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RECORDS Music
POP DAVID BYRNE AND ST VINCENT Love This Giant (4AD) ●●●●●
There is something ironic about the fact that the futuristic art-pop icons at the heart of this much-hyped endeavour are almost outshone by that most traditional of sonic devic- es: the good old brass band. The horns and fanfares that populate this union between Talking Heads visionary David Byrne and pop seer St Vincent (aka Annie Clark) are vital: they serve to cast light, and cohesion, across the record’s motley narrative, thus allowing Byrne and Clark to dance round each other’s capricious voices and ideas; to take turns exploring alien funk, urban stut- ter, swooning electro and much besides. It largely works without jarring and always sounds like two of our greatest pop creators having a ball. (Nicola Meighan)
NEO-CLASSICAL PIANO CHILLY GONZALES Solo Piano II (Gentle Threat) ●●●●● ALT ROCK CAT POWER Sun (Matador) ●●●●●
Eighteen months after telling The List that ‘the guy from Muse is asking for an ass-kicking, pianistically speaking’, and three years since he tanned Andrew WK’s proverbial in a New York piano-battle – not to mention his world record-breaking longest-ever solo concert – Chilly Gonzales returns with his second anthology of self-penned neo-classical piano works. The sometime Canadian electro- rap cad, also known as Gonzales and Jason Charles Beck (he requested that The List call him ‘Maestro’), has bestowed his ivory charms upon Drake, Feist and Daft Punk, but these lovely solo compositions suggest that Gonzales saved the best tunes for himself. (Nicola Meighan)
As the title suggests, Cat Power aka American alt-rock darling Chan Marshall is hailing this record as something of a rebirth, and it is a joyous, illuminating thing to behold. Forgoing her languorous, long-
term attachment to Delta blues and Memphis soul in favour of twisted disco (‘Sun’) indie piano-house (‘Ruin’) and sun-bleached swagger (‘3,6,9’), Marshall’s ninth album is full of surprises, for which some credit is due to its mixer Philippe Zdar (Phoenix, Beastie Boys). Sun’s penultimate track, ‘Nothin’ but Time’ rises and hangs around, warm as the longest day – ten-plus minutes of hope-filled piano-groove plus a twilight Iggy Pop cameo. ‘It’s up to you to be like nobody,’ they sing together. Marshall sounds bolder, and brighter, than ever. (Nicola Meighan)
POP-ROCK CANCEL THE ASTRONAUTS Animal Love Match (Riley) ●●●●●
Continuing in that great Scots tradition of fuelling loved-up alt- rock with an interstellar designate let’s hear it for Edinburgh vim-pop five-piece Cancel the Astronauts. They’re not a million light years from We Were Promised Jetpacks’ rousing power-indie, nor King Creosote’s melodic vigour, and their fusion of barbed words and dark thoughts with upbeat hooks makes for a stirring debut. CTA’s high-octane indie-rock sounds both fresh-faced and familiar (there are echoes of PIL’s ‘Rise’ on ‘Lekking’, and Elvis Costello’s ‘Watching The Detectives’ on ‘Promises of Strangers’), while recent single ‘Intervention’ talks about impending stars and sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Nicola Meighan) ■ Album launch, Sneaky Petes, Edinburgh, Sat 15 Sep.
POST-ROCK/DRONE SWANS The Seer (Young God) ●●●●● ELECTRONIC/LO-FI DAN DEACON America (Domino) ●●●●●
PSYCH-POP GRIZZLY BEAR Shields (Warp) ●●●●●
How do you describe an album like The Seer? No mere genre stamp, comparison or colourful metaphor would do it justice. However, we must try, so let’s start by saying Michael Gira and crew’s follow-up to 2010’s Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky exceeds its predecessor’s sonic vision and that’s saying something. Spread over two CDs, clocking in at just under two hours, this is a supreme achievement that, to quote Gira himself, ‘is the culmination of every previous Swans album, as well as any other music I’ve ever made, been involved in or imagined’. You’d expect any band that comes back from relative silence to strike when the iron’s hot, but this pow- erfully beautiful album is unprec- edented. (Ryan Drever) Dan Deacon’s America is a scuzzy but inspired sonic postcard, every bit as warped and comfortable as the accompanying artwork. Opener ‘Guildford Avenue Bridge’ is a punishing barrage of loops and crunching percussion that eventu- ally melts into a pulsating melodic soundscape, while ‘Prettyboy’ is a lush, ambient trek through the clouds; the stuff of indie movie dream sequences, exploding into 80s electro ballad territory with its bitcrushed drums and glassy synths. The rough and the smooth regularly lock horns, resulting in an entrancing collection of music with plenty of clout to keep you interest- ed. A weird and wonderful record that could just as easily soundtrack a highway drive in blistering heat as send you to sleep. (Ryan Drever)
If you know the woozy psych- indie sound of Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House and Veckatimest albums, and can imagine it with less oomph, more fuzz and fewer tunes, you’ve got Shields pegged. The same sounds resurface again and again: the shimmering strings, those arpeggiated, chim- ing keys, the multi-part choirboy harmonies – and that undulating guitar line in second track ‘Speak in Rounds’ is lifted almost whole- sale from Veckatimest opener ‘Southern Point’. The problem with this record is that it undulates, but never stimulates. It’s pleasant on the ear, but there’s nothing to grab the attention, either lyrically or musically, and it’s very much the sound of a band resting on their psychedelic laurels. (Laura Ennor)
THEATRICAL POP AMANDA PALMER AND THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA Theatre Is Evil (8ft Records) ●●●●●●
Her first studio album in four years, Theatre Is Evil is a big re-entrance from former Dresden Doll singer Amanda Palmer. If it has the air of a big production, by indie stand- ards it is – Palmer raised in the region of £800,000 through crowd- funding site Kickstarter to make the album. No pressure then.
From the crashing, fuzzy sprawl of opening track ‘Smile (Pictures or It Didn’t Happen)’ through to the jerky Britpop catchiness of ‘Olly Olly Oxen Free’, Palmer has pulled off an album that’s poppy, expres- sive, tender and lyrically inventive. The standout track is soaring piano ballad ‘Trout Heart Replica’: it’s Palmer at her raw, exposed, theat- rical best. (Rachel Devine)
23 Aug–20 Sep 2012 THE LIST 67