New Arctic Monkeys – Crying Lightning

So, the first single. Can definitely feel the Homme influence here, it’s not quite Black Sabbath, but it does channel Queens of the Stone Age a little bit. Alex’s vocals are low, the sound is dark, the guitar tone is greasy, fuzzed out and raw as opposed to the Monkey’s usual bouncy, tight guitar sound. Definitely seems like they’re moving away from their garage/post-punk stylings to something much heavier. Takes the darker moments of Favourite Worst Nightmareand pushes it that little bit further.

It’s not an immediately obvious choice for a single. Very dark and cavernous and has no immediate hooks, but its a grower. Can’t imagine it’ll be the blockbusting hit that Bet You Look Good or Brianstorm was, its not as explosive as those tracks, but its definitely got me intruged for the rest of the album. Bring on August! Or at least the inevitable leak in late July.

MP3: Arctic Monkeys – Crying Lightning

Glastonbury Roundup – Friday

Yeah Yeah, it’s been a week, but I’ve been recuperating from the festival itself, trenchfoot and a nasty cold that may or may not be Swine Flu. There might be a mild exaggeration in that sentence, but I haven’t really been up to this.

So, it was good, very good, excellent even. Rather than delivering why this was the case in a long, sprawling and unfocused essay, I will be doing mini-reviews for all the acts I saw over the weekend. Diverging all my extra curricular activities as well would be a little too thorough and, er, potentially embarrassing and libelous.

Friday

Regina Spektor – Pyramid Stage

Maximo Park’s opening of the festival at the Queen’s Head the previous day was completely packed and recounting my time at the Silent Disco will not make for riveting reading so we start here, Friday.

So, Michael Jackson’s dead and it’s raining. Quite heavily. A heavy squall prevents me from venturing out of my flimsily erected tent to enjoy the novelty of Bjorn Again or finding out if the rumours of an appearance by Kanye West in support of Mr Hudson on the Other Stage are true so I find myself at the Pyramid stage with the comely Regina.

As my previous posts on this quirky songsmith would suggest, I was less than entirely ecstatic in the build up to this start to the weekend, but compromises had to be made and, to be fair, she was a fair bit more appealing than the achingly generic NME Indie bands that were playing on other stages, plus, as anyone who reads this blog regularly will know (…hello?) I find her quite easy on the eyes, which is a plus.

With such low expectations it’s probably no that suprising that I quite enjoyed her set. I don’t own or really know any of her stuff, but she is a very captivating performer. Her idiosyncratic nature is disarmingly endearing in the flesh, rather than slightly grating or irritating as it often is on record. Her stodgy new material gets a good airing and is fairly received, even the awful Laughing With sounds vaguely acceptable in the dreary drizzle of the Glastonbury afternoon, a place which isn’t exactly adverse to a bit of schmaltzy spirituality.

Live, she doesn’t do anything markedly different with her songs to make them shine, instead the vocal gymnastics and quirky left turns that litter her tracks become quite infectuous in a live setting and are willingly lapped up by her adoring fans. Sure, her music is often unapologetically saccharine and trite, but when you’re at Glastonbury standing in the drizzle with a few Ciders down you, you don’t really care much when she structures a chorus entirely out of ‘eets’, and she hits a wooden chair with a stick at one point, what’s not to like?

Plus she’s quite easy on the eyes.

7/10

Fleet Foxes – Pyramid Stage

After a short detour during a peculiar set by N*E*R*D in which I was lucky enough to be in earshot to hear Pharrel express his pride at performing to 200,000 people, an impressive feat considering that number was 20,000 people more than were actually on site, and then witness him getting his mic cut shortly after he rebelliously claimed he didn’t give a f*ck about how many minutes he had left, we returned to the Pyramid stage for an alltogether less bellicose act.

Fleet Foxes are a band that I like a lot, their debut was one of my favourites of last year, but as I said on my end of year album list, my enjoyment of their music seems strangely tied to the weather I listen to it in, so the pervading overcastness of the day didn’t help. Nor did the amount of material they performed off the Sun Giant EP, a good EP, but something I’m not as familiar with. Something can be said of the size of the venue overwhelming their sound, as impressive (and as loud) as the Pyramid stage sound system is, it’s not always tight, and some of the finer vocal harmonies sort of get lost in the wind. The same could be said for Regina Spektor, but here the performance is more nuanced, less loveable and less crowd pleasing (and less easy on the eyes).

