Revolution Number 8 December 26, 2007

10. The White Stripes - Icky Thump
9. Kubichek! - Not Enough Night
The eighth album of the year…

Battles are a band that stand alone in the world of today. It’s not that there aren’t others making music like them; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. The genre of Math Rock is a burgeoning field, with more and more bands creating its obscure, highly technical sounds every day.

And its not the success either. Other bands have managed to bring the sound to the mainstream before. Hot Club de Paris and Cats and Cats and Cats both merged the ethos of math rock with indie pop sensibilities, with varying degrees of success.

For me, it is the total lack of compromise with which they go about their daily business that makes them quite so special. They are the same now as they were when they began, and it’s everyone else that has changed to fit them.

That doesn’t mean they have been an unmitigated success, though. When they decided to release Atlas as the debut single from their first full length album Mirrored, it did achieve the requisite critical success. When they decided to then put it up as the weekly free download on iTunes… the result wasn’t quite so overwhelming. Averaging two stars from the hordes of freeloaders, and with most verbal feedback being hateful to the extreme, it was clear that the charts weren’t quite the place for Battles.

Which is why it is so odd that I, for one, have yet to meet someone who doesn’t like them. Hasn’t heard of them, yes. But everyone who hears them seems to fall in love instantly. And that counts for something, I feel.

Battles - Atlas [MP3]
Battles - Tonto [MP3]

After a pause… December 26, 2007

10. The White Stripes - Icky Thump.
The ninth album of the year…

Coming from Newcastle (or Gateshead. Or Tyneside. Or Sunderland. I’m not good with The North), Kubichek! are probably the best band with an ! in their name ever. And while that may sound like damning with faint praise, remember that they are up against surprisingly varied and effective competition. From ¡Forward Russia! to Panic! At the Disco, the ! (pronounced “exclamation mark”, “factorial” or simply “bang” depending upon the context) has been enjoying its spot in the limelight recently.

But Kubichek! are a band more deserving of it than most. From the opening chord of Nightjoy, the first single from their debut album Not Enough Night, it is clear that this is a band that deals heavily in exclaimations. Their songs are powerful, loud and energetic to the point of near parody.

Much like fellow banged Northerners iForward Russia!, the guitars are distorted, boosted and so integral to the sound that at times it can be hard to remember that there are any other instruments in the band at all. Everything else, from bass to drums, spends half its time trying to shadow them.

Its the other half of the time that contains the joy, though. The lead vocals in isolation can sometimes sound like that slice of life style so popular at the moment (for example, again from Nightjoy, “You put on your silver shoes and watch the house collapse”), but with there only being four or five repeated lines in most songs, it soon becomes clear that they are being used to maximum efficiency as an instrument, and not as a particularly effective tool for conveying a message.

And in the end it is that lack of depth that costs this album. For sheer excitment it cannot be beaten, and it earned its place here by virtue of its ridiculous playcount on my iTunes, but at times the formula shows through.

Kubichek! - Nightjoy [MP3]

Kubichek! - Outwards [MP3]

The Count… of Ten November 26, 2007

I got bored doing merely a vaguely coherent grouping, and thought I start on an actual list. So, without further ado, I present my tenth album of the year:

The White Stripes with Icky Thump.

Named after a piece of Lancashire dialect picked up from Jack White’s English wife, recorded over a record breaking three weeks (their longest session so far), and released on memory sticks from a rechristened “Icky Thump Records” in Hollywood, Icky Thump was never going to be a normal album, even for the White Stripes. And much of what came out was new and bizarre.

The opening, eponymous track, was already different from anything the band had done before. Leaked a few months before the album came out, it was, and still is, odd. Minimal beyond what is usual for the stripped-down two piece, the verses are almost unaccompanied, with some bassy chords and a kick drum being the only things that keep Jack from getting lonely, except, of course, for the ‘full stops’ at the end of each line. The chorus doesn’t even exist; its a guitar solo.

And the album goes on from there. You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do What You’re Told) sounds like a (really good) Raconteurs track. Conquest is a country cover (further proof that the White Stripes have abandoned their blues roots). Rag and Bone has Jack and Meg ad-libbing an odd cockney fantasy. St Andrew has bag pipes.

Some of the songs, particularly the singles (of which there have, so far, been three; Icky Thump, You Don’t Know What Love Is, and Conquest) are fantastic, but amongst the rest, there are some, which just sound, if not boring, a bit… B-sidey. I’m thinking particularly of 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues, which against the image conjoured up by its title, runs out of energy half way through. It’s rare in a White Stripes song, but you wonder why it hasn’t ended yet.

It must not, of course, be forgotten that this is a fantastic album. It is just an album that can’t live in your stereo (or now-playing list, or whatever) for very long. The oddity wears out, the lazy tracks start to drag. But for short visits - a listen hear, a listen there - it is easily deserving of a best of 2007 label.

The White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl (Acoustic) [MP3]
The White Stripes - Conquest [MP3]

In Debt To Napoleon IIIrd November 22, 2007

Another potential album of the year…

Napoleon IIIrd is one man from Leeds, who plays music with a couple of instruments and a reel-to-reel tape player. His debut album, In Debt To, came out with the sort of staggered that only indie labels are forced to do, arriving digitally in May, slowly building up the attention needed for the physical launch last month.

