Vogelenzangranks : Best of Jan – Mar 2010

VOGELENZANGRANKS : BEST OF JAN – MAR 2010

Vogelenzangranks has been secretly squirreling away the best tracks from each of the reviewed albums on the site.  You can download the 17 track mix HERE or  HERE.

The plan is to upload a mix each quarter so baring sudden deafness, finger amputation or incarceration in a debtors prison Vogelenzangranks : Best of Apr – Jun 2010 should appear later in the year, although one hopes it won’t take 5  months to write 3 months worth of reviews next time – in any case, as the Vikings used to say, huzzah!

Track listing.

1. LAWRENCE ARABIA look like a fool 2. FOUR TET love cry 3. CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG master’s hand 4. ADAM GREEN bathing birds 5. SPOON i saw the light 6. RJD2 walk with me 7. JOHNNY CASH ain’t no grave 8. BUILT TO SPILL hindsight 9. WATSON TWINS midnight 10. EMMA POLLOCK i could be a saint 11. MASSIVE ATTACK splitting the atom 12. ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT magnetic warrior 13. GORILLAZ sweepstakes 14. DRIVE BY TRUCKERS get downtown 15. HOLLY GOLIGHTY AND THE BROKEOFFS escalator 16. THE CONGOS up on the roof 17. SCOUT NIBLETT meet and greet.

March mini review and round up

EMMA POLLOCK THE LAW OF LARGE NUMBERS Chemikal Underground Released 01/03/2010.

There was much bewailing on the announcement of The Delgados split in 2005 – as well as producing chamber pop masterpieces such as ‘The Great Eastern’ the band had been central to the Scottish music scene renaissance of the early 90’s with the founding of their Chemikal Underground label. Delgados fans needn’t have fretted though as Chemikal Underground continues to exist and is releasing music from, among others, former Delgados vocalist Emma Pollock, who’s solo sound is not a million miles away from that of her former band.  The album opens in tip top form, ‘Hug The Harbour’ and especially ‘I Could Be A Saint’ are as good as anything on the last few Delgados albums, both feature snaking song structures that coil and twist unpredictably with impressively muscular drumming and heavy bass lines prominent.  Nothing else quite matches those tracks but the maturer sound of ‘Hate’ or ‘Universal Audio’ is echoed in the piano pop of ‘House On The Hill’ (co-written with Kim Edgar) and the fizzy, hook laden ‘Confessions’; that said the jazzy ‘Nine Lives’ does prompt a move away from any previous signature sound.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 6.90

Sample Track: Emma Pollock ‘Hug The Harbour’

V O G E L E N Z A N G R A N K S   S T A N D I N G S - March 2010

1. 7.45 – Spoon ‘Transference’ (Anti) 25/01/2010
2. 7.29 – Gorillaz ‘Plastic Beach’ (EMI) 08/03/2010
3. 7.15 – Drive By Truckers ‘The Big To Do’ (PIAS) 15/03/2010
4. 7.13 – Four Tet ‘There Is Love In You’ (Domino) 25/01/2010
5. 7.08 – Watson Twins ‘Talking To You, Talking To Me’ (Welk) 08/02/2010
6. 7.00 - Lawrence Arabia ‘Chant Darling’ (Bella Union) 04/01/2010
7. 6.92 – Built To Spill ‘There Is No Enemy’ (ATP) 15/02/2010
8. 6.92 – Holly Golighty And The Brokeoffs ‘Medicine County’ (Damaged Goods) 29/03/2010
9. 6.90 – Emma Pollock ‘The Law Of Large Numbers’ (Chemikal Underground) 01/03/2010
10. 6.80 – Archie Bronson Outfit ‘Coconut’ (Domino) 01/03/2010
11. 6.79 – The Congos ‘Back In The Black Ark’ (Wrasse) 22/03/2010
12. 6.71 – Adam Green ‘Minor Love’ (Rough Trade) 11/01/2010
13. 6.70 – Massive Attack ‘Heligoland’ (Virgin) 08/02/2010
14. 6.69 – RJD2 ‘The Colossus’ (Electrical Connections) 01/02/2010
15. 6.69 – Charlotte Gainsbourg ‘IRM’ (Because) 25/01/2010
16. 6.60 – Johnny Cash ‘American VI – Ain’t No Grave’ (Mercury) 22/02/2010
17. 6.55 – Scout Niblett ‘The Calcination of Scout Niblett’ (Drag City) 18/01/2010
    

Holly Golighty And The Brokeoffs -Medicine County

HOLLY GOLIGHTY AND THE BROKEOFFS

MEDICINE COUNTY

Released: 29/03/2010

Damaged Goods

Holly Golighty is probably best known for a guest appearance on The White Stripes ‘Elephant’, perhaps less so for her long time collaborations with art Stuckist and garage rock contrarian Billy Childish, both as a member of The Headcoatees and a solo artist. In fact she’s been a fixture in the British underground scene since the early nineties but she has rarely sounded particularly British, for most of her career she has shown more interest in American folk – from early sixties garage rock through blues and country to hillbilly music – over it’s ‘bastardized’ post British Invasion offspring.