So sound problems and the understated quality of the Sun Giant EP material that they indulged in meant it took a while to get going, but once Ragged Wood,Your Protector and Olivier James were wheeled out to the fold they began to pick up pace, a real festival band, a real Glastonbury band, Hippy harmonies and all. In fairness, I could put the underwhelming aspects of their performance down to my state of mind and my weird climatological prerequisites, but still it lacked something that was partly down to the venue, but mostly down to the band.

6/10


Jason Mraz – Acoustic Stage

Ugghh, I really don’t remember much of this. Even my friend who was a fan decided to leave before the end, whether that was because I did a poor job disguising my mind-numbing boredom on my usually miserable looking face or because he was just a bit rubbish I don’t know (Sorry if you’re reading this). This guy made about four/five appearances during the weekend, not sure how or why, but it was nice to get away from the Pyramid Stage and explore another part of the festival though, I guess. Fleet Foxes would have been a lot more at home here.

2/10

Neil Young – Pyramid Stage

Short break for Dinner then back down to the now familiar Pyramid Stage. I’m not a huge Neil Young fan and the lure of Q-tip, Bloc Party and Animal Collective on other stages in what is perhaps the most ridiculous of line-up clashes in festival history, was strong but, Neil Young is just one of those iconic artists I wouldn’t normally choose to or get a chance to see again; I’d already seen Bloc Party and Q-tip and will see Animal Collective later in the Summer, so Neil Young it was.

Now I just had the small issue of enjoying the gig. Being ‘not a huge’ Neil Young fan meant that there were gaping holes in my familiarity with his stuff. I had the ‘classics’ as prescribed to me by the trusty Allmusic, After the Gold Rush, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Rust Never Sleeps and a smattering of hits not covered by these albums, Heart of Gold, Like a Hurricane and Rockin’ in the Free World. Regardless, having seen Prince, (twice), another artist with a huge, expansive backcatalog of hits littered through a long career, I was more than aware that I could find myself half-knowingly humming songs that I sort of know from that advert I once heard, or was it on the radio um, yeah. I was also aware of the fact that, like Prince, Neil Young was somewhat famous for his belligerent, uncompromising attitude when it came to his live shows, so I wasn’t holding my breath.

Thankfully, he opened with one of his bigger hits and one of my favourites the (literally, and figuratively) electric, Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black). Anxiety cleared.

What followed was a set thankfully low on recent material that he could have easily plugged, and high on the classics. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Cinnamon girl, The Needle And The Damage Done, Heart of Gold and an epic, much extended Down by the River that featured half a dozen guitar solos, well half a dozen more guitar solos than his other songs.

There were a few missteps. As mentioned, every song did see to feature at least two breaks and a long, distorted, messy outro which does begin to wane after a while. I’m all for whiny, atonal, dissonant guitar playing, but Neil Young often toes the line towards mere noise more often than he does sweet, soaring Hendrix platitudes. Secondly, there were quite a few duff song selections that broke up the momentum of the classics, for example, Mother Earth is a remarkably trite eco-ballad with cringeworthy lyrics of the highest order and whilst it’s always nice to hear The Beatles, especially the untouchable A Day in the Life, it’s perhaps not the best time to hear it when you’re at a Neil Young gig and he hasn’t played some of his classics like Tell Me Why or Like a Hurricane.

Also, the number of refrains tacked on the end of Rockin’ In The Free World was a little ridiculous and unintentionally funny. It’s always been a song that I’ve had a hard time enjoying unironically, sure there’s a very serious message behind the song, but the refrain is just so ridiculous and it’s a song that’s just so un-Neil Young.

As he dismaintled his guitar at the close of A Day in the Life, perhaps as a means of signaling to the audience that there would be no more encores, extended outros or even a zombie-like ressurection of Rockin’ In The Free World from out of nowhere, the audience left mostly happy and contented – despite his slight infractions – at the close Day One of Glastonbury proper. An excellent start by the ‘weakest’ of the three Pyramid stage headlines, and a thankfully dry end to the day after the initial squall. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t play Like A Hurricane?