Experimenting with broken rhythms and symphonic production (he occasionally plays shows through surround sound speakers), he has culled two singles from the disc, both released on Brainlove Records, the London-based basement company that released the album.

The first, This Is My Call To Arms, begins with him wailing, out of tune and sounding slightly mad before racing to a false finish just 20 seconds in. Singing, in harmony with himself, “This is my call to the upper limbs”, horns kick in, and the song proper begins.

The trait that both Call to Arms, and the current single, Hit Schmooze for Me share is a feeling that they are every so slightly broken. What belies their analog roots, though, is that these hiccups - slightly off-key singing, instruments not all starting at the same time - add to the enjoyment of the song. Don’t get me wrong, I love Glitch as much as the next man (because the next man probably hasn’t heard of it), but, like Lomography before him, Napoleon IIIrd succeeds in taking technology that doesn’t quite work, and using those flaws to create beauty.

He has other, more traditional, good points as well. His wry lyrics (”Guys In Bands Get Girls”) fit the music perfectly, and Hit Schmooze For Me has a genuinely singalong breakdown (”This is not my life, it’s just my day-job, the way I pay the rent”), but Napoleon’s real charm lies in his quirkiness, and refusal to compromise. It may not be a formula for conquering the mainstream, but I get the feeling that that isn’t really his aim.
Standout tracks on the album include Guys in Bands, Hit Schmooze for Me and the tender apology of Kate’s Song

Napoleon IIIrd - Guys in Bands (Live) [MP3]
Napoleon IIIrd - Hit Schmooze for Me [MP3]

Californication November 20, 2007

So, apparently some group from California are suing David Duchovny for stealing their word.

The band, called the Red Hot Chili Peppers, maintain that they coined the word for their seventh studio album, and that by using it for his hit show, Duchovny has devalued the word.

Jokes aside, has anything illegal actually occurred? It was my understanding that trademarks’ exclusivity is confined to the area of commerce they’re used in. That’s why we can have Apple Inc and Apple Estates (they’re round the corner from me). Seems to me like Band and TV Show are different things. But I could be wrong…

I’m not going to post any RHCP. Not because I’m afraid of lawsuits, but because they’re shit. Wooden Shjips aren’t. They’re just odd. This is the 8-minute vinyl version of Dance, California.

Wooden Shjips - Dance, California [MP3]

All Star November 20, 2007

Yeah, so it’s probably still too early to start thinking about the end of the year.
But I’m bored.
And there have been a lot of albums out last year.
Some of them have even been quite good.
And I know that lists are crass, attention seeking, and content free.
Which is why I’m not going to write one quite yet.
I’m just going to go through some of the best albums out this year.
These are albums that should be considered for anyone’s top list.
Like the Mercury Prize, but without the British requirement.
Or the cash prize.
Or the reasoned judgment.
Not that I’m selling myself short or anything.

First is an easy one. Of Montreal, with Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
Of Montreal are fast making a name for themselves as, well, a band that defy categorization. Which makes it quite hard to write about them, really. Music journalists tend to like a formula which involves assigning a genre, picking other artists who are similar, and then writing some flowery prose about emotion or suchlike.
The closest genre to Of Montreal is probably prog rock; they share many things with the 70s weirdos, such as a love of long songs, obtuse titles, odd keys and general messing about with the structure of music. Of course, many genres throughout the ages have gone with those ideas - by that descripition, there is no difference between Math and Prog Rock, even though the two are pretty fucking different. And its probably safe to say that Of Montreal are neither, unless one wants to start a long comment thread…
To assign similar bands, one would usually begin looking around for influences. Label mates include The Apples in Stereo, and Neutral Milk Hotel, and while its true that they all share the same spirit of musical adventure (The Apples in Stereo invented a new scale for their latest album), its difficult to see much similarity between the Apples in Stereo’s Beatlesesque Energy and, say, Of Montreal’s best known song, Wraith Pinned to the Mist (and other Games).
That song is the reason I first heard Of Montreal. In fact, I only bought Hissing Fauna by mistake; I meant to buy 2004’s The Sunlandic Twins, to have my own copy of it. But it was a mistake that soon payed off. The entire album is filled with gems equal in both catchiness and long term appeal, with standout tracks being, in my opinion, the three consecutive songs Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse, Gronlandic Edit, and A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger. See what I mean about obtuse titles?

Regardless, Hissing Fauna is a worthy introduction to one of the best American bands to have remained underground, probably for longer than they deserved to, and its follow up should be coming out some time in 2008.

Of Montreal - Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse [MP3]

Of Montreal - Wraith Pinned to the Mist (and other Games) [MP3]

Fuck it. November 12, 2007

I’m still angry at the NME.

This is a track I meant to post in Woody’s Roundup. But I forgot. Its Black Kids. They’re playing at Nambucca in Holloway Road on December 9th, on a Transparent night. Worth going.

