritage of ‘Music City USA’. The dozen tracks they’ve recorded with a backing band of regular collaborators are culled from the back catalogue of Chart Records, run by Tidwell’s grandfather Slim Williamson in the late 60s and early 70s. Mournful, soulful and swinging, Invariable Heartache manages to evoke the good old days while sounding as fresh a daisy. And that’s a pretty neat trick. (Miles Fielder) ROCK EAT DR APE Love and Lust in Wonderland (EDA Publishing) ●●●●●
While you’re listening to this drone on, why not play the band-name anagram game? It quickly throws up at least one intriguing alternative title which curiously matches the threatening ambience of the CD cover. While you might not be able to stop yourself tapping a toe to the enthusiastic ensemble playing, you may find yourself shaking your head at such wonderfully enlightened lyrics such as: ‘All the shit that you been talkin’/I got my finger in my ear/And the creepy way you walkin’/It makes it look as if you’re queer’. Should you find yourself able to bypass those 1970s-esque sensibilities, you’ll find little comfort in the Eat Dr Ape sound: less ‘alternative rock’ and more a cobbling together of every bandana-led guitar riff in the book. (Brian Donaldson)
INDIE-POP BELLE & SEBASTIAN Write About Love (Rough Trade) ●●●●● Belle and Sebastian return, following a four- and-a-half year break. And having re-grouped in February this year, they recorded this
ALSO RELEASED Badly Drawn Boy It’s What I’m Thinking – Part One: Photographing Snowflakes (Twisted Nerve) ●●●●● A tepid start to Damon Gough’s new album trilogy; instead of his previous lush orchestration, just some limp and airy musings. Yann Tiersen Dust Lane (Mute) ●●●●● Sigur Rós style orchestral melodies (courtesy of mutual producer Ken Thomas), but with none of that band’s transcendent soaring capability. Glasser Ring (True Panther Sounds) ●●●●● Buzzy synths, international percussion, ethereal vocals, clever application of entire orchestras of sound – and all from the incredible one- woman orchestra, Cameron Mesirow. Enfant Bastard Master Dude (SL) ●●●●● 8-bit blips, bleeps and fuzzy static bursts: inventive and bound to raise a smile, but unlikely to inspire repeated listening. Carl Barât Carl Barât (Arcady) ●●●●● One or two great pop songs, but self- indulgent nausea for the rest of it. ‘Let’s do creepy off-kilter fairground tunes!’ Let’s not, Carl. KT Tunstall Tiger Suit (Virgin/Relentless) ●●●●● Slightly bluesy twist on radio-friendly pop- rock. Business as usual, then; if you like the other two albums, you won’t mind this either. ESG Dance to the Best of ESG (Fire) ●●●●● Endlessly sample- able, immeasurably influential: a wide- ranging collection of minimalist funk grooves that epitomises cool. (Niki Boyle)
7–21 Oct 2010 THE LIST 65
eighth studio offering with Tony Hoffer in LA – which perhaps explains the collaborations with Hollywood sweetheart Carey Mulligan (on the title track) and even more surprisingly with MOR warbler Norah Jones. The track she appears on, ‘Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John’, is really the only weak point on an otherwise utterly dazzling comeback. The indie legends sound slicker these days for sure, but shimmering guitars, sumptuous orchestral arrangements and psychedelic organ swirls are offset by the kind of exquisite melancholy and cut you to the quick lyrics that B&S are by now masters of. (Camilla Pia) ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC SUFJAN STEVENS The Age of Adz (Asthmatic Kitty) ●●●●●
An endlessly inventive songwriter and musician, Sufjan Stevens here abandons for the most part the nu- folk banjo-and-piano sound that first got him noticed, replacing it with a mix of offbeat glitchy electronica and wide- eyed studio orchestration. Pitched somewhere between the experimentation of early album Enjoy Your Rabbit and the conventional songsmithery of Seven Swans, it’s a sumptuous and enthralling experience, swithering between Stevens’ intimate, touching vocals and truly original panoramic arrangements. ‘Age of Adz’ sums it up in a nutshell – an eight-
ELECTRO/ FOLK/ KRAUTROCK THE PHANTOM BAND The Wants (Chemikal Underground) ●●●●●
Does the burden of expectation weigh heavy on The Phantom Band? Not on this watch. Despite being charged with the task of living up to a near-perfect debut (Checkmate Savage), they rebound like the singular tribe they are: answerable to themselves; comparable to no-one. The first of many striking things about The Wants is how much it sounds like The Phantom Band: all primitive alt-folk, krautrock grooves and warped, time-travelling pop – and feral with their vivid and thrilling sci-fi / gothic / paranoid vernacular.
There are several evolutions too. The Glasgow-based rabble flaunt more electro muscle – most notably on the Eurythmics-impaling ‘O’, whose zombie-disco hooks and trills are a remix away from conquering Ibiza; and on the kilted glam-stomp of ‘A Glamour’ (think Ultravox meets Wounded Knee). Aural incongruities are also in vogue (actually, make that En Vogue)
on The Wants – singer Rick Anthony’s ever-glorious Bonnie 'Prince' Billy-isms are bludgeoned by motorik riffage midway through the cosmic ‘The None of One’ – and their range of vocal expression is vast: they dabble with polyrhythms and there are invocations of Vincent Price. ‘Everybody Knows It’s True’ is a case in point: a stunning, disorientating ode to (what else?) sad rainbows, shape-shifting and secret cats. The rest of the album is no less affecting – from the livid fever-throes of ‘Into the Corn’ (there’s oft a glint of heavy metal in their imagery) to the beatific shimmer of ‘Walls’. The Wants is bigger than us all. Long may The Phantom Band break hearts and mountainsides. (Nicola Meighan)
FACTORY RECORDS ALUMNI SECTION 25 Retrofit (LTM) ●●●●● Like Little Boots’ switched-on grand- parents, the formerly doom-laden Blackpool- sired runts of the Factory Records litter, turned electro-dance- floor auteurs have produced an infectious swirl of post-modernist motorik. Recorded before the death of founding member Larry
Cassidy in February this year, this 21st century revisit of classics including the much sampled ‘Looking From A Hilltop’ is possessed with an appositely urgent melancholy. Where Ian Curtis- produced 1980 debut single ‘Girls Don’t Count’ was once a dirge, here it’s been glossed up to sound not unlike one of Saint Etienne’s dubbier, clubbier moments, while a remix of ‘Hilltop’ by New Order drummer Stephen Morris is pure techno flashback. Old- school on many levels, then, but pulsatingly sublime nevertheless. (Neil Cooper)
COUNTRY KORT Invariable Heartache (City Slang) ●●●●● Lambchop frontman Kurt Wagner has made a career out of perfecting an alternative to his hometown Nashville’s commercial mainstream country sound. With this album of duets with Cortney Tidwell (daughter of a Nashville dynasty), however, Wagner fully