9/10

As Friday melds into Saturday, I wonder off with the crowd and sample the nightlife of Glastonbury for a third night. Trash City beckons and Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World is lodged in my brain.

Tune in next time for my continuing adventures at Glastonbury. Coming…sometime soon

MP3: Fleet Foxes – Mykonos
MP3: Neil Young – Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)
MP3: Regina Spektor – Pound of Flesh

Glastonbury 2009

I wanted to do a more thorough, comprehensive and excitable post about this with a 20+ song playlist to get you in the mood, but as I’m going there in a matter of hours, have only just packed and need some sleep before the big day, I won’t be. The lovingly crafted spotify playlist by the kind people at eFestival forums have already provided a pretty comprehensive taste of the weekend – so I would have been silly bothering anyway.

So yea, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and Blur. Special guests rumoured to be anyone from Kanye West to Muse (Despite being based on this, admittedly suspicious tweet by Michael Eavis, famous technophobe, My money’s on Muse to play Park Stage or at least some big rockers…possibly), N*E*R*D are another late addition, The Dead Weather look very, very, very likely to join them as one of those mysterious special guests.

Anyway, regardless It should be pretty good I reckon. Treat yourself to some music from the headliners that you probably already own if you have the most passing of interests in them, and enjoy yourself however you’re enjoying the weekend’s proceedings!

MP3: Neil Young – Tell Me Why

MP3: Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run

MP3: Blur – Coffee and TV

Spotify: eFestivals Glastonbury playlist

Bloc Party – One More Chance

Hummm. Further down the rabbithole they go.

It’s probably better than anything off Intimacy, but that’s really not saying much. They still sound incredibly…stilted, caught between two places. It’s almost like you can feel the tension within the band in the music. Perhaps best exampled by the fact that a The House inspired piano intro and the fuzzed out, Silent Alarm era guitar solo exists in the same track. It doesn’t sound ‘innovative’ ‘brave’ or ‘fresh’ it just sounds fractured. Like Lissack’s gone away and Kele have both gone away and written two entirely different songs.

Bloc Party’s greatest strength was always the unity and driven nature of their music. That tight interplay between the frantic guitar riffs, the relentless drums and Kele’s desperate, wordless yelps. I really appreciate what they’re trying to do here; I’d always rather a band do what they’re doing rather than say, what Franz Ferdinand have done, but this still isn’t hitting the spot.

MP3: Bloc Party – One More Chance
MP3: Bloc Party – Compliments (Shibuyaka Remix)

Mos Def and Turkish Psychedelica

Mos Def’s new album, the Ecstatic, was released last week. After a couple of listens I’d probably agree with the more than warm reception it’s received. It’s definitely a return to the form of Black on Both Sides, but this isn’t a review – not yet anyway. I just thought I’d share some of the great interconnectivity that comes with music, and perhaps more specifically, Hip-Hop.

As an art form, Hip-Hop attracts a lot of flak. A lot of people will dismiss it as misogynistic posturing using lazily re-appropriated melodies and samples of other people’s work. Of course, such people are usually awfully boring white-rock fans who’ll go on at length about ‘poets’ like Bob Dylan or ‘true artists’ like Led Zeppelin – whilst overlooking that they themselves did a fair bit of appropriating and sampling. But more importantly, they’re missing the point. There’s something very poetic to be said about an artform that creates art purely from art, I’m not going to go into that now, that’s for another post, or at least someone more eloquent than me to go into. I’ve always had an interest in instrumental Hip Hop albums like J-Dilla’s Donuts, DJ Shadow’s Endtrouducing or Madlib’s Beat Konducta series, that involves discovering when and where the samples used came from. It makes the finished product all the more inspiring when you realise that that hypnotic chiming comes from a 1970s soul rhythm section, that weird percussive bass is from a 1980s thrash metal album or that demonic spoken word segment is actually a Marvin Gaye lyric reversed with a lot of reverb thrown on top…or not. It’s the sort of musical geekery that both makes you appreciate the product you’re listening to and opens up a lot of new doors for you to explore.

