Deerhunter plough a farrow that marks them out from the indie guitar orthodoxy.They blend a myriad of influences, MBV, Jesus and Mary Chain and Ride with the art rock of Sonic Youth and some of the latent mentalism of the Liars.
That Bradford Cox is only 26 is scary. You feel that is still loads to come from his fractured muse.
Number 9 - LambChop - Oh (Ohio) Kurt Wagner is a genius of that there can be no doubt. Through his work with Lambchop he is amassing a body of work that is unrivaled in the alt.country cannon. Not that Lambchop are still an alt.country band - Wagner and his rotating group of musicians have long since transcended any genre boundaries.
On Oh Ohio Wagner again turns those tiny prosaic moments into musical miracles. He can spin story telling gold from a single phrase, a hushed mumble and some beautiful backing tracks. Hats off to you Mr Wagner.
I found this glorious gem of a record on emusic. I was hooked in by the cover even as a tiny jpg on the screen amongst others in the new interface when you log in.
Ezekiel Honig is a Brooklyn based electronica artist and has fashioned a work of wonder and drift on Surfaces of a Broken Marching Band.
This is blissful recording shifting between music concrete, static, reverb,field recordings and twisted acoustic sources. Surface noise dissolves into rhythm, rhythm twists into light, light disappears into dusk, dusk explodes into neon, neon fuses with static space, time bends.
Its a hollowed out ghostly version of dubstep. Its glides on eddies of surface noise and deep dubby drums. You can detect echoes within echoes. There are traces of Pole and Gas but the texture and tone is unique and beautiful. A melancholy reverberating glass heart.
Anthony H Wilson's son Oli Wilson has discovered a host of master tapes in his Dad's loft.
The Return of the Master Tapes A collection of over 50 (yes, fifty) master tapes of original recordings by The Durutti Column (plus a whole load of other tapes by other Factory bands) has been unearthed recently by Oli Wilson during his ongoing work to clear out his dad's loft (the "AHW Loft" to be more precise).
Watch this space for more news as it develops.
The Durrutti Column site is a real treasure trove of information and well worth a visit.
The New Order reissues have made me come to the releases with a fresh set of ears. I have never really listened to Movement in much depth but now have found that I love it more and more on each listen. Doubts Even Here is a real lost New Order classic, I tired to find a live version to put up here but I think this is much better.
I love this so much. Marvel at how far New Order have moved on from the Shadow of Joy Division. Lyrics by Ian Curtis sung by Barney in his own voice, compared to the pale imitation of Ian on the recorded version.
If Joy Division are long rain coats and gloom, this is class A drugs, synths, sunshine and those nasty shorts.
Faster Steve, faster......
New Order - My Top 10 I am going to post up my favorite New Order tracks over the next few days with clips from you tube if I can find them.
First my review of the Singles Collection penned for Music OHM
New Order - The Singles
Genius. Simply, pure genius. No doubt, no hesitation. New Order kings and queens of disco melancholy. Rhythm, beauty, melody and bass. God like genius award from the NME. A trifle. You know that Pope Benedict is addressing the calls for their beatification as a matter of urgency. Touched by the hand of god, the perfect kiss, heaven in their hands.
Singles is the perfect review for New Order. All thirty singles, from the brittle sackcloth of Ceremony to the sleek surging Waiting For The Sirens' Call. See, they hail from a time when bands didn't release singles from LPs. Bursting with so many thrills and pills that they dropped faultlessly formed blasts of music on matt black 12" singles. Songs full of languid grace and thumping beats. The Manc fab four. Effortlessly cool and arty.
The shadow cast by Ian Curtis' death, the weight of the myth of Joy Division would have been enough to bury most bands. That New Order not only rose above and did not buckle as people but exploded in a riot of electro, programmed drums and gruff honest humour is a miracle. When U2 went all postmodern and swish they where attempting to ape New Order's jump from the ashes of the past. With U2 it always felt like a mask, a game, a ruse and now they are back grinding out rock music in 1000 shades of grey, with New Order it was a love affair, a taste for New York high life mixed with Manchester low life. The art of parties. It shows in the energy rush, the glee and vibrancy of the music.
