Album Reviews What's been crossing our ears this week...
ALBUM OF THE WEEK THE STREETS
ever shied from mixing things up. But this album is altogether different.
Brace yourself, Streets fans. Computers And Blues, the fifth and final studio album from Mike Skinner, is so radical a departure from his typical oeuvre that, well... I just... argh, flabbergast!
Making his way back along a cobbled lane from a few pints at his local ruba-dub-dub, probably with some kind of broken heart, Skinner has been seriously dusted-up by pop’s ruthless bounce and glitter. Technological immersion has kicked him a few times while he was down too, and the resultant transformation is so unfamiliar as to be vaguely unnerving.
Computers And Blues Warner Music
More GarageBand than garage, Mike Skinner lays the surprises on thick and fast in his final album.
Not that Skinner hadn’t already demonstrated variety. From workingclass British tales as narrative (Original Pirate Material), to unified concept album (A Grand Don’t Come For Free), to delving into the lurks and perks of fame (Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living), to the geezer philosophy of Everything Is Borrowed, the Birmingham boy hasn’t
DURAN DURAN
FUJIYA & MIYAGI
All You Need Is Now Tapemodern
Ventriloquizzing Other Tongues
After the commercial disaster of their last effort Red Carpet Massacre, Duran Duran have taken a look in the mirror and decided that rejuvenating their classic 80s sound is the answer to their prayers. They’re partially correct. Producer Mark Ronson has a sympathetic ear, and the Birmingham band coat these songs with many of the features that marked their goldenera music: Nick Rhodes’ distinctive synths, John Taylor’s slinky basslines and the classic dance-rock hybrid that Duran Duran may not have created, but certainly perfected. Their new album has already been a big iTunes hit, with the hard copy version emerging by March. Their skill at swelling, atmospheric ballads continues with ‘Leave A Light On’, and they also manage to partially revive the spooky synth minimalism of key Rio track ‘The Chauffeur’ in two outstanding tunes: closing track ‘Before The Rain’ and the Kelisfeaturing ‘The Man Who Stole A Leopard’. But it’s the up-tempo singalongs that keep the fans coming back, and these are delivered with panache in the form of lead single and title track ‘All You Need Is Now’, the nervy ‘Being Followed’ and the propulsive ‘Blame The Machines’. The rapturous reception the record is receiving is partially a warm reaction to the return of the classic Duran Duran sound. But despite many strong moments, the album isn’t quite the triumph many are trumpeting; filler like ‘Runaway Runaway’ and ‘Girl Panic’ detract from the experience. Overall it’s still a very strong record. But, hey, I liked Red Carpet Massacre as well! Matt Thrower
The danger in reviewing a band which draws so overtly on a period of music history is the temptation to simply measure them against their predecessors. With Fujiya & Miyagi, that point of reference is early-to-mid 70s krautrock, a genre renowned for its open-minded tonal palette and pragmatic, muscular rhythms. Dispensing with cheap comparisons, the admirable thing about Ventriloquizzing is the way it dials down the Germanic austerity of its influences. It carries the same torch and remains faithful to their underlying philosophies, but holds a mirror up to the militant experimentalism, to reveal the original priority and imperative of the music: dance. This isn’t to say Ventriloquizzing isn’t dark – every synth texture feels wicked, and there are hundreds on here, massaging chthonic harmonics into every rift. But it manages to weigh that wickedness with a reassuring levity. It’s funky, but it’s dark. It’s sonically challenging, but in a way that insists you nod your head. This peculiar chiaroscuro is reflected in the record’s playfully janus-faced lyrics. “I’ll beat you / sixteen shades of black and blue” echoes the instrumental shadows of ‘Sixteen Shades of Black & Blue’, while the mocking aphorisms of ‘Taiwanese Boots’ climax hilariously with “sucking hummus off a plastic spoon / you look ridiculous”. ‘Pills’ marks the centre of the album, its chorus tying the themes together nicely over menacing fuzz guitar and effervescent keyboard stabs: ‘These little pills / may give you dizzy spells’. Ventriloquizzing is like great art; it’s brilliant and dark; playful and serious; weighty and frivolous. Such a shame that so many people will write it off as nostalgic gravedigging. Luke Telford
