list.co.uk/music Records | MUSIC
AMERICANA GUN OUTFIT Out of Range (Paradise of Bachelors) ●●●●● INDIE POP THE JUST JOANS You Might Be Smiling Now . . . (Fika Recordings) ●●●●●
Gun Outfit are a band birthed in the US indie mecca of Olympia in Washington State, but with their musical hearts in the desert, much closer to their adopted home of Los Angeles. They call their music ‘western expanse’ – which is a neat epithet for their sprawling cosmic country sound, a cinematic marriage of American folk and psychedelic rock’n’roll jamming which has influenced their guitar-toting countrymen from Gram Parsons and the Velvet Underground right through to Yo La Tengo, My Morning Jacket and Silver Jews. Their fifth album, Out of Range, features a faded family photograph of Monument Valley on the cover. The scene of many a John Ford western appears pale and hazy here, an elusive American dream. This is not the only history/mythology invoked or referenced, with songs also inspired by the Flemish artist Breughel the Elder (‘Landscape Painter’), Anatolian goddesses and, for openers, Greek mythology. Gun Outfit are the latest musicians to draw on the Orpheus myth. ‘Ontological Intercourse’ picks up the tale post-mortem when Orpheus’ lyre continues to play following his beheading. It’s one of the perkier numbers here, as related by Dylan Sharp in a characterful, clipped drawl. Co-vocalist Carrie Keith fronts the wispy southern gothic folk reverie of ‘The 101’ and the mellow acid Americana of ‘Three Words’ with the same heavy-lidded sensuality as Mazzy Star, as well as delivering ‘Background Deal’, the most traditionally rootsy number on the album.
The inexorable march of time is never far from mind throughout You Might be Smiling Now . . . , the Just Joans’ first album in more than ten years. Just as self aware as ever before, the decade wait between records has seen the band grow up (and expand, over the years, from brother/sister duo David and Katie Pope to a sprawling six-piece), but themes of adolescence, angst and heartbreak are prevalent.
‘The years are running out / it’s tragic, but it’s true,’ mourns opener ‘O Caledonia’, while ‘A Matter of Time’ posits: ‘It’s just a matter of time til they break your heart / and time’s so unkind.’ The chasing and stealing of time is highlighted in tracks that detail teenage hormones, through 20s confusion, winding up in middle-aged resignation.
‘You Make Me Physically Sick (Let’s Start Having Children)’s retro 8-bit bloops underlie the tale of a couple who have settled, and aren’t happy about it: ‘You’re dull and your tunes are shit,’ taunts Katie Pope, channeling a vaporwavey Clare Grogan.
Their lo-fi self production places the record squarely in early 90s Scottish
indie pop, with tongue firmly in cheek and David Pope’s sarcastic cynicism a hallmark of the band’s legacy. ‘Johnny, Have You Come Lately’ gives the teen horror of pregnancy scares
Their slow, sumptuous soundscapes are laced with banjo, dulcimer and a jaunty whistle-along soundtrack, while ‘Reading in Public Places’ is a
hybrid instruments with Frankensteinian names, created by multi-instrumentalist Henry Barnes. Is that the fabled ‘springocaster lapslide’ creating the languorous country twang on ‘Cybele’? Occasionally, they up the pace
to a rock’n’roll canter. The druggy catalogue of ‘Strange Insistence’ is set to a gentle but propulsive psych country backing. But whatever the tempo, Gun Outfit are no musical slouches. (Fiona Shepherd) ■ Out Fri 10 Nov.
poppy takedown of posturing lit wannabes using faux intellectualism to try to pick up women. ‘Biblically Speaking’ sees a young man’s religion battling lust, with hormones, inevitably, winning out.
Ultimately, You Might be Smiling Now . . . is a sharper, on-the- nose take on indie pop, proving the Just Joans may be older, but, in their own whimsically nostalgic way, perhaps no wiser, and for that we can only be glad. (Kirstyn Smith) ■ Out Fri 1 Dec.