For ‘Medicine County’ Golighty has teamed up with her long time musical partner Lawyer Dave, credited as one man band The Brokeoffs, and between them they have produced  a more upbeat album than some of Golightly’s recent work but it essentially draws from the same pool – Weird Old America- and in order to foster as much authenticity as possible the pair have adopted the musical equivalent of method by actually immigrating to rural Georgia to breed horses and record the album in an old farmhouse.

Opening track ‘Forget It’ takes the form of a Julee Cruse weirdo lament plucked straight from some obscure David Lynch movie with ghostly tremelo guitar and odd atmospherics courtesy of a wheezy and ancient organ. ‘Two Left Feet’ is a bit more straight forward, a standard swampy blues track with some gritty bottleneck guitar that growls and jutters as the song ambles along to a primative beat.  Title track is a nasal country and western track of the old school where the dual vocalists bemoan the temperance of a dry county in the Deep South and asks ‘How the hell did we get here?’ – perhaps a reference to their recent move to rural Georgia.  ‘I Can’t Lose’ is an top tapping barn dance song with some Earl Scruggs style banjo and country fiddle.

A number of cover versions crop up across the album and two of them provide both the albums nadir and epoch.  Some where in the middle is call and response murder ballad ‘Murder In My Mind’, a Hitsville House Band cover (Wreckless Eric by any other name). However ‘Blood On The Saddle’ an old traditional folk tune drags rather despite the guest contribution of baritone voiced retro cowboy Tom Heinl. However although not performing this time, Heinl does provide the albums highlight as a songwriter when Holly and Dave cover ‘Escalator’, a twangy backwoods track on the perilous dangers of moving stairways to simple country folk; the track features a tremendously catchy chorus and amusing lyrics delivered deadpan serious and stands head and shoulders above anything else on the album.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 6.92

Sample Track : Holly Golighty And The Brokeoffs ‘I Can’t Lose’

The Congos – Back In The Black Ark (Blue Wrasse)

THE CONGOS

BACK IN THE BLACK ARK

Released: 22/03/2010

Blue Wrasse

In the minds of most music fans the year 1977 is synonymous with the emergence of punk rock but it was also the year that roots reggae crossed into popular mainstream culture having previously been restricted, outside of Jamaica of course, to émigré communities in New York and the United Kingdom and a small cognoscenti of cutting edge music fans.

1977 had religious significance to those of the Rastafarian faith and perhaps spurred on by this the period produced what many regard as the golden era of roots reggae and perhaps even Jamaican music as a whole with seminal releases by the likes of Augustus Pablo, Culture, Dennis Brown, Tappa Zukie and of course Bob Marley’s ‘Exodus’.  Among this great clutch of reggae albums was The Congos ‘Heart of the Congos’ an album often regarded as among Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s premier production achievements.  Some thirty three years later, the group’s original members and producer have reunited and given us ‘Back In The Black Ark’ – a rather misleading title since the Perry’s Black Ark studio burned down in the early 80’s.

The album opens with ‘Chain Gang’, a light-on-it’s-feet number that stands somewhere between ska and 1960’s soul, a fact that is hardly surprising since the song is a Sam Cooke original.  ‘Celestial World’ conforms more to what one might expect of roots reggae, with some ear bleedingly heavy bass, a slow chugging rhythm and some excellent drum fills from the legendary reggae drummer Leroy ‘Horsemouth’ Wallace.  ‘Charriots’ (the group’s spelling) is spritelier than the preceding tracks with the song being built around the very Perryesque idea of someone repeatedly ringing a door bell.  ‘Forever Young’ showcases Cedric Myton’s rather strange falsetto voice, a voice that may not be to all tastes, while ‘Spider Woman’ sounds more contemporary and in tune with current Jamaican mores with its dancehall template.

Whatever you think about religion itself, religious song often carries an uplifting spirituality that is hard for the agnostic to match and ‘Crying Times’ falls into that category – with it’s Jerusalem chorus, it positions its self half way between CoE choir and a choppy reggae summertime beach sound.  The album finishes as it starts with a cover of an American soul track, this time the classic ‘Up On The Roof’ which gets an unusual jittery synth backwash and excellent vocals from the group who, despite appearing to being rather gnarly grey beards these days, can still produce a sweet vocal melody.

In overview the album has an ‘oddness’ to it, neither being completely faithful to roots reggae traditions nor wearing an ultra modern production; it therefore falls between audiences which could be a problem for fans of the former or the latter.  Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry may not be the cutting edge production maverick that he once was and the Congos have still to better their magnus opus of ’77, but those with a interest in Jamaican music, or more specifically in Perry’s quirky techniques, will find things to interest them here.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 6.79

Sample Track : The Congos ‘Celestial World’

Drive By Truckers – The Big To-Do (PIAS)

DRIVE BY TRUCKERS

THE BIG TO-DO

Released : 15/03/2010

PIAS

Drive By Truckers have earned their standing the old fashioned way, through constant touring and a string of albums that built upon its predecessor’s critical acclaim and commercial success.

