Radiohead: ‘nude’

‘Nude’ is one of Radiohead’s finest achievements in recent years, but has anyone really not heard it yet? Considering most people bought the album ‘In Rainbows’ online for 2p, releasing singles to promote said album seems somewhat perverse.

Album tracks like ‘Bodysnatchers’ toyed with noise and beats, setting a new progressive direction for the band. ‘Nude’, however, is one of those ethereal dirges that bring ‘OK Computer’-era Radiohead to mind. A warming pulse of bass, strings recorded on Pluto, the waltzing brush of snare… and a dreamy ending that a late 60s Brian Wilson would have been proud of. Tom warbles on about unrequited love and going to hell for what his dirty mind is thinking – but, as usual, it’s the feeling that matters. What are you waiting for?

Released on 31st March by XL Recordings.

Published on Last Broadcast

Tonight saw the triumphant return of three giants of electronic ‘head and feet’ music. If you’ve ever been to a rave you will recognise it - the main room’s repetitive beats, and the ‘ambient’ in the chill out room, wouldn’t be the same but for these pioneers.

Harmonia played last year for the first time since 1976, when they were called the greatest band in the world (Brian Eno). This was their first ever UK gig, and there were plenty of Krautrock fans willing them on. Michael Rother (of Neu!) and Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Möbius (of Cluster) shuffled onto the stage, 196 years between them. They may as well have been doing jigsaw puzzles throughout, for all the animation we saw, but this pushed the emphasis fully onto the music, supported by some increasingly psychedelic visuals.

With the Kraftwerk-esque exception of the encore, ‘Deluxe’, this was music without pop structures. The set composed about half ambient machine noises (of the Cluster side), and half motorik/Apache beat (typical of Neu!). On request, the volume was cranked up, and it was clear that these three hadn’t stopped listening to music in the 70s. The influenced were reshaping the influencers - traces of drum and bass beats for example, and a techno edge to the motorik sound.

Despite the age of the musicians, their equipment, and the music, the sounds were completely timeless. I’ll bet that in another 40 years this stuff will still sound fresh.

In support were Leafcutter John - John Burton plus two, a female vocalist and cellist. Mike Paradinas discovered this guy, and signed him to Planet Mu. He’s also part of Polar Bear. What we got was some beautiful close harmony folk with a big debt to Tim Buckley - and some abstract percussion and laptop meanderings. Never did the two approaches fuse, and I felt they would have done better with just the folk.

Image borrowed from mapadaisical (thanks!)

Unkle: ‘Restless’

‘Restless’, from Unkle’s third album ‘War Stories’, is a teleport machine. It transports you from the safety of your own three-piece suite and mug of tea to three in the morning downtown Detroit.

There you are, cruising in your Dodge, windows down, scar-faced hoods bearing down at your from every street corner, off your tits, 24 sleepless hours behind you, another 24 ahead…Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) soundtracks this dark, clattering, paranoid journey like an American Shaun Ryder. Aaarrgh!

Think Death in Vegas circa ‘Contino Sessions’. Think Two Lone Swordsmen circa ‘From The Double Gone Chapel’. Think “Help, I want my mum!”

Jack Johnson: ‘Hope’

Another slice of reggae-lite from the man who has everything, ‘Hope’ will surely have a certain Robert Nestor Marley turning in his grave.

Jack Johnson is the surfers’ favourite troubadour, and seems to have a perfect life. He lives in Hawaii and rips on a surfboard. He’s got good looks and a velvet voice. His environmental conscience means that he donates 1% of all profits to green causes… and sometimes, especially when limited to guitar and vocals, he can write pleasant, hummable, summertime tunes.

And thus it brings great joy to report that this new single, taken from the nearly platinum ‘Sleep Through The Static’, makes it clear that he ain’t all that. ‘Hope’ is a shlocker, a shocker, an embarrassing granddad rocker. Hurray!

Released on 14th April 2008 by Brushfire/Island Records.

It Hugs Back: ‘Other Cars Go’

Frankly, It Hugs Back is a terrible name for a band. But bear with them (geddit?)… they’re worth it.

Think Mercury Rev. Think Stereolab. Think My Bloody Valentine. ‘Other Cars Go’ and the flip ‘Little Steps’ offer dreamy soundscapes of pulsing bass, keyboard atmospherics and shimmering guitar that reminds you of all that. On ‘Other Cars…’, the noise grows, feedback creeps in, the keyboard squeals, and then drops back to that grooving bass throb. ‘Little Steps’ is more sensitive, but more derivative.

I’ve seen them live and I enjoyed them. However, I wonder if that’s just because they remind me of my youth… does this sort of stuff have much of an audience at the moment? I doubt it, but good on them for releasing it anyway.

Released on 31st March 2008 by Too Pure.

