Sheena Easton – Morning Train (Nine To Five)
Why does our present look so unlike the future once envisaged? The time we now live in, described by the minds of those long gone. They’d be so upset with the bland and the unison – the monotony. The immaculate misconception. Is it wrong to sometimes desire the nine to five? [Best.]
Scarlett Johansson – Anywhere I Lay My Head
Pitchfork claim ‘Anywhere I Lay My Head’ as “dearth of vocal personality,” and the suggestive Entertainment Weekly see the record’s soundscapes as playing “second fiddle to disguising her [Scarlett’s] expressionless voice.” Oh, to be grotesquely wrong. But the Guardian got it right. When writing their letter to Music – following an acknowledgement of a record with “surprising allure” – they quizzed the master, “What would Johansson have made of ‘Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis’?” This is one of the most splendid of records to have cushioned my ears. The tickle and charm of whimsy. [Cheaper elsewhere, but here’s the manufacturer.]
Animal Collective – What Would I Want? Sky
There’s an ocean floor quality to Sky; that blurry drama, the blue, the sway – and the expectant listener, too, waiting for emotive explosives. It’s the Collective outdoing their previous best. Its birth breathing “good deeds” and its death longing for an answer and response to the question “What would I want? Sky”, both in mantra swing. Avey Tare wants, for brief moments if allowed, the release from thought and the carried rest of God’s arms. It’s to be withdrawn from the not-knowing and the out-of-control rush of the everyday. Or, in its surrealist state, maybe it’s just jargon – words to melodies so precious and melodies to sounds of an underwater robot forest. “Do you get up-up-up? Clouds stop and move above me. Too bad they can’t help me. When I stop and look around me, grey is where that colour should be. What is the right way?” [Domino.]
“This next song is about nationalism and paranoia,” said Gonzalez in two-thousand-and-seven. Opening seconds give way to the slightest of inhale-exhale action, subtle to the Nest’s air – soon swamped by plucked notes of meandering-water delivery. “Saw them gathering sticks from the ground by the thicket while assembling the nest.” Through the production, hearing the strings rattle is as vital to this song as hearing a pianist’s pedal feel the brunt of a slamming dusted foot on any instrumental. It’s what puts you in the same room, “Building frantically without any rest.” There’s not enough time to be taken whole by this song, but it’s stupefying in its short availability, and caring in its stranglehold of the resounding thumb-thump of E. “Walls grew dense and blocked out the sun, caving in everyone.” [Rough, In Our Nature.]
Mark Ronson & The Business Intl – Bang Bang Bang (feat. MNDR & Q-Tip)
In primary school, somewhere between the age of six and twelve, I, along with a twenty or so strong group of boys (for of course it had to be a boys school), sang the French song ‘Alouette’ during music class. Sang with complete swagger and vigour and bravado, too (for if we impressed then there was a slight chance we could go outside and play for the remainder of the evening). Music class was always singing and singing alone, and sometimes quite literally alone as I stumbled and nervously stuttered my way through some Irish fable.
“Alouette, gentille alouette. Je te plumerai la tête. Et la tête(!).”
My oh my, how I extended that final note for as long as my pre-cracked folds would allow. And with a smile, too. I didn’t know then, as I do now, that I was promoting the plucking of a skylark’s head, but then how could I have known? I could barely speak my native tongue – and still can’t. Do I feel bad? I do a little – a twinge of shame can be felt, but then ‘Bang Bang Bang’ has brought new levels of catchiness, and, I would argue, sinister ways to ‘Alouette’.
“Tête” is now delivered post pause by Amanda Warner, in such a playful and menacing manner that it’s a hook smothered in humour, too. You see, I have a hankering for popular music on an itch-like scale. If there’s even the slightest bit of charm and credibility to it, then I’ll down it in gulping shots. The corny introduction of “Un, deux, trios,” should have signalled the song’s intent, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the galloping attachment charging towards me. And that synth riff, too. For the first twenty or so listens I imagined a final note to the end of said riff, and found out later, with headphones, that I had fabricated the sound. Shame on my part, but Ronson’s restraint was the right choice. “When feathers fly, you deny everything.” [Record Collection.]
Kaki King – Playing With Pink Noise
Have you seen Kaki King play? It’s how I imagine Jackson Pollock splashed his floored canvas. Ligaments at work with flex and jerk reaction – a blur of glitter. I know being flabbergasted by the technical gifts behind any delivery has no consistent correlation to the song itself being a worthy piece of work, but it adding to the sound is at times a worthy admission. This is audio, but do not miss the visual accompaniment. [Purchase.]