Blue Monday is often labelled with inventing indie dance. Sure its huge success brought the sound out of the left-field and onto Top Of The Pops but you can hear the stirrings on Everything's Gone Green and the majestic Temptation. Bernard Sumner's Chic via Salford guitar playing on Temptation is the sound of their past being unstitched and shrugged off. The long overcoats of Joy Division crashing to the floor revealing (if not gold lame, that comes in the video for World In Motion) then reds and blues where once was only grey. In the "woah woahs" of the refrain you can feel the relief, the light at the end of the tunnel. Memories cleansed, the future imperfect
Enigmatic single, followed enigmatic single. Along the way they invented the blueprint for much of the mid 80s indie. The Cure, in hyper poppy style and Depeche Mode owe much to the trailblazing of New Order. Depeche Mode's Enjoy The Silence is New Order in fetish gear. The bassline is pure Hooky. Subculture is a Pet Shop Boy's wet dream. Their sound can be heard in artist such as The Killers (named after the fake band in the Crystal video) and Franz Ferdinand, who think making dance music with guitars is radical. New Order were doing that in 1982!
Not content with re-imagining the limits of pop music, they also provided the cradle for acid house, their club the Hacienda becoming the Northern Mecca for the first generation of ecstasy fuelled ravers. Their finger has always been on the club pulse, leading where others follow. True Faith is an ode to drug use that sounds like a hot air balloon ride to heaven. Fine Time is Barry White meets acid house in a crumbling canal side warehouse, Regret a comeback greater than Liverpool's in the Champions League.
If you have any interest in pop music then sell your soul to buy this. At that price it's a bargain.
Glasvegas - The Best New Band In Britain At my ripe old age I have become somewhat immune to the screaming hype that comes from the NME. A best new band banner headline in the NME would normally make me YAWH!
Glasvegas are different. Terrible name amazing tunes
I am gripped by a sense of anticipation that I had almost forgotten surrounds the arrival of a debut LP.
From the moment I first heard Daddy's Gone I've been hooked. The band blend the kind of kitchen sink reportage and eye for detail that the Arctic Monkeys excel at marriaged to a blissful, heavy reverb soaked sound. It the Jesus and Mary Chain covering the Smiths with the amps turned up really loud. Their is a yearning and ache in the sound, a scene of loss and hope. I can't wait for the debut LP.
Burial - Untrue Review The landscape of London has had its fair share of bards, poets and punks. The city has been eulogised and damned by musicians as varied as The Clash, The Kinks, Patrick Wolf and even those arch Mancunians The Smiths.
To that list you can now add the name of Burial. The south London dubstep producer has released a collection of songs that has the city's dirty DNA etched into its grooves. The anonymous back bedroom genius has followed his ground breaking debut with a huge leap forward.
Untrue is not the streaked neon and glitter bomb buzz of the West End in the early hours. Nor is it the melancholy romantic sweep of city possibilities so beloved of outsiders. No, Burial has soundtracked the London night out beyond tube lines, the shadowy hinterlands of South London Boroughs. The stuttered shops, graffitied underpasses, the smashed bus shelters and abandoned cars of the endless suburbs. You feel as if you are wandering dazed through the early hours of a Sunday morning. Half-heard mobile phone conversations, reverberations of bass bins in passing cars, snatches of dance music drifting in the air. The lonely sound of a distant tower block party heard coming up through the piss stained lift from six floors below.
This record could not have been conceived or composed anywhere else but in London, 2007. Untrue is a dark record, a refraction of night time, a hazy, hypnotic mosaic of voices, beats, sub-bass and clouds of radio static. It's Iain Sinclair or Peter Ackroyd's psycho geography of London's hidden corners ripped from the page and made flesh. The sound of a ghostly city floating, the past remixed and remodelled into the near future.
The songs unfurl like a blissfully slow comedown, those hours spent waiting for the restless chemical-fuelled dawn. Ethereal vocal hooks, drizzle, crackle, submerged beats swimming to the surface of your dreams. You feel immersed in half-remembered clips of the tunes you heard on the dancefloor, Like the night is continually rewinding then jumping forward, twisting time, bending space.
Never has such a prosaic title as In McDonalds been attached to such a beautiful piece of music. The grandeur is conjured from the briefest whispers of electronic vapour, via slowly evolving string pads and a heavily treated, time-stretched vocal that melts away into thin air. The title track's restless snare-driven rhythm is welded to a soulful vocal sample and a swarming bass frequency that seeps through the mix like an impending headache.
On the nightmarish Homeless the samples, beats and synths collide head-on before the track is stripped back to a haunted twisted vocal, warped bass and the distant sound of gunfire. A weary, weak vocal sample intones "no future" over and over on the majestic Endorphin. The vocal rises and falls away like a voice heard through a broken radio, infusing the music with a sense of dread and unease.
