While there is a lot of new music that I listen to and appreciate, I do tend to think that there is a process going on whereby the vast majority of music that has been released since the mid-1990s rehashes old genres rather than doing anything new. I don’t want to think this – it sounds like the kind of cliché produced by every grumpy old curmudgeon since the inception of recorded music – but when I think about new genres which have come about since, say, trip hop, I have to wonder what really counts as such – Folktronica? Dubstep and grime? Glitch? Many of the currently lauded acts seem to be those who are very successful rehashers of olds genres, particularly when those genres were little known in their original incarnations and thus sound new to the majority of listeners and critics (for example, The Horrors = The Chameleons, The Knife = Switchblade Symphony).
However, sometimes an act comes along which surprises you. There is a question about whether taking old genres and melding them together produces something which is actually original, or which only seems so – that is, is it more than the sum of its parts? When I first listened to Vivian Girls, I liked them a lot, but I felt like I had definitely heard this sound before – and that seemed to be the general critical consensus. But the more I listened to their work, the more I couldn’t really think of any other act which had this sound – rather, what I was actually experiencing was a sense of familiarity which the music contains which is not a result of a lack of originality, but rather of the artistry with which these songs hook into your brain while nonetheless never being obvious. The sound itself, to take the lazy path of description, is a combination of garage and girl groups, shoegaze, punk and no wave: fuzzy scuzzy guitars, distortion, catchy hooks, often-indecipherable vocals and beautiful harmonies, all with the rough-edged sense that this was thrown together in a few days (which was, apparently, the case) and a delightful raucousness which precisely balances those hooks and harmonies.
While their second album, Everything Goes Wrong (2009) has some wonderful moments, the first, clocking in at twenty-two minutes or so (and that’s ten songs, folks) is a masterpiece, an absorbing, joyous and cathartic experience which also happens to contain individual tracks which will worm their way into your brain and groove around there without giving rise to the slightest hint of irritation. The lyrics tend to the exploration of love and its loss, but given the sixties influence, this is no problematic thing, and their shoegazy incoherence also means that this sweetness does not cloy – having said which, perhaps my favourite track, ‘No,’ consists solely in repetitions of that one syllable. The darkness which can also be found at times is foreshadowed in their chosen moniker, a reference to the work of outsider artist Henry Darger whose work combined sweet kitcshiness with graphic brutality and an obsession with the child – a combination which seems quite appropriate for the contradictions which are balanced and embodied here. The finest qualities of the album are embodied in a sense of irrepressibility – the undemanding demandingness of the Vivian Girls’ bubblegum atavism.
Showing posts with label indie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indie. Show all posts
Monday, December 21, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Cowboy Junkies - Whites Off Earth Now!! (1986)
Cowboy Junkies' first album has remained underappreciated in light of the success of their later work. But despite its flip title (Cracker From Another Planet, anyone?), Whites Off Earth Now!! is a mesmerizing and beautiful album, one with a great deal to say, and with hidden depths which reveal themselves on repeated listens.
There is only one original track on this album – and the loose theme is blues, but a unique blues in which Margo Timmin’s smooth, emotionless voice creates a sense of disconnection and menace which gives a new edge to the melancholy and despair inherent in that genre – while the gender disconnect in the lyrics adds to this sense of disquiet - a later comparison might be found in Martina Topley-Bird's work on tracks like Black Steel or Bad Dream. This is a highly atmospheric album – the songs evoke late-night driving both in their slow, loping rhythms and in the lyrics of tracks like 'State Trooper'. There is a sense of quiet threat here, an understated coldness, a hint of the precursor or aftermath of violence, which may be little apparent on cursory listens but which deeply informs the entire work and forms its central sensibility. Timmin’s vocals haunt the songs, floating above them, while the non-vocal work on the one hand creates an hypnotic atmosphere as figures and rhythms repeat, minimalistically, with a slow but building insistence, and on the other disrupts this very atmosphere with unexpected shivers, tones and caterwauls – an effect which reminds me of the way in which dub uses the tension between repetition and the dropping of unexpected intrusions into and out of a work to create aural landscapes.