Anyway, how does this relate to Mos Def? The first track of his new album samples, along with a section of Malcolm X’s infamous speech at Oxford Union debate on extremism, a mind-melting, fuzzed out guitar riff. Instantly transfixed I perused the usual channels to find out where it came from. Eventually, Youtube bore fruit and I was introduced to the world of Selda Bagcan and the song Ince Ince.

What other genre can provide that sort of service with its music? From East-coast Hip Hop to Turkish Psychedelica in one leap. Wonderful.

MP3: Mos Def – Supermagic
MP3: Selda Bagcan – Ince Ince

Little Boots’ Hands is released, Arctic Monkeys name new album

Hope you had a happy Hands release day! It seems like only yesterday when I first discovered Victoria Hesketh’s charming ditties of Stuck on Repeat and Meddle but it was nearly a year ago!

Make sure you get out and buy it! It’s very good! Expect a review sometime in the near future.

If, after 12 months of breathless blog hype, you’re still unconvinced, I’ve posted the ridiculously overblown, ridiculously camp, but ridiculously catchy Remedy after the jump…

In other news, the Arctic Monkeys have just named their new album. It’s called Humbug. Yup. Humbug.

Considering the whole album has been showing very American stylings, from Josh Homme producing, recording in the Mojave Desert and a heavier hard, stoner-rock sound anticipated as a result, the use of such a British word seems to be a conscious juxtaposition of cultures which is in typical of the Monkeys’ typically wry sense of humour. Nice.

It’s still due August 24th. Just in time for their Reading and Leeds festival dates (which I will be attending). I was never a huge fan of their hugely over-hyped first record, but Favourite Worst Nightmare was easily one of the best and most consistent record’s of 2007 so I can’t wait.

MP3: Arctic Monkeys – Brianstorm
MP3: Little Boots – Remedy

See Dan Deacon live – now!

(Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/beenwooed/)

Wow, what a show. I’m still reeling from Dan Deacon’s riotous gig at the ULU a full three days later. Bromst has been one of my favourite album’s of 2009 so far, but as it’s the only album of his I own, I’ve never really considered myself a fan of his work. It was only on a the back of a couple of effusive write-ups on his other UK shows that I decided to attend the night before the gig, so I guess I’m carrying the word-of-mouth beacon to anyone on the fence or un-informed.

If you have the opportunity, go to one of this man’s shows. Even if you’re not completely won over my his slightly absurd, avant-garde electro-noise-pop, I guarantee you will have an amazing time. Look at all those smiley happy people in the picture above!

Without spoiling it to much, his shows are a heady combination of traditional gig format, cult gathering – only reinforced by the white jump-suits that Deacon and his ‘Wham City’ ensemble’ are uniformly kitted out in – and drama workshop style audience participation. There’s dance-offs, touchy-feely warm-up exercises, excitable deaconites wearing exotic garments on their heads and great crowd banter. If, like me, you often feel that gigs can be a little sterile and can lack that communication that can make the artist on stage come alive, then Dan Deacon’s shows are for you.

Being an artist that has been predominantly hyped – on these shores at least – via Pitchfork and performing in a venue slap-bang in the heart of the London student community, equal distance between UCL, the British Library, Senate House Library, SOAS and numerous smaller colleges and places of learning, the gig was filled with young hipster types. The kind of hipsters who are usually very self-aware, apathetic and generally ‘meh’ about everything, which makes the cultish adherence Dan Deacon inspires in his show to make these usually vapid, reserved types to throw themselves around a small, sweaty venue like they were at a primary school disco all the more remarkable.

Gigs in the dance/electro genre can often be a bit dull to watch, with the musicians hunched over a laptop or any other instrument that requires a stoical level of concentration, but Deacon was a consummate performer as well as musician. No bullshitty, pre-arranged encores either, which was a breath of fresh air, he said when they were done and then hung around the front of the stage a while after shaking hands (including mine!) and posing for photographs with adoring fans. A true gentleman.

It’s been quite a while that I’ve grinned, laughed, sweated, moshed or danced so much at a gig. By the close I had that wonderful feeling of shared euphoria that only live music can give you. If by the close you’re not grinning inanely at complete strangers, your clothes caked in your own sweat and that of others and wondering if life gets any better, then you’re probably doing it wrong.

