MUSIC | Records
ELECTRO SOUL TORO Y MOI Anything in Return (Carpark) ●●●●●
FOLK/ELECTRONIC/POP THE PICTISH TRAIL Secret Soundz Vol 2 (Fence) ●●●●● DUB PEAKING LIGHTS Lucifer In Dub (Domino) ●●●●●
INSTRUMENTAL ALTER-EGO L PIERRE The Island Come True (Melodic) ●●●●●
Fitting broadly into the ever- expanding genre of electronic singer-producers who are making increasingly sophisticated sounds on their own, Chaz Bundick – who recently made the move from his native South Carolina to Berkeley, California – has earned the ‘true original’ description.
This third album is a gift which just keeps giving, a multi-textured beast embedded in a bright pop sensibility which takes a few listens to get your head around. ‘Harm in Change’ is a slice of slick, style bar club-pop underpinned by a constant, harrowing synth howl, ‘Say That’ adapts jiggy old-school electro hip hop with a contemporary flavour and ‘Cola’ accentuates the downbeat elements which hover just below the surface of a deeply resonant and engaging record. (David Pollock)
Pity poor Johnny Lynch, who has to escape to the Isle of Eigg to be free of the long shadow which Fence and their multifarious festival activities cast over him. None of that’s true, of course, but it pays to be reminded of the label boss’s talents as a musician and this Eigg-recorded album does that in generous measure.
It’s eclectic and wonderful, from the misty-eyed psychedelia of ‘Sequels’ to ‘The Handstand Crowd’ and ‘Michael Rocket’s tender, faraway melancholy and the glistening indie- pop of ‘Long in the Tooth’. It’s a rare album which manages to sound utterly immediate yet layered with hidden sounds and sensations, but as the name implies, this manages it. Deserved wider recognition surely awaits. (David Pollock) See page 111 for a single review. Pictish Trail plays Mono, Glasgow, Mon 31 Dec; The Art Club, Glasgow, Thu 24 Jan, with Rozi Plain.
LA husband and wife duo, Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis, aka Peaking Lights released their third album Lucifer earlier this year (after early CDrs, then 2009's Imaginary Falcons and 2011's 936). It was an elegant, woozy collection of escapist dreampop, fusing sound collage, dub, hollowed-out keys and wind- tunnel vocals. Here they present a six song collection of dub re-edits of tracks from Lucifer – and yes, it is probably as underwhelming as it sounds. While there is something to be
said for getting lost in the plodding, psyche fugue of Lucifer in Dub – the shimmering ‘My Heart Dubs 4 U’ is the standout – it’s not exactly a giant leap in the couple’s sound, no matter how they dress it up as a doffing of the cap to pioneers such as King Tubby and Augustus Pablo. (Mark Keane)
Given Aidan Moffat’s consummate way with words – in Arab Strap, with Bill Wells, in his short stories – you might suspect that his expressive endowments were more inclined towards lyrics than music. His uncanny instrumental alter-ego L Pierre lays waste to any such assumptions as Moffat weaves classical fragments, rhythm samples and citations from Peter Pan, Macbeth and Buddhism to create a suite of found sounds that’s as fluent and resonant as his spoken-word work, albeit more mysterious. Harnessing tape hiss and vinyl crackle as its heady and ambient backdrop, L Pierre’s otherworldly fourth album is equal parts eerie, bleak and gorgeous. Transcendent opus ‘The Grief That Does Not Speak’ proves that Moffat says beautiful things even when he says nothing at all. (Nicola Meighan)
ALT-POP JULIA HOLTER Ekstasis (Domino) ●●●●●
While Californian underground pop luminary Julia Holter used her debut, Tragedy, to translate a classic ancient Greek text (Euripides’ Hippolytus) into a grassroots suite of electronic pop, its incandescent follow-up, Ekstasis proves that her way with a song is as vital and enthralling as her conceptual, long-form work.
While both albums’ roots can be traced to ancient Greek culture, and each features disembodied aria ‘Goddess Eyes (I/II)’, Ekstasis can also be taken at face value: as an anthology of visionary pop vignettes – ‘Marienbad’ and ‘In The Same Room’ are particularly striking in that context – and when it evokes ritualism, baroque instrumentation, Virginia Woolf and Anne Carson, it does so in a warm and convincing manner. Further proof that she is a fascinating artist. (Nicola Meighan)
110 THE LIST 13 Dec 2012–24 Jan 2013
SPOOKY FESTIVE-LOUNGE-POP NATIONAL JAZZ TRIO OF SCOTLAND The National Jazz Trio of Scot- land’s Christmas Album (Karaoke Kalk) ●●●●●
Forget Bowie and Bing. As winter warmers go, Bill Wells’ reinvention of 12 festive favourites featuring vocalists Lorna Gilfedder (Golden Grrrls), Kate Sugden (Johnny and the Entries), Aby Vulliamy (The One Ensemble) and Gerard Black (François and the Atlas Mountains) is an exquisite slowed-down treat. With each of the singers offering
more reflective and at times mournful renderings of normally celebratory singalongs, from Sugden’s opening take on ‘Oh Xmas Tree’, through to the finale of ‘We Three Kings’, more depth is given to each song that belie any notions of Nouvelle Vague style kitsch. Wells’ textured keyboard arrangements lend even more weight to a collection that puts meaning back into a season where comfort matters as much as joy. (Neil Cooper)
ELECTRONIC DAM MANTLE Brothers Fowl (Notown) ●●●●● FOLK-ROCK CHRISTOPHER OWENS Lysandre (Turnstile) ●●●●●
As anyone witnessing this Glasgow- based producer’s recent live shows will attest, Tom Marshallsay is in a different league to most electronic producers. 18,000 Soundcloud followers suggest he’s doing something right on record, too. Impressively, for a debut album
proper, Brother’s Fowl (on his friend Gold Panda’s Notown label) is a marked departure in sound from the claustrophobic bass music of 2011 EP ‘We’. Fewer synths and kick drums and a more sample- based soundset, lifting jazz drums and pastoral brass lines result in something you could almost call down-tempo – which is unmistakably UK in sound. There’s a warm psychedelia throughout, especially on tracks ‘Canterbury’ and ‘Blueberry’. Having successfully reinvented himself with each release to date, let’s hope he’s as prolific as he is versatile. (Hamish Brown)
His first output since quitting Girls, Christopher Owens’ hasty solo album should herald the stick-thin San Francisco indie model dude – whose outrageous backstory features religious cults, rich benefactors and heroin addiction – getting found out as the phoney doubters demand. But Lysandre confounds preconceptions: it’s pretty, focused and disarmingly – almost naïvely – honest.
It’s a bittersweet ode to a French ex-love, the first girl he met on Girls’ debut tour, yet speaks more broadly to the simple thrill a young musician feels hitting the road for the first time, as warmly shaded by acoustic strumming and plucking, sighing slide guitars, florid flute flourishes and travellin’ man harmonica. Standout track ‘Love Is In The Ear Of The Listener’ eloquently exalts objectivity in musical appreciation, but even the most biased critics stand to be conquered. (Malcolm Jack)