While covers include such Americaniac icons as Springsteen, John Lee Hooker and Lightnin’ Hopkins, if there is a figure presiding over the proceedings, it is Robert Johnson (whose tracks 'Me and the Devil Blues' and 'Crossroads' are both featured) – and, looming behind Johnson, the devil himself, but a devil personified within and without the figure of a sorrowful, vengeful protagonist making his way (and, as mentioned above, ‘his’ is the appropriate pronoun) through an updated Hopperesque landscape of urban ghettoes and murky swamps, striplit highways and backwoods hovels. You’ll never get out of these blues alive…
There is only one original track on this album – and the loose theme is blues, but a unique blues in which Margo Timmin’s smooth, emotionless voice creates a sense of disconnection and menace which gives a new edge to the melancholy and despair inherent in that genre – while the gender disconnect in the lyrics adds to this sense of disquiet - a later comparison might be found in Martina Topley-Bird's work on tracks like Black Steel or Bad Dream. This is a highly atmospheric album – the songs evoke late-night driving both in their slow, loping rhythms and in the lyrics of tracks like 'State Trooper'. There is a sense of quiet threat here, an understated coldness, a hint of the precursor or aftermath of violence, which may be little apparent on cursory listens but which deeply informs the entire work and forms its central sensibility. Timmin’s vocals haunt the songs, floating above them, while the non-vocal work on the one hand creates an hypnotic atmosphere as figures and rhythms repeat, minimalistically, with a slow but building insistence, and on the other disrupts this very atmosphere with unexpected shivers, tones and caterwauls – an effect which reminds me of the way in which dub uses the tension between repetition and the dropping of unexpected intrusions into and out of a work to create aural landscapes.
While covers include such Americaniac icons as Springsteen, John Lee Hooker and Lightnin’ Hopkins, if there is a figure presiding over the proceedings, it is Robert Johnson (whose tracks 'Me and the Devil Blues' and 'Crossroads' are both featured) – and, looming behind Johnson, the devil himself, but a devil personified within and without the figure of a sorrowful, vengeful protagonist making his way (and, as mentioned above, ‘his’ is the appropriate pronoun) through an updated Hopperesque landscape of urban ghettoes and murky swamps, striplit highways and backwoods hovels. You’ll never get out of these blues alive…
Monday, December 14, 2009
Patrick Wolf - The Metro, 09.12.09
I’m not a particularly big fan of Patrick Wolf’s most recent album, The Bachelor – I tend to think that The Magic Position brings together all the elements that were interesting in those which came before (Irish folk, soulful balladeering, enigmatic and somewhat literary lyrics, electronica, orchestral flourishes, and of course that amazing voice) with a skewed pop sensibility that brings his work into focus in such a way that the new album (apparently the darker, more down-key sibling of The Libertine, to be released next year) appears a retrograde step. But having missed the tour for The Magic Position, I wasn’t about to miss Mister Wolf in person. And boy, was that a good decision!
If Patrick Wolf is anything – and he’s a lot of things – he is a consummate performer. Deeply charismatic and theatrical, but also with a charming sense of naturalness and spontaneity, he’s one of those musicians who makes you feel (and wish) that despite the adoring crowd they’re performing only to you. The energy he brings to the presentation of his rather kooky, queered material is phenomenal. Like Morrissey (with whom he shares the similarity of inhabiting an interesting liminal position between Englishness and Irishness, and a fascination with that landscape) he clearly inspires obsessive devotion. And, on the spatial note, the landscape in which his work sits is an interesting one – somewhere between the artificial glitz, grime and sleaze of the post-industrial urban centre, and the bucolic landscapes of the rural village and the surrounding woods, comfortingly familiar yet vaguely melancholy, even sinister. This is apparent in the stage show, with a literal image of 'the wind in the wires’ playing backdrop to a performance which encompasses three changes of costume (including a black, white and grey union jack one-piece number, and a golden vulture costume).
Live, even the most recent work, less impressive on record, is vibrant and moving in turn. There is a mesmerising quality to the show, a welcome relief from familiar the ‘going through the motions’ presentations, or on the other hand entirely artificial theatrical spectaculars which rely on gimmicks and rehearsed moves. Standouts are 'The Libertine', 'Blackdown', and 'The Magic Position' (naturally). I was hanging out for 'Overture', but you can’t have everything… Ultimately, this is one of those performances that makes you want to plaster a singer’s posters all over your bedroom walls like a naïve teenager, while at the same time invoking the nostalgia that one feels for that period – the same combination of energy, dedication and lust with melancholy, mythology and half-forgotten mystery which Wolf’s music itself evokes.