The music wasn’t the greatest, the sound was muddy at times but I’m hard stretched to think of a better example of what a gig should be. Riotous, sweaty, vaguely life-affirming, unpretentious, exciting and well, fun.

MP3: Dan Deacon – Snake Mistakes
MP3: Dan Deacon – Woof Woof

Regina Spektor’s new song is really, really sweet

Ok. This is the perfect remedy to the po-faced piety of Laughing With. It’s just as simplistic, but so much more fun, unpretentious and with just a little pinch of playful self deprecation that nicely erases the horrible image of her I had after Laughing With.

Even the one camera, home-made setup of the video is miles better than the mid 90s styled, surrealist acid trip of the last video. If only because it’s quite hypnotic to watch her boobs bounce as she crosses the road (sorry).

Anticipation levels: Raised…slightly.
MP3: Regina Spektor – Dance Anthem of the 80s

Review: Veckatimest – Grizzly Bear

2009 will perhaps be remembered as the year in which the ‘Indie Rock’ bubble burst. Indie is of course an awfully vague term popularised by its convenience rather than its accuracy, but the sake of this interview we’ll use it. First ‘generation’ bands such as The Strokes have fallen off the critical map with recent efforts; second wave imitators are now imitating other second wave imitators or desperately trying to transcend the genre or simply hop into another one (Hello, Bloc Party and The Horrors). As the 00s come to a close what was once a fresh and exciting genre is looking a little fetid, as musical movements and genres tend to after nearly a decade in the sun.

If 2009 will be remembered as the year nonchalant garage rock handed the baton over to upbeat, sparkly electro or New-Wave pop, then Grizzly Bear’s new effort will be amongst a new wave of, predominantly American, rock music that looks set to inspire the genre’s eventual revival.

Veckatimest is an album that begs to be listened to whole, and not because the album has been constructed with segues that link the songs together, but because it largely shares the shame lyrical themes, moods and is painstakingly crafted to be listened to as a single movement. The album is relentlessly written in the minor key, it is mid-tempo and it’s all rather stately chamber-pop. Acoustic guitars intertwine with their electric cousins who are distorted just enough to shimmer on top of the warm fuzz of the bass guitar creating a hazy, autumnal swirl and that’s pretty much it. There’s two very notable exceptions, lead single Two Weeks is suitably singlish and moreish for radio-play without compromising the rest of the album’s introspective, pastoral feel. Its plodding, ornate staccato piano riff, pop vocal harmonies, deep, crashing bass and Ed Droste’s mournful croon set each other off perfectly and deliver one of the most morish slices of bittersweet baroque pop since The Beach Boys.

On the other end of the scale is album closer, Foreground, which like Two Weeks is piano led, but is far more reserved and resigned. It’s circular piano melody is perfectly delicate and stripped down, Droste’s deep croon is replaced with Rossen’s fragile falsetto, the perfect comedown for an album closer on such a complete piece.

Despite this requirement to be devoured whole and its stylistic uniformity, Veckatimest is not dull, tiring or even a particularly difficult album. There are striking stand-outs that work as self contained nuggets of gold in the album’s grand symphonic swirl. As well as the aforementioned piano led tracks, While You Wait For The Others, Cheerleader and Ready, Able all provide the necessary hooks to keep you satisfied on those sometime difficult initial listens. Whilst the rest of the album stays in the same gear and key, it’s by no means samey.

Much has been written about the album’s pastoral, elemental feel. Such comments are easily read as lazy journalistic shoehorning, a writer short on time and opinions merely googling the album’s title and discovering its charmingly idiosyncratic, and painfully unpronounceable, title is also the name of an island off the Massachusetts’ coast and there you go, elementally inspired, pastoral album. But there is actually something in this assertion beyond lazy journalism. The album’s chamber-pop/psychedelic folk combination is, like The Beach Boys, very evocative of a specific time and place. I’ve never been to America, let alone Massachusetts, but as – to rope in The Beach Boys again – Pet Sounds is, for me, the sound of the dog days of a Californian Summer were relationships have begun to fade like the weather after an initial, short and joyful burst; Veckatimest inspires images of the autumnal countryside, isolation and well, what I imagine Massachusetts, or at least that corner of the world to be like. The warm, fuzzy bass, the hazy, shimmering guitar tone and floaty, transient vocals are all evocative of this time and place, it’s not only a lazy association with the mood of the album, but a credit to the effortlessness with which such lucid imagery is created with such painstaking production.