However as well deserved as their upward trajectory from bar band to the upper reaches of the US album charts is it has to be said the group have sometimes failed to maintain a consistent quality to their work.  2004’s break through album ‘The Dirty South’ was a case in point, where half a dozen genuinely classic songs, as good as anything released by any other contemporary guitar band, shared running order with a number of flat out clunkers and an equal amount of slightly clumsy and disappointingly generic rockers; the previous LP ‘Brighter Than Creation’s Dark’ also had it’s problems coming across as a sprawling and unfocused effort in the wake of personnel changes and, perhaps, a crisis in musical direction.

Happily then ‘The Big To Do’ see’s the band sustain form across the board and while there is nothing as good as ‘Carl Perkin’s Cadillac’, ‘Where The Devil Don’t Stay’ or even ‘Aftermath USA’ the band seem to have ironed out the crinkles in the consistency of its output.  Thankfully that means the album is free of artistic howlers such as ‘The Man I Shot’ or ‘You And Your Crystal Meth’ that had  fouled up the previous album and provided examples of chief songwriter Patterson Hood’s tendency to pick up lyrical ideas beyond his own experience or ability to develop.

The LP starts with the soaring ‘Daddy Learned To Fly’ which acts almost as an introductory guide to the band itself – all the usual Drive By Trucker characteristics are here which adds up to a larger than life, melodic and hard rocking road house music.  Following up ‘The Fourth Night Of My Drinking’ covers a familiar DBT lyrical concern but does so with the guidance of an excellent organ refrain, although one that seems infuriatingly familiar.  However the album really takes off though when Jeff Cooley, the group’s secondary songwriter but most talented component, enters the fray with ‘Birthday Boy’ a matter of fact tale of a small town girl turned prostitute.  Cooley also contributes the best track on the album ‘Get Downtown’ a reworking of The Rolling Stone’s ‘Rip This Joint’ with added fuzz.

One of the least satisfying aspects to the previous album was bassist Shona Tucker’s debut as a songwriter, frankly her contributions were not very distinguished, but here things take a step in the right direction.  ‘You Got Another’ is a piano led lament on the philandering of a loved one which is, if not an album highlight, certainly a big improvement on the  song writing scale. Her other track ‘(It’s Gonna Be) I Told You So’ doesn’t hang around at the 2 minute mark and  lopes around euphorically on the big beats of the oft overlooked Brad Morgan.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 7.15

Sample track : Drive By Truckers ‘Birthday Boy’

Gorillaz – Plastic Beach (EMI)

GORILLAZ

PLASTIC BEACH

Released : 08/03/2010

EMI

When it comes to making albums the ‘galaxy of stars’ approach is rarely successful, more often than not the whole does not add up to the sum of its parts, any talent involved is watered down by the compromises inherent in a co-operative enterprise and banality of committee planning and execution becomes all too evident.

Yet despite this general rule Gorillaz’s latest album, ‘Plastic Beach’, like it’s predecessor, features an impressive roster of talent that spans the broad church of popular music, both in time line and scope. Those featured include elder figures such as Lou Reed, Mark E. Smith or Bobby Womack through to more contemporary hip hop artists such as Snoop Dogg, Mos Def and De La Soul.  It’s to Damon Albarn credit then that ‘Plastic Beach’ not only works well as an album but that the almost unceasing line of cameo appearances actually enhance rather than detract from the work.

Slow burn electro opener ‘Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach’, features the aforementioned Snoop Dogg and the rapper holds centre stage with stylish and relaxed delivery even if his lines seem more like verbal nonsense than an introduction to the supposed ecological themes of the album. Not many would have the artistic vision to collide UK grime stars Kano and Bashy with the Lebanese National Orchestra but Albarn does and ‘White Flag’ works surprising well with the apparently disperate music blending effortlessly.

As threats of lawsuits might suggest ‘Stylo’ does share some similarities with Eddy Grant’s ‘Time Warp’ but no more than Grant’s own track resembles Kraftwerk and with the Gorillaz tracks deeper groove and brillantly gritty yet soulful vocals of Bobby Womack, one suspects some professional jeously is at play.  ‘Empire Ants’ is melancoly synth pop similar to Pet Shop Boys with Yukimi Nagano standing in for Neil Tennant, while later on Lou Reed provides a sort of robot dead pan on ‘Some Kind Of Nature’.

The latter track deals with Albarn’s theme for the album of an ecological compromise between the disposable culture and the natural world, apparently inspired by travels in African but generally this thematic idea is ignored by his guests and isn’t really explored on anything other than a surface level.  It’s also noticable that on the tracks where Albarn has the stage to himself the result is usually more downbeat than is otherwise the case, almost as if he is trying to give the album a sense of depth that it doesn’t really need.  Despite these minor gripes ‘Plastic Beach’ is one of the best albums released this year.

VOGLENZANG RANK : 7.29

Sample track : Gorillaz ‘Super Fast Jellyfish’

Archie Bronson Outfit – Coconut (Domino)

ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT

COCONUT

Released: 01/03/2010

Domino

Despite being signed to Domino, a label which along with Rough Trade now almost completely dominates the British independent scene, it’s fair to say Archie Bronson Outfit have yet to prick the public consciousness.

The groups second album, 2006’s ‘Derdang, Derdang’, received almost universally positive press yet regardless of the magazine album of the year polls the band failed to find themselves in the first rank with fellow Domino bands such as Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys and in fact remain one of the more obscure acts on the label.  The bands newest effort ‘Coconut’, a frustratingly inconsistent affair, is unlikely to change that.

