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RECORDS Music
ARCTIC ALT-FOLK EFTERKLANG Piramida (4AD) ●●●●●
ELECTRONIC ERRORS New Relics’ (Rock Action) ●●●●● ELECTRONIC HOW TO DRESS WELL Total Loss (Weird World) ●●●●●
Piramida is an abandoned Russian mining settlement halfway between Norway and the North Pole. The ghost town intrigued the Danish orchestra-botherers and they travelled there in 2010 to make field recordings in a manner familiar to anyone who saw their recent folk-doc An Island. Among the sounds are an oil drum being struck and the world’s most northerly grand piano, deserted in an empty concert hall. That’s all terribly romantic, but what does it sound like? Not contrived, for a start. Ever-elegant strings, rounded, satisfying drums and the heartfelt melancholia of Casper Clausen’s vocals come together as an achingly lovely whole with a homespun feel that still carries the grandeur and breadth of the Arctic vistas that bore it. (Laura Ennor)
The connection between people and place in music, or rather, sound and surroundings, is always fascinating, especially in a place like Scotland. Far from bearing any national trademarks, or even the slightest hint of their collective homeland on this new mini-album, Errors sound instead like they’re communicating to us from an alternate, unexplored reality where it is always the 1980s and ethereal electro is the language of choice. The band’s musical evolution has seen them refine their commitment to detail and dense layers, and on New Relics they venture even further from electronic party bangers, into full-on discovery mode, creating an indulgent and reflective record that will heavily reward those with the patience for it. (Ryan Drever)
Already recognised as a most forward-thinking electronic producer thanks to his 2010 debut Love Remains, How to Dress Well (aka Brooklynite Tom Krell) has moved up to another level with his new album. Reminiscent of The xx thanks to the often somnambulant pace and his detached, other- worldly vocal, Total Loss maintains the atmosphere of his English counterparts but if anything amps it up on the overwhelming opener ‘When I Was in Trouble’, adding touches of future R&B on ‘Running Back’ and the tear-inducing ‘Set It Right’, a most unexpected club funk on ‘It Was You’ and a diversion into classical oriental influences on ‘World I Miss You Won’t Be Without You (Proem)’. An unheralded modern classic. (David Pollock)
PUNK BLUES THE JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION Meat and Bone (Bronzerat) ●●●●● It’s been eight years since the Blues Explosion’s last studio album. In that time the band members have pursued solo projects, with frontman Jon Spencer focusing on his boppin’ rockabilly venture Heavy Trash. Now they’re back 21 years after they first arrived – sounding like they never went away. Which is a great thing if you dig their once pioneering, now widely influential (see everyone from The White Stripes to The Jim Jones Revue), still gloriously ferocious brand of down-and-dirty punk-blues that’s shot through with garage rock, soul, rhythm and blues, funk and rap. Encompassing the whole spectrum of the Explosion sound and raucous as it ever was, Meat and Bone plays like both a ‘best of’ collection and a debut album.
DANCE/ POP PET SHOP BOYS Elysium (Parlophone) ●●●●●
‘You’ve been around, you don’t look too rough / and I still quite like some of your early stuff,’ croons Neil Tennant on ‘Your Early Stuff’ midway through this record, and it’s pleasing to note he and Chris Lowe haven’t lost their sense of humour. Reviewing your own career, albeit through the character filter of an only semi-informed passer-by, is a neat postmodern gag, although the sentiment of the song isn’t difficult to agree with. From the prickly synthesised
melancholy of ‘Leaving’and ‘Memory of the Future’ to the bitchy but accurate pop star caricature of ‘Ego Music’ and oddly ‘Copacabana’-esque ‘Requiem in Denim and Leopardskin’, this is at once less than classic PSB but more than most current synth-pop can muster. (David Pollock)
FOLK POP RACHEL SERMANNI Under Mountains (Middle of Nowhere) ●●●●●
Rachel Sermanni has become such a well-loved figure on the live map in recent years that this debut LP feels overdue, despite the fact that the Carrbridge singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is barely in her 20s. Possessed of a striking, expressive voice, and a range that sweeps like the mountains she serenades, Sermanni’s classic, folksy songwriting aligns her muse with childhood favourites, Eva Cassidy and Carole King. Under Mountains works best when it inhabits its titles – the skeletal pizzicato of orchestral psalm ‘Bones’; the loved-up lilt of ‘Waltz’; the shadowy chamber- chorale of ‘The Fog’. This is a formidably assured debut: full of life, and landscape, and promise. (Nicola Meighan)
POP RETURN DEACON BLUE The Hipsters (Demon) ●●●●● It starts like all the best Deacon Blue records – gradually, subtly, waiting and wondering – just like Raintown, their debut, did 25 years ago. Then it eases into the melodic drive-pop that made the Glasgow band a household name. Produced by ex- Delgado Paul Savage (King Creosote, Admiral Fallow), The Hipsters feels nostalgic and resonant, from opening hymn ‘Here I Am In London Town’ to the chiming rel ection of ‘Laura From Memory’ (a perfect DB album track, and that’s no faint praise: they frequently outshone the singles) . Yet it breaks new ground: ‘Stars’ is a rush of celestial piano-rock; ‘Turn’ slowly l ushes with covetous wrath; the harmonic echo-pop of ‘The Outsiders’ sounds like a wistful, joyous homecoming. Let’s welcome them back with open arms. (Nicola Meighan)
PSYCH-FOLK JOSEPHINE FOSTER Blood Rushing (Fire) ●●●●●
It feels remiss to call an LP a career-high when an artist such as as Josephine Foster’s genre- defying output spans 19th century German lieder (2006’s Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing), reworkings of Emily Dickinson’s poetry (2010’s Graphic As A Star) and primitive US blues (2005’s Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You). But there’s such a sense of vitality and cohesion on the singer/songwriter’s new album that it feels like her strongest and most convincing work to date. Colorado-born Foster, a former
funeral and opera singer, has recruited a stirring band including her Spanish husband Victor Herrero for this terrific offbeat-Americana anthology. She sounds more at home in her voice, and in these timeless, mythic folksongs, than ever. (Nicola Meighan)
20 Sep–18 Oct 2012 THE LIST 81