Bob Blank - The Blank Generation: Blank Tapes NYC 1975 - 1985 (Strut)
Strut's latest lesson in music history celebrates the work of NYC record producer
Bob Blank and the output of his Blank Tape studios during the 70s and 80s. Although the package is loaded towards disco, there are also a couple of excursions into jazz (
Lydia Lunch's 'A Cruise To The Moon' wouldn't sound out of place on a David Lynch soundtrack), funk courtesy of
James Blood Ulmer, and, most jarringly, the Numan-esque 'State Of Art' from
The Necessaries. While one has to admire Strut's dedication to education, those not around at the time may be left feeling somewhat... blank.
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Posted on 31 January 2010 by John Donnelly
Lindstrøm & Christabelle - Real Life Is No Cool (Smalltown Supersound)
He (
Lindstrøm) is the Norwegian electronica producer, famed for his sometimes epic cuts. She (
Christabelle; not
Chris de Burgh ,thankfully) is a half-Norwegian, half-Mauritian singer.
Real Life Is No Cool indulges their shared love of 70s and 80s soul and disco. With 'Baby Can't Stop' and 'Let's Practice' they come shamelessly close to imitating 'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'' and 'I Feel Love' respectively. Brush such niggles to one side, however, and you have an enjoyably nostalgic record.
Lindstrøm's best moment comes in the form of 'Let it Happen', which bristles with that early-days-of-house MDMA energy. Still, the real find here is the previously unknown
Christabelle. Whether riding the bumps of opener 'Looking For What' or doing an agreeable falsetto-
Prince impression on 'Keep It Up' (which sounds like a smoochy number but is actually about 'violent relationships'), her voice is smooth, versatile and - listen up X-Factor contestants! - never needlessly showy.
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Posted on 30 January 2010 by John Donnelly
speakerpeople - Parallel World (Deep Recording)
Described as a "soulful house project", it's hard to see the debut effort from
speakerpeople appealing to fans of either of the two genres that
Parallel World apparently resides in. It certainly won't appeal to soul fans given that the entire album is devoid of any kind of catchy, memorable rhythms and with a pedestrian tempo throughout, it's hard to see any house fan pulling shapes in clubs, even when under the influence. Arguably, the bonus remixes that come with the album are stronger efforts than the original tracks, especially the case on lead single 'Close Your Eyes', and it makes you wish that it was these interpretations that
speakerpeople went with for the original tracks. However, there's only so much polish you can apply to the proverbial and even with the remixes, you're better off looking elsewhere for your fix of Saturday night fare.
3/10Posted on 28 January 2010 by Ian Sandwell
First Aid Kit - The Big Black And The Blue (Wichita Recordings)
Ignoring a cheap opportunity for 'Swedish sisters' jokes straight out of the 1970s, this adorable collection plays like
Neko Case and
Laura Cantrell visiting the
Fleet Foxes, and is certainly a fine visit to the alt.country. As their vocals intertwine and climb to giddy heights, gentle instrumentation grasps your hand and takes you to a better place. These are songs so well crafted, clearly their talents as performers is equally matched by their compositional abilities. This is an album that secretes a calming elixir. When its sprightly forty minutes come to a close your muscles will be relaxed and your heart full of joy, as if you'd just emerged from a particularly satisfying session in the sauna. Oh,
please! You dirty old sod ...
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Posted on 26 January 2010 by Adrian Mules
Hammer No More The Fingers - Looking For Bruce (Inhaler)
With a tsunami of
Pavement nostalgia about to hit, Durham (North Conneticut, USA) trio
Hammer No More The Fingers seem well-placed to benefit. Trading in clever - but not annoyingly
smart - indie of the wonky variety, they meld Malkmus and co's angular guitars with engaging melodies of a sort Rivers Cuomo once wrote in his sleep. For a debut,
Looking ... arrives oddly confident, with tracks like 'Radiation' almost showy in their arrangements, tempo and key changes tossed off (Ooh Matron, please!) with the gayest of abandon. 'Nobody Knows' has a chuggy,
Weezer-style chorus that cries out for some heavy MTV2 rotation. 'Mushrooms' is, as the lyrics state, "pretty fucking tasty", again showing the band's ability to mix up a big tune with other, unpredictable elements - and all in under three minutes. Overall, fans of clean-shaven American indie rock (
Get Up Kids, Superchunk, etc.) will find much to appreciate here and this is another indication that 2010 might just be the year geekcore comes back.