If Patrick Wolf is anything – and he’s a lot of things – he is a consummate performer. Deeply charismatic and theatrical, but also with a charming sense of naturalness and spontaneity, he’s one of those musicians who makes you feel (and wish) that despite the adoring crowd they’re performing only to you. The energy he brings to the presentation of his rather kooky, queered material is phenomenal. Like Morrissey (with whom he shares the similarity of inhabiting an interesting liminal position between Englishness and Irishness, and a fascination with that landscape) he clearly inspires obsessive devotion. And, on the spatial note, the landscape in which his work sits is an interesting one – somewhere between the artificial glitz, grime and sleaze of the post-industrial urban centre, and the bucolic landscapes of the rural village and the surrounding woods, comfortingly familiar yet vaguely melancholy, even sinister. This is apparent in the stage show, with a literal image of 'the wind in the wires’ playing backdrop to a performance which encompasses three changes of costume (including a black, white and grey union jack one-piece number, and a golden vulture costume).
Live, even the most recent work, less impressive on record, is vibrant and moving in turn. There is a mesmerising quality to the show, a welcome relief from familiar the ‘going through the motions’ presentations, or on the other hand entirely artificial theatrical spectaculars which rely on gimmicks and rehearsed moves. Standouts are 'The Libertine', 'Blackdown', and 'The Magic Position' (naturally). I was hanging out for 'Overture', but you can’t have everything… Ultimately, this is one of those performances that makes you want to plaster a singer’s posters all over your bedroom walls like a naïve teenager, while at the same time invoking the nostalgia that one feels for that period – the same combination of energy, dedication and lust with melancholy, mythology and half-forgotten mystery which Wolf’s music itself evokes.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Pet Shop Boys + Jarvis Cocker + The Pixies + V Festival
It's been a gruelling two weeks of gigs, to which I have subjected myself in the name of edification and the pursuit of musical knowledge.
The unquestionable highlight was the Pet Shop Boys last night at the Hordern. I haven't been to the Hordern since my teens, but it's still more or less as I remember it - and since I was there with an absolute fanatic, I turned up at seven to get a place centre front, just behind the barrier. Now this, gentle reader, is something I don't usually do at gigs, because if there's one thing that makes me unable to concentrate on watching a band it's fear for my physical safety - but Pet Shop Boys didn't seem like it'd be that kind of environment, and it wasn't (now if only I could do something about all the people with cameras - whatever happened to good old fashioned memory?). They certainly know how to put on a show, complete with dancers, backup singers featuring the formidable diva Sylvia Mason-James, and even a giant dancing top hat to, ahem, top it all off. The thing the Pet Shop Boys do so well, and which few other bands manage, is the transition between the sublime and the ridiculous, between deep, heartfelt emotion, detached irony, self-reflexive as well as non-overtly-political satire, and silly hats.
Chris maintains his detached stance (despite a rather gorgeous yellow fluorescent hoodie - and I never though I'd call something fluorescent yellow gorgeous) behind the keyboards, while Neil, who gives off just the nicest vibe - you'd love to have high tea with him - is a still, anchoring presence, with a raised eyebrow and a half-smile, in the midst of the performance. The visuals also add a great deal to the work - I'm With Stupid, for example, which is not a favourite of mine, gains a new dimension with British and US flags splashed across a giant screen. And I got Flamboyant, my current favourite PSB track, which I'd been hoping for. But the absolute highlight was an understated, moving version of Rent.
The other solo shows I've been to, Jarvis Cocker and the Pixies, were both more mixed. Jarvis's new work is to my mind rather banal and forgettable - and seeing him live didn't do much to change my opinion on that score. On the other hand, it's Jarvis - you almost wish that he'd just abandon the music and do standup. His stylised dance moves have suffered not the slightest with age - and neither has his banter. Perhaps the most amusing moment was his interrogation as to the nature of Ipswich in Australia - which in one of his songs is used as an exemplar of a place you really, really wouldn't want to go (I don't think he quite realised the aptness of that in the Australian context...) Or, on the other hand, it could've been his interrogation of the pair of undies that was thrown on stage. And, dash it all, he's just so incredibly cute. Despite the musical blandness, I didn't for a moment regret going to the show (I would've liked some Pulp material, and could've done without the Springsteen cover - but I understand why he wouldn't want to play that, and cover-wise you can't win 'em all...)