Perhaps the main reason why ‘Coconut’ doesn’t quite work as an album is that the band cannot seem to decide in which direction they want to go.  They seem at their most comfortable on tracks like the opener ‘Magnetic Warrior’ a fuzzy, bass heavy juggernaut with phased vocals and Middle Eastern sounding elements lurking around amidst the tumult of it all.  With its hard driving psychedelic groove its reminiscent in many ways of groups like Hawkwind.

Likewise tracks like the PiL clone ‘Wild Strawberries’ or ‘You Have The Right To A Mountain Life’ which resembles the sound one might experience while wandering through a Moroccan souk while tripping on a particularly potent strain of acid, retain the musical theme of cacophonous psychedelia but between these journeys to the wild side one can usually find rather tepid indie disco affairs interspersed such as the wilting ‘Hoola’, a track that attempts funk punk but which sounds so half hearted it’s actually quite wearying to listen to.

Similarly underpowered is ‘Chunk’ which could be an disowned early eighties Human League cast off.  So limp are these tracks and so unhappy and uncomfortable the band apparently are one can only deduce the band is doing something it really doesn’t want to do whether it be from producer or label pressure or a misguided attempt to make themselves more commercially appealing. Only once does the band combine its wilder excesses with a radio viable tune, that being on the jittery and murky ‘Shark’s Tooth’ which somewhere beneath the layers of atonal distortion features a pop song.

When Archie Bronson Outfit let loose with their psychedelic freak out music they are rather entertaining but the album is spoiled by anaemic stabs at popularity which are surely bound to fail.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 6.80

Sample track : Archie Bronson Outfit ‘Shark’s Tooth’

February mini review and round up

MASSIVE ATTACK HELIGOLAND  Virgin  Released 08/02/2010.

In an age where extremism has tricked down as far as to infect even the minds of album reviewers Massive Attack’s ‘Heligoland’ has found itself torn between two critical factions of approbaters and renouncers.  In truth, it’s artistic worth lies somewhere between genius and useless.  ‘Splitting The Atom’ is a sort of ill boding ‘Ghost Town’ for the modern economic crunch while  ‘Pray For Rain’ is a gloomy street level state of the nation address for recession racked Britain.  Both work rather well at crossing the arms and putting pennies on the eyes of any notion of hope you might have had for the future of this sceptered isle but then you can hardly blame an artist for reflecting the times in which we live.  It’s not all this effectively bleak though, ‘Flat Of The Blade’ churns on and on in unforgivably dull fashion but the currently in form Damon Albarn contributes to the angsty but compelling ‘Saturday Come Slow’.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 6.70

Sample Track : Massive Attack ‘Saturday Come Slow’

V O G E L E N Z A N G R A N K    S T A N D I N G S  -  February 2010

1. 7.45 – Spoon ‘Transference’ (Anti) 25/01/2010
2. 7.13 – Four Tet ‘There Is Love In You’ (Domino) 25/01/2010
3. 7.10 – Lawrence Arabia ‘Chant Darling’ (Bella Union) 04/01/2010
4. 7.08 – Watson Twins ‘Talking To You, Talking To Me’ (Welk) 08/02/2010
5. 6.92 – Built To Spill ‘There Is No Enemy’ (ATP) 15/02/2010
6. 6.71 – Adam Green ‘Minor Love’ (Rough Trade) 11/01/2010
7. 6.70 – Massive Attack ‘Heligoland’ (Virgin) 08/02/2010
8. 6.69 – RJD2 ‘The Colossus’ (Electrical Connections) 01/02/2010
9. 6.69 – Charlotte Gainsbourg ‘I.R.M’ (Because) 25/01/2010
10. 6.60 – Johnny Cash ‘American VI – Ain’t No Grave’ (Mercury) 22/02/2010
11. 6.55 – Scout Niblett ‘The Calcination Of Scout Niblett’ (Drag City) 18/01/2010

Johnny Cash – American VI: Ain’t No Grave (Mercury)

JOHNNY CASH

AMERICAN VI: AIN’T NO GRAVE

Released 22/02/2010

Mercury

Rick Rubin undoubtedly did the world of music a favour when he revitalized the quiescent career of Johnny Cash.  Before his intervention in the mid ninties Cash’s contribution to music had become neglected and regarded as almost an irrelevance to modern music – Britpop, hip hop, grunge. He had become a half forgotten figure, his legend fading fast into the artificially constructed past.  After all the sixties were all psychedelia, long hair and flower children, not cowboy shirts and Carl Perkins on guitar, right?

Well no, not really.  Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison was released at the height of the sixties counter culture when Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band was the latest Beatles offering.  Cash, one of the greatest recording artists of that decade, had been dismissed and forgotten exactly because he was not associated with the lazy youth culture clichés of the age.

Rick Rubin salvaged the legend of Cash by masterminding his mid nineties revival, a reversal in fortune based on a series of albums produced by Rubin himself, but what to do with the legend of Cash now that he has passed away?  Rubin obviously idolizes the memory of Cash but on ‘Ain’t No Grave’, the last of the American Recordings series, compiled and put together from the scraps of the last recording session, we hear more about how Rubin felt about Cash than how Cash felt about the world.  One cannot help feel Cash’s legend has been co-opted in a slightly unsavory way.  There is a sense of uncomfortable editorial misjudgment permeating the entire album.

