Black Grape
Stupid, Stupid, Stupid
Radioactive
There’s a time in every artist’s career when they’ve done enough, been creative enough, to get away with sub-standard replicas of their earlier work. The Beautiful South are a case in point - used to produce catchy, simple, often perversely beautiful tunes... and they still do, to the power of minus twenty. Is that a sin? Yes, when you’re just doing the same thing again and again, without the conviction and freshness that made you famous in the first place. Shaun Ryder can legitimately claim to have produced some of the more interesting examples of indie / dance crossover spawned by the 80’s, but the next six Black Grape albums will sound exactly like this one, if the band stay together that long.
Listening to this album is essentially an empty experience. Any one of these songs would get a crowd dancing, but ten of them together simply don’t keep the attention. There’s a definite formula to a Black Grape song - it goes like this:
...and that’s it. Which is fine for the first two listens to the first two minutes of each song. But they do go on. Every track has that two minute repeat till fade bit you’d always rather fade than repeat. Best bought on CD, I think.
It’s not even like Shaun does that much. Danny Saber is credited with programming, bass, guitar, keyboards, sitar, rhodes and the like, so I guess Shaun’s main contribution is the clever lyrics, for example: “Our Dad was a Badi / He wore a badi’s hat / And anyone who had more than us / Our Dad just had to have”. It’s big, it’s catchy, but it’s not clever. So it’ll probably sell shedloads.
The most original bits of this whole sorry affair are the booglie eyes stuck to the front of the CD box, which stop it fitting on your shelf properly. Shake it a bit, and they go “booglie booglie booglie booglie”. Hours of fun. I hope the title is supposed to be ironic.
After a couple of years trawling around the bottom end of the indie pub circuit, it comes as a surprise to be finally listening to Elcka’s debut effort. ‘Rubbernecking’ is a sprawling and disoriented affair that treads a thin line between sinister sleaze and overweight self-indulgence. Their world is dark and brooding with tunes that come from the swamp. The singer, who boasts a truly rock’n’roll growl, helps to conjure up this atmosphere of dissipation and early hours nausea.
The opening track, ‘Supercharged’, which has been played frequently on Radio One, is full of Pulp-ish sweep and excess energy. The next four tracks are mean and driven along with purpose, from the angry ‘Look At You Now’ to the ominous urgency of ‘When The Circus Comes’. The latter of these is the best track on ‘Rubbernecking’ by some distance. Perhaps inevitably, however, the album tails off dramatically after this and begins to plod: ‘Perverts Servant’ demonstrates that they are quite happy to release songs that sound like a twisted version of the Flumps theme tune and the rest are forgettably mediocre. The continuous decline in quality as the album progresses lets it down and leaves you feeling cheated.
Perhaps if Elcka stopped trying to be cool and world-weary then they would look less ridiculous when they fail. The result is a rather unsatisfying mixed bag, suggesting that they are capable of greatness but too often stumble on their over-inflated ambition. Their support slot with Morrissey in December is revealing of their similar world-weary pose - but whereas Moz is capable of looking up from the gutter, Elcka seem fixed on staring at it. Intriguing but, in the end, irritating.
This, the first compilation from Mike Paradinas (aka mu-Ziq)’s Planet m label, is by no means a comfortable album. If you’re after wibbly electro-beardy ambient drum ‘n’ bass, do not buy this album, for yuppie chillout music this is NOT. None of the music on this album is ever going to win any big music prize or feature in deodorant adverts, and probably won’t find its way into any DJ sets at your friendly neighbourhood drum ‘n’ bass night. The pigeonholing police have labelled it Drill ‘n’ Bass, which is a fairly meaningless way of categorising this insanely confusing collection of rarities and exclusive tracks from the likes of Red Snapper, Luke Vibert and Richard James (appearing here as Plug and AFX respectively) and mu-Ziq himself.
In fact, to try and pull 12 tracks this individual together under one banner is nonsensical; from Plaid’s take on Red Snapper’s Miles-meets-Metalheadz nineties jazz, through AFX’s string-soaked ‘Bummy’ to the two Mike Paradinas tracks (the frighteningly sick ‘Mr Angry Remix’ and the blissed-out Eighties computer-game bleepfest ‘Brace Yourself’), this is an album that defies any sweeping generalisation.