7/10Posted on 25 January 2010 by Douglas Baptie
Shpongle - Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland (Twisted)
Psychedelic electronic music pioneers Simon Posford and Raja Ram , AKA
Shpongle, have pulled off a mighty coup in co-opting the legendary Storm Thorgerson to design their album artwork which, while not quite on a par with his
Pink Floyd outings, certainly gives a flavour of what’s to come. Shpongle essentially represent a hybrid of the ethereal experimentation of
Future Sound of London and the bass heavy dub rumblings of
The Orb. Opening track ‘Electroplasm’ sets the scene with a vast, sprawling eastern-tinged soundscape before the window shaking bass kicks in on tracks like ‘Nothing is Something Worth Doing’, which sounds like it might be a chapter in a counter-culture self help handbook.
Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland offers a slightly raucous floatation-tank experience which should prove the perfect escape hatch for the weary city dweller. It is, however, essentially little more than ambient electronica by numbers and, believe me, no ingredient is spared. Indian vocals float into one ear as a Flamenco guitarist tunes up in the other and a Jah Wobble enthusiast keeps everything moving with some interesting basslines. It does what it says on the tin, but I expect you already have a couple of tins tucked away in a forgotten corner of your garage.
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Posted on 23 January 2010 by Steven Burnett
Punx Soundcheck - From The Roots (Hottwerk Records)
You’ve all seen
Gavin & Stacey right? Well this album was crafted for the kind of kids whose musical education has come from those Barry Island amusement arcades. Pumping dub basslines flow effortlessly into pounding house beats and onto scorching grimey dubstep patterns while all around them digital hell breaks loose; bleeps, warps and sirens ensure that there’s nowt organic about this slab of old skool party music. It’s a tongue in cheek, ecstacy in pocket journey through the history of UK dance music. A baton may not have been passed here but the dutchie has been, with
Music Youth stalwart Dennis Seaton dropping by to add his distinctive tones to the laid back groove of
Good Love. Star of the show, however, is newcomer
Sim:One whose distinctive tones lift the straightforward Nova Thumping bass hit of ‘Badboy Sound’ into something quite special. It won’t change your life but, for a quick blast of adrenaline, this album is as ‘wikkid safe’ as they come. No Beatles, No Stones in 2010.
6/10Posted on 22 January 2010 by Steven Burnett
Delphic - Acolyte (Chimeric)
Why
Delphic fell behind
Ellie Goulding and
Marina and the Diamonds in the BBC Sound of 2010 poll is rather puzzling.
Acolyte is unlikely to be the most original debut album of the year, but I suspect it’s likely to be one of the most pleasing. At least to
New Order fans, particularly
New Order fans frustrated by that band’s increasingly flat reunion albums and side projects. Across the ten tracks here,
Delphic and acclaimed dance producer
Ewan Pearson combine guitars and electronics in varying ratio. 'Doubt' and 'This Momentary' are ‘indie’ enough to satisfy followers of
Bloc Party and
Friendly Fires (although the latter has a euphoric breakdown that I doubt will be trumped on even a straight dance record this year). Most impressive perhaps are the epic balls-out electronic numbers. The title track sparkles in a similar manner to
The Chemical Brothers' 'Star Guitar', while 'Counterpoint' is what you’d get if you sped up
Orbital’s 'Belfast' and piled on both guitar by The Edge and a big sing-a-long chorus. "Just tell me nothing's..." Really, it's the sort of track that will have blokes hugging blokes. There ain't nothing here that hasn't been done before, but when was the last time it was done so well?
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Posted on 20 January 2010 by John Donnelly
Ardentjohn - On The Wire (Slow Train Records)
How much you like 'nice' music will define your enjoyment of
Ardentjohn's debut album
On The Wire. Those who enjoy the type of music that washes over you and leaves you with a relaxed feeling will no doubt have the album on repeat to wile away those lazy weekends; those who need music to jump out from the speakers and grab their attention from the get-go would be wise to give this album a miss. There is literally nothing to offend during
On The Wire's run time but unfortunately, there isn't much to excite either. That's not to say there aren't moments of brilliance on the album; 'Colours Of The Day' is a beautiful track that couldn't fail to loosen you up even after the most stressful of days and 'One Step Behind' ups the tempo considerably resulting in the most memorable track on the album and shows that the band are more than just a one trick pony. However these moments are sporadic at best and too often the gentler tone of the tracks leads them to blend into one uninspired effort, albeit an extremely tranquil one.