The highlight is the opening track ‘Ain’t No Grave’ an ominous dirge in which an unflinching Cash looks death square in the eye. The way in which this tracks differs from almost all the rest is that it tackles death with a sort of calm acceptance which some how rings true. It is in contrast with the rest of the songs here which take a different and much more sentimentalized approach; take for instance ‘Redemption Day’, a Sheryl Crow cover, which is full of hooky religious imagery and half baked sermonising.

‘For The Good Times’ sees Cash in his much diminished and shaky voice sing ‘don’t look so sad, I know it’s over’ to schmaltzy musical accompaniment while ‘I Corinthians 15.55’, the only track here written by Cash himself, is the sort of hymn you might expect from a troubled Christian as he edges towards the end but the musical treatment of the song is so sappy it complete detracts from the authentic feeling of the words.  The album ends with Cash’s dying wish of a world without war and a final corny farewell of ‘Aloha Oe’.

So the problem is that ‘Ain’t No Grave’ is as artificial a construct as the false history Rubin had rescued Cash from with his original American Recordings.  Marketed as ‘Johnny’s Final Studio Album’ but actually a cobbled together collection of off cuts stuck together seven years after the great man’s demise, it is an album that does no great service by almost unbearably sentimentalizing the death of a legend.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 6.60

Sample Track : Johnny Cash – Satisfied Mind

Built To Spill – There Is No Enemy (ATP)

BUILT TO SPILL

THERE IS NO ENEMY

Released 15/02/2010

ATP

Built To Spill have been on something of a ‘go slow’ over the past ten years.  ‘There Is No Enemy’ is only the bands second album in nine years although it should be said that the album was released a few months earlier in the United States where it has achieved moderate commercial success reaching no.50 on the Billboard chart.

Band leader Doug Martsch is on record as having said that with their extensive back catalog there was no pressing need to release new material and the album was greatly delayed when the band decided to scrap the original recordings after a failed experimentation with digital plug ins and modern studio techniques.

But while the band can explain away the delay of ‘There Is No Enemy’ its actual release reveals the band’s music to also be in slow, ponderous mode, most of the songs are considered and lengthy, there is little spontaneity and with seven albums behind them and 17 years behind them the band are showing signs of mellowing, of stiffening up a little as they settle into middle age.

The LP squelches into life with ‘Aisle 13’ which conveniently acts as a summation of most of the rest of the album – a mid paced, widdly guitar track that sounds a bit like a slowed down less bombastic Dinosaur Jr. Still ‘Hindsight’ adds some steel guitar and a more pronounced pop hook and thereby distinguishes  itself as one of the more memorable moments on the album.  ‘Life’s A Dream’ as its title suggests is a slightly tedious jam of soft focus fret board meandering and ‘Oh Yeah’ is an over weight and lumbering sauropod of Pink Floyd style proportions. Sandwiched between is ‘Pat’ the albums only flat out punk rocker.

Like Dinosaur Jr., an acknowledged influence, Built To Spill’s songs often seem tied to a particular style so that a lack sonic variety in their material is evident and the songs tend to bleed into one another.  The bands later day material has also tended towards a slightly bloated progressive rock but generally speaking ‘There Is No Enemy’ is well played and produced if lacking slightly in the sort of fizzling energy that sends blood pulsing through veins.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 6.92

Sample track : Built To Spill – Planting Seeds

The Watson Twins – Talking To You, Talking To Me (Welk)

THE WATSON TWINS

TALKING TO YOU, TALKING TO ME

Released 08/02/2010

Welk

Perhaps best known for their well received guest appearance on the debut album of Kilo Riley singer Jenny Lewis, the Watson Twins have since decided to take an independent path, free of the shadow of higher profile collaborators and since ‘Rabbit Fur Coat’ hit the shelves in 2006, released two albums under their own name.

By all accounts their first solo album (whether twins can release a solo album is up for debate!) was a hit and miss affair but they have clearly developed for the better in the intervening period as ‘Talking To You, Talking To Me’ is something of a little gem.Flirting between soul, americana and pop, the twins seem to have found just the right spot to showcase their crystal clear and harmonious vocals.

Opener ‘Modern Man’ trots along on bass and drums rhythms that seem to be at odds with one another but which are smoothed over by the clarity of the vocals.  ‘Harpeth River’ is a savvy piece of light funk which is repeatedly jabbed at by stabs of soulful organ and an abrupt signature change between verse and chorus.  Perhaps the stand out track is ‘Midnight’, a smoldering slow burner of a soul track which teasingly threatens to erupt several times before rolling off into some great organ and chittlin’ guitar licks, something it manages to do without ever coming across as being willfully retro.

Not everything hits these high marks, ‘Savin’ You’ sounds merely fine, if a little prosaic, next to a track like ‘Midnight’ and ‘Devil In You’ lacks, well, a little devil in it, being a smidgeon floppy and underpowered.  Overall the second half of the album isn’t quite as strong as the opening portion but you would be mistaken to cast a black mark upon it.  Tracks such as ‘Calling Out’ drift past pleasantly and ‘Give Me A Chance’, if not quite up to the standard of ‘Midnight’ stands out on what is overall a fine collection of songs, with its languid, dreamy air and impressive vocals.