INDIE POP SHAMIR Revelations (Father/Daughter Records) ●●●●● EXPERIMENTAL ROCK RICHARD YOUNGS This Is Not A Lament (Fourth Dimension) ●●●●●
When Shamir released his debut album Ratchet back in 2015, there seemed to be an instant frenzy that surrounded the artist, with Pitchfork describing the record as ‘the best dance-pop of the past decade’. Fast forward to 2017 and Shamir has shed his ‘accidental pop star’ skin, embracing a sound that is more raw, real and unapologetic in both its composition and delivery.
Many of the tracks on new album Revelations are a far cry from the infectious kitsch of Ratchet’s lead single ‘On The Regular’, taking a more stripped-back approach that places a heavy emphasis on emotional depth. Opener ‘Games’ sets the pace with its minimal keyboard chimes accompanying Shamir’s trademark falsetto, at times providing an almost eerie dissonance between the two. This simplicity is a key element of Revelations but not one that diminishes the impact of the album as a whole. Instead, the unembellished and understated nature of the instrumentation provides a texture that is warm and sonorous.
‘You Have a Song’ has a 90s grunge feel to it, with fuzzy guitars and
prominent bass lines that continue in tracks like the sun-bleached ‘Blooming’ and lo-fi ‘Her Story’. Lead single ‘90's Kids’ is a tongue-in-cheek ballad, detailing the anxieties and clichés of millennial life, with its chorus emphatically stating ‘fuck you, we out here strugglin’. Closing track ‘Straight Boy’ is a candid finish to the album where Shamir offers up some real truths about the unnecessary focus that straight men place on how they're viewed by others.
Overall, Revelations can be viewed as a more developed version of Shamir’s self-released second record Hope. There isn't a huge amount of variation between tracks but it's still positive to see Shamir continue to undertake such a progression from dance- pop to indie and disco synth to dense, hazy guitars, without losing his penchant for penning a good pop melody. (Arusa Qureshi) ■ Out 3 Fri Nov.
If your interest in Richard Youngs has been piqued by his involvement in Glasgow mutant disco supergroup AMOR, then why not dive into the underground legend’s more outré side with this new double album of weirdo Celtic drone? If you’re new to Youngs, then you might be best off first investigating the urban pastoral synthpop of Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits, or the beautiful echo-folk of Autumn Response, but there’s no harm in throwing yourself in at the deep end.
This is Not a Lament features a host of co-conspirators, from Alasdair Roberts to Australian underground hero Oren Ambarchi, but there's a unifying quality, specifically its focus on pibroch, the extended piping form associated with the Scottish highlands. That’s no more apparent than in the tracks with piper Donald WG Lindsay. On ‘Kinning Park’, Lindsay lays wheezing bagpipe drones against Young’s processed harmonies and Roberts’ wordless folk melodies, while ‘Bridge of Allan’ sets the pipes against shimmering synth drones and chopped- up vocals suggestive of Berlin-era Bowie at a Hebridean séance. Then there’s the remarkable ‘Airdrie’, where Youngs’ backward vocals sing into existence some alter-universe Gàidhealtachd, where the Free Church psalmists jam with the Steve Reich of ‘It's Gonna Rain’.
The cycling guitar feedback of ‘Constantinople’ sounds like a fleet of ice-cream vans playing Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, while ‘Genghis City’ sets Sybren Renema’s throat singing against processed organ jitters. Kiwi legends Alastair Galbraith, Reg Norris and Mick Elborado appear on the wiggy guitar and harmonium fest ‘Otira George’, while Ambarchi cranks up the oscillators behind the synth skirls of ‘Kitazawa'. Add to this the cello and synth of the Norifumi Shimogawa collaboration ‘Kilsyth’, and a beautifully uncanny reunion with Simon Wickham Smith, and you have a truly radical engagement with Scottish tradition. (Stewart Smith) ■ Out now.
1 Nov 2017–31 Jan 2018 THE LIST 105