Long gone are the restless murk-andgrime minor keys and the spoken word accounts of drugged out, fucked up debaucherous regret and dodgy characters. In their place are shimmering, super catchy pop samples
as choruses (‘Without Thinking’, ‘Roof Of Your Car’), wordplay fun, autotune, 8bit, and tales themed around events as spurious as heartbreak-turned-tojoy over a misunderstood Facebook relationship status (‘OMG’). LOLWha? Skinner’s trademarked cheeky recitative briefly emerges on ‘ABC’, and his poetic, over-thinking sad-sack side comes back on ‘Blip On A Screen’ and ‘We Can Never Be Friends’ – but each time we get glimpses of the music he used to make, it’s beaten back by a cacophony of synthesisers, samples and effects that at times make the album more easily recognisable as Moby, Mylo or Kanye than The Streets. Andrew Geeves
CRYSTAL FIGHTERS
ASA
Star of Love Liberator Crystal Fighters sounds like a terrible 80s cartoon about NewAge space pilots, Amethyst and Jasper, who battle evil galactic corporations using only the power of healing rose quartz and essential oils. They are actually three English boys and two Spanish girIs, who claim to draw heavily on Basque folk and percussion in making their pastichey electro-pop. As ‘Swallow’ morphs from a panpiped ballad into a dubsteppy forest-rave and back again, it’s hard to imagine the live show not having its moments. (For a good ten seconds there, I was all FUCKYEAHBASQUERAVE.) They swing wildly from sugary calypsochanson to icily milquetoast club bangers that Rihanna would summarily discard like yesterday’s nipple covers, and sometimes hint at a talent for shimmering Europop synthesis, but they’re trying much too hard to fit into every possible current genre. On ‘I Do This Everyday’ (sic - it’s two words unless it’s an adjective, people) and Web hit ‘I Love London’, they ape M.I.A.’s Shoreditch patois over fourto-the-floor beats that are oppressive in their attempts to be visceral, and a robot-fart bass synth that sounds like your speakers aren’t hooked up properly. There’s no room in the mix, no space between noises to thrash and dance – it’s going for catchy, edgy harddance, and it sounds like a Skitzmix. If they’d approached this with a smidgen of Diplo’s fine-tuned genius for turning urban micro-genres into innovative, irresistible pop, or even just M.I.A.’s dictatorial bombast, it might have worked. Think of it as a musical Skip’s Scramble – more ingredients does not equal more deliciousness. They could mean every word of this - or it could be a calculated pastiche of 2010’s noisy-edgy, 2009’s tokengirl cutesy and 2011’s obscureethnic… Exhaustingly dull.
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
Beautiful Imperfection Cartell Music “I wanted to create something that would make people feel uplifted,” Asa has said of her second album, Beautiful Imperfection. After a preliminary listen, the French singer-songwriter of Nigerian descent - born Bukola Elemide - has fulfilled her brief. The album’s production value is remarkably smooth and the songs well constructed if, at times, slightly generic in sound. Although citing African diva Angelique Kidjo and fellow Nigerians Fela and Femi Kuti as influences, Elemide makes little use of rhythms, melodies and instrumentation from her ancestral country. As Janelle Monae’s visual doppelganger (blame the asymmetric fauxhawk and pedal pushers), Elemide’s music is more suited to a ‘Pop’ rather than ‘World’ classification; her deeply soulful croon echoes a diversity of artists including India Arie (‘Why Can’t We’), Lily Allen (‘Maybe’), Amy Winehouse (‘Be My Man’), Fiona Apple (‘Questions’) and, unexpectedly, Sneaker Pimps’ Kelli Dayton (‘Preacher Man’). That’s not to say imperfection doesn’t have its fair share of representation in the titular dichotomy. ‘This world is full of pain / There’s people dying everywhere / Can’t someone tell me who’s to blame?” Elemide queries on ‘Maybe’, before offering on 'The Way I Feel', “I feel pain / But as long as this world keeps turning round / I know it won’t last forever”. It’s a stoic brand of optimism which characterises the album; through her simple yet effective lyrics, Elemide communicates her resolute determination to experience life’s beauty regardless of its imperfections. Uplifting indeed. Anchored in a strong awareness of life’s bittersweet complexities, the beauty of Asa’s album resonates on a level deeper than synthetic smiles and air kisses.
