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Wyatt, Atzmon, Stephen For The Ghosts Within (Domino) ●●●●● Some excellent string arrangements and one or two standout tracks can’t rescue this often extremely irritating jazz collaboration. Anoraak Wherever The Sun Sets (Grand Blanc/Naive) ●●●●●
Imagine Calvin Harris, but with less sloganeering gimmickry, and more Parisian suaveness. Oh, and lit by a neon sunset on an 80s Miami Beach. Surf City Kudos (Fire) ●●●●● Sweeping, swooning guitar tunes, brimming over with swells of feedback and dreamy psych- rock effects. Polar Bear with Jyager Common Ground (The Leaf Label) ●●●●● Inventive collaboration between genre- hopping jazz arranger and grime-y MC. A tad short at 25mins, but all the better for not over- staying its welcome. NLF3 Beautiful Is The Way To The World Beyond (Prohibited) ●●●●● Frolicsome disjointed riffs that come across halfway between Vampire Weekend and TV On The Radio. The hummed ‘lyrics’ are a bit nippy though. Elliot Smith An Introduction to . . . (Domino) ●●●●● Exactly what it says on the tin, this 14- track collection serves as an introduction to the Portland-based, dearly departed Smith. For the uninitiated, think of him as a less in- your-face, more softly-melodic version of Eels. (Niki Boyle)
counter-cultural snapshot and more like a cash-in on the hipster genres variously tagged as chill-wave, dream- pop, witch-house and – lest we forget – shit- wave. Sure, it’s full of ace DIY synth-nostalgia – Memory Tapes, Toro Y Moi and Washed Out all feature, as do several nods to the upcoming lo-fi electro guard (Peter’s House Music, Slava, oOoOO) – but it feels a bit outmoded in these days of rampant online access; not least because of tracks like 2007’s Crystal Castles/HEALTH indie- hit ‘Crimewave’. (Nicola Meighan)
WOOZY POP SMALL BLACK New Chain (Jagjaguwar) ●●●●●
The music that began as a bedroom project. The summery, distorted anthems. The 80s- nodding beats – it’s not as if the world needs another dreamy, foggy dose of lo-fi synths from America. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want it. A lot.
The debut album from
Brooklyn’s Small Black is a smudgy, gauzy smear of pop, not unlike the stuff made by their friend Washed Out (Small Black played Glasgow with him a few months ago), or their stylistic big brothers, Animal Collective (New Chain’s producer, Nicolas Vernhes, also produced Animal Collective). A satisfying follow-up
to last year’s understatedly awesome ‘Small Black EP’ (self- released), this is an addictive, never entirely in-focus, dislocated blur of melodies. (Claire Sawers)
21 Oct–4 Nov 2010 THE LIST 63
SYNTH-KRAUT HORROR MOVIE COVERS ZOMBIE ZOMBIE Plays John Carpenter (Versatile) ●●●●●
Commissioning Zombie Zombie to reimagine John Carpenter’s classic oeuvre of horror movie themes for a performance at the Glasgow Film Festival was an inspired idea. Even so, it’s hard to entirely justify the Parisian electro-kraut instrumentalists’ studio recording. In fact, there’s a nagging feeling that, when the relative values are transposed, this isn’t really that different to Oasis covering The Beatles. While Carpenter’s work was
groundbreaking and economical, creating iconic scores with the barest of electronic instrumentation, Zombie Zombie have made a career as stylists rather than innovators. On those terms, they succeed best on ‘The Bank Robbery’, an incidental piece from Escape From New York. Here, they transform a relatively nondescript original into a
serviceable kosmische pastiche. Their take on the theme for Assault on Precinct 13 squelches up the distinctive bass riff, adds bongos and wah-wah guitar and yet the effect is less rather than more. And when they flesh out the lean, propulsive Halloween theme into an expansive but somehow thin dance trudge, they are again negating the peculiar qualities that make the original so singular. To finish with, ‘The Thing’ is an odd selection, given that the theme is more properly (although not uncontroversially) attributed to Ennio Morricone. But here they use the space afforded by the minimalist original to better effect, and the result is a lovely droning landscape of shimmering synth. So while any celebration of Carpenter’s
work is welcome, the curious would do better to track down the disco versions by The Splash Band, or better yet, the genuinely unimprovable originals. (Sean Welsh)
ELECTRO-POP THE PARAFFINS Snout To The Grindstone (Ear Spook) ●●●●● From base materials that would confound the ambitions of lesser talents, Knockentiber pop alchemist Billy Paraffin and his pals conjure wonderfully ramshackle dancing music with lyrical depth. Variously wistful, vampish and dissonant, Snout to the Grindstone fuses electronic and acoustic instrumentation
with a storytelling flair that suggests Jarvis Cocker recorded by Joe Meek. One of many highlights, ‘Triple Time’ blends an opening reminiscent of the St Elsewhere theme into an essay of creepy office- based obsession before resolving into techno melodica. At first listen, the refrain of ‘People Like You’ seems to go, ‘Billy you should be on top’. It doesn’t, of course, but as a sentiment it’s difficult to shake. (Sean Welsh) ALT POP AVEY TARE Down There (Paw Tracks) ●●●●●
Animal Collective’s Avey Tare could teach Elton
disco (‘Ghost of Books’, ‘Lucky 1’) and mud-slap electronica (‘Cemeteries’), Down There is a cohesive – and Animal Collective- friendly – voyage of discovery though murky, tropical alt-pop.
Avey Tare’s other favourite animal is the otter. We predict a semi-aquatic, furrier theme for album two. (Nicola Meighan)
COMPILATION VARIOUS ARTISTS Fuck Dance, Let’s Art (K7) ●●●●●
For all of its swearing and sloganeering, Fuck Dance Let’s Art: Sounds from a New American Underground comes on less like a
John a whole lot about crocodile rock. The Baltimore-born singer- songwriter and producer – real name Dave Portner – is clearly obsessed with all things crocodilian, as his sometimes dreamy and sometimes terrifying debut solo long-player attests.
From its reptilian X- ray cover art through its dizzying swamp shanties (‘Laughing Hieroglyphic’, ‘Heads Hammock’), sluggish