‘Talking To You, Talking To Me’ is not challenging and will not blow any minds. It is in essence a form of easy listening but if that particular epithet is usually used as a form of abuse it should not be consider so in this case.  The Watson Twins have created a fine album of calm, reflective, ephemeral soul music;  it may be background music but it is background music of an unusually superior form.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 7.08

Sample track : The Watson Twins – Give Me A Chance

RJD2 – The Colossus (Electrical Connections)

RJD2

THE COLOSSUS

Released 01/02/2010 Electrical Connections

When RJD2 released the excellent ‘Deadringer’ on Definitive Juxx Records  in 2002 it looked as if underground hip-hop had a new rising star who could give luminaries such as DJ Shadow or his Def Juxx label mates (Company Flow, El-P, Cannibal Ox) a run for their money.  However since the release of ‘Deadringer’ 8 years ago RJD2 has taken so many unexpected twists and turns in musical direction, almost all of them for the worse, it’s difficult not to associate his name with a deep sense of disappointment and frustration.

Unfortunately RJD2’s fourth album, ‘The Colossus’ does not arrest his slump in output or see a restitution of his grittier hip-hop roots.  Opener ‘Let There Be Horns’ promises something of a return to form but the track runs out of its initial momentum barely after the intro is over, although it does at least feature some interesting break-beats and faintly resembles debut album opener ‘The Horror’ in general style but even this is more in technical efficiency rather than musical excellence.  As an instrumental ‘Let There Be Horns’ has the advantage of not being encumbered by the dreaded sung vocals, something which cannot be said of the mushy and generic electro-pop of ‘Games You Can Win’ or ‘The Glow’.

Even without the vocals the music on ‘The Colossus’ is mostly of the sort of reasonably acceptable but utterly unenthralling instrumental tracks that would be best employed as background music on facile day time TV collages of make overs and interior design; the songs have a bland modernity to them, a vague something of the underground culture from which they stem while at the same time sounding mainstream, unexciting and ultimately rather dull.

The album does feature some collaborations with other artists, with the likes of Phonte Coleman, who unfortunately sings rather than raps his contribution to the bland neo-soul track ‘The Shining Path’ while Aaron Livingstone features on ‘Crumbs Off The Table’ which resembles a rather lacking De La Soul.  In a strictly relative sense perhaps the best of them is the group written rap ‘A Son’s Cycle’ on which Illogic, NP and The Catalyst appear.  It is the only track that has anything approaching edge to it but even then it is an edge which is tempered by flat production.

Afterwards a succession of reasonably proficient but instantly forgettable tracks drift by before the albums ends on its bizarre highlight ‘Walk With Me’, a fluke of a song, which duplicates ridiculously cheesy pop with a happy clappy gospel rhythm;  it  works amazing well – provided one forgets the artist once produced tracks like ‘June’ or ‘Chicken Bone Circuit’.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 6.69

Sample track : RJD2 – A Son’s Cycle

January mini reviews and round up

CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG IRM.  Released 25/01/2010.

In recent times Beck has become something of a burnt out star – ‘Odelay’ is now some 14 years distant and his recent albums have been easily ignored.  However he makes a decent stab as producer on Charlotte Gainsbourg’s ‘IRM’; this despite Charlotte lacking the star quality of either of her famous parents. Another problem is that most of the songs are sung in English and Gainsbourg is not the strongest singer even in her mother tongue, in English she sounds more uncomfortable yet.  Still, the album as a whole is reasonable enough, a mix of folk based music jazzed up with modern production techniques and the odd nod to the chart pop and even dance world, although these latter forays are less successful.  One suspects her musical alma mater is not so much the sample heavy sore thumb track ‘Greenwich Mean Time’ more the light indie pop of ‘Master’s Hand’ or ‘Time of the Assassin’ which sound a little like a Gallic Isobel Campbell.

VOGELENZANG RANK  :  6.69

Sample track : Charlotte Gainsbourg ‘Time of the Assassins’

FOUR TET There Is Love In You.  Released 25/01/2010.

It would be wrong to cast Karl Hebden as a sluggard, he’s kept himself busy with remix work, EP’s and the odd James Bond theme, but ‘There Is Love In You’ is his first full length album since 2005’s ‘Everything’s Ecstatic’ and it has been eagerly awaited in some sections.  It would be stretching credibility to say the new release is worth the wait of five full years but its another fine album for Hebden under the Four Tet moniker, burbling away in oddly pleasing fashion as it does, and he has done what only a few recent electronica artists have managed – stay interesting beyond one seminal release.   The back half of the album is nice enough if a little perfunctory but the best flavours can be found on the opening half of which the excellent ‘Love Cry’ is the best example, despite coming in at over 9 minutes it scoots by; the Cluster style Krautrock of  ‘Circling’ runs it close.

