I came through the door this evening to find no bills (hooray!), no CDs to review (massive backlog, so just as well) and the latest issue of The Wire. This month’s cover star is Ariel Pink (I’m going to revel in reading the mag in bed later, along with The Wire’s excellent collection of essays on Scott Walker that they’ve just published as No Regrets).
I then switched on the computer to find that amongst the many submissions is a new track from Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti.It’s taken from the new album Mature Themes, and it’s called ‘Only In Dreams.’ Very different to what Ariel Pink has done before, it’s really rather lovely. Stream or download below:
The tracklisting can be found here, and he plays Glasgow’s Stereo on November 8.
Back in 2006, when indie was having one of its commercial ups (and bands were scoring no.1 singles and albums), The View seemed like one of the bright hopes. But six years down the line, and now on their fourth album, the reality is that it’s hard not to see The View as just another guitar band.
Sure, The View never set out to show that they were going to outdo Flaming Lips or Spiritualized in the being adventurous stakes. But this far down the line, the feeling is that they are still using the same template, and that nothing has evolved in their world. Not that they should have been hanging out with Skrillex or writing concept albums, but, y’know…
The album kicks off with recent single ‘How Long.’ And yeah, it’s singalong, and jaunty and upbeat. But the album just feels like The View by numbers. Sure, if you’re a diehard fan, you’ll probably still chant that ‘The View Are On Fire’ (with all the capitals). And it’s not an awful album, it’s just a particularly interesting album.
I first heard Patti Smith courtesy of U2. Her song ‘Dancing Barefoot’ was the b-side of ‘When Loves Comes To Town,’ which I bought reduced either in Smiths or Woolies at the impressionable age of thirteen. I played the b-side incessantly. It was a dark, betwitching number. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it was cool as.
At some point in my final year of school, a friend lent me Horses, her highly regarded (and rightly so) debut from 1975. ‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins -but not mine,’ she sang defiantly, on the album’s opening song ‘Gloria:In Excelsis Deo.’ It was dangerously thrilling and exciting -not least considering I’d grown up in a manse. Later on that year, Horses played out over the PA at REM’s big enormo-dome gig. It felt so cool to be alble to recognise that album straight off.
And so we come to the present day, and Ms. Smith unleashes her latest album, and her first album of new material since 2004’s Trampin.’ Much like the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy ten years later, Horses was a such a strong, defining statement that it can be difficult for records to live up to it. But she continues in her own vein, producing an album that is distinctively Patti Smith, and enlisting the help of well-suited collaborators. These include her son and daughter, Television’s Tom Verlaine, and long-term foil Lenny Kaye.
Smith is a poet, and some of the tracks are spoken-word, including incendiary backing. Additionally there’s also her touching tributes to both the victims of last year’s Japanese earthquake ‘Fuki-san’ and Amy Winehouse ‘This Is The Girl,’ which might just be the most memorable number here. Touchingly simple, it’s almost like a hymn. The album closes with an inspired reading of Neil Young’s ‘After The Goldrush’ which she brings right up to date, and the effect of the children’s choir on the song, is moving rather than trite as it might be in the hands of many others.
Meursault -‘Something For The Weakened.’ (Song, By Toad Records)
At this point in time, Meursault have proved themselves to be the biggest selling act on Song, By Toad Records. Following on from their fine, first two albums Pissing On Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues and All Creatures Will Make Merry, the band now deliver their third album. The reception for their second saw them playing big festivals and round Europe, and seemed to be an even bigger response than band or label dared hope for.
The promo email for this album from head Toad Matthew Young read: ” It’s rather different to previous Meursault stuff. Not so lo-fi, with lusher strings, and rather more of a thumping indie-rock (horrible term, I know) vibe where the big, loud tunes are concerned.” Now, I don’t know if that was meant to worry us Meursault fans that they might be about to go all stadium rock on us, or just explaining a progression in sound. Fortunately, it would appear I overreacted and they haven’t. Hoorah!
Granted songs like ‘Dull Spark’ and the single ‘Flittin’ may sound more polished than the earlier stuff. But that’s not to say that the rough edges which made the early stuff so exciting has been rubbed off. Because few bands do melancholy like Meursault, and tracks like ‘Hole’, standout track ‘Dearly Distracted’ and album opener ‘Thumb’ deliver it in spades. In the best possible way.
