MUSIC | Records
ALBUM OF THE ISSUE
INDUSTRIAL ROCK THE TWILIGHT SAD Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave (FatCat) ●●●●●
More than a decade spent cranking out slabs of scorching misery would leave most bands jaded, but the Twilight Sad sound more invigorated than ever. Recent releases have seen what might be considered typical moves towards ‘maturing’, by paring back their wall of sound towards brooding industrial rock but these experiments have coalesced well with their heavier tendencies to make this fourth album their best and most cohesive to date.
EXPERIMENTAL / METAL SCOTT WALKER & SUNN O))) Soused (4AD) ●●●●●
The pairing of hallowed avant-gardist Scott Walker with subterranean metal overlords Sunn O))) was first mooted when the former was asked to appear on the latter’s Monoliths & Dimensions. This tantalising prospect did not materialise, but may have inspired the doom-metal elements that peppered Walker’s last opus, Bish Bosch, and has now culminated in this meeting of twisted minds.
Surprisingly, first track ‘Brando’ is disarmingly bright in its opening moments, with Walker offering an optimistic vocal flurry over major chords and birdcall-as- heavy-metal trills. But this is just a feint, and it soon sinks into traditional Sunn O))) tar, with Walker’s wails becoming increasingly desperate. It’s also illustrative of a recurring problem with Soused. Sunn O)))’s previous vocalists, be it Attila Csihar’s diabolical intoning or the
celestial radiance of Jessika Kenney, were deployed texturally, complementing Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson’s oppressive sludge. Walker’s clear voice and arcane, riddle-laden lyrics, on the other hand, are so central to his aesthetic that a compromise is necessary. Yet perhaps it has gone too far as the guitars seem neutered while Walker’s voice is foregrounded to an uncomfortable degree.
This is their most pristine-sounding album. The murk and menace is Two of the five tracks strike a better balance. ‘Bull’, a nigh-industrial stomp, is
still there but it sounds sweeter than ever. The macabre imagery has been toned down and James Graham’s lyrics bare more vulnerability without sacrificing his knack for amusingly wry little turns of phrase – the chorus of ‘I Could Give You All That You Don’t Want’ and the bellowed refrain of “I’ve been put to bed” (‘Leave the House’) are standout moments. Graham’s howls have been softened to a croon for much of the record and it works very well, now sounding more mournful than angry. The whole tone is more majestic – Andy McFarlane’s guitars wallow gracefully among the shadows rather than brewing a torrent of darkness and the electronic flourishes build subtle drips of expertly controlled atmosphere.
It flows effortlessly between sounding epic and moments of real insular beauty – the stark piano based ‘Sometimes I Wished I Could Fall Asleep’ is a suitably poignant closer. Their sound may have changed over time, but it is still unmistakably the Twilight Sad and there is still nobody else who sounds quite like them. (Chris Tapley) ■ See live review, page 79. The Twilight Sad play O2 ABC, Glasgow, Fri 19 Dec.
pleasing in its eccentricity and disjointedness. Walker is beautifully integrated into the mayhem, which eventually flows into a protean instrumental drone. On closer ‘Lullaby’, originally written for Ute Lemper’s Punishing Kiss project in 2000, Sunn O)))’s smouldering magma serves as background texture rather than competing for dominance with Walker’s voice, and the explosion of discord is a hellish variation on the original’s ominous elegance. On paper, these two wielders of the dark flame complement each other perfectly, but this is at times an awkward pairing with Sunn O))) often subsumed into and overwhelmed by Walker’s aesthetic, and Walker himself reined in by his collaborators’ long-form linearity and drone- faithfulness. (Matt Evans)
ACOUSTIC GUITAR RARITIES RM HUBBERT Ampersand Extras (Chemikal Underground) ●●●●● HOUSE SLAM Reverse Proceed (Soma) ●●●●●
Extras they might be, but make no mistake: there is nothing extraneous on this album. As with RM Hubbert’s exquisite guitar instrumentals; as with his devastating songs and warm collaborations – as with the three albums that preceded, and engendered, this long-player – Ampersand Extras is a masterclass in musical economy.
It is also a vital adjunct to what Glasgow flamenco-punk guitarist Hubbert has termed his Ampersand Trilogy: a triptych of diverse yet intimately related albums that explore, and deal with, love and loss – from 2009’s instrumental First & Last, through 2012’s collaborative Scottish Album of the Year Award-winning Thirteen Lost & Found, to 2013’s Breaks & Bone, which saw him finally find the words he wanted to say, and the voice to sing them. Ampersand Extras excavates and recontextualises previously unreleased works and tour-only rarities from the trilogy's recording period. In doing so, it brings the albums closer together, while offering a final chapter, and meditation, on one of the most prolific and critical bodies of work in contemporary Scottish music.
Hubbert started to make solo music in the mid-late 2000s, largely as a way of processing and articulating his grief for the loss of his parents; the break- up of his marriage; his clinical depression; his regrets and memories; his love for his family, friends and legendary dog, D Bone. D Bone makes a welcome return on Ampersand Extras, on ‘For Fuck Sake D, Sit Nice’, and several
With their first record in seven years, the Glaswegian duo behind house classic ‘Positive Education’ have created a record which belies their 22 years in existence to build upon an electronic sound which is truly timeless. Aesthetically, this may be much to do with the fact that its production has foregone software- based composition in favour of Stuart MacMillan and Orde Meikle’s desire to use the locally-produced Cirklon sequencer, a device which gives the record a refreshingly old-school feel. It’s not so much in or out of tune with current developments in house and
techno music as positioned somewhere beyond them. Reverse Proceed sounds modern, but much of the music here could also have been composed in Detroit in 1988 or West Germany in the mid-70s: in places, comparisons to early Tangerine Dream are unavoidable and no shame.
That the whole thing has been presented as one continuous mix isn’t an
affectation, but rather a conscious and well-justified artistic decision to create a tightly controlled and expansive listening experience. This record hasn’t been designed with sending out a couple of promo 12-inch bangers to DJs and radio stations and flogging an album on the back of it, it’s a richly-composed single body of work in its own right. Sadly the promotional stream sent for review doesn’t break each track down
individually, making it tricky to highlight certain sequences which might be picked
familiar characters make a (re) appearance, among them former El Hombre Trajeado comrade Stevie Jones (well, his baby). When Hubbert released Breaks & Bone, he said he was seeking to move on from the Ampersand Trilogy’s commemorations and songs. Ampersand Extras sets him free. It embraces and entwines itself around the loose ends; upturns the few remaining stones; and provides an evocative, beautiful means of drawing a line in the (amper)sand. (Nicola Meighan)
out for comment over others, but in light of the above that’s probably fair to the record. It’s a journey which starts amid a Blade Runner-esque swirl of traffic noise, and when the beats come in they’re so obviously not intended to take us to the dancefloor – not until later in the record, at least, when the evocative ambient swirl gives way to a few segments of old-fashioned acid house. In this sense it’s a journey through the last half century of electronica as much as a futurist aural psychogeography. (David Pollock)
76 THE LIST 16 Oct–13 Nov 2014