As the music from this album washes out of my speakers and I sit here staring at the artwork before me, it dawns on me just what a great visual representation of the music it is. The cover, like the music it envelops, is all about texture, vivid colours being subsumed and fading into minimal lines, light blending into shade, soft edges and abstracted images with just enough form and structure to hold everything together. Get within and the same forces are at work.
At its more minimalist extremes the songs here often feel like a collection of moods rather than music, of wistful reflections made into sound, of heart-breaking emotion, of barely tangible but emotively powerful expressions of love and loss and life. It feels like the resonant ghost of the sounds that hang in the air when the music itself has been erased before itself being lost to the breeze.
At the other extreme songs such as Channel To Id and Night Fog drive on a cinematic electro-groove, the latter wandering into the same fuzzy and warped territory that The Cocteau Twins used to be sole custodians of.
And it is in the balancing act between these two extremes that music of great elegance is created, a new wave of classicism, a film score to a movie too beautiful to be made, a sound which connects dots between the experimentalism of the 4AD ethic and its re-emergence as post-rock, music that shimmers and collides, soars and trembles as if it scares itself with its own fragile nature.
Behind These Doors shows just how cleverly the song writing collects, harnesses and alchemises genres, shift moods and subverts expectations not only from one track to the next but within the each individual song itself.
The E.P.s swansong, the aptly named Song of The Sea, is a triumph of meandering intent and slow burning dynamic build, employing enough groove and skittering beat to catch the ear of the alt-pop mainstream and more than enough cool elegance and detachment to create a cult following. And that is the perfect summation of the Screens 4 Eyes music. Commercial in an underground sort of way, the music that the music elite and the tastemakers will always revel in being the first to name drop in the right circles, but also accessible enough to attract a wider audience.
One day you’ll be watching TV and a Screens 4 Eyes song will appear as the play out to that year’s blockbuster movie or the score to the latest Toyota commercial, then you’ll wish you had listened to me. Trust me, I’m a journalist.
When the What’s Her Name? single landed before my reviewing pen a few months ago it seemed to have arrived at the perfect time. It gave me the perfect opportunity to rally against the conformity and unadventurous nature of the rock scene at the moment and hold up Smoking Martha as being exactly what was needed to shake things up a bit. The right band, the right sound, the right time. Right? But even with such a great musical calling card and a hint as to what might follow, it still didn’t fully prepare me for just what a joy to behold this full album would be.
Some music seems to be a melting pot of sounds and ideas that takes some unravelling, if you’re that sort of person, one who feels the need to explore what’s under the musical hood of the car. I’m a reviewer so I am that sort of person. Other music paints instant pictures and conjures immediate imagery, so much so that you can instantly see what you are dealing with. Kalo are the latter type of band.
I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for kickstarter funding I can tell you I don’t have money, but what I do have is a very particular set of words. Words I have acquired over a very long career. Words that make me a nightmare for musicians like you. If you stop sending me your music that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you and I will describe your music in the most verbose way possible.
As well as being a candidate for the coolest name in music at the moment, Circus of the West delivers a song which strides confidently and compellingly towards the listener. This wonderful narrative about the absurdity of this demarcated and separated modern life plays out like a joke or anecdote moving the story on by circling the same subject before ending with the punchline that you always knew was coming. But the best jokes are often not about the pay off but the journey to it.
An album is more than just a collection of songs; it is a window into where an artist is, mentally, physically and often more telling, logistically, at the point of recording. 2014’s compact and bijou five track The Ghost of Corelli found our hero leading a three piece band and wielding a sound very much dominated by big guitars, dynamic and punchy bass lines and driving back beats. It was effective, dramatic and to the point. And whilst such a rock and roll pulse has always beaten at the heart of his music, as it beats at the heart of almost every classic record irrespective of genre, in some ways it felt like a departure from the sound I associate with David Marx.
According to their bio “The Vampire Monkeys take pride in being the voice of discontent in an unhinged world, even if they offer no valuable insights to its reformation.” And that’s fine, we don’t look to rock and roll for the answers to our worldly troubles, we look to it to act as a distraction from them. And Disposable is the perfect distraction. A strange video narrative that doesn’t take itself too seriously and a cracking riff and hook driven slice of rock.
There are so many reasons to love this eponymous debut track from Manchester Rain, not all of them totally to do with the music itself, so lets start there and work our way to the heart of this sonic treat.
It is possible that Nelson King subscribes less to the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” philosophy and more to a “if it ain’t broke it’s still okay to beat the crap out of it and sculpt battered and interesting new shapes.” Maybe. What I’m trying to say in my unnecessarily verbose sort of way is that Is There Something is actually the best of both worlds, familiar enough to be immediately engaging yet original enough to bring something new to the table.
Just as the opening strummed acoustic guitar lines have me thinking “here we go, another earnest, balladeering, unplugged troubadour to wade through” the weight of a full band drops in behind it and suddenly the world seems a brighter place. It would have been easy to follow some sort of angst ridden pop template and aim to tug teen heartstrings; instead Rhett plays a much cleverer card.
When I first encountered Craig’s music it was via the refreshingly raw, honest and self-deprecating country-punk meets frantic folk collision of last years We Humans album. And if within that that wonderfully raw musical landscape of satire and sympathy, profanity and profundity the spirit of such mercurial artists as Tom Waits, Frank Zappa and the much overlooked Bob Log III lurked in the corners, here they act as a spiritual steering group.
As always, trying to pin Fassine down in words proves just as difficult a task as ever. Music journalism, reviewing the records at least, is often about making comparisons, noting influences and references, using words to create Venn Diagrams that help the reader envisage the music and then hopefully buy it. Taking this approach towards Fassine has never worked for me. Yes, I can talk about the chic yet minimalist musical landscapes that they build, the elegance of the production, the chilled eloquence, the hypnotic yet laid-back beats, the vulnerability yet classicism of the vocals, but does that really get us any further forward regarding communicating with the prospective listener.
Last time I dipped my toe into the crazy waters of The Two Man Travelling Medicine Show it was to experience their clattering cider-punk-country-hoedown Tightropin’ a song which gave me the opportunity to roll out all those literary juxtapositions and two worlds colliding musical metaphors. But a full album is a whole different affair. Here, rather than just the quick snapshot that a single offers, you get a fuller sense of the musical landscape this intriguing band calls home.
First impressions are always interesting events and so it is with the first 30 seconds of Key of D, the opening salvo of We Humans. If I had been led to assume that this was just another collection of alt-country songs, that first snatch of music told me a lot about just how “alt” it was going to be as alien noises, distant lo-fi treatments, tabla drums, slightly self-deprecating lyrics and campfire busking vibes piled in. Okay, so forewarned is forearmed and as the xylophones (I think) of that first musical taste fade out, I headed into the album proper.
