Karl Bartos was one quarter of what is regarded as the classic line-up of Kraftwerk between 1975-1990. Whilst his former bandmates are touring the classic albums (and bringing the Tate’s box office into meltdown), he has given the world a new album.
Does it sound like Kraftwerk? Well, yes it does, and to be honest, I think most people would be disappointed if it didn’t. And when the sound that he helped create laid the blueprint for so much of what happened (let’s see: house, hip-hop and electro, post-punk, techno…this could be a whole PhD thesis, and in fact it probably is), then why not?
The reason for the name of the album is that during Kraftwerk’s heyday he kept what the press release describes as a ‘secret acoustic diary.’ This consisted of melodies, chord, sounds and the like which has produced these twelve new songs.
Given that this could have end up with an album that felt like half-baked doodles from the cutting room floor (and these are frequently served up to the world as ‘mixtapes’ now), it’s all the more impressive that this holds together as a coherent album. Whilst I personally could pass on ‘Vox Humana’ , there’s s much on offer here – opening track ‘Atomium’, ‘ International Velvet’ and ‘Without A Trace Of Emotion’ that feel like glorious POP songs.
This could have felt like a difficult album, so kudos is due once again to Herr Bartos for producing such a strong, listenable and enjoyable record.
****
Off The Record is released on Bureau B on March 18.
Armed with just her acoustic guitar – always a risk when you’re as saturated with singer-songwriters as I am and you’re the support -Kimberly Anne takes to the stage. Within seconds it’s clear that not only is she totally in her element, but she has a gorgeous voice, with a beautiful huskiness to it. She can call as song ‘La La’ and not only pull it off, but get the crowd to sing in harmony. Yes, as in singing different notes at the same time. Not only that she can harmonise with herself. She knows her music and can work ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and ‘Now That We’ve Found Love’ into the same song and it completely and utterly works. Finishing with ‘Almost On My Feet’ she shows that even as the support on a cold Monday night she can warm the corwd.
It’s a busy evening at the Electric Circus, and it transpires that people have been queuing up since half past five to see Lewis Watson. Given the makeup and age of the crowd, I think I can safely say that most of these are teenage girls. I get talking to a woman who seems slightly nearer my age – it transpires that she and her husband have driven their daughter all the way from Dundee to see this gig.
Freshly signed to Warners, the young singer-songwriter from Oxford is just about to unleash his third EP The Wild on the world. Aged just twenty, he’s made up to see the crowd that has gathered for him, not least because last year he supported Gabrielle Aplin at this venue, who has since charted with not just a Frankie Goes To Hollywood cover, but her own songs.
Backed with just a rhythm section, he clearly knows how to play to an audience. It must be pretty gratifying for any songwriter to have a crowd singing your own songs back at you, but this early into a career it’s damn impressive. He comes to perform in the middle of the crowd and they adore him.
Me? I think the lead track on the EP ‘The Wild’ is pretty good. In a world drowning in singer-songwriters, I don’t know if he has what it takes to carry him for decades, but there’s no doubt that someone who can move an audience as I saw him do on this night probably is pretty good at leaving any doubters behind. He has been accused of being like what you would get if you crossed Ed Sheeran with Harry Styles (ouch!) but if he can pull it off, fair play to him.
As lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch has been responsible for some of the greatest music of the last thirty years. Ocean Rain, the Bunnymen’s fourth album from 1984 is in my all time top five (along with Revolver, Disintegration,Low and Parallel Lines). He has also produced three solo albums so far – Candleland, Mysterio and Slideling (I rate the man’s music but I think I’d rather gloss over his reading of ‘September Song’ released as a single in 1984).
Anyway, ‘Mac the mouth’ as he was dubbed in the 1980s is shortly to release his fourth solo album, Holy Ghosts, a package of two albums within one. This will be released on April 22. The first one is a live album, recorded in May 2012 at London’s Union Chapel (nice venue, I once saw The Delgados playing there with Six By Seven, back in the midsts of time) which features Ian Broudie on guitar and was produced by Youth, Mac keeping his post-punk links going. The second disc is his fourth solo album Pro Patria Mori. *
The version of ‘Bring On The Dancing Horses’ sounds lovely.