Untrue is complex, stark, tender, blurred and breathtaking. Burial has managed the impossible and improved on his faultless debut. Buy this record, for diverse is the pleasure it will bring.
The release of Third by Portishead has been imbued with a heavy cultural significance. It has been reviewed on the Late Review, generated acres of coverage in the music press and broadsheet newspapers and there is a growing online buzz. It feels less like a release more an event.
In a music scene so deprived of anything approaching sonic innovation, there is a desperate desire for Third to be an audio panacea. That it will push the envelope, blur boundaries, feed our imaginations and extend out expectations. Relight the fire of experimental wonder at the crossroads of dance music and indie.
It’s been ten years since the misfiring second LP Portishead. Ten years? Is that too much of a wait or even a weight.? Has it been worth it? Frankly, no!
Back in 1994 it seemed that Portishead had discovered the future sound of heartache. Dummy inverted hip-hop. Slowing down the beats, removing the machismo and replacing it with angst and twisted song writing. Geoff Barrow strip mined the sonic template of hip-hop, capsizing the structure. These static Luna landscapes and haunted dancehalls where the perfect foil for Beth Gibbon’s smoky evocations.
The signifiers we all too quickly collected collated and copied by a host of pale imitators. The skinny latte genre of Trip Hop was commoditised and packaged. Now blaming Portishead for the likes of Sneaker Pimps is like blaming Elvis for Cliff Richard or The Beatles for Oasis the source material might be the same, the outcomes somewhat different.
The bands reaction to the wholesale larceny of their sound was to get darker, harder and grittier. The second LP, confusingly titled Portishead, replaced samples with live recordings and melancholy with full blown despair. It sounded like a band fighting too hard to distance themselves from their original sonic blueprint. The resulting songs where sterile and still born. Somewhere along the way they lost the magic that coursed through crackled hissing grooves of Dummy.
Third is much closer to the disappointing harsh metallic sounds of the bands second LP. The songs are overloaded with heavy bleeding synths, high whining strings, heavy strained rhythm patterns and a far too many turgid guitars.
Yes Third is dense but devoid of tension. It aims to be abrasive and harsh but comes across merely ingenuous and brash. You get the feeling that the band where aiming for something edgy, maybe the nightmarish soundscapes of Scott Walker’s Drift. If that was there intention they are wildly wide of the mark.
The Drift is bone chilling, a myriad mix of disconnected sound and complex Gnostic lyricism. A scream into the dark emotional void of the 21st Century. The only blood curdling aspect of Third is Beth Gibbon’s appalling lyrics. They are thrown into a stark and unforgiving spotlight, much more audible than on previous releases. They are so pitiful, sub teenage Goth platitudes that would be unforgivable for a teenager. That the author is over the age of 40 beggars’ belief.
The lyric issue wouldn’t be so crippling if the music wasn’t so grey, ponderous and lacking in dynamism. Yes the have attempted to broaden their palate and range. Acoustic guitars and folk melodies intertwine with the beats and strings. Unfortunately you soon realize that Beth Gibbons wouldn’t even scrape a living as a folk artist on the Bristol Pub circuit. The material on display is so pallid and clichéd. The Rip is awful collision of Fairport Convention and Kraftwerk, all flimsy pastoral imagery, wishful melodies and analogue synths. The hook to Machine Gun is a stunningly prosaic rhythm track. A slowed down blunted version of that kick drum pattern that powers New Orders Blue Monday, repeated over and over again.
Third starts promisingly enough. Silence rattles along on some frantic percussion and descending bass notes, the guitars spidery and inert. Portishead by number maybe, with it’s grainy film nor atmospherics but it is the stand out track. Hunter is a lacklustre folky lament with a pedestrian rhythm that is juxtaposed with a bleeping synth interlude in a failed attempt to inject some interest.
Disappointingly ordinary, you can help but feeling the alchemy that Portishead summoned up on Dummy was a fluke.
American Music Club In Bristol A few photos the set list and hopefully a video (shot on my phone) of Hello Amsterdam which they opened the set with.....its sideways but you get the idea!! Will try to work out how to change it...
In search of her muse Polly Jean Harvey has ditched the stripped down bone dry blues of Huh Huh Huh. In the arch of PJ Harveys career this is nothing new, each record seems to have been a reaction to the previous one, but she has never gone this far out before. Purged are those trademark guitars, missing those deep vocals growls, absent any signs of alternative rock. The results are a brave, honest and terrifying record.