The only thing that does link these artists is a belief in music for its own sake. It’s not mood music, it’s not danceable to, it’s not easily sellable, it just sounds fantastic, and keeps you on your toes the whole way through. Just as you settle into anything comfortable, it’s ripped from underneath you - not to say it’s unlistenable. Far from it. Listen is all you can do.
Anyone interested in the listening-type-album end of the breakbeat market is probably just a little wary of the tag ‘imaginary soundtrack’ by now. While it has produced some cool material, and while the general idea of the imaginary soundtrack is probably an inexhaustible one when in the grip of an imagination as powerful as, say, Barry Adamson’s, it does appear to be turning into the 90s equivalent of the dreaded Concept Album.
However, prejudices should be left aside when listening to this album, for this is in fact a genuine attempt to create a sequence of tracks with an integrated narrative (set in an apartment block), rather than a disparate collection of party tracks using John Barry samples. You get a real sense of surface and depth being defined here, with string, bass, and processed sounds in alternate reverb / soft focus and harsh clarity, snippets of weird dialogue (my favourite being the recording of a puzzled Euro type saying ‘My name is Ramon. You like that already?’) and beats that are used, sparingly, to define movement rather than just to provide something for the ‘hey that’s got a good beat’ STUDENT. There’s an impressive range of sounds, and towards the end, as things get more and more twisted, the loops get so strung out that I begin to wonder whether this is in fact a collaboration between Jim O’Rourke and Ninja Tune.
Apart from anything else, an album with track titles like ‘A Short History of Underlinen - porn starlet with metal-nosed dreams’ and ‘The Horn - Foreign Gentleman Seeks Umbrella For Romance’, deserves unqualified recommendation, as does any album where one of the musicians is credited with playing ‘love scenes.’ I look forward to the film.
Mogwai
Young Team
Chemikal Underground
Emerging over the past few years as a serious force among independent record labels, Chemikal Underground follow up superb releases from Magoo and the Delgados with this marvellous new recording from Scottish ambient noise terrorists Mogwai. Taking its cue from Bardo Pond, Telstar Ponies and inevitably, Sonic Youth, ‘Young Team’ forges a vital, relevant sound, far removed from anything else released this year. Nevertheless, their propensity for multi-textural noise and diverse instrumentation makes for interesting comparison with 1997’s other meisterwork from Radiohead. Indeed, both bands seem to epitomise the desire for progress set forth by the Telstar Ponies last year. However, the albums couldn’t be more dissimilar.
If ‘OK Computer’ was a white sleeved, anti-septic exercise in clinical bleakness, for Mogwai the predominant colour seems red. This means a fiery, explosive approach to the future, evading cynicism and revealing blinding shafts of hope in today’s uncertain climate. Thus, we open with a track called ‘Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home’ which positively glows. It represents a tentative step into the unknown as gorgeous harmonics build to a crashing wall of noise. ‘Like Herod’, is a truly mind-blowing experience which begins with chiming Quickspace guitars before switching to the kind of angry headfuck distortion I thought had been gradually sucked out of modern rock. This is what I love about ‘Young Team’, it is never afraid to look chaos in the face and just because it is mainly instrumental doesn’t make the experience any less profound. The anxious phone call which frames ‘Tracy’ brilliantly expresses the problematic nature of modern interpersonal relations. My favourite track though, remains ‘R U Still Into It’ a Slint-esque exercise in minimalist beauty, as relaxed spoken words and sumptuous piano chords build to stirring, poignant and deeply emotive effect.
If Mogwai owe much to past styles and other artists then this is more than compensated for by the unique intelligence clearly at work here. This is particularly evident in the 15 minute closing work ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’ which feels the musical equivalent of standing on Ben Nevis relishing in the fresh expansive beauty of the world around. It is a moment that makes you reflect upon the sheer scope of modern music, for if ‘OK Computer’ demonstrates the value of exploring the depths, then ‘Young Team’ proves that the heights are just as appealing. Indeed, on the basis of this record, I see no reason why Mogwai shouldn’t emerge as one of our most valued modern cultural voices.