VOGELENZANG RANK  :  7.13

Sample Track : Four Tet ‘Circling’

V O G E L E N Z A N G R A N K   S T A N D I N G S – January 2010

1. 7.45 – Spoon ‘Transference’ (Anti) 25/01/2010
2. 7.13 – Four Tet ‘There Is Love In You’ (Domino) 25/01/2010
3. 7.10 – Lawrence Arabia ‘Chant Darling’ (Bella Union) 04/01/2010
4. 6.71 – Adam Green ‘Minor Love’ (Rough Trade) 11/01/2010
5. 6.69 – Charlotte Gainsbourg ‘IRM’ (Because) 25/01/2010
6. 6.55 – Scout Niblett ‘The Calcination of Scout Niblett’ (Drag City) 18/01/2010
   

Spoon – Transference (Anti)

SPOON

TRANSFERENCE

Released 25/01/2010 Anti

The William Eggleston cover photo of a disconnected young man, looking away from a partially pictured and faceless woman, along with the psychological inferences of its title more than hint that with their latest release Spoon have finally found a topic worthy of Britt Daniels song writing skills.

Up until now Spoon have apparently had no real purpose propelling them forward other than the quest to produce great sounding music and while this may seem to some as a churlish complaint to make of a musician such tendencies have often had the effect of producing songs which were aurally superior empty vessels; after all great music has rarely been purely about the sound in and of its self. However ‘Transference’ sees the group find the extra dimension they have previously lacked and finally promotes the group to the top rank.

As with 1970′s Dylan, it is a break up album that lifts the artistic haziness and provides the sharp, clear sting from which a creative vision can come forth. The album is riddled with so much confusion, pain, bitterness and recrimination, with the humiliation of rejection, the nostalga for something crucial and lost forever and most of all the awful doubt, perhaps even manifesting itself as a certainty, that it may never be experienced again; it is an album about the death of love.

So, fittingly, while previous Spoon albums have typically opened with a finely cut gem of pop perfection, ‘Transference’ sets the desolate scene with a barely-of-this-world dirge in the shape of ‘Before Destruction’, an icy look back at the world collapsing. ‘Is Love Forever?’ sounds more like the Spoon of old but only at surface level and the song soon fractures into shards as Daniels casts himself in the doubting Thomas role. ‘Is love forever?’ he asks ‘Have I even felt it ever?’

The album, which could never be accused of being front loaded like so many these days, builds through the unhinged David Bowie style ‘Written In Reverse’ – a song which could easily have featured on the latters ‘Low’ – to the albums extraordinary centre piece ‘I Saw The Light’ which ebbs and flows, starts and stops, rises and falls like the tormenting emotional oscillations of a recently jettisoned lover. The numb nostalgic look back at a lost relationship which is ‘Out Go The Lights’ will most likely make even the most hardened heart blanch at the pathos of it all. The album ends with the transcendental funk of ‘Nobody Gets Me But You’ but as in real life there is no real emotional closure, it almost seems that after all the suffering, all the pained internalized scrutiny, that some unpalatable truth cannot be accepted.

Superbly well played and produced, ‘Transference’ carries an emotional resonance rarely found in an age which perpetrates the idea that nothing really matters much beyond the experience of the immediate instant. Some things are affecting enough that they warrant the instigation of soul searching down to the core of our very being. It’s what makes us human. Now Spoon’s music is human also.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 7.45

Sample track : Spoon ‘Is Love Forever?’

Scout Niblett – The Calcination of Scout Nibett (Drag City)

SCOUT NIBLETT

THE CALCINATION OF SCOUT NIBLETT

Released 18/01/2010  Drag City

It’s worth remembering The Beatles recorded their entire canon on eight tracks or less. In fact most of their material, including such marvels as ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, were recorded on four or even two track recorders.

The reason for mentioning this is that it is proof that inventive minds will always far transcend any technological limitations put in their way and that the ‘ease’ of modern recording techniques usually equates to there use for no real artistic purpose. All too often modern music is no more than a software showpiece, the actual song drowned in dozens of the needless layers which digital recording makes possible.

Producer Steve Albini, who produces Scout Niblett’s sixth album and who once had the message ‘The future belongs to the analog loyalists’ printed on the back of one of his LPs, is a man whom has often been outspoken against modern recording techniques. Each album he produces amounts to exemplar as to how things should be done and here on ‘The Calcination of Scout Niblett’ he allows the songs remarkable space to breath, the whole sound of the album is stripped down with the emphasis on the natural sound of the instruments which are allowed to remain intact, free of post production meddling.

Albini’s stance against the digitization of music is heartening, the faith he has in purity of sound over razzmatazz to affect the listener is admirable and his firm ideas have helped produce many classic albums from Nirvana to Nina Nastasia but as Albini would surely agree the major reason on which the success of an album pivots is that of the artist; so what of Scout Niblett herself?