If Jarvis was a larger-than-life personality but muscially bland, the Pixies were the obverse. Though the sound at the Big Top left a great deal to be desired, it was great to hear them - I was particularly excited that they opened with In Heaven, a cover of a song on the Eraserhead soundtrack, and I got the song I'd been hanging out for, Nimrod's Son, along with the majority of their other well-known work (although they've apparently disowned Bam Thwok, which I think is a shame, as I've decided that is actually a good song). But there just didn't seem to be much else happening - except for the dowdy Kim, who was a chain-smoking sweetheart, they simply stood on stage and played, which is something I don't like in a performance - and at times seemed fairly unrehearsed, as in the chaotic La La Love You. So, again, I wasn't sorry I'd gone - it's the Pixies, after all - but it did leave something to be desired.
And, finally, the V Festival, at which I saw all of the above and, well, the only other band I payed any attention to were Nouvelle Vague (even though they'd mistreated me by doing only a secret sideshow - but I hear they're coming back soon). Despite the utter inappropriateness of the venue for their loungey bossa nova covers of seventies and eighties alternative classics, they were a joy to watch, with their oh-so-French charm and a singer who was rather cute in that classically European, au naturelle way. The only thing I would've wished for is that they would've done some of the lesser known songs, which are my favourites of theirs - Sorry For Laughing, say, or Making Plans For Nigel - rather than a run through of the best-known songs they cover (Too Drunk To Fuck, Love Will Tear Us Apart, etc).
I haven't been to a festival for years, and though V had somewhat of an amateur-hour feel (you could tell that it's the first time it's been put on), it had a fairly laid back atmosphere - at least if, like me, you weren't drinking (the bar queues stretched halfway across the festival). But it reminded me why I dislike festivals - drunken yobbos in particular - and also of the way in which, for all my faults, I was raised with a communitarian consciousness. Doesn't the girl sitting on her boyfriend's shoulders ever think for a second that her pleasure is thirty other people's displeasure?
That aside, though, it was a fun and relaxed afternoon. Pet Shop Boys were spectacular, though I was glad I was going to the solo gig, as their set was essentially a best of; the Pixies (I only caught the end of their set) seemed to have it a lot more together, and with a lot better sound quality (which is saying something, given that it was outdoors); and Jarvis was, if anything, cuter than in his solo show, noting for example that Australian 'gobstoppers' wouldn't stop anything, except maybe a dog's arse - if it was cold enough...
So I now have, oh, two hours or so to breathe before I head out tonight to continue my unwonted live musical odyssey - not to mention what might be the last time I do the closing set at Ascension for some time... I was thinking of doing a 'greatest hits' of my closing sets, running through deathrock, oldschool industrial, and, of course, my signature eighties... but since I won't be drinking, don't expect Mickey or Belinda Carlisle. You've been warned that you don't need to be warned...
The unquestionable highlight was the Pet Shop Boys last night at the Hordern. I haven't been to the Hordern since my teens, but it's still more or less as I remember it - and since I was there with an absolute fanatic, I turned up at seven to get a place centre front, just behind the barrier. Now this, gentle reader, is something I don't usually do at gigs, because if there's one thing that makes me unable to concentrate on watching a band it's fear for my physical safety - but Pet Shop Boys didn't seem like it'd be that kind of environment, and it wasn't (now if only I could do something about all the people with cameras - whatever happened to good old fashioned memory?). They certainly know how to put on a show, complete with dancers, backup singers featuring the formidable diva Sylvia Mason-James, and even a giant dancing top hat to, ahem, top it all off. The thing the Pet Shop Boys do so well, and which few other bands manage, is the transition between the sublime and the ridiculous, between deep, heartfelt emotion, detached irony, self-reflexive as well as non-overtly-political satire, and silly hats.