Tokyo Police Club: ‘Elephant Shell’

The blurb says this debut album follows on from an EP that was ‘one of the most well received 16 minutes of music in recent history’. If that’s the case, then Boris Johnson is the most popular Tory Mayoral hopeful called Boris with floppy white hair who rides a bike in living memory. Good job the album isn’t a total dud then.

It’s a cool band name, but don’t expect Japanese pop. Tokyo Police Club, founded in Ontario, create driving indie-pop. Driving drums, soaring guitars and big chorus hooks are the key features, but a quirky edge marks them out from the pack: xylophone here, claps there, machine buzzes everywhere.

Opener ‘Centennial’ does a Canadian Bloc Party, and sets a theme of time, love and loss that lasts through the album. Singer/bassist David Monks makes a feature of his vowels, stretching them around words in an engaging way. “Way back when, we met ‘cause my parents knew your parents, steady hands, easy friends.”

‘In A Cave’ shocks you with a beat that mimics ‘Faith’ by George Michael (or is it just me?), before kicking into a cantering Morrissey style vocal – ‘You’re my cave and I’ve been hiding out’. ‘Juno’ and ‘Sixties Remake’ do an Arcade Fire thanks to pounding piano or military drum or shouted ‘Hey!’ choruses. I try to resist, but it seems the Fire’s influence is in virtually every indie record this year. No bad thing, I suppose.

Other tracks are a more hit and miss affair. A cello just about redeems the dirge of ‘The Harrowing Adventures Of’, while ‘Your English Is Good’ is a rather pointless chant-along, and I can’t shake an image of Snow Patrol from ‘Graves’.

All in all, however, a fairly well received 28 minutes from this reviewer.

Released on 5th May 2008 by Memphis Industries.

From Last Broadcast

Stick in the middle of Woooooooooh!

Ever seen that programme ‘Stormchasers’, where a bunch of crazy tornado addicts follow maelstroms across the desert? Well, ‘Yes Yes Vindictive’ soundtracks the death defying, yet life-affirming experience of being run over by one of those giant tornados.

This probably-soon-to-be-Famous Five of Ozzie teenagers are Amandah, Ashley, Timmy (yes, really), Taylor and Sarah. Hopped up on Vegemite and sarsaparilla, ‘Yes Yes Vindictive’ displays a precocious talent for mature, structured slices of punk pop excitement.

Opening track ‘Zero Zero’ starts with a wasp in your ear, and lifts you off your feet with the shock of Amandah’s holler. Imagine Operator Please are the Arctic Monkeys, unable to decide between B-52’s or Arcade Fire covers and deciding to fight it out amongst themselves, and you won’t be far wrong. Amandah may offer the combined voices of both B-52s Cindy Wilson and Fred Schneider, but Operator Please are more of their own band than these analogies suggest. Which is all the more surprising at their age.

‘Just A Song About Ping Pong’ combines a lightspeed stream of consciousness lyric about the culinary delights of beef jerky with surf drums and a chorus lifted from a girl school playground chant. No point betting on the moshiness of the mosh pit when they play this live…it’s a dead cert crowd pleaser. Other future fuzz pop classics abound: ‘Cringe’, ‘6/8’, ‘Ghost’, ‘Leave It Alone’ in particular.

Elsewhere, Operator Please demonstrate a superb ear for pop melody. ‘Two for my seconds’ for example lifts The Beatles’ ‘All You Need Is Love’ as the verse, adds strings and pits it against a double speed middle eight ‘It’s fantastic, mesmerize my memory, childhood thoughts can comfort me’. It feels like there’s a dark undercurrent you can’t quite grasp, which somehow makes the melody all the sweeter.

It’s not perfect – tracks like ‘Terminal Disease’ and ‘Yes Yes’ are clearly fillers – but don’t take that away from them. This is a great debut. Embrace the tornado.

Operator Please play the Great Escape, Brighton on Friday May 16.

Review also published on lastbroadcast.co.uk

Tapes ‘N Tapes: ‘Walk It Off’

The rise and rise of indie music has spawned squillions of wannabees desperately clinging to the scuzz-pop heritage of Pixies, Pavement, Flaming Lips et al. ‘Walk It Off’ bears scrutiny alongside greats like those.

Right from the get-go this record grabs your attention. Squalling guitar feedback and a clatter and pound of sweaty drums accompanies a half-hidden repeated verse. A shouted ‘I’m on trial, I’m on fire…’ explodes into a half-pace chorus equal to anything Lush ever managed. Over in 2:55. Breathless. Hit repeat.

Tapes ‘N Tapes have been around since their well-received 2006 debut, ‘The Loon’. They’re from Minnesota, which doesn’t trigger any reference points to me except a song by The Dictators that’s actually about New York (‘Minnesota Strip’). ‘Walk It Off’ is supposed to be about the kind of walking you do when you feel like giving up but can’t help moving forwards. Like when you’re on the phone to BT for the eleventh time in a day and feel like screaming, but manage to swallow it and carry on, perhaps.