Niblett’s songs seem to be influenced most of all by P. J. Harvey and ‘Bleach’ era Nirvana. And while the guitars have the signature sludgey tone of grunge there is nothing here you could reasonable describe as a rocker, each track is interspersed with long silences, often lacking any percussion like a sort of post-slacker delta blues of guitar and voice only. The impenetrable lyrics are sung in almost a folk style. However, with each of the eleven ‘songs’ seemingly bleeding into each other, it can make for an unrelenting and downbeat experience which carries on for almost an hour. Taken in bite sized chunks some of this album is palatable but the pursuit of Niblett’s singularly glum vision can make ‘The Calcination of Scout Niblett’ a bit of a chore – unless you want to learn how analog recording should sound.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 6.55

Sample track : Scout Niblett – Duke of Anxiety

Adam Green – Minor Love (Rough Trade)

ADAM GREEN

MINOR LOVE

Released 11/01/2010  Rough Trade

It’s easy to understand why even the most hard nosed and derisive of individuals prostrate themselves at the feet of the cultural paladin that is New York City. In the epic cycle of popular music New York looms titanic, its place in rock myth as awe inspiring as the architectural totems which tower over Manhattan Island.

From the glamorous 1950′s bop joints thronged with the well heeled stars of stage and screen to potentially dangerous trips through the Bowery to take in musical illiterates at CBGB’s, NYC has catered cool so consistantly for so long it has ceased to be faddish, its pop art accomplishments have become traditions as enshrined in historical meaning as the Doric columns which line the the more august buildings of Old New York.

Hence on Minor Love we witness Adam Green luxuriating in the established New York cultural dynamic. In particular Lou Reed’s sound and image is so completely subject to homage it can only be a ritualized passing of the baton – the extension of a New York tradition. As would be expected then Green combines American blues and European folk music with a stripped back artistic minimalism and obtuse but seemingly self confessional lyrics to give an overall effect similar to the ‘Coney Island Baby’ era Reed with a little of Leonhard Cohen’s New York period thrown in for good measure.

Of course Adam Green is no Lou Reed, if Lou Reed’s stated aim was to ‘write the Great American Novel to music’ then Green’s sometimes cringe worthy lyrics (‘when I took off my winter clothes, I looked like 40 or 50 crows’) certainly aren’t up to standard but most likely this is not the point. Minor Love is about preserving a form that has been chopped up and bastardised down the decades by three generations of fresh faced hopefuls, it is a restoration job rather than a creative exercise. In preserving the form Green does a reasonable good job, ‘Breaking Locks’ sounds authentic with the sound pared back, guitar barely audible, wheezy soul organ filling the silences and vocals very much at the front of the mix. The best song is the woozy ‘Bathing Bird’ which hints at the warm and welcoming basking glow of pharmaceutical effect but when juxtaposed with its lyric shows a darker side. ‘Stadium Soul’ is a relaxed jangle briefly augmented by a 1970′s FM guitar solo.

Much of the rest of the album is by-the-numbers Reed at his most soporific provided you exclude the tinny lo-fi rocker ‘Oh Shucks’ but even this has a droopy air to it. In the end evaluation of Minor Love stems on sharing the enthusiasms of the artist but at least Green shows some genuine deference, perhaps even piety, before his cultural and musical sources.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 6.71

Sample track : Adam Green – Breaking Locks

Lawrence Arabia – Chant Darling (Bella Union)

LAWRENCE ARABIA

CHANT DARLING

Released 04/01/2010  Bella Union

One suspects Lawrence Arabia, or James Milne as his mother refers to him, would consider the late 1970′s microtonal noise experiments of Glenn Branca and Wharton Tiers to be ‘new’ and ‘fangled’.

Milne is of the ‘classic’ school; a disciple of the period between 1965 and 1970 after which the dissolution of The Beatles ushered in the musical equivalent of Alaric and his mates – new people, lesser people overthrowing a great and established order through the sheer force of aggressive primitivism.  It’s quite likely Milne is the sort of person that looks sniffly upon The Who and the Jimi Hendrix Experiment as fifth columnists who paved the way for this shift from pop to rock.

Yet as admirable as it is to know of and seek inspiration from an increasingly distant cultural past there is something of a problem with the modern classic songwriter.  Brian Wilson and John Lennon were experimental, massively so, whereas those who adopt a 40 year old template are not in anyway innovative and ironically almost the stellar opposite in artistic outlook from those they revere.  That is not to say that innovation and musical vibrancy always go hand in hand but to so slavishly attach oneself to the music of the past seems to indicate a weltanschauung which shows lassitude for the essential youthfulness, the essential of-the-moment that permeates all great popular music.

‘Chant Darling’ may lack the vital spark of truly great music but it is by no means a bad album, in fact less demanding ears may actually extract some enjoyment from it.  The influence of Nilsson, The Beatles and The Beach Boys hangs heavy over many of the songs here.  Opening track ‘Look Like A Fool’ is a lovely piece of All Things Must Pass pining elevated further by a nostalgic guitar solo.  ‘The Undesirables’ is pure White Album era Lennon, owning more than a little to the likes of ‘Julia’ and ‘Dear Prudence’ and is shot through with the requisite melancholy.  ‘Apple Pie Bed’ aims for The Beatles but skews off target and ends up sounding more akin to Electric Light Orchestra while ‘Eye A’ could be something off  ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ if the Fab Four had belong to the prozac generation rather than the LSD equivalent.

James Milne knows the classic 60′s songwriters well enough to approximate their craft which results in an LP that is no great hardship on the ears but whether any genuinely unbridled outburst of excitement will be stirred by this group of songs remains open to question.

VOGELENZANG RANK : 7.10

Sample track : Lawrence Arabia – I’ve Smoked Too Much