list.co.uk/music

RECORDS Music

ELECTRO-POP SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS Ghostory (Full Time Hobby) ●●●●●

Ghostory geddit? It’s the way in which our histories are colonised by ghosts, and the third album from New York electro-phantoms SVIIB. At best, it is euphoric all choral (g)rave-pop (‘The Night’), heavenly electro-rock (‘Lafaye’), 4AD comedowns (‘Love Play’) and eerie 80s balladry (‘Scavenger’). This bygone trio is now the duo of

guitarist/producer Benjamin Curtis and ethereal vocalist Alejandra Deheza, but Ghostory revolves around an illusory third character called Lafaye. Perhaps this is a spirited nod to erstwhile member (and Alejandra’s twin) Claudia, who left last year. Or perhaps it’s just an ace excuse to make a Hi-NRG shoegaze concept album about the wraiths of an imaginary girl. (Nicola Meighan)

ALT.COUNTRY LAMBCHOP Mr M (City Slang) ●●●●●

Having taken a break from the long-lasting alt.country outfit (to collaborate with singer Cortney Tidwell on 2010’s KORT project), Lambchop founder and frontman Kurt Wagner has reassembled the Nashville-based band to make its 11th album.

Wagner has intimated this may be Lambchop’s last outing (‘I felt Lambchop had one more good record in us’) and if Mr M turns out to be the band’s swansong then it’ll be an appropriately poignant one, produced as it was in the aftermath of the premature death of friend and mentor Vic Chesnut. It’s a lovely low-key set of songs that deal with losing loved ones and moving on, and are lifted by lush string arrangements reminiscent of Sinatra, Bacharach and the old time crooners. (Miles Fielder)

GARAGE ROCK HOWLER America Give Up (Rough Trade) ●●●●●

You think we’d all have learned that it is frankly unproductive to call anything the ‘next’ this or that, or, god forbid, ‘the hottest thing you’ll hear all year’. Sadly, US hopefuls, Howler, are currently drowning in these tags; ‘the new Strokes’ is the latest. It’s lazy and sucks the fun out of taking a band on their own terms, but more annoyingly, here, it’s almost right. Their debut is half an hour of

summery, scrappy, retro-fascinated guitars, with an over-accented howl (pretty apt) of the kind Julian Casablancas has dined out on for years. Without patronising them for being ‘good for their age’, let’s just say this: it’s not bad, but it’s not that good either. Easily-digestible festival fodder that might hit the spot live; on record it’s as dull as a Glasgow summer. (Ryan Drever)

DRONE METAL EARTH Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II (Southern Lord) ●●●●●

The follow up to last year’s Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I surveys the same improvised and stripped down hinterlands of its predecessor, reviving their string section in favour of the amplified nature of their previous releases. It’s an obvious continuation, but unlike the immediate moodiness of I, here there’s a wider space to embellish a subtle sense of groove and intricacy, as heard on tremendous closing opus ‘The Rakehell’. Despite this buoyant and pastoral

approach, II lacks the dynamics that made tracks from I instantly spine chilling. It will no doubt please acolytes and curious listeners alike, but it’ll be interesting to see how Dylan and co follow on from this because, at this rate, they could be in danger of stagnating. (Nick Herd)

ELECTRO POP DJANGO DJANGO Django Django (Because) ●●●●● AVANT POP DIE HARD Die Hard (Halleluwah Hits) ●●●●●

HOUSE AZARI & III Azari & III (Island) ●●●●●

This debut has a lot of strings to its bow. It benefits from being the result of prolonged tinkering by three Edinburgh art school grads over the space of a few years in a London bedroom. These efforts have birthed 13 pieces of music, each with thick and interesting layers stacked atop each other, their gaze fixed infinitely skyward. There’s 60s-inspired harmonies, coasting through seas of glitches and meandering synths (see ‘Hail Bop’ for example), punchy art- school electro-pop David Byrne would likely be proud of (‘Default’) and smooth, desert-wandering blues (‘Firewater’, ‘Love’s Dart’). The album is dense and often surprising, each song spitting up bursts of bold, spaced-out texture. A repeater for sure. (Ryan Drever)

If this Glasgow outfit had named themselves after any other Bruce Willis film we’d have issues, but as it is we’re rather partial to a bit of John McClane so we’re giving Die Hard a go. Stick their eponymous debut on and you’re immediately confronted with something far more unsettling than Alan Rickman with a German accent: world of weird opener ‘In The Garden’, and its distorted vocals, disjointed beats and randomly stabbing strings. Despite their titles, scratchy lo-fi ditties ‘Here Goes The Rage’, ‘No Vendetta’ and ‘Hands’ prove much sweeter on the ear and by the end of these magnificently off-kilter, avant pop tales of ‘lies, revenge and lust’ we’ve fallen head over heels with a bunch of bams. (Camilla Pia)

A major label re-release of a debut album (long available on Spotify, Hype Machine etc) gets a UK reboot in CD form (you remember CDs right?) Really the point is to whip up renewed excitement in an under-appreciated 2011 highlight. Time has worn down many’s

resistance to the high camp of this tribute to the heyday of 80s and 90s house. The soft claps and deep thuds of drum machines are twisted by producers Dinamo Azari and Alixander III (not their real names) into thumping dance anthems; much better than the Dave Pearce- peddled stuff you might remember. The vocals recycle every cliché in the book, but credit is due for a straightforward house manifesto with compelling four-to-the-floor force. (Jonny Ensall)

MODERN COMPOSITION MICHAEL NYMAN Michael Nyman (MN Records) ●●●●●

Long before his soundtrack for The Piano, Michael Nyman’s very English form of baroque minimalism had impeccable art school credentials. Following his debut on Brian Eno’s Obscure label, this is his 1981 follow-up five years later. On this handsomely packaged re-

release, early scores for Peter Greenaway miniatures are jauntily insistent, while free jazz saxophonists skitter and splutter all over ‘Waltz’ like Teddy Boys at a tea dance. The lengthy ‘M-Work’, composed for a performance sculpture by Bruce McLean and Paul Richards, is a foreboding epic of contemporary classicism in excelcis on a valuable archive of a composer en route to defining his cinematic oeuvre. (Neil Cooper)

2 Feb–1 Mar 2012 THE LIST 87