Meanwhile, I was certainly pretty excited to learn that Echo and the Bunnymen are on a co-headlining tour with James next month:
April 2012
13th – Glasgow
15th – Newcastle Academy
16th – Sheffield Academy
17th – Bristol
19th – London Brixton Academy
20th – London Brixton Academy
22nd – Bournemouth O2 Academy
23rd – Leeds Academy
25th – Birmingham Academy
26th – Manchester Academy
I have seen both acts live several times – and even in big venues they still kick ass!
* Just in case you have even less Latin than I ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ – ‘it is sweet and right to die for your country.’
Foals have just revealed their new video for ‘Late Night’ the third single to be taken from their latest album Holy Fire.
Very dark and disturbing, an artistic with it, the video – rightly- carries a parental warning before it starts, so if you don’t want to see a music video that looks at birth, life and death, with everything (including lots of blood and sex), do not watch it.
This evening I found myself at Edinburgh’s Electric Circus to review Lewis Watson. It was a slightly strange experience, the last time I was in a room with that many screaming sixteen year old girls…at a Smash Hits Poll Winners concert, I think. (Either that, or teaching. The two weren’t always so very different.)
The star of the show, though, was support act, Kimberly Anne. Armed only with an acoustic guitar, a seriously cool haircut and a voice that can harmonise with itself -to say nothing of it belonging to a lady who can get the audience to sing in tune- she delivered a set with confidence and panache that was seriously impressive. And it’s always nice to get a hug off a performer afterwards.
This is a young Londoner who’s going places -and in a world overcrowded with singer-songwriters, her debut EP Bury It There released last September not only packs a powerful punch, but suggests that there’s more to come.
I want to see her again. If theer’s any justice – we all will.
Eleanor Friedberger has announced her second solo album, Personal Record, will be released on June 10.
Also half of the fine Fiery Furnaces, this is the follow-up to her debut record, Last Summer.
The tracklisting is
‘I Don’t Want to Bother You’
‘When I Knew’
‘I’ll Never Be Happy Again’
‘Stare at the Sun’
‘Echo or Encore’
‘My Own World’
‘Tomorrow Tomorrow’
‘You’ll Never Know Me’
‘I Am the Past’
‘She’s a Mirror’
‘Other Boys’
‘Singing Time’
Curiously, years ago, when I was working in Fopp in Edinburgh, she wandered in. We were all star-struck and looked at each other, but by the time I had worked up the courage to go and talk to her, she had left! I saw the Fiery furnaces twice in Edinburgh, both times on bills that included Sons & Daughters and once headlined by Franz Ferdinand…
I get numerous requests to run news stories, and I rarely do.
However, the news that The Breeders are to re-issue Last Splash on vinyl and CD with numerous goodies, like the Safari and Head To Toe EPs is worth celebrating and making a fuss about.
So here’s what you need to know:
LSXX, the 20th anniversary reissue of the Breeders’ Platinum album, Last Splash, will be released on April 22nd on 4AD.
LSXX will be available as a limited-edition, seven-disc vinyl box set, and a three-CD package. Many of the recordings included in the set have never been released before, and for other tracks, it will be the first time they receive a worldwide release. Cover and individual sleeve artwork has been created by renowned British graphic designer Vaughan Oliver, who described it as “an irreverent conceptual and visual re-imagining,” of his original Last Splash artwork.
The vinyl box set includes:
a 12-inch vinyl pressing of Last Splash
four 10-inch EPs – ‘Safari’, ‘Cannonball’, ‘Divine Hammer’ and ‘Head To Toe’
a 12-inch vinyl live concert album, Stockholm Syndrome, recorded in Sweden in 1994, during the band’s last European tour. Seven tracks from this recording originally appeared on a fan-club-only CD; nine additional unreleased tracks from the concert are included here.
a 12-inch vinyl record comprised of a BBC radio session recorded July 24, 1993 and available here for the first time, and the original Last Splash demo recordings, made in November 1992.
a 24-page booklet featuring previously unpublished photographs taken during the recording of Last Splash, personal photos taken during two years of touring, and reminiscences written by band members and others, including Kim Gordon and J Mascis.
The CD release is comprised of the same material in a three-disc set.
