Finley Quaye - Vanguard

Now that the snow is here (again), it reminded me of this album, which I "dug out" (read: scrolled to with iPod wheel) and listened to in its entirety while trying to get out of Blanchardstown shopping centre. Why does it remind me of snow? When I first got it (in late 2000) I went snowboarding in Lake Tahoe (cool) and it was the soundtrack of that trip. So for me, snow = Vanguard.

Bit of background first. FQ first came on the scene in '97 with the album Maverick A Strike, and its lead single "Sunday Shining", which was a hit single. As were the follow ups, "Even After All" and "Your Love Gets Sweeter": Nice, laid-back reggae for the summer. Poised for a big career, he didn't capitalise on the opportunity (and had some personal problems) and by the time Vanguard appeared in '00, he had lost his momentum. Bad reviews didn't help, and lead single "Spiritualized" only went to number 26 on the UK charts. The album itself only went to number 35 (Maverick A Strike went to number 3). 

This album is under-appreciated, as it has some fine moments, and is more consistently enjoyable than his debut. It opens well with "Broadcast" and "Spiritualized"  (a track which manages to rock and be laid back at the same time), and the trio of early tracks ("Burning", "Everybody Knows", and "Feeling Blue") are as commercial as anything he's done before. There's the right amount of nice electronic touches ("The Emperor", "Chad Valley"), and also one of his best songs, certainly my favourite, "When I Burn Off Into The Distance" (video link below). This is a fantastic track, a true hidden gem that has swagger and charm at the same time.

Where the album does go slightly off the rails are around the lyrics (which are mostly barmy), and a couple of sketchy tracks (like "British Air Rage") but it all comes back together with the plaintive "Hey Now". 

There, see I've just described the whole album from memory. You can't do that with the first one. That album was single / single / filler / filler / filler / single / filler etc. This album has an eclectic mix of songs and each one has its own personality.

For some reason I never explored any further FQ albums, but will now. There's two more I think so I'll probably blog about them once I've had a listen! For now though I'd recommend this, and check out the video link below.

Röyksopp - Senior

I, like many people, am a big fan of Röyksopp's debut album "Melody AM". Released during the height of the "chill out" craze, it struck a perfect balance between laid back trip-hop beats, Air-inspired vintage keyboards, inspired guest vocalists, and all underpinned with a very Scandinavian sense of style. Since then, however, their last few records have been a disappointment as they largely abandoned the "chill out" style for a more upbeat, Euro-dance style which I really wasn't into at all.

Their 2009 album "Junior" was a success around the world, and did contain one great track, "Happy Up Here". However the rest was very middle of the road dance music. I mean, the singer Robyn appeared on one track! Not good.

"Senior" is a different story however. Released in September of 2010, it was everything its predecessor wasn't - ambient, dark, introspective, and entirely instrumental. And you know what? It's great. Far and away the best thing they've done since that debut all those years ago.

The album takes little for granted and doesn't pander to an audience expecting a front-loaded record: Indeed, the opening track "....And the Forest Began to Sing" is just a short scene-setting piece before the first track kicks in, the jittery "Tricky Two". The band themselves describe the album as having "an autumn mood", and this is evident on probably the best track, "Senior Living". To me this sounds like a mid-90s U2 outtake - it could easily have served as a backing track for a Pop or Passengers album track. Containing some woozy Edge-like guitar, I keep expecting a gravelly voiced Bono to make an appearance. Second to best is "The Drug", which is a very close approximation of early Aphex Twin. This was actually released as a single and I've linked to the video for it.

Its an album that almost slips under your radar, until you realise how much you are loving it. Definitely worth checking out, good listening for these long cold winter nights. Settle in a bean bag with a roaring fire and cup of hot chocolate and stick this on!

Daft Punk - Tron Soundtrack

Daft Punk. Tron. In 3D. How could it not work? Well it didn't - to a degree I suppose.

All about managing expectations, this one. This is not "the next Daft Punk" album, it is what it says on the cover - a soundtrack album (although having the word "Disney" in the same space as "Daft Punk" is a bit disconcerting). Now, in fairness, one would expect a soundtrack album made by Daft Punk, for TRON of all things, to be the coolest, danciest, crazy robotic sounding album ever - full of deep house beats, vocoders, resonant basslines, etc. All the things we expect from the French duo. And on "Derezzed", that's exactly what we get. But that's only one track. The rest is slow, ponderous, orchestral, and pretty generic-blockbuster sounding.

With a few exceptions of course - "The Son Of Flynn" sounds a bit like Air (funnily enough), "Armory" wouldn't sound out of place on the Terminator soundtrack, and "Adagio For Tron" is just a cool (and funny) name for a track. Not all bad then.

All in all though its a bit of a let down - although I'm sure it'll all sound great in the context of the movie (which I hope to see next week). But unlike the "Moon" soundtrack by Clint Mansell, this doesn't really stand up to repeated listens as an album on its own. Which its probably not supposed to. Anyway hats off to the guys for pushing it out a little bit and scoring a whole, proper soundtrack. But I'll be waiting for the next Daft Punk album.