Yes, they recorded this in a poper studio, rather than on a portastudio in their own homes like with previous records. This has captured the evolution of the band. There’s perhaps less of the electronica feel than there might have been on Creatures, but the band seemed to have wisely decided to avoid making the same record twice.
Looking forward to hearing the next stage of their evolution, sometime about 2014…
****
Something For The Weakened is released by Song, By Toad Records on July 16.
It struck me, on Monday night, as I lay in bed listening to the new Blur single on my iPod, just how much has changed since I first heard Blur 21 years ago.
That first time was a Sunday night, as a school bus carried us home, and ‘There’s No Other Way’ was a chart entry on the Top 40. I didn’t even own a CD player then. I was fourteen, and a pretty miserable teenager.
But Blur ended up providing much of the soundtrack of the next twelve years. I bought ‘Popscene’ in 1992 on 7″ (admittedly out of the bargain bin for 25p; years later, having acquired the 12″, I sold it for £5). Over the course of the next three albums –Modern Life Is Rubbish, Parklife and The Great Escape-The band rose steadily to become the biggest band in Britain by 1995 (with the possible exception of Take That). And I still preferred them to Oasis, even when to admit to do so in public was something of a social faux pas.
But Blur were never a band to rest on their laurels. Over the course of their next three albums, 1997’s Blur, 1999’s 13 and 2003’s Think Tank, they pushed the boat out further and further. And they just got better and better. I finally saw them live in late 2003; Graham Coxon had left the band by then, but as I saw them at Glasgow Barrowlands, I felt glad that I had at least got to see them.
Various projects from the band members happened. It wasn’t clear if the band had actually split. But in 2009 they were back together. I felt old when the kids I taught had no idea (and these were teenagers) who this band were that were headlining T In The Park that year. And this year, no-one’s sure if they’ll be doing anything again after a busy summer -but if this is their final single (and the midweek charts suggest it will be yet another top thirty single, their first for nearly nine years) it’s one hell of a way to go out. I think ‘Under The Westway’ evokes ‘Battery In Your Leg,’ ‘Bad Day’ and ‘This Is a Low.’ And b-side ‘The Puritan’ is utterly different again, a post-punk meets lo-fi synth workout.
M83/Man Without Country, Edinburgh HMV Picturehouse, June 27, 2012
I’d been desperately hoping to get to this gig. Two days before, I received the email from the nice PR man to say that there would be two tickets on the door for me. Excellent. I then spent two days advertising everywhere finding someone who was free to go. I eventually gave up, and decided that, to hell with it, I was going by myself.
Support act, Man Without Country, are new to me, but it becomes clear within seconds that they are definitely an appropriate support act for M83. They play what I can only describe as hauntingly melodic pop, with intense, urgent beats. It seems strange that there are only three of them on stage, somehow something about their sounds would suggest that there are more of them on stage (and no, I don’t think they were using backing tracks). They don’t introduce any of their tracks, but I’m intrigued enough to go and check them out further.
At the start of M83’s set, Anthony Gonzalez walks on stage wearing an animal mask (at least, I’m assuming it was him, it was a mask after all, duh). It sets the tone for what is a fantastic set from the band. To those who have still yet to hear M83, they manage to mix krautrock (or German progressive rock, if you prefer) with eighties AOR and a lotta electronica.
I first tuned into them around the time of their third album Before The Dawn Heals Us, midway through the last decade. At the time, they provided a refreshing difference to the ongoing eighties revival and the second coming of postpunk. I was slightly put off the fifth album Saturdays =Youth (I blame the cover with the hipster teenagers on the front, personally, as to why I couldn’t connect with it). However, last year’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming has thus far proved the band’s commercial highpoint, with good reason.
The live show, mainly split between the four members on stage is a mass of dance beats, guitars and lights. Lots of flashing lights (to the point I worry, briefly, whether this is the onset of a migraine). Its music to lose, and find yourself in, and as a live show, it’s absolutely bloody glorious. Predictably, but not undeservedly, the biggest cheer of the night is reserved for ‘Midnight City’ for which a sexophonist appears out of nowhere. The effect is a little bit ravey – but thankfully more 808 State than Guru Josh. Monsieur Gonzalez thanks us profusely in English. We may have a reputation for being more reserved in Edinburgh than our neighbours forty miles along the M8, but this crowd was clearly up for it.
…And so, the next time someone tells you that you can have a free ticket to go and see M83, if you haven’t already bought yourself a ticket, take them up on it.