The Hits Hurt’ is basically a sampler for the excellent lo-fi demons that are Domino Records. Ever ready to take risks that sacrifice any sort of economic gain, Domino invest their money into talented and genuinely interesting bands. At the forefront of their signings are Sebadoh and Pavement, two of the best guitar based-bands (or anything-based bands) working at the moment. Sebadoh are represented here with ‘Too Pure’ from their ‘Harmacy’ long-player and Pavement appear with ‘Blue Hawaiian’ which is just as good if only for the lyric ‘toes are grouped in clusters’ and its typically tuneless - but wonderfully marine - epic quality. Absolutely cool.
Elsewhere on the album there are many strong points. Movietone’s ‘Useless Landscape’ finds a groove, sticks with it and exploits seven kinds of cool out of it. Aerial M’s ‘Dazed and Awake’ and Flying Saucer Attack’s ‘Psychic Driving’ do similar things, the bands both exploring what their instruments can do within a limited spectrum. Even though all the tracks feel and sound like they were recorded by someone you know arsing about with a 4-track in their bedroom, They are hypnotic and tantalising. The Third Eye Foundation add another instrumental to the album that is in keeping with the if-you’re-fucked-you’ll-love-this-and-even-if-you’re-not-it’s-fantastic mood of ‘The Hits Hurt’ with the intense and sometimes scary ‘The Out Sound From Way In’.
The album, unlike most samplers from record companies (that often sound like the crap CDs you find on the front of music magazines), hangs together very well. It is consistent - if not in sound, then tone. Despite the ever presence on their books of many artists a little too into country and western sliding guitar sounds, Domino have produced a record displaying their strengths: originality and experimentation. In an industry focused on the mundane and profitable, Domino here show us their fascination and support for innovative groups like Sebadoh, singers and songwriters like Will Oldman and crazy people who try and find interesting and bizarre sounds from their instruments like Ganger. In ten years time bands will be quoting most of the people on this record as influences. Go buy.
Labradford
Mi Media Naranja
Blast First
Labradford: you might have heard the name somewhere. It’s a name that some people hope to use when they eventually get a band together. They’ve been slowly getting there: first a guitar and synthesiser, then adding a bass, then percussion, now a string section. They still have the sax to add of course (then maybe another guitar for good measure), but meanwhile they’ve been releasing albums to pass the time.
And what great albums they have been. The relaxing and the unsettling seem to go hand in hand, but it’s too self-assured to be vulnerable. It makes apple pie seem kinky. It’s familiar when you hear it for the first time but less so once you get to know it. It’s like Twin Peaks scored by
Brian Eno playing cricket with a guitar. At which point is music finished? When it’s written? When it’s recorded? When it’s heard? When it’s performed? Well, that’s just when composing, recording, hearing, performing are finished. Music is finished when it no longer offers new possibilities. Labradford make unfinished music. They show no signs of finishing their band whatever they add (or take away).
Mark Eitzel
Caught In A Trap And I Can’t Back Out ‘Cause I Love You Too Much Baby
Matador
Seeing that dog on the end of it’s leash / says how can you live without trust / you said love fades like all things do / into dust, into dust / it’s all been said and done / the who’s and the what’s and the why’s / and I’m tired to the bone of telling you goodbye ... goodbye” sings Mark Eitzel as feedback gently weeps over his voice.
“The prison guards try to sell me these little yellow pills / they say they cover up the pain for a wound that never heals / and all I got was the last look you wore on your face / and if I live to be a thousand it’s one thing I’ll never replace ... go away, go away” he later sings, his voice breaking up, straining to get over the words as the guitars get more and more agitated behind him.
This is Mark Eitzel at his most bleak, at his most sparse and his most powerful. What could become morose self indulgent misery is rescued by his passion and his delivery. Songs which could become unbearable have a humanity and humility that makes them unmissable.