Engine is a three-minute b-side to the single ‘Holland, 1945’, recorded underneath Piccadilly Circus, London, and to dismiss this as mere filler would not only be to lose the point entirely, but to lose out on a master class of song writing. Art is a subjective power, so with freedom I say this is the missing twelfth track of ‘In The Aeroplane Over The Sea’; furthermore, it grows louder and truer with repetition. Forever fresh. Mangum bounds between the strain of wondrous lyrical offerings (“And sweet babies cry for the cool taste of milking.”) and the elegant ooze of frosty melody, as a singing saw weeps with grace, as if deep in thought on some rotting deck chair, with fields of fog the only view to see. The acoustic guitar is quietened, appearing only through your right-ear and then gone again, and a rhythmic section, the sound’s guide, is itching to expound its own self on a grander scale, but always keen to keep with the instruction of refrain. And to all an end will come – outside sirens emanate freely, a cousin to singing saw, and their swirl fades to the lone clap and trap of hand. “Thank you.” All music should be recorded in the London Underground. [Purchase.]
Detektivbyrån have already parted ways, but they leave behind a small chunk of effort for us all to dine on. Hemvägen, taken from their debut album, titled ‘E18 Album’ – essentially a regurgitation of an EP release two years previous, is a four minute instrumental in the same form as Yann Tiersen’s Amélie outing.
Your instrument of choice is an accordion, and you’ve been requested to produce a Disney soundtrack – and so arrives Hemvägen. An open smattering of rapturous accordion, soon accompanied by muffled electronic keyboard riffs, builds until layered with a delicious twinkle of small bells – that same sound you hear from holiday trinkets. It’s fantasy music by traditional means. [Purchase.]
Little Dragon are a four piece electronic-rock-pop-something band, whose origins lay in their early teenage friendship, birthed in the European land of Sweden – their lead singer, Yukimi Nagano, daughter to a Japanese father and Swedish mother. All rather irrelevant, except it explains and provides their visual offering, one unlike anything music and its current scene has on display. Still, it is the music we’ve all gathered for in this surprisingly well ventilated room, three-hundred or so strong, at Crawdaddy on Harcourt Street, Dublin, and it is music we soon get following a delay of opening doors (in which time I managed to sneak an introduction to half the band).
Three of the band members are already present on stage for many minutes, sound checking their way to soon to be perfection, before the leader of the pack emerges. Yukimi Nagano is a mesmerising figure, swaying and dancing her way through every pounding beat and riff with a click of hips and robotics pauses to a beat’s end, taking just brief moments of slight relief as she closes her eyes and drenches the air with haunting melodies, much like the quality of her voice, that surf on danceable instrumental backing. At times she’ll join Erik Bodin on the drums, standing by his side and slamming sticks to their destination, or randomly turn to thrash a hand at strung up transparent gongs hooked to electric synth – I can only bring myself to lazily describing them as three hanging breast implants with the ability for sound. But the sounds were never indulgent, always necessary, and added firmly to the intended vibe.
Two new songs, currently titled “Summer Chant”, a reggae and jungle beat filled thriller of rainbow melody, and “Little Man”, were offered to the crowd and their end was met with violently-appreciative appraisal, as high and resounding as any single or fan favourite. And this would highlight, firmly this time, the power, precision, and strength of Little Dragon as a musical outfit. This crowd were hearing new songs for the first time in cramped surroundings, with small venue sound systems, and every glimmer of quirk and beat and jive was heard and felt. A band all powerful, maintaining the mood, sometimes enhancing it, with new sounds. Offerings from Machine Dreams, such as “Feather” and “Looking Glass”, played out with such flawless nature, one would be forgiven for quizzing any possibility of tricks being pulled.
The pre-encore break was met by raucous appreciation, and fully sustained until the band reappeared. “Twice”, the night’s penultimate sound, a song incessantly requested by erratically-dancing drunkards, washed the huddled crowd like ocean spray, and, for the first time, those in attendance were completely transfixed to the point of stillness. Little Dragon had stolen the attention of their crowd from their very first movement onto the stage, but now they had a stranglehold – complete control. Like Yukimi’s on-stage presence and play, Little Dragon is a whimsical entity, but concise and serious – loud, but with delicate commitment. It’s what we all hope the future of pop might be. On a basic level, and so demanding of its genre, it is catchy, yet on all other levels it is brimming with fervent melody and thought and heart. And in what should be apparent contrast, when in full flow, they are also very, very loud – says the boy who stood in front of one of just two high hanging, ponderous speakers. Little Dragon are Erik Bodin, Yukimi Nagano, Fredrik Källgren Wallin, and Håkan Wirenstrand. They are truly wonderful. [Purchase.]