In fear of repeating herself, unwilling to release substandard material, she has abandoned the guitar as a writing tool. These songs where written and performed on the piano. An instrument that is an unfamiliar to her as a healthy diet was to Elvis. The results are a collection of sparse, skeletal songs. This is audio ectoplasm. The material haunted by ghosts, unfulfilled desires, departed lovers and loved ones.
From the first moment you hear Polly sing on this record you aware of the change. Her voice is pitched at the highest point of her range. A floating whisper compared to her usual tone. The backing track just sparse piano notes, a barely audible guitar and restrained drumming.
Lyrical concerns are cryptic, impressionist, allowing the listener to draw the dots to divine the meaning from the dark and broken images. There is loss, regret and a fair degree of guilt hidden amongst the twisted oaks, decaying fallow earth and enveloping darkness
The lead single When Under Ether is a brave choice. Harvey has spoken of how pleased she was that it sounded so odd when played by Zane Lowe on Radio One. That it’s otherworldliness provided such a stark contrast to the lumpen guitar rock that is the programs stock and trade.
The piano melody of the track gently repeats itself as Harvey sings of an operation, probably an abortion, in a hushed drowsy timbre. The description is in the first person but you not sure if its autobiographical or dark fiction. The protagonist is focussed on the human kindness of the staff; it is an unsettling and unusual twist. The theme is of an unwanted child is alluded to throughout the record.
On the gentle acoustic strum of White Chalk there is mention of “Dorset’s white cliffs reach the sea, …unborn child me, scratch my palms there is blood on my hands..”, the guitars are coupled with a banjo and then a set of single hammered piano notes carry the song to a close.
A single vocal pleading “please don’t rapproch me for how empty my life has become..”snaps you awake at the opening of Broken Harp. The clanking of, well broken harp carries the melody before the songs drops to a multi tracked vocal and a organ drone Harvey sings “Something metal tearing my stomach out, if you think ill of me, can you forgive me.” The starkness of the declaration is an electric shock, a high voltage and soulful testimonial.
The brevity of White Chalk, little over half and hour, leaves you breathless and anxious. The ideas crammed into these eleven songs are more than many artist manage in a career. This is a record for the dark nights of the soul. Heaven only knows where PJ Harvey will head next. Will she be able to top the power and precision of this record? I don’t know but I am already desperate to hear her next step forward.
I was worried when I heard that The National where struggling to follow up the breakthrough success of Alligator. All the bands previous LP’s had been so fluid so natural that I feared that a creative impasse would result in a tedious mess of a record.
The first syncopated piano notes on the opening Fake Empire buries that thought for good. The slow build from a piano, low humming guitar and Matt Berninger’s gorgeous baritone is all restraint. A full minute and half passes before the first drum roll that rattles like a gun shot, another fifteen seconds before the drums properly kick in. Then a burst of brass elevates the song onto another level.
It’s a brave opening, a statement of intent. Boxer isn’t going to be Alligator mark II. They could have written huge guitar anthems and become Coldplay. Thankfully they have minted something darker, fragile, deeper, troubled and glorious. Boxer progressively unfolds as a series of stark tracks, all monochrome guitar shades, intense drum patterns and obtuse melodies. Berninger’s dense lyrics concern themselves with the ennui, the emptiness of urban life. He nails the anomie, the soulless city sickness that seeps through the cracks in the sidewalks.
For all the dark subject matter, this is an uplifting record. Squalor Victoria , is a beautiful collision, of piano, strings and drums that sound like Steven Morris on Unknown Pleasures. Start a War, all chiming guitar refrain and gentle eddy of ambient organ is Johnny Marr produced by Brian Eno. If Burt Jansch was raised in Ohio he may have written the beautiful lament of Racing Like A Pro.
Boxer is a subtle masterpiece. The band are disciplined enough to let the songs breath for themselves. They sound like a 60’s soul band covering Joy Division. Wonderful.
I seem to spend a large amount of my spare time watching music clips on you tube and I have become increasing interested in the rough hewn cover versions that appear on the site.
I will endeavor to bring you my favorite cover each week.
The honour of the Highway Five cover of the week goes to:
djambas cover of PJ Harvey’s Dress
With just her acoustic guitar and a soaring voice djambas strips the song back to its harsh and aching core.
This version of Dress is much closer to the demo version of the song than the one released as a single The conflict between desire and self loathing that forms the centrifugal force of Dress is highlighted perfectly in djambas no thrills cover version.
I am sure Polly would be proud.
Kelly Clarkson - My December Review Have written a review of Kelly Clarkson's My December over at the wonderful musicomh.com. I was impressed that Kelly managed to get this record out against the pressure from her record company. Life for a former American Idol must be hard and she has had to grow up in public. Its not the worlds greatest break up LP but it does have the correct ingredients, scorn, spite, rage, anger, despair, self doubt with a side order of loathing.
Okay its not Lou Reeds Metal Machine Music or Wolf Eyes but for someone used to producing such softly packaged material its a brave start.
Strays Don’t Sleep - Strays Don’t Sleep One Little Indian
Strays Don’t Sleep are an eccentric alliance of two Nashville-based songwriters with a shared love for those doomy Scottish romantics The Blue Nile. Neilson Hubbard and Matthew Ryan have both gained more critical acclaim than record sales in their respective careers, trailing in the wake of the likes of Ryan Adams. Yet on these wonderful nine tracks the pair have ditched the stylised shorthand of the singersongwriter genre. This is much weirder, a splintered, drifting collection of loops, synths, acoustic guitars and quality songs. This is a cinematic record (there is a set of films on a separate DVD), haunting and ghostly. The songs build from tiny fragments, little keyboard riffs, drum patterns, sparse melodies. They unfold like daylight in winter. The contrast in their respective voices adds interesting counterpoint. Hubbard sounds like Robert Mitchum singing lyrics penned by Sylvia Plath. Ryan’s voice is a little cleaner but has the steely edge of an executioner’s axe. When they intertwine across the minimalist backing tracks the results are stunning. For Blue Skies is pure musical melancholy. The delicate static drum loops and fractured piano allows room for the pain to flow through. It’s the space, the stillness that carries the emotional weight. The melody is picked out on a lone piano, the notes falling like snow on cedars, the guitar muted and aching, it’s stark undertow dragging you into its depths. Martin Luther Avenue is existentialist dread set to drum machines and guitars. New Years eve ennui set to a plaintive whirling organ informs Cars and History.
The band’s name, taken from a William Faulkner short story, suits them perfectly. Close your eyes and slowly repeat the name Barn Burning, Barn Burning. What images do those two words conjure in your mind? In the darkness of my post-midnight imagination, I can see images of smoke against night-time skies, the darkness at the edge of town, rural feuding, shallow graves. The name suggests a Twin Peaks landscape, Truman Capote’s Handcarved Coffins scored by American Music Club.
Werner Ghost Truck is a desolate howl into the void. A raging against lives half lived, crippled by small town ennui. It whispers tales of shackled hopes and broken dreams before unleashing guitar fireworks and heart-wrenching melodic twists. It’s a sharp right hand to the blue-collar romanticism of early Bruce Springsteen. This is not born to run, more born to drift. There are glimpses into a stilted world, a world of empty old age, drug addiction and betrayal. There is an urgency here, a desperation to slip the chains that bind you so tightly. A bloodstained desire to escape the limits of geography, of economy, of imagination.
Despite the lyrical gloom these are uplifting songs. The LP was recorded in a large empty house and you can hear the space, the ghostly reverb in the sound. William is a breezy circling acoustic chord sequence with a riff that is prime Peter Buck, a harmonica and then a lone piano briefly echoes the melody. The lyric is a puzzle, a memory trapped inside an old photo, and the debris of life.
The keyboard playing on the whole collection is a joy. There are two fractured piano pieces that link the LP together, ghostly ambient interludes that revolve like dust in the sunlight. The hushed warming tones and organ washes tether the mix like flags at half-mast. Rubicon builds from a set of suspended organ tones, acoustic guitars and rattling percussion. The instruments interplay beautifully, a soaring lead guitar explodes in short bursts of noise as the high hats trash like heavy rain on a drugstore window.
Long Dark Room is six minutes of pure beauty, the pedal steel guitar unfurling like smoke rings in a backroom bar. It’s a dark night of the soul, a struggle towards dawn, with little more than some vinyl records and a bruised heart for company. Robert Fisher from Willard Grant Conspiracy adds his craggy tones and then a series of AM radio signals are mixed into the sound. Its spectral, haunted, perfect.
This is a record that is frozen in a deep winter malaise. A brooding, dark, dissolving mesh of guitars, insistent drumming and starlight melodies. The sound wraps around you in a dense fog of strident acoustics and warming bass-lines. Anthony Loffredio’s vocal has an ache, an undertone of melancholy that drags you into its murky depths. There are touches of alt.country in the sound but this is much more sinister, grittier, loud and tangled.
Imagine Wilco jamming with the creeping dread of The For Carnation, or Joy Division’s dense alienation re-routed via the open highways of America. Startling, one to cherish.
After the beautiful dustbowl austerity of previous album The Fitzgerald, Willy Vlautin and cohorts have relocated to the deserts of the Southern USA, residing in Tucson after years in Portland. Their travels south across these arid landscapes provided the inspiration for the songs collected on Thirteen Cities. The album comes with a map to trace out the route that they and the songs followed, a lovely touch in a world where the packaging of music seems to have become an afterthought. It’s the attention to detail, not a word wasted or a music backdrop over-egged, that mark Richmond Fontaine out as something incredibly special.
The brief opening track The Border is all pedal steel and sunrise atmospherics. As it slides into the horn-drenched Moving Home Again, you can hear that the sun-bleached environment has informed the sound of the record. Those Tex Mex masters Calexico and Giant Sand have stirred a little hot burrito sauce into the sound on several tracks and it’s a welcome addition.
Thirteen Cities is much more of a band record that the stripped-back Fitzgerald. There are marvellous little sonic touches, little flourishes that add sparkle to the songs - the rippling guitar figure and organ tones that underpin $87 and A Conscience That Gets Worse the Longer I Go, the haunting harmonica on I Fell into Painting Houses in Phoenix. Capsized has a bouncing, nagging riff, pedal steel sighs and a drum track that sounds like a boxcar heading for the scrap heap. It’s the Band meets Uncle Tupelo, all rustic charm and warped country-pop sensibility.
Vlautin is the heir to the mantle of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and therefore Springsteen. These tracks speak for the disaffected, the disenfranchised, those lost on the fringes. A world of McJobs, chasing low-rent dollars on the edges of criminality. This is a bleak vision of the American Dream, scripted by John Steinbeck and illustrated by Edward Hopper.
The lyrics are stripped of metaphor and the allegorical, finding beauty and passion in the mundane. Willy Vlautin’s vocals are as lovingly worn and cracked as the spine of a preacher’s leather-bound bible. The flaws and dusty folds in his voice are testament to his commitment of speaking for the voiceless. Vlautin’s magic is wonderfully demonstrated by the 1:38 of St Ides Parked Cars. In a series of brief images and taut lines, the song conveys fractured relationships, faded dreams and a deep well of hurt. Backed by only the lightest of acoustic guitars and that sonorous voice, it squeezes more ennui and sorrow into this track alone than plenty of bands manage in a whole album.
The Kid From Belmont Street opens in a near silent rush of ghostly febrile guitar whispers and cymbal washes; it has the space, the vacant haunted quality of American Music Club circa California. It’s an alt.country take on the ambient void, the silent humming of dread, the overpowering pressure of silence and endless space.
Lone piano notes and elongated brass notes paint sparse soundscapes that invoke the deadly stillness of the desert at dusk. Lost in This World closes the LP. Against a sparse piano part and vapour trails of guitar, Vlautin sings of being lost in the world, of regrets and fucking up. It’s breathtaking, heartbreaking and one of the most beautiful songs you will hear this year. In the hands of a less talented band the album could have come across as an audio version of the National Geographic written by Howard Zinn. Thankfully, it transcends that bone-dry premise to become something extraordinary.
This is some footage of Willy Vlautin in a motel room (The perfect setting for him)play acoustic versions of two of the songs on the LP. The two tracks are The Kid From Belmont Street and Capsized.
There are three tracks on the page. Its a sweet indie pop jangle with sunshine harmonies and some clever musical hooks. Its really not dark enough to be in the same league as classic American Music Club. I am interested to hear how its going to effect or compliment Marks songs. It maybe and case of Vudi meets the textures of West the record that Mark recorded with Peter Buck. Vudi's guitar playing adds so much texture to Mark's songs I am interested to hear how it will play out against a different rhythm section.
FROM MARK EITZEL June 20, 2007 American Music Club has a new line up. Vudi - guitar Sean Hoffman - bass - vocal Steve Didelot - drum vocal Mark Eitzel - guitar vocal
AMC moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles. The original members Danny Pearson(bass) and Tim Mooney (drums) still work in San Francisco and perform in various bands. Danny is releasing a solo record by the end of the year. Mark and Vudi started working with Steve and Sean about a year ago. The chemistry was great and so they continued with the project and called it the MacArthur Park Music Club but this work eventually became the new AMC record.
Members of the band:
Vudi lives in LA, drives a city bus and also plays with the popular rock band Ariel Pink. Sean Hoffman is a producer, commercial music maker, ex skate punk and plays all the shredding guitar that you enjoy whilst watching Fox Sports. He also plays guitar in a band called the Larks.
Steve Didelot is a songwriter, drummer, surfer, and a Mathematics teacher in the LA public schools system. He also plays in the Larks
Mark Eitzel still lives in San Francisco, loves the Bay Area but spends a lot of time in Los Angeles. He says he 'loves all the trees' and says Los Angeles is "so "triumph of the will"'.
The new album:
Tentatively called MacArthur Park because Vudi lives in that neighborhood and because we all enjoy the original song by Jimmy Webb.
It will be produced by expert producer Dave Trumfio at his studio called King Size. We are very excited by this....
The overall sound is lighter than on previous AMC recordings. Of course there are many reasons why. 1) AMC refutes the label of 'Emo Pioneers'. For the record they hate Emo and have never been on the soundtrack for any W.B. network show. (yet) 2) Dark music is for people who are healthy enough to take it - and AMC want to appeal to all people - including the sick. 3) Mark Eitzel comments: "What will my neighbors in my retirement community think? How will I charm the nurse that tends to me? I want to fill my mouth with sugar and spit it on everyone when I talk. I want to cover the world with chocolate cake icing."
Yes there is a song about the World Trade Center. But such controversy is nothing new for this 'Right On' political band. Sean (bass) is a right leaning liberal texan who hates NPR and is the proud owner of a Segway. Vudi (guitar) dreams of an imperialist world of powdered wigs and waltz's in ballrooms. Mark (vocals) is a gay communist who once wrote an article: 'How Secure Will Your House Be During The Apocalypse'. Steve (drums) is a Christian activist who only plays in this band because the end times are upon us and what the fuck. Plans.
The new album should be released in early 2008. When the ice and snow is thick and heavy. When your winter depression finally kicks in. No Christmas or New Years to look forward to - just the iron grip of the cold and the bleak endless news reports on the death we bring to the middle east and to ourselves. Perfect. Merge did much market research and focus group after focus group said this would be the perfect time to release our new record. Of course it will be. After that we tour and bring our own version of American Freedom to a waiting and willing world.
Not sure what to make of AMC with Dan and Tim. The world trade center track hopefully is the amazing Worlds of The World and is about a fucked up night in NYC and just uses the bar at the World Trade Center as a back drop. Its one of my favorite songs of Marks in recent years I hope it shines on the record.
The Invisible Blog
I wanted to point all Mark Eitzel and American Music Club fans in the direction of the wonderful Invisible Blog.
Shaun has done an amazing job of collating all manor of fabulous Mark Eitzel and American Club related information, MP3, sessions and videos. It’s the X on the blog treasure map for American Music Club fans like me.
It’s a goldmine of info. I had never heard of the film, I, Curmudgeon. Has anyone ever seen it? There are links to a wealth of wonderful video clips, interviews and some interesting reviews.
When I heard that the Mary Chain had removed for series of live dates this summer I was worried. I am always worried when my favourite bands reform. Where they going to piss all over their own legacy for a quick buck, a pension plan and a last chance to play the rock star?
Is it just the dollar signs that see them put aside musical and personnel issues? They imploded so violently, on stage and with flying fists. Stir in the intensity of a fractured sibling rivalry and the likely hood of a reunion looked slim. For once I needn’t have worried. The Jesus and Mary Chain have returned, wired, bruised, lithe and punching above their weight.
They paraded their warped pop sensibilities on David Letterman. Unleashing the wonderful All Things Must Pass. Its built around a riff as taut as a junkies tourniquet. Jim Reid looked younger than he did ten years ago. His voice as beautifully frayed as ever. The lyrics pure Mary Chain, drugs, sex, violence let loose on prime time US TV. Smart ! William coaxed sheets of buzz saw noise from his guitar, his manic curly head down firing out that killer riff against a backdrop of tribal drumming.