Black Kids - I’m not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance [MP3]

An open letter to the New Musical Express. November 8, 2007

I canceled my subscription to the NME today. The cool list was the final straw. I’ve moved on from my position last year, when I said, um, “I will take you into a dark alley and I will cut you” for your inclusion of Faris Badwan. You seemed to learn from that, at least. Only one horror, and he’s at number 50.

But this year, I’m not going to bother debating the various, arbitrary positions filled with a combination of one hit wonders and people who even my mother knows are cool. Because that’s what you want, isn’t it? Debate. Argument. Attention. Like some bastard offspring of MTV and endemol, you know the only way to get people to keep on talking about you is to be endlessly controversial. That’s why you put Beth Ditto on the front cover naked. That’s why you put Frank Carter in the number one position. That’s why you endlessly interview, analyse and just generally gossip about Pete Doherty. Because these people, regardless of what we think of them, are interesting. Whereas you are filling a rapidly pointless part of society.

You review singles after anyone who cares has already heard them. Your album reviews are lengthy, flowery and capped off with a number that has apparently been allocated based solely upon what you think will win you the most credibility. Your ‘news’ pages have become lowest common denominator gossip, stealing the worst tactics from OK! and Heat.

You realised that those on the real frontiers, the people who go to gigs, find new bands and new talent, are on the internet, writing blogs or posting on facebook, doing the work for free out of love for music and musicians. And so you let the Radar section sink lower than them all. No longer content with mere reporting, you now attempt to make taste. Bands who otherwise would have no hope get pitched, hyped, built up, and then, when you get bored, knocked all the way back down again.

I’d already started referring to you as a fashion magazine, but that was before my girlfriend pointed out to me that there actually is a fashion section, in the back half (you know, the part no one reads). I thought I was being funny. And I suppose, in a way, I was. If it wasn’t for your staggering hold on the music tastes of teenage Britain, the levels you will sink to to sell more copies would be pretty laughable. Instead, they are just a little depressing.

I would call for others to join me in a boycott, but I know it won’t work. If anyone wants me, I’ll be in my room, wandering what the fuck went wrong.

Les Incompétents - How It All Went Wrong [MP3]

Hello, and welcome to “K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Seventies” November 5, 2007

Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty were a duo known as Stealer’s Wheel when they recorded this Dylanesque, pop, bubble-gum favorite from April of 1974.
That reached up to number five, as K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Seventies continues.

Stealer’s Wheel - Stuck in the middle with you [MP3]

Yes, that is the same Gerry Rafferty who recorded Baker Street. I never made that connection before.

Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street [MP3]

Zombies October 31, 2007

Gotta do a themed post sometime. When better than Halloween?
Zombies may not be your traditional Halloween fare - that’s more along the lines of witches, wizards, ghosts and ghouls - but in the music world, they rule the roost.
Lets start at the beginning. In 1961, there was the Zombies. With a name that belied their clean, British invasion image (at least to start with), they never quite rose to the prominence of the other bands they were contemporary with, but in recent years, their final album, Odessey and Oracle (the mis-spelling in the title came from the bassists girlfriend, who designed the cover) has become a bit of a cult classic, ranking 80 in Rolling Stones’ top 500 albums ever in 2002. Their B-sides and rarities collection, Zombie Heaven, includes a cover of Burt Bacharach’s song The Look of Love (not to be confused with ABC’s song of the same name), and that is what I’ve posted here.

The Zombies - The Look of Love [MP3]

Then there is a zombie-hiatus for many years, until, in 1999, a German electronica project called Zombie Nation released one of the most famous pieces of dance music ever, Kernkraft 400. If you don’t think you know it, you’re wrong. Skip to 1:57, when the main melody kicks in, and recognition will dawn.
That famous melody is actually a remix of a song from a 1984 Commodore 64 game called Lazy Jones, and can be heard, pretty much unchanged, on that games Wikipedia entry. Admittedly, it would be a lot harder to dance to.

Zombie Nation - Kernkraft 400 [MP3]

Zombina and the Skeletones were formed in 1998, and have been playing ever since, peddling their unique brand of undead-tinged 50s/60s rock and roll to anyone who will listen. Presumably a band who really feel the seasonal rush, they go beyond merely having Zombie in their name, and dress up as the living-impaired, while writing songs about pretty much everything that has ever been in a campy B-movie. Nobody Likes You (When You’re Dead), released in 2002, remains their standout song, a genuine classic that doesn’t deserve to be stuck in the niche the band have put themselves in, but Staci Stasis, which I’ve posted an acoustic version of here, comes pretty close the matching it. Either way, they both deserve to be multi-platinum hits, so grab em while they’re hot.

Zombina and the Skeletones - Staci Stasis (Acoustic) [MP3]
Zombina and the Skeletones - Nobody Likes You (When You’re Dead) [MP3]

Finally, we move to the genre of Space Rock, with the Pittsburgh duo Zombi. Armed with just a synth, bass and drums, the pair loop their arses off to create something that sounds like the future, circa 1965. This track comes from their 2006 limited edition EP Digitalis.

Zombi - Digitalis [MP3]