It’s an album of delicate beauty, sparse acoustic guitar occasionally filled out with strains of feedback and distortion. It’s a celebration of a self destruction, of loss and regret, of what makes us human. Its “a poem that can’t contain it’s awful rhymes.” An album that kicks you in the guts and leaves you reeling.
And if you don’t want to listen to music that kicks you in the guts, music that makes you stagger and feel completely in awe then, well, you’re reading the wrong magazine.
Space Monkeys
The Daddy Of Them All
Factory Records
A better than average britpop album by another Mancunian band. It consists of a variety of influences; their style is reminiscent of such groups as U2, Arrested Development, and Prodigy (among others). The lead singer, Richard McNevin-Duff, is fond of the nasal style as perfected by Oasis and the lead guitar seems to be paying homage to the Stone Roses.
The first two songs have Prodigyesque throbbing rhythms, with very fuzzy guitar power chords producing a good overall effect. The lyrics aren’t bad; they depict existentialist angst with an undertone of pessimistic fervour. Both acceptable electronic rock songs. The rhythm and chords to the third song, ‘Sugar Cane’, are strongly akin to the style of hip hop groups such as Arrested Development. In the middle of the song there is a rap that is a complete rip off of ‘Under Mi Sleng Teng’, an eighties Jamaican DJ’s song that has been remixed countless times. Since there are no copyright laws in Jamaica, they won’t get their asses sued. But all in all a good, catchy, vaguely anthemic song.
‘Inside my Soul’ is a cheesy obligatory slow song for the teeny boppers, with the stench of pseudo-prophetic claptrap, whilst ‘Ready for the Rampage’ often employs a bassline nicked from the beginning and end of ‘Spaceman’ by Babylon Zoo. Great wah guitar and synthesiser work, as well as a pulsing rhythm, make this a good song.
‘Dear Dhinus’s’ superior beat is the best aspect of the next track. McNevin-Duff’s voice is good, and the chords are simple; very effective and hypnotic, like ‘Smile America’.
The rest of the songs are as described, really. Overall a good album, although no one song on the album really stands out. That said, it’s all in all worth buying if you’ve got a bit of spare cash.
The David Arnold Project
Shaken And Stirred
East West
Unlike every other boy his age who wanted to be James Bond and enjoy the high life of never-ending vodka-martinis, a bevy of bikini-clad beauties, and a load of flash secret agent type gear, young David Arnold instead sat in his bedroom, twiddling knobs and dreaming of being John Barry. Many years later, David Arnold had made quite a name for himself and as he sat in that same Luton bedroom he had a great idea: to rework all his old Bond favourites with the help of his new found chums in the music industry. And what a belter of an idea it was
To mark the anniversary of 'Dr. No' and no doubt to celebrate getting the gig for the new Bond movie, Arnold has shaken liberal measures of the original versions and stirred them with a fusion of contemporary styles. The Propellerheads' mighty big beat take on 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' retains enough of the glamour and hooks of the original to be recognisable. The discovery of David MacAlmont as a Shirley Bassey for the millennium with his powerful, full-on rendition of 'Diamonds Are Forever' will come as little surprise to most people, but the discovery of Iggy Pop crooning (yes, crooning) his way through Louis Armstrong's 'We Have All The Time In The World' is a truly beautiful thing.
Natacha Atlas' 'From Russia With Love' is a sort of Eastern-bloc style bongos, sitars, and cowbells reversal of the cool sophistication of the original. Leftfield provide a suitably space age number, LTJ Bukem loses the plot of the whole thing with his inexplicable interpretation of Monty Norman's Bond theme, and Pulp's 'All The Time' could be about either Macclesfield or Monte Carlo in the way only Pulp know how.
This is as sexy and all-action as Sean Connery, but as smooth and sophisticated as Roger Moore - and while Arnold's beat orchestration is behind it he makes sure the musical Lazenbys and Daltons (like Duran Duran, A-Ha, or Guns'n'Roses) remain a distant memory.
Tribute To Nothing
Wrench
Lockjaw
The press release looks far from promising. “Britain’s most exciting hardcore band”. Yeah, well Ryan Giggs is Wales’ most exciting footballer but he’s not exactly inundated with competition. Oh well, we’ll give it a go.
Lead track ‘Backdown’ breaks in and, hey, it’s not bad. A bit Rage Against The Machine, loud bit, weird eerie bit, FUCK OFF LOUD BIT. We could be onto something here after all. Track 3, ‘Finding My Own Mind’ was the first single and Ice T gave it full marks so my ears are pricked.
‘Finding My Own Mind’ is actually a fucking fantastic song; not so much a rough diamond as a fuck off huge lump of coal hurtling through your window with a note attached saying “listen to this album or we’ll knock your fucking head off with a sledgehammer”. As we streak screaming through the rest of ‘Wrench’ we find no let up whatsoever, each track attempting to burst your eardrums for a minute, then tricking you into turning the volume up a bit by going all mysterious before returning to annihilation tactics.
Then it hits me - I’ve seen these live! Yeah, they supported someone shit a while back and were really fucking cool as I remember. Ah, now it all begins to come together.
Because they were awesome on stage and that’s how their music should be heard, giving the perfect explanation for why this album didn’t hit me quite as hard as it should have done. It’s all very well sounding a bit rough but ‘Wrench’ is pretty badly produced and just fails to get across the energy that they exert on stage. That’s my only criticism though, of an otherwise promising debut; just let’s hope that a major record deal is around the corner as it would be a shame for the British Music Industry to waste this lot.
WAAAAARRRGGH - and so commenceth this sprawling 17-track leviathan. Well not really, but Soundgarden have always been tainted with the bad 80s metal brush, even if they are best known, popularly and commercially, as part of the grunge machine of the early 90s.
There is a clear distinction here between the kind of tracks which placed them comfortably with Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots and Alice In Chains and the kind of stuff which previously sold to a couple of old metallers and their dog. All the songs from ‘Superunknown’ (‘Spoonman’, ‘The Day I Tried To Live’, ‘Black Hole Sun’, ‘Fell On Black Days’) are undeniably if infuriatingly memorable and (thankfully) veer away from the widdly-widdly-screech! formula of earlier material (‘Flower’, ‘Nothing To Say’). Tracks from their last release ‘Down On The Upside’ do, however, demonstrate an inability to escape from the mentality of 1994. Oh, and a continued obsession with snakes. Which is nice. ‘Spoonman’ does perhaps remain the best song about spoons in 7/4 ever written and ‘Black Hole Sun’ is undoubtably one of the five songs I would pick if I had to remember what being fifteen was like again.
It is perhaps for this reason that I cannot bring myself to feel any sympathy for this record, but any band who release a song called ‘Get On The Snake’ and then pretend to be all serious should be deeply chastised, clearly. Preferably with the same snake they seem to be so keen for you to ‘get on’. On a lighter note, they do have a song which says something about fucking everybody accompanied by a manic banjo which if not actually good, is at least funny.
Soundgarden then, trapped unenviably between metal and MTV fodder, not earnest or suicidal enough to join the upper echelons of Seattle’s polite (rock) society. And now they’re dead. Too many snakes probably.
Various
What's Up Matador?
Matador
Compilation albums are a bugger to review. Especially when they’re two CDs full of totally cool music from some of the most productive alternative talent going. So, how can it be done in less than half a page? Well, we can go on about the history of the package as a film soundtrack or something but it’s actually much easier to say that it’s completely great and if you don’t buy it now then you’re worse than pondlife. Really. Come on, you get one CD full of old favourites: Guided By Voices’ ‘Motor Away’, Pizzicato Five’s ‘Twiggy Twiggy’, Pavement’s ‘Texas Never Whispers’, Jon Spencer Blues Explosions’ ‘Dang’, even The Fall’s ‘Hey Student’. So, that’s worth more than the asking price anyway but, just to really stain your pants, the kind folk at Matador chucked in another CD of unreleased stuff. Obviously, some of this isn’t going to be up to scratch, right? No, it’s all ace. The highlights are Railroad Jerk’s ‘One Step Forward’ and Yo La Tengo’s ‘Don’t Say A Word’ but there’s plenty more cool tunes in there. Okay, maybe the Chavez track isn’t quite up to standard, but life was never perfect before, was it?