After the terribly thin, lacklustre Stooges reunion record this clip is a relief. Now get in the studio and let’s have a new album soon.
I am sure I was dreaming when I wrote this so forgive me if I go astray. My notebook is a litany of wild adjectives, non sequirs and exclamation marks. My heart is full of relief. Relief, that Patrick Wolf has delivered on his tender promise.
Relief, that the new material is flushed with youthful vigour. The order of the songs may be jumbled, the images blurred, it was intoxicating and vibrant. A glance at my fervent scribbles: vivid, striking, gypsy chic, beats and Byron, cheeky, charming...
The Thelka is a converted tug afloat in Bristol docks. A dark venue, that can be cold and unforgiving. Tonight Patrick Wolf turns into a gateway to a shimmering future, he is an avatar for the pariahs, an author of outsider anthems. An extraordinary boy in a world of prosaic chancers. Yet somehow he is living in the margins and not dazzling the mainstream. Why do we seem to have settled for the anodyne when we could have androgynous? Settled for the ordinary boys, the Razorlights and Keanes of this world. Why revel in the bland when we could be luxuriating in the exceptional.
From the moment he bounds on stage an lurches into Overture it is clear that the evening is going to dazzle and delight. There is a skip in his step, a snap in his violin bow. With his gravity-defying ruby hair and glittering eye shadow, he is Martin Miller's Lux The Poet unleashed from the page.
Pop music is a powerful tool for reinvention. It can transform the awkward into heroes. On stage you can see the possibilities glinting in Patrick Wolf's eyes. As the set progresses I am reminded of Marc Almond, those bedsit tales welded to disco beats and phat basslines. To The Lighthouse pluses with the guttersnip beauty that fires Almond's finest work. His electronic duet with samples of Marianne Faithfull is as stark and touching as Antony and The Johnsons.
On Jacob's Ladder, Wolf is sat at his synth banging out a harpsichord melody shaded by a lone cello. It's a brief interlude before he is back on stage leading the crowd through a storming version of Accident and Emergency. The stifling heat results in him stripping down to a furry guliet. His skinny pale physique is not the only reminder of a young David Bowie. There is something in his blending of styles, his obvious love of the avant garde that are reminiscence of Bowie at his best.
The reading of Pigeon Song is achingly beautiful, the plucked violin strings and glistening melody framing his tale of loneliness on the streets of London. Special Position is a French kiss, a spiralling romp, its verses fluently flowing into its huge chorus. It could be the song that pushes him into the mainstream.
The eager crowd pull Wolf back for a second encore. He seems touched. Genuinely surprised by the warmth and desire of the crowd. A huge smirk breaking out across his boyish features, his eyes ablaze. A fervent fan has been badgering him all evening to play Wind In The Wires. He finally relents and produces a stunning rousing version. Backed only by his toy guitar his voice floats across the crowd and out on the waters of the Bristol docks.
Dreamt for Light Yearsin the Belly of a Mountain - Sparklehorse
Capitol
Five years on from the last Sparklehorse record Mark Linkous has surfaced again. He is back with his static clouds of melody and warped country noir. If a week is a long time in politics then five years is close to a lifetime in music. Thankfully Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain is as welcome as January’s pay cheque.
Linkous has spent a large part of those missing years in combat with his demons. They were dark days for him. Despite or maybe because of this there is a gentle optimism that floats just beneath the surface of the songs. From the spectral 3am whisper of Return to Me to the wasp’s nest on a roller coaster of Ghost In The Sky the lyrics and music continually take surprising and uplifting turns.
The opening Don’t Take My Sunshine Away is The Beatles refracted through the shattered shell of a Cadillac on the highway to Twin Peaks. Its lush vocal harmonies and melody which are as big and bright as a harvest moon lost all wrapped up in a warm static haze. It’s the kind of cosmic American music that Gram Parsons was dreaming of. If Gram had lived in New York and joined The Velvet Underground that is.
Shade and Honey is the perfect metaphor for Linkous’ songs. Dark lyrics wrapped inside sugar-coated melodies. Melodies that are then dragged drunk and crazy through a junk yard at midnight. The chugging guitar riff opens into a sly and upbeat chorus.
The title track closes the LP in 10 minutes of instrumental melancholic delight. The guitar chords float across a piano part that is barely there, it seems to repeat itself like an eerie dream. It drifts off into silence before gently returning. Welcome back, Mr Linkous. Please don’t stay away as long next time, we’ve missed you.
highwayfive