The London Sessions EMI LCD Soundsystem benefit more than most from a live recording treatment, due in part to James Murphy’s obsession with sound, and in part to the group's innate ability to gel together as a singular unit. Brisk and electric, this album is a masterful piece of work that really couldn’t have come from anyone else. Riding high off their alleged retirement last year, The London Sessions offers new treatments of some of the punk-funkers’ most adored tunes, conveniently doubling as a far superior Best Of than anything their label will eventually put out. You hear more instruments and less faders, and the raw power that Murphy originally envisioned for his project finally sees the light of day. For proof, head straight to the end of the record for a cowbell-rocking, bass-stomping ‘Yr City’, which could take on The Rapture in a bar and whup their asses without breaking a sweat. If it’s even possible, the gang sound tighter and more limber than they do on their three records, stripped of excess production and attitude. You can really hear Murphy having fun for the first time in a long time with a choppier paced ‘Daft Punk’ - and even the sensuous, measured groove of ‘Get Innocuous’ has a freewheeling spontaneity to it. Its a joy to listen to, from the romance of ‘All I Want’ to the insistent pulse of ‘Pow Pow’. This live album is the next best thing to those who missed them last year or last week. The London Sessions may be Murphy and co.’s swan song, but man is it a good one. Jonno Seidler
Andrew Geeves Caitlin Welsh
INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK LITTLE MURDERS Dig For Plenty Off The Hip Records The mod revival of the late 1970s seems an eternity away: Vespa scooters, green parkas and Fred Perry shirts have given way to Subaru four-wheel drives, boot-cut denim jeans and pastel shirts. Mod music, rooted in the black soul and R’n’B sounds of the ‘60s, spliced with the attitude of punk, lives on - the mod subculture will never die - but right now, society seems as mod as a Leyland P76.
32 :: BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11
But nobody’s told Little Murders. Undeniably one of Australia’s preeminent mod-revival bands, their hiatus effectively began in the late 1980s, but the Melbourne band has resurfaced with the band’s first album in over 25 years. Crucially, Dig For Plenty isn’t an attempt to dwell on, or rekindle, the band’s past glories; there’s no pretentious youthful attitude or sharpedged social commentary. It's just an album chock-full of melody and spice. Rob Griffiths’ songwriting has lost little, if any, of its precision. The rocking edge of ‘For You’ is packed full of loutish harmonies and Rickenbacker riffs, while ‘Pretty Penny’ is a perfectly
crafted power-pop song bursting straight out of central casting. ‘Roxy (I’m Digging Your Scene)’ is as sweet and fresh as teenage love in the back of the parents’ station wagon with Paul Weller on the radio; ‘Running Man’ throws up a bit of skiffle and Billy Bragg for good measure; ‘One More Chance’ spits out a lick worth bottling, preserving and savouring for time immemorial. The last time I had anything to do with a fashion magazine, pundits were talking about an ‘80s revival. Fuck that noise. Give me the glorious world of mod, and give me Little Murders any day. Peter Toohey
OFFICE MIXTAPE And here are the albums that have helped BRAG HQ get through the week...
PENGUIN CAFE ORCHESTRA - Union Cafe UNKLE - Where Did The Night Fall MENOMENA - I Am The Fun Blame Monster
HERMITUDE - Alleys To Valleys SUFJAN STE-VENS - The Age Of Adz