You can find more evidence of great lineage throughout the record. Stop-start excitement (‘Headshock’), country-inflected fuzziness (‘Say Back Something’), Black Francis guitar and barked vocals (‘Conquest’), lurching weirdness and body-shifting time signatures (‘Demon Apple’)… It’s a mature and sophisticated set. Single ‘Hang Them All’ offers a big chorus for the summer crowds over a Hammond organ and spiky post-punk guitar. ‘Anvil’ offers some quiet time towards the end, which continues through the first half of ‘Lines’, but marches firmly into Arcade Fire territory.

Closer ‘The Dirty Dirty’’s tight looping Tortoise-style beats spin into swooping guitars, tubular bells, and a demand to know ‘where did all the money go?’. Maybe on all those helpline calls mate. Long may you keep walking.

Released on 7th April 2008 by XL.

From lastbroadcast.co.uk

The Long Blondes: ‘Couples’

The ever-reliable iTunes recognises The Long Blondes as ‘rock’, but this album is a collection of glacial coolness that is altogether more original, subtle and hard to define than that.

This five-piece made their mark with 2006’s ‘Someone To Drive You Home’, and this second album brings electro influences to bear alongside their 60s pop, punk and post-punk and influences.

Produced by Erol Alkan, ‘Couples’ was inspired by dynamic duos from history: Gilbert and George, Ron and Russel ‘Sparks’ Mael, Basil and Sybil Fawlty. The Blondes, like fellow steel city dwellers Pulp, specialise in finding the ordinary in odd relationships. This theme, together with odd samples of spoken word, helps draw together these varied tunes.

The variety includes echoes of Fischerspooner (‘Here Comes The Serious Bit’, ‘Nostalgia’), Pet Shop Boys (‘Guilt’), and Wire (‘Round The Hairpin’), but does more than just cut and splice. The opener ‘Century’, with it’s ‘Cabaret Voltaire and Kraftwerk do disco’ beat, sounds like a paranoid trip through a coked-up supermodel’s brain: ‘Sharp lines in glass, a new world war, untimeless beauty, all the rage.’ It’s a brave single indeed, building with massive synth stabs and a frightened ‘white/black’ refrain.

Those simple-clever lyrics come to the fore on ‘Guilt’, which speaks of two-timing (‘We were driving off in a taxi, You were looking out the window, And I was looking down at the floor’) and ‘Round The Hairpin’, which has a couple crashing their rental car – a bigger consequence when ‘A few days abroad is all we could afford’.

iTunes will have to set up a new category. I suggest calling it simply ‘The Long Blondes’.

Released on 7th April 2008 by Rough Trade.

Sea Wolf: ‘Get To The River Before It Runs Low’ EP

The opening track here sets the tone: ‘You’re a wolf, boy get out of this town’. It’s an EP for the outsider, the loner, those pining for open spaces. Alex Brown Church is an indie boy from Los Angeles, who named his band after the Jack London novel about the swashbuckling captain of the Sea-Wolf.

However, Church is undoubtedly the wolf in question here. With a pack of seven alongside, he creates the kind of stuff that generates adjectives like ‘well-crafted’, ‘atmospheric’, and ‘autumnal’. It truly is all that, but suffers from too much restraint. There are hints – such as on ‘I Made A Resolution’, which almost lifts off into Arcade Fire territory – that if the reins were loosened a bit, Sea Wolf could really be something special.

Released on 7th April 2008 by Dangerbird Records.

Jacob Golden: ‘Out Come The Wolves’

The first single from the massively rated ‘Revenge Songs’ offers a hauntingly dark and miserable slice of modern folk, wrapped up in silky folk strummings. Double-A sides ‘Out Come The Wolves’ and ‘Zero Integrity’ are the kind of modern twisted folk gems that repay repeat listens.

Being short helps - ‘Zero Integrity’ clocks in at a measly 2.34 – as well as an intimate delivery that sounds like Golden is sitting in your front room. Given that he recorded the album in public spaces (car parks, subterranean art galleries, those front rooms), that’s not surprising. What also helps is a fairly unique way with words. You may not have a clue what he’s on about, but you want to have another listen just in case.

There’s no doubt that audiences will be singing lines like ‘Over London rooftops, Peter Pan, we’ve lost our shadow, where’s that Never Never Land?’ at the top of their lungs, but unlike the folk tradition that sits behind the music, will be singing more for the sound than the meaning. Long live the sound of misery folk.

Released on 3rd March 2008 by Echo.

Brighton & Hove Building Green are running a workshop, so you can learn how to do a green roof yourself - on a shed or something like that. Go - it’ll be fun. Saturday 17 May.

Bookings via Brighton Permaculture Trust - but it isn’t just for hippies.