Chris maintains his detached stance (despite a rather gorgeous yellow fluorescent hoodie - and I never though I'd call something fluorescent yellow gorgeous) behind the keyboards, while Neil, who gives off just the nicest vibe - you'd love to have high tea with him - is a still, anchoring presence, with a raised eyebrow and a half-smile, in the midst of the performance. The visuals also add a great deal to the work - I'm With Stupid, for example, which is not a favourite of mine, gains a new dimension with British and US flags splashed across a giant screen. And I got Flamboyant, my current favourite PSB track, which I'd been hoping for. But the absolute highlight was an understated, moving version of Rent.
The other solo shows I've been to, Jarvis Cocker and the Pixies, were both more mixed. Jarvis's new work is to my mind rather banal and forgettable - and seeing him live didn't do much to change my opinion on that score. On the other hand, it's Jarvis - you almost wish that he'd just abandon the music and do standup. His stylised dance moves have suffered not the slightest with age - and neither has his banter. Perhaps the most amusing moment was his interrogation as to the nature of Ipswich in Australia - which in one of his songs is used as an exemplar of a place you really, really wouldn't want to go (I don't think he quite realised the aptness of that in the Australian context...) Or, on the other hand, it could've been his interrogation of the pair of undies that was thrown on stage. And, dash it all, he's just so incredibly cute. Despite the musical blandness, I didn't for a moment regret going to the show (I would've liked some Pulp material, and could've done without the Springsteen cover - but I understand why he wouldn't want to play that, and cover-wise you can't win 'em all...)
If Jarvis was a larger-than-life personality but muscially bland, the Pixies were the obverse. Though the sound at the Big Top left a great deal to be desired, it was great to hear them - I was particularly excited that they opened with In Heaven, a cover of a song on the Eraserhead soundtrack, and I got the song I'd been hanging out for, Nimrod's Son, along with the majority of their other well-known work (although they've apparently disowned Bam Thwok, which I think is a shame, as I've decided that is actually a good song). But there just didn't seem to be much else happening - except for the dowdy Kim, who was a chain-smoking sweetheart, they simply stood on stage and played, which is something I don't like in a performance - and at times seemed fairly unrehearsed, as in the chaotic La La Love You. So, again, I wasn't sorry I'd gone - it's the Pixies, after all - but it did leave something to be desired.
And, finally, the V Festival, at which I saw all of the above and, well, the only other band I payed any attention to were Nouvelle Vague (even though they'd mistreated me by doing only a secret sideshow - but I hear they're coming back soon). Despite the utter inappropriateness of the venue for their loungey bossa nova covers of seventies and eighties alternative classics, they were a joy to watch, with their oh-so-French charm and a singer who was rather cute in that classically European, au naturelle way. The only thing I would've wished for is that they would've done some of the lesser known songs, which are my favourites of theirs - Sorry For Laughing, say, or Making Plans For Nigel - rather than a run through of the best-known songs they cover (Too Drunk To Fuck, Love Will Tear Us Apart, etc).
I haven't been to a festival for years, and though V had somewhat of an amateur-hour feel (you could tell that it's the first time it's been put on), it had a fairly laid back atmosphere - at least if, like me, you weren't drinking (the bar queues stretched halfway across the festival). But it reminded me why I dislike festivals - drunken yobbos in particular - and also of the way in which, for all my faults, I was raised with a communitarian consciousness. Doesn't the girl sitting on her boyfriend's shoulders ever think for a second that her pleasure is thirty other people's displeasure?
That aside, though, it was a fun and relaxed afternoon. Pet Shop Boys were spectacular, though I was glad I was going to the solo gig, as their set was essentially a best of; the Pixies (I only caught the end of their set) seemed to have it a lot more together, and with a lot better sound quality (which is saying something, given that it was outdoors); and Jarvis was, if anything, cuter than in his solo show, noting for example that Australian 'gobstoppers' wouldn't stop anything, except maybe a dog's arse - if it was cold enough...
So I now have, oh, two hours or so to breathe before I head out tonight to continue my unwonted live musical odyssey - not to mention what might be the last time I do the closing set at Ascension for some time... I was thinking of doing a 'greatest hits' of my closing sets, running through deathrock, oldschool industrial, and, of course, my signature eighties... but since I won't be drinking, don't expect Mickey or Belinda Carlisle. You've been warned that you don't need to be warned...
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