LSXX will be available at retail stores as well as online. The release coincides with the Breeders’ “LSXX World Tour,” which marks the first time Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim Macpherson have performed together since 1994. With more dates to be announced, the confirmed European itinerary is as follows:
May
24 – BARCELONA, Primavera
27 – TOULOUSE, Le Bikini
28 – BORDEAUX, Le Rocher De Palmer
30 – PORTO, Primavera
June
01 – PARIS, Trianon
02 – BRUSSELS, Ancienne Belgique
03 – AMSTERDAM, Paradiso
14 – DUBLIN, Vicar Street [TICKETS]
17 – GLASGOW, ABC [TICKETS]
18 – MANCHESTER, Ritz [TICKETS]
19 – LONDON, Forum [TICKETS]
21 – CAMBER SANDS, All Tomorrow’s Parties curated by Deerhunter
** LSXX full tracklisting:
Disc 1 – Last Splash – 12-inch vinyl
New Year
Cannonball
Invisible Man
No Aloha
Roi
Do You Love Me Now?
Flipside
I Just Wanna Get Along
Mad Lucas
Divine Hammer
S.O.S.
Hag
Saints
Drivin’ On 9
Roi (Reprise)
Disc 2 – The Stockholm Syndrome (Live In Stockholm) – 12-inch vinyl
Shocker In Gloomtown
New Year
Hellbound
Saints
Hag
I Just Wanna Get Along
S.O.S.
Roi
Head To Toe
Happiness Is A Warm Gun
Cannonball
Invisible Man
Doe
Drivin’ On 9
Don’t Call Home
Limehouse
(seven of these tracks were previously released as a limited-edition, fan club only release via the Breeders’ Digest; the other nine are previously unreleased)
Disc 3 – Demos, rare tracks and session versions – 12-inch vinyl
No Aloha (BBC Session, previously unreleased)
Flipside (BBC Session, previously unreleased)
Divine Hammer (BBC Session, previously unreleased)
Hag (BBC Session, previously unreleased)
New Year (November 1992 demo, previously released as a bonus 7-inch with original vinyl pressing of Last Splash)
Grunggae (November 1992 demo, previously released as a bonus 7-inch with original vinyl pressing of Last Splash)
Invisible Man (previously released on 4AD label compilation, 13 Year Itch)
No Aloha (November 1992 demo, previously unreleased)
I Just Wanna Get Along (November 1992 demo, previously unreleased)
Mad Lucas (November 1992 demo, previously unreleased)
S.O.S. (November 1992 demo, previously unreleased)
Saints (November 1992 demo, previously unreleased)
900 (November 1992 demo, previously unreleased)
Iris (previously released on the No Alternative compilation album)
‘Safari’ EP – 10-inch vinyl
Do You Love Me Now?
Don’t Call Home
Safari
So Sad About Us
‘Cannonball’ EP – 10-inch vinyl
Cannonball
Cro-Aloha
Lord Of The Thighs
900
‘Divine Hammer’ EP – 10-inch vinyl
Divine Hammer (single version)
Hoverin’
I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still In Love With You)
Do You Love Me Now?
‘Head To Toe’ EP – 10-inch vinyl
Head To Toe
Shocker In Gloomtown
Freed Pig
Saints
Which gives me the perfect reason to post the following!
I vaguely seem to recall featuring Daughter around these parts in the dim and distant past The London-based three-piece are Elena Tonra, Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella. This is the video for their current single ‘Still.’ A heartbreaking video, and an even more heartbreaking song…
The London three-piece are shortly to release their debut LP If You Leave on 4AD, which also includes this track ‘Smother.’
The full tracklisting for the album is as follows:
1. Winter
2. Smother
3. Youth
4. Still
5. Lifeforms
6. Tomorrow
7. Human
8. Touch
9. Amsterdam
10. Shallows
Meanwhile they are on tour this October:
16th – BEXHILL ON SEA, De La Warr Pavilion
17th – WOLVERHAMPTON, Wulfrun Hall
19th – NEWCASTLE, Tyne Theatre
20th – GLASGOW, Old Fruitmarket
21st – MANCHESTER, Ritz
22nd – LEEDS, Town Hall
24th – BATH, Komedia
25th – CARDIFF, Great Hall
26th – CAMBRIDGE, Junction 1
27th – NORWICH, UEA
29th – LONDON, Shepherds Bush Empire