Such imagery is reinforced in the album’s lyrics as well. The quiet/loud dynamic of All We Ask initially seems a bit typical in the wake of Two Weeks, Droste opens the song on a hopeful note, “In this old house, I’m not alone/ In a bedroom, a telephone” but why what could be an anthemic outcry against loneliness and the strengths of communication is sung in such a tender and delicate voice – especially in comparison to Droste’s assured croon on Two Weeks – is made clear in the closing verse where Droste and Rossen harmonise a refrain “I can’t / get out / of what I’m into / with you” which is delivered with a curious regretfulness. Later, in the brief lull between the staggering squalls of majestic guitars on Fine For Now Rossen repeatedly questions an anonymous lover, “If we’re all faltering, how’d I help with that? /If it’s all or nothing, then let me go.” Droste’s mournful moans in the background only lend to the trance like quality of the lyric that sticks in the mind, the crashing guitar break that follows amplifies the longing for change and escape.

Whilst Veckatimest isn’t an album about broken relationships or loneliness per se – it’s far too rich an album to be so easily pigeonholed – there is a curious desire for self-imposed exile in the album’s lyrics, to overcome differences through surrender, which binds itself perfectly with the album’s subtle, introspective music.

The album is carefully sculpted, immaculately produced, but never to the exent where it’s sterile. It’s very much a ‘headphones’ album. Sure this it’ll mean live performances of the album will always miss that certain layer, not that it’s really a concern when the album is this immaculate. The album is huge, but never melodramatically so. It has a sonic depth that makes watching videos of its live performances on Youtube seem strangely peculiar. The scale and quality of the production is such that it’s often hard to imagine human beings creating it, let alone being able to perform a tight approximation of it live on stage. I’m wondering into wanky, Pitchfork Kid A territory, I know, but there’s something in the music that is very momentous and grand, yet very heartfelt and intimate which is something very hard to pull off.

Repeated listens are not only rewarded by a familiarity with the songs overriding composition, lyrics and hooks, but like so many of the best records you’ll be constantly noticing little layers of guitar buried deep in the mix, dis-embodied moans and supplementary drum fills that just propel the song along in ways you never noticed for months to come.

Criticisms? Sure, there’s a mid-album slump, if you could call songs like Dory or About Face ‘slumps. They’re as much ‘slumps’ because of the stunning excellence of the album’s opening and closing suites more than anything else, and, as the album’s ‘symphonic’ nature means that clear, immediate highlights are difficult to come by, it always serves the purpose of lifting lesser tracks higher.

Veckatimest is a mighty album. One of the year’s best. Its overarching artistic ambition may be its biggest fault, but as faults goes it’s a rather small one, and it’s this ambition that drives what is a peculiar effort for an album that looks set to break Grizzly Bear into some relative level of mainstream familiarity. It’s a weird album to create with such commercial considerations. The obvious singles are few and far between, it’s unapologetically a single piece, but what a piece it is.

9/10

MP3: Grizzly Bear – Fine For Now
MP3: Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks

[Video] Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll

Nice, much better than the Zero video which was a bit aimless with Karen O, er, aimlessly wandering about in that leather jacket.

Like Zero, this track has a few Michael Jackson tributes. Zero had the leather jacket and glove combo; this has got the dance moves, the suit, the Billie Jean style dance floor, the hat throw…plus half a dozen over nods that the more fantatical fans of Jackson’s work will be able to point out I imagine.

The red confetti as blood is a nice touch and suits the light-hearted nature of the video and the shiny new-wave disco style of the track. The last shot of Karen O bloodied and disembodied, singing the last few lines of the track is a great image, too.

Richard Ayoade, Moss in the IT Crowd, and Dean Learner of the vastly underrated Darth Marenghi’s Darkplace, directs.

MP3: Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll