MUSIC | Records
ALBUM OF THE ISSUE
NOIR POP ELA ORLEANS Upper Hell (HB Recordings) ●●●●●
If Ela Orleans’ last exceptional album, Tumult In Clouds (2012) was concerned with the heavens, then you can imagine where we’re all headed on its brilliant successor, Upper Hell. The Glasgow-based noir- pop diviner referenced Ray Bradbury on 2011’s Mars
Is Heaven, and quoted Aleister Crowley on Tumult In Clouds, and she continues this preoccupation with other-worlds, and under-worlds on Upper Hell. It’s loosely based on Dante’s Inferno, and again tips the druid’s cowl to Crowley, thus intimating (and then demonstrating) that old Lucifer still has all the best tunes. Thematically, Orleans’ new LP has its roots in her previous album’s
‘Dark Wood’ (which is where our Dante finds himself), and it is roughly hereabouts that Upper Hell commences its infernal trip, crossing the ‘River Acheron’ (via ye olde filmic-electro), surveying ‘The Sky And The Ghost’ (through harmonic, haunted tech-pop) and rolling out warped industrial-disco for ‘City of Dis’. Musically too, Upper Hell reflects on what has gone before, but it’s more chimerical this time around. These new works fuse her myriad styles into a cohesive, dramatic whole – from choral-techno opener ‘Dark Floor’ to sublime machine-psalm ‘We Are One’, which magically conjures apparitions of lonely pipers and Scottish folk.
Glasgow indie torch-bearers the Pastels provide gorgeous backing vocals on swansong, ‘Through Me’ – a fittingly heavenly send-off for this enlightening, everlasting album. Gather hope, all ye who enter. (Nicola Meighan) ■ Ela Orleans plays Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 17 Apr, with Howie B and Sacred Paws; and CCA, Glasgow, Sat 27 Jun.
AGIT POP YOUNG FATHERS White Men Are Black Men Too (Big Dada) ●●●●●
In an era when designed-in, risk-averse formulism is the only style which is allowed into the mainstream, it’s pleasing to hear Edinburgh trio Young Fathers unashamedly describe themselves as pop music. From that out-of-the-blue but utterly deserved Mercury win (and the Scottish Album of the Year before it) to their dignified / truculent non-interviews afterwards, they seem determined to buck expectations in a most charismatically ostentatious manner. In light of the above, decamping to Berlin to record their new album and
releasing it within six months feels very much like part of Ally Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and ‘G’ Hastings’ determinedly opposite strategy. And then you hear it and these suspicions find themselves confirmed, such is the brilliant, playfully confrontational attitude of it all. That title kicks it off, and the song it comes from – ‘Old Rock’n’Roll’, positioned midway through the album – doesn’t disappoint, a treatise on race in the 21st century based around a loping, MIA-esque sampled beat, a punk vocal yelp and amused dismay at so-called ‘rock’n’roll’s weak dilution of its black origins. It’s a song worthy of a full review in its own right, seemingly based around the strong vocal contention that injustice and discrimination are best born across social divisions: ‘I’m tired of playing the good black . . . I’m tired of blaming the white man . . . some white men are black men too / n***** to them, a gentleman to you.’ This frankness lurks throughout, but doesn’t make itself known quite as
readily elsewhere as the catchy ingenuity of the music, from the motoric gabba loop of ‘Shame’ to that dramatic, sepulchral pipe organ riff which permeates ‘Rain Or Shine’ and the busy gospel chant of ‘Nest’. Never willing to surrender itself to easy listening, the album’s artistic success isn’t in doubt – whether it really is pop, however, is now in the hands of the audience rather than the creators. (David Pollock) ■ See interview, page 26. The Art School, Glasgow, Wed 20 May; Central Hall, Edinburgh, Tue 9 Jun
INDIE ROCK DEARNESS Accidental Gold (Self-Released) ●●●●● GOTHIC ROCK NADINE SHAH Fast Food (Apollo/R&S Records) ●●●●●
Here we have some brand new Glaswegian jingle-jangle from PAWS’ bassist Ryan Drever (he also happens to be a member of The List’s music reviewing super-squad). It starts off with the appropriately titled ‘THAW’, which sounds as if the 2002 end of year best-of list from Pitchfork.com liquefied and congealed into some melted T-1000 indie mass on a practice room floor in Glasgow’s West End – which is actually a pretty good thing. With its buried vocals, cranked treble and lo-fi bedroom musk, we’re delving into some early Superchunk from the get go, with maybe a pinch of the late, great Jay Reatard and the ever-underrated Versus from NYC. A pleasant guest vocal slot from ex-Minutemen legend Mike Watt on
‘Stationary Waves’ sounds like a sleep-talking Marlboro man after a night on the smash – an unexpected midway ditty for sure. Isn’t it nice when legends just pop up to mark their territory in a totally proactive manner, thus giving the second half of the EP a wee celebrity piggy back? There are some delightful moments on the uppity chorus of ‘It’s Ok You’re Fine’ or the beguiling ‘No One Knows (what the fuck they’re talking about)’ which taps into that washy awkwardness found on classic records like Weezer’s Pinkerton or most of Stephen Malkmus’ output. There’s probably enough going on here for both PAWS fans and older K
Records buffs to get aroused by, but it’s a release which definitely lends itself to its format (a limited edition run of cassettes, plus Bandcamp streaming and some CDs too), the warm tape buzz throughout gives enough extra crunch and vocal disparity when required and said aesthetics can make a hell of a difference between the pedestrian and the listenable. Fortunately, Dearness has managed to nail that part down like an awkward tent peg. If Drever could expand on some of the songwriting we could be onto something pretty gnarly in the near future – provided he keeps it scuzzy. (Nick Herd) ■ dearness.bandcamp.com/ releases
92 THE LIST 2 Apr–4 Jun 2015
An expressive alto voice with a torch song tone is a powerful musical weapon, deployed with precision over the years by femmes fatales from Marianne Faithfull to PJ Harvey, Anita Lane to Anna Calvi, all of whom can conjure up a cloak and dagger intensity in their performances.
Nadine Shah has one of those naturally noirish voices and knows how to use it. This Northumbrian singer, whose Pakistani-Norwegian parentage certainly doesn’t hurt her striking image, cultivated a love of jazz through her teenage years but her own music tends to the gothic: Nick Cave is her favourite singer, she has toured with Depeche Mode and Bat For Lashes and the sleeve of her second album looks like a poster for an Italian giallo horror.
Where Shah laboured over her debut album Love Your Dum and Mad, Fast Food was written with regular collaborator Ben Hillier in a two-month splurge. Yet far from unleashing the hounds, it is a controlled, self-contained and balefully brooding collection, strong on carefully wrought atmosphere but slight on songs, which are often repetitive in structure and undynamic in execution.
Keening gothic guitars run insistently through ‘Fool’, while Shah intones
mysteriously ‘you, my sweet, are a fool’ like a disapproving mistress. You can hear the throaty catch in her voice on the more minimal ‘Matador’ and she creates a harmonising siren chorus of Shahs on ‘Nothing Else To Do’, all singing the title repeatedly over a plangent picked guitar, like an Asian love mantra.
The single ‘Stealing Cars’ is the most serviceable song of the bunch – Shah and Hillier dress it up in gothic robes but it’s essentially a commercial pop song, a sheep in wolf’s clothing which holds your gaze right to the end rather than go for the jugular. Like the rest of the album, it is elegantly packaged but lacks bite. (Fiona Shepherd) ■ Nadine Shah plays King Tut's, Glasgow, Mon 13 Apr. The single 'Fool' is out now.