5/10Posted on 20 January 2010 by Ian Sandwell
Bibi Tanga & the Selenites - Dunya (Nat Geo Music)
Gospel, Blues & Jazz...all those are just labels but
Dunya suffers from
Bibi Tanga’s eagerness to incorporate almost every genre known to man within the confines of this, his third album. He’s at his most natural and convincing when riffing with traditional tribal rhythms; the afrobeat swing of ‘BeAfrica’ and woozy brass interludes of title track ‘Dunya’ deserving of the 7 rating alone. Sadly this joy comes at a price and that price is a heavy one. Does the world really need another cover of ‘Red, Red Wine’? While you ponder that I’ll take the opportunity to nail my colours to the post and state that nobody needs another
Jay K yet, disappointingly, Bibi drops in some grim cod funk with tracks like ‘Shine’. Redemption is as hand, however, with the sweetly soulful ‘Gospel Singers’ which conjurs up the ghost of
Marvin Gaye and the daisy age rap-lite of ‘Swing, Swing’. When
Dunya catches fire it’s sublime but, unfortunately, Bibi forgot to turn off the sprinklers and we’re left with a bit of a damp squib.
7/10Posted on 18 January 2010 by Steven Burnett
3OH!3 - Want (Atlantic)
The mixture of rock, electro, crunkcore, hip hop and pop with a heavy dose of tongue-in-cheek lyrics might be a strange one but it's something
3OH!3 have achieved with
Want, albeit with varying results. When it works, the results are addictive such as with the electro pop of 'Don't Trust Me' which also comes equipped with a brilliantly bad taste lyric of "Do the Helen Keller and talks with your hips"; when it fails, the results are pretty offensive to the ears such as on 'Choke Chain' which is every bit as bad as the title of the track implies it could be. However just when you think that you have
3OH!3 figured as a hit-and-miss electro crunk-rock band, they completely take you by surprise with the intimate piano-led ballad 'Still Around'. The lyrics certainly aren't up to much and border on the cringeworthy - "They won't let me turn around/To get one last look at my baby" - but it's a sign that these boys are proper musicians and can actually sing which definitely intrigues you as to what this band might create in the future.
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Posted on 14 January 2010 by Ian Sandwell
Four Tet - There Is Love In You (Domino)
Previous
Four Tet releases could have been mistaken for an avant garde jazz ensemble having an argument with a food-processor filled with spoons in a wheelie bin: daring experimentalism shooting off in all directions targeting the wild haired cravat-wearing eclectic bunch.
There Is Love in You is a far more focused body of work; ideas are distilled into songs that exhibit brilliance in a single direction, rather than trying to cram the kitchen sink in. By being far more minimalist the tunes benefit massively. Tracks like ‘Sing’ get down and funky and begin to tread upon
Hot Chip’s toes. The overriding theme though is one of groovy ambience, reminiscent of
The Aphex Twin’s
Selected Ambient Works 1 – high praise indeed! The nine tracks are all over a bit quickly and another 15 minutes on top of the 47 minutes on offer would have been a welcome addition. It might disappoint final year fashion students wanting to tap their middle finger in time to the overtly complex rhythms of old, but it’s the most cohesive and enjoyable thing he’s done thus far.
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Posted on 13 January 2010 by Adrian Mules
Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM (Because Music)
Fresh from winning the Best Actress award at Cannes
Charlotte Gainsbourg returns with her first studio album since 2006, a release for which she’s unlikely to win any awards.
IRM, French for MRI, is also her first album since treatment in 2007 for a cerebral haemorrhage and this time she’s brought along
Beck as her collaborateur. Throughout the album Charlotte, the daughter of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, appears condemned to repeat musical history and it’s never good to be faced with the grim reality that what you are doing has not only been done better but done better by your
parents. The album is littered with classic pop culture references, ‘IRM’ namechecks ‘Glass Onion’, ‘Dandelion’ follows in the tyre tracks of Marc Bolan and, surprisingly, ‘Me & Jane Doe’ resembles nothing so much as an ethereal rehash of
The Primitives’ ‘Crash’. There are, however, moments of magic, such as the lush, sweeping strings of potential Bond theme ‘Le Chat Du Cafe Des Artistes’ and the delicious ‘Time of The Assassins’ which could be a long lost Marianne Faithful/Keith Richards recording. Here and there, most notably on ‘Trick Pony’,
Beck drops in his trademark dirty, thick bass sounds but, in reality, he’s barely stepping out of autopilot mode and even recent single ‘Heaven Can Wait’, in which he duets with Charlotte, is little more than a one dimensional glam stomp along. It’s not bad, it just lacks a spark or originality and, with acting awards in the bag, maybe it isn’t a good time to give up the day job.
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Posted on 13 January 2010 by Steven Burnett
Blockhead - The Music Scene (Ninja Tune)
The Music Scene seems to pick up from 2002, the year in which
DJ Shadow released his underrated second album
The Private Press. We’re in dense, mainly instrumental trip-hop territory and most of you will know the drill; the general template is samples (from dialogue to orchestral) on top of a breakbeat. The tracks are hard to fault technically, but, boy, do they sound dated and pedestrian. No aggressive wobbly bass here, I’m afraid. In fact, it says something when the brief burst of drum ‘n’ bass at the end of 'It’s Raining Clouds' stands out as so exciting and progressive.
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Posted on 12 January 2010 by John Donnelly
Moonshot - No Sign Of Morning (EML Recordings)
There's a fine line between using a band as an influence and committing something akin to musical plagiarism and
Moonshot don't just end up on the wrong side of this line, they rub it in our ears for all ten of these tracks. It doesn't take long for one to notice the overwhelming
Pet Shop Boys 'influence' on
No Sign Of Morning and while a lot of the instrumentals take on a more trip-hop vibe, you never quite shake the feeling that you're just listening to a collection of PSB b-sides.
No Sign Of Morning has little to recommend it, but what is there is polished enough for those who can overlook the derivative nature of the album: the vocals are crisp and the occasional guest vocals from Clare Portman always improve a track such as 'This Is England' and is the closest
Moonshot come to sounding like their own band. However, most listeners would be hard pushed to hang around when tracks start to drag on for over five minutes with no discernible hook or beat, especially relevant on final track 'Rollercoaster' which clocks in at a mammoth seven minutes and 34 seconds, leaving few with the desire to repeat the whole experience again.
4/10Posted on 12 January 2010 by Ian Sandwell
Mind Control - Addicted (Nervous)
There can be few listening experiences less suited to your living room than the sort of music played on packed, sweaty dancefloors at 3am. Nevertheless, this is what New York-based DJ duo
Mind Control have filled these two discs with. It’s house music, but with the emphasis on linearity, tribal beats, hiccuping rhythms, reverberating noise, Latin tinges and acid tweaks rather than big vocals and melody. For example, 'Work It', with those distinctive claps, may well remind older listeners of
Joey Beltram's classic 'Energy Flash'.
Mind Control sustain a hypnotic intensity, but you will need to turn it up, give your full attention and follow the twists and turns of the mix to appreciate it.
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Posted on 11 January 2010 by John Donnelly
The Irrepressibles - Mirror Mirror (Major Record Label)
Ten piece ‘performance’ orchestra
The Irrepressibles’
Mirror Mirror must surely be one of the most grandiose and fully formed debut albums ever released upon an unsuspecting public. Lush, sweeping orchestral compositions form the epic backdrop for the soaring, honey rich vocals of bandleader Jamie McDermott, positioning the album somewhere between the gentle beauty of
Anthony & The Johnsons and the tart, bedsit reality of early
Soft Cell. The band have apparently carved themselves something of a reputation for creating iconic live spectacles but, unlike many such performance artistes, the body of work on this album stands alone as a genuinely spectacular collection of music. The temptation must have been to use the orchestra to its full bombastic effect but restraint has been shown and thus there’s a great deal of light and shade, ranging from the fragile introspection of ‘Nuclear Skies’ to the outlandish romance of ‘My Friend Jo’. There are, of course, some flies in the facepaint and the pantomime dame performance of ‘Splish! Splash! Sploo!’ is far too theatrically camp and sickly to bear for more than the briefest of encounters. A unique yet undoubtedly pleasurable experience.
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Posted on 11 January 2010 by Steven Burnett
Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll - The Essential Collection (Demon Digital)
Released to coincide with the biopic of the same name,
Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll gathers together many of Dury’s best known songs. The title track and 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick' are as fine examples of his blend of cheeky Cockney pub rock, funk and punk attitude as you’ll get. It’s the lyrics that endure as the main pleasure; whether describing morning arousal ('Wake Up And Make Love With Me') or poking fun at his own disability in the most un-PC fashion ('Spasticus Autisticus'; live version included here), his words remain distinctive, to-the-point and uncommonly witty. Dury is no stranger to the ‘best of’ treatment, but if you feel the need to catch up this can be wholeheartedly recommended.
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Posted on 10 January 2010 by John Donnelly
Various - Cream Future Electro (New State)
After a disappointing first disc (too many old and obvious riffs here; nicked from everyone from
Pet Shop Boys to
Eminem),
Cream Future Electro really kicks into gear. Disc two strikes a perfect balance between the commercial and the downright bonkers. Artists such as
Simian Mobile Disco,
Fever Ray and
Little Boots are remixed perfectly, arguably bettering the original tracks in some cases, while electro randomly morphs into fidget house, bassline and good old-fashioned rave. Disc three is a run through classics from the last decade or so. Some might be over-familiar, but who can resist another airing of
M.A.N.D.Y. and
Booka Shade’s minimal milestone 'Body Language' or
Trentemoller's dark, hard-edged remix of
Royksopp’s 'What Else Is There'? More fun than your average dance compilation.
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Posted on 05 January 2010 by John Donnelly
You Me At Six - Hold Me Down (Virgin)
As one of the first albums of the new decade to hit the racks
Hold Me Down arrives bearing an abundance of one of the more insidious fruits of the noughties. Yes,
You Me At Six have risen from the stockbroker belt like a featherless phoenix, methodically plucked of all feathers of British identity and hell bent on aping the sound and success of their predeccessors across the Atlantic. They are not alone of course and, where the UK once led the world in rock music, the country is now trudging lamely behind an insipid trend of MTv wallpaper 'punk'. They are cheeky and chirpy lads and it is impossible to knock the professionalism and sheen of their approach but this just serves to underline the generic, unimaginative content. It is hard to criticise bands like YMAS for chasing success and tapping into that ready made market of uncritical teens who, ten years ago, would have been waving their Hello Kitty handbags at
Take That. Ironically it is in that epic pop territory where
Hold Me Down is most successful, with tracks such as the saccharine sweet 'Liquid Confidence' being ready made for the chart success which YMAS crave. It may be a soulless, hastily traced, parent friendly copy of someone else's heritage but, one thing is for sure, it will sell in bucketloads until the next train pulls into the station.
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Posted on 04 January 2010 by Steven Burnett
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - The Road (Mute)
There’s a knock on your door. Some sharp-dressed young man is standing there - with a suit clearly costing more than the bulk of your wardrobe. His red sports car is skewed across the street and as he makes eye contact with you his tears begin. Your eyes pan down to his hands, holding the still corpse of Mr.Tiddles – your lifelong companion - flattened under Michelin Pilot tyres. He was always there for you, even during the horrific bullying at school after you etched the words
Ocean Colour Scene onto your binder; he never judged you. But this is a day in Butlins compared to
The Road, a dual-pronged assault of piano and violin designed to reduce you to a quivering mess by track six. It’s a tense and exhausting listen that (like most soundtracks) fails to stand alone without the film. I’d hide this in a shoebox with the words “only open on worst day ever” written in green biro.
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Posted on 03 January 2010 by Adrian Mules
The Mary Onettes - Islands (Labrador)
The last decade brought a plethora of bands who didn’t just wear their 80’s influences on their sleeves but made elaborate outfits from them, parading their anachronistic sounds like little porcelain Pierrot dolls. Sweden’s
The Mary Onettes are different, they are not an 80’s tribute act so much as a band cryogenically stored in 1983 only to be set free from their icy fate all these years later. There’s no knowing wink nor ironic new romantic shoulder pads here, just a time capsule to everyday 1980s pop music.
Islands is so named as, according to the band, each track is 'like a record of its own'; there’s no denying that, although the combined effect is more like a greatest hits singles collection from a band who didn’t quite have enough greatest hits to justify the release. The overall impression is actually of
Aha’s Morten Harket singing over some post punk pop reminiscent of
New Order or
The Cure with
that bass sound most evident on ‘Once I Was Pretty’. Like much of the best work of the 80’s
Islands is a an album driven by good old fashioned melancholia, possibly driven by the fact that the band lost the original album masters and had to re-record the whole thing. Ultimately an album as a collection of islands is a pleasant enough conceit but perhaps what was required was a little more cohesion. If they are lucky they might pick up the legions of Aha fans left distraught by their recent split.
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Posted on 01 January 2010 by Steven Burnett