West Coast Seattle Boy (Jimi Hendrix)

Had Hendrix lived, he would've turned 68 last month. What would he have been doing on his birthday? What kind of career would he have had? Would he have stood up to glam, disco and punk in the 70s? Embraced synthesizers and hip hop in the 80s? Impossible to know of course, although I suspect that he would've chosen a path down the funk / jazz / soul route of the early 70s, similar to that of Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, and Gil Scott-Heron. And CD 4 of this recently released "Anthology" gives a few good examples.

First of all, just how many songs did Hendrix not only write, but record in his career?! Every couple of years a new album comes out with "never before heard" tracks, which mostly end of being loose jams but throw up an occasional gem (like a few on last year's "Valleys Of Neptune" collection). There have been so many compilations of studio outtakes over the years that my guess is Hendrix recorded hundreds of songs in his final few years. He virtually lived in his studio and worked for hours on end, and luckily for us (for the most part), all of it was recorded on tape.

Hendrix, in various guises, released four albums in his lifetime: Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love, Electric Ladyland, and Band of Gypsys (which is a live album of new material). Since he died in 1970, there has been a further eight "studio" albums, about the same number of live albums, countless bootlegs, and about 20 compilations. A lot of this stemmed from problems in the 70s, when the Hendrix estate lost control of the music rights, and his ex-manager started putting out below-par albums featuring session players Hendrix had never even met. This issue was rectified in the 90s and the re-issues now have a certain amount of dignity attached.

Which brings us to this collection - and CD 4 in particular. I am most interested in Hendrix's "late" period (hard to use that word when he only recorded music for four years), namely 1969 - 1970, which is the era from which most of his unreleased recordings date. A lot of stuff from this time is patchy, a lot of it is funky as shit, and some give an idea of where Hendrix could've gone in the 70s (as I've mentioned above). Tracks like "South Saturn Delta" and "Tax Free" show a jazz influence, using horns and free-form jams, as well as blistering blues solos.

CD 4 of this collection is remarkable on first listen due to its sound quality - you really feel you are in the room with Hendrix and can hear every note; the drums and bass pound and kick. A couple of alternate takes are genuinely interesting, as is the 14 minute live opener, "Stone Free". Where it gets really interesting is with tracks like "All God's Children" and "Everlasting Love", proper unreleased tracks, some just instrumental jams, some fully fleshed out with vocals and overdubs. One of the highlights has to be the closing track, "Suddenly November Morning", a lo-fi demo of Hendrix alone with an acoustic guitar, the pleasure being that so few recordings of just Hendrix-with-acoustic exist. 

If you're a casual listener, you're better off with the official albums. Axis: Bold As Love is the best, or a "best of" (where you get all the famous singles). But here we have a chance to go deep beneath the surface, to explore the developing style of one of the last century's (and this century's) greatest musicians.

Have a listen to some of the tracks here - Amazon link.

Oasis - Falling Down (A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remix)

Has anyone heard this yet? This is a remix of an Oasis track by Amorphous Androgynous, aka the Future Sound Of London. And it’s a trip, it really is! A "remix" that really stretches the definition of that term, as it is 22 minutes long, full of crazy wobbly bits, sitars, flutes, extra vocals, an beautiful piano break, and yet still sound perfectly normally and true to the original track? All remixes should be like this!

The key is addition of the extra vocals and instruments - it brings out parts of the track only hinted at on the original, and even though it is 22 minutes long, it doesn't get boring once. This is like a movie in music; it takes the listener on a sonic voyage and if you commit yourself, you will not only enjoy the journey, but you'll be sorry that it had to end. This track is up there with Pink Floyd's finest 20-minute plus tracks, like "Echoes" or "Atom Heart Mother". What a shame Oasis didn't actually put this on their record, on one "side" - it would've been great fun.

This track was only released on vinyl as far as I know, but you can find it on the web if you look hard enough. Its on YouTube in several pieces though, which I have linked underneath. It really starts going at about 9 minutes in, and the best bit for me is after the piano breakdown and the Sufi-singing begins.

Mad, crazy, truely psychedelic stuff.

Beady Eye

Leaving aside the indie stuff and steering ourselves back into the world of rock n roll, I see that Liam Gallagher's new band Beady Eye release their debut album in February of next year. Whatever your opinion of Oasis, this promises to be an interesting album at least out of curiosity, to see what kind of music an Oasis-without-Noel could make.

Debut single "Bring The Light" was an enjoyable romp, featuring some nice rock n' roll piano and (somewhat) unexpected female backing vocals; overall though the song was pretty much what one would expect from a group absolutely obsessed with the 60s and 70s. I can't imagine the album will throw up many surprises, but it'll be nice to hear Andy Bell (ex-Ride) back on lead guitar, having played bass in Oasis for the last ten years (which was a shameful waste of guitar talent IMO). And there's always a certain thrill in hearing Liam Gallagher attack a song with his rasp, even though his voice now is a pale imitation of what it used to be. And maybe there'll be something really good in there.

Oh I just thought I'd mention that one of the songs is called "Beatles and Stones". You read that right.

Tame Impala

I came across this band, Tame Impala, almost by accident - I was listening to a DJ set that Andy Bell from Ride / Oasis / lots-of-bands was doing, and one of the songs from this album was one that he played. And I really dug it so I thought I'd check out the album.

They're an Australian band and are pretty big in their native country, and are beginning to make waves over here too. Prior to this album (Innerspeaker) they released an EP, which I haven't got but will be checking out soon. Musically they are classed as "psychedelic", and I can see where that comes from, but there's hardly a sitar or backwards guitar in sight - its mostly garagey / grungy guitars with rather stoned, spacey vocals, that to me, sound a lot like Wings-era Paul McCartney. In fact, some of the melodies could be described as "McCartney-esque". Standout track, so far, is "Alter Ego". So there you go.

Good band, good album, worth checking out if you like things a little more left field. Check out the song I've posted below.

Favourite album of 2010?

So far its "Skit I Allt" by Dungen - more on them later. And I'll also wait till the end of the year before making that claim! Although I'm not sure how many more albums are coming in 2010!

Dungen though - that's a fantastic album. Its crazy. Crazy Swedish dudes. Well, I'm not sure if they are crazy, but I'm guessing they have to be a little unhinged. Having said all that, after the first few listens, it begins to make perfect sense, and the craziness goes into the background a little, and you realise they are a pop band. I mean, the title track is one of the nicest little tunes you'll hear, with that big "ziiinng" sound in the chorus, and, forgetting that it translates to "fuck it all" in Swedish, could've been a good hit single.

And the piano intro of "Högdalstoppen" is just gorgeous, before it all explodes into proggy, flute-y madness. And the same really goes for the rest of the album. Again, I'll probably post about this multiple times, but for now enjoy this (really weird) video:

Favourite 90s albums: 1st of a series

Every now and again I'm going to go back in time and post about some of my favourite albums. A while ago I compiled a list of my favourite albums of the 00's - there were 49 in total. While I dig that up, I can post a few about my favourite 90s albums (doing my favourite 80s albums will be very short. 60s and 70s may go on forever).

So, the first of an ongoing series, is....

 

U2 go too far. Or not far enough! The 90s were great for U2, even though they are now trying to convince us that it wasn’t (and everything they do now is about how great they were in the 80s). But the 90s is where U2 really took the concept of being a rock band right to the very edge, and made some fantastic, barmy albums – this, Pop, Zooropa, Achtung Baby – they are all sonically challenging, taking the (at the time) groundbreaking dance music ethos and applying it to their music, not really caring if anyone liked it or not. All they wanted to be was NOT U2.

What a great thing to do – the only other band who have challenged their listeners like this, successfully, was the Beatles (don't mention the R****h**d word to me). "Original Soundtracks Vol 1" really went out there, but contains some really beautiful moments that U2 should be proud of. "Your Blue Room", "Slug", "Always Forever Now", and of course "Miss Sarajevo". How un-U2 like these songs are; small, intimate, dark, like taking a car journey with someone you don't know and being slightly scared but at the same time thrilled.

Of course, not all of the tracks here are actually proper U2 tracks - some, like "Ito Okashi", have very little to do with U2. But then you'll get something like "Corpse (These Chains Are Way To Long)", which features the Edge singing and playing guitar but no more sounds like "Van Diemen's Land" then a car alarm does. But at the same time, its brilliant.

Of course, they bottled it at the last minute and didn't put it out under the U2 name - that would've been it really, but still, its there, they made it, and for that I'm thankful. I have so many memories associated with this album, and I wish U2 had gone even further, and I hold out hope that they do a Vol 2. Although they’d probably have to kick Larry out first.

Bardo Pond

So recently I discovered Bardo Pond, and am awating the release of their new self-titled album, which is out this week (I think). To get me in the mood I thought I'd check out their last album, "Ticket Crystals" (although for some reason in my mind I keep calling it Ticket Castles). And its a great find, well worth checking out.

Drone rock? Sort of. Psychedelic in places, and considering that 4 of the 8 songs are over ten minutes long, kind of proggy in places (more of my love of Prog Rock will become evident as this blog evolves). Isobel Sollenberger's vocals tend to drift over the music here, not really adding much melodically (technically she's not a great singer) but certainly adds to the overall melange of sound. Probably the best demonstration of this is "Moonshine", where that phrase is repeated and looped, reversed and taken in and out of the mix many times throughout the 10.45 duration of the track.

Guitars are definitely to the fore, lovers of "broken" guitar sounds will dig this, and the beats kind of veer towards Krautrock in places but mostly keep a (yes) droning groove going on. Which I can most definitely get into. Oh by the way, the Beatles cover isn't that great (as Beatles covers tend not to be).

I intend to listen to this a hell of a lot more, but for now I'm just so happy I've found this band.