As a summary of everything that’s right with Matador this is perfect, and it serves as a great introduction to some of the more obscure wonders they’re putting out for your listening pleasure.
The Wildhearts
Endless Nameless
Mushroom
The Wildhearts, a band whose internal differences are roughly comparable in magnitude to the differences between Citizen Kane and Police Academy V: Assignment Miami Beach, are BACK! And they’ve got themselves an exciting new direction! Having sized up the music scene during their last messy break-up, Ginger and the boys have seized on the mood of the kids and seen that yes, Nine Inch Nails are indeed very much where it’s at.
Therefore, instead of just torturing their guitars and shouting a lot as they used to do in between their break-ups, they now torture their guitars and shout a lot while being drowned out by some horrid industrial ‘beats’. These unfortunately sound more than a little like a man in a suit of armour falling down a corrugated iron roof whilst being soundly beaten with big sticks. Or the sound of one of those shit groups who pop up from time to time on daytime TV and bang interminably on lead pipes and dustbin lids. Or the sound of that same ill-fated armour-clad unfortunate now finding himself enmeshed within the robust gears of a sturdy vintage printing press. Or indeed the sound of a band desperately clutching at straws before they once again inevitably self-destruct.
Someone once sang that breaking up is hard to do. Not so for the Wildhearts, they’ve proved it time and again. Come on boys, don’t disappoint us this time.
Lightning Seeds
Like You Do - The Best Of...
Epic
Yes, popkids, not only are we blessed with endless radio airplay of Mr Broudie’s saccharin-soaked pop! songs, but now we can enjoy them all on one huge bumper 16-track album. Well, maybe ‘endure’ would be a better word to describe the process of listening to songs so bland, passionless and predictable that the ending comes as something of a relief.
You might say this is music for people who aren’t really interested in music - the familiarity of the songs makes it kind of tempting to play the CD, but it is because the songs are so familiar that it just bores you to tears once you put it on. ‘Sugar Coated Iceberg’ is so awful that it even manages to stoop below the standards of its co-author - Steven Jones from Baby Bird - whereas ‘Waiting for Today to Happen’ - (lyrics supplied by the Manics’ Nicky Wire) is destroyed by Broudie’s incapable-of-emotion singing technique. Most of the songs, however, just seem to fade in and out with the same plodding mid-tempo casio drums and cheesy keyboard horn sounds.
This music is far more likely to induce people to smash things up than punk ever did.
At the moment, reviewing the new album from the Spice Girls makes you feel as if you are reporting from the front line of some war-torn country and I’m afraid I’m a little baffled. Why has everyone turned against the Spice Girls? Of course they’re overexposed, but wasn’t part of the fun watching the girls make their way from the covers of ‘Smash Hits’ to ‘Computing World’ in a matter of months? Have people forgotten what pop music was like before they emerged? Until the Spice Girls told us to wake up and smell the Pepsi, things were looking a bit bleak in the post-Take That wilderness.
It was never particularly about what the group were singing so much as what they were wearing when they were singing it. A heady twelve months later, ‘Spiceworld’ is likely to provoke as much discussion about Geri showing part of her right buttock on the cover as the tunes themselves. The album displays pretty much zero musical progression, is slickly produced, and contains a whole bundle of ridiculously atrocious lyrics. This means it’s almost as much fun as their first one.
Given that ‘Spice Up Your Life’ and ‘Move Over’ played over adverts for Spice Produce, perhaps ‘Spiceworld’ should have been subtitled ‘Featuring all the songs from their latest commercials’. Marring the joyous experience slightly are ‘Stop,’ which aims for Motown and ends up as bad Bananarama, and ‘Viva Forever,’ an horrific Flamenco guitar epic not even Madonna would dare produce. ‘Saturday Night Divas,’ on the other hand, is pop-Swing (better than the real Swing) and classier still is ‘Too Much’ - it’s big, it’s a ballad, and it’ll be the Christmas number one unless the Teletubbies have their way.