What's New?: 8.9.2011

Some bits found on sweet deals at the clearance sale at the local Borders. . .



David Bowie — Space Oddity 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (1969/2009)

You know what? I like David Bowie as a confused folk rocker. I do recall hearing the proper album in full many years ago whilst working at the used record store. But I was just into other stuff back then, so its great nuances didn't stick out like that back then. Of course, the title track is an all time classic (even though I've always preferred the lesser heard re-recorded version from the Scary Monsters sessions). But I, like many people, knew not much else from the rest of the album. When I went and properly revisited it, I rediscovered a wonderful folk rock opus. Sure, not unique at all when you consider what else was coming about in 1969. But, sheesh, Bowie is Bowie. He just has something about him that can't be denied. Maybe it's his sense of melody that makes something like the nine minute 'Cygnet Committee' a lot more engaging than it may appear to be initially. I also love that the majority of the material here is acoustic-guitar based. The proper album on disc one is a somewhat slow, meditative affair (explaining why I like it so much), while disc two indulges in pure dorkery of the highest order. One of the initial demos of the title track is included and it's just pure fun hearing the primitive synthesizers. BBC sessions, non album singles and differing single takes of album cuts round out disc two. And, with stuff like 'London Bye Ta Ta' you hear the Bowie that was in the making. A really fantastic highlight of the whole thing is the previously unheard 'Conversation Piece' which sounds, oddly enough, like a less rockin' Neil Young. It's already gotten numerous spins from me and I imagine it will spark a new re-interest of sorts to Bowie in general (even though I love him already; I guess consider him neglected).

Radiohead — Amnesiac Deluxe Edition (2001/2009)

Even though I have my reservations about releasing a "deluxe" edition of an album less than ten years after it was initially released (I imagine Capitol was pissed that they didn't re-align), I have to admit that having disc two of this thing is mighty grand. To have all of the album's eight (!!!!) b-sides in one place is definitely handy. 'Worrywort', 'Fog' and 'Cuttooth' are just godlike. It's no secret that Amnesiac is, by far, my vote for best Radiohead album. So this deluxe edition just seals the deal for me. B-sides? All fantastic. Live stuff? Revelatory. Although, why was the version of 'Like Spinning Plates' from I Might Be Wrong — Live Recordings included? (Smart guy: "Because it's epic, jackass" Me: "Oh, right"). Really just makes me think even higher of what is clearly a masterpiece. Closest Thom and the boys have yet come to being as awesome as the 80's post-punk bands they worship.

London riots: I lament you.

~Austin

Gavin Friday — Catholic

Gavin Friday doesn't just make albums anymore. In the first fifteen years of his recording career (beginning with the Virgin Prunes and continuing as a solo artist), he released roughly eight albums. Since 1996's wonderfully weird pop experiment Shag Tobacco, he released some film scores (hard to credit as a true solo effort) and displayed several performance art pieces that were not recorded. To say that Catholic is a highly anticipated album —and, surprisingly, an unexpected return— for me is an understatement.

I honestly expected him to never make another album again. And yet, here he is: making his fourth solo album over two decades after his first. There is much changed this time around. The passionately falsetto vocal flourishes are still there, alongside the lush pop backdrops, but the streamlined production and toned down sarcasm is entirely new. Indeed, where he was artsy and playfully facetious in the past, he is now intimately dedicated to delving into his heart and mind. The melodramatic musical backings provide for the the calmest Gavin Friday album to date.

And yet, all of the this seems practically irrelevant when you consider one integral aspect: longtime collaborator Maurice "The Man" Seezer is nowhere to be found.

Amongst self-realizations galore, too many accounts of past mistakes and a generally nostalgic view of just about everything, the album reeks of personal revelations. That paints the picture of an album too dour for its own good, and yet, here is new collaborator Herbie Macken popping up in all the familiar musical positions that Seezer once occupied.

Oh, and Gavin declaring he is in love several times throughout the album.

At its core, Catholic is a breakup album. But, it's a little more complicated than just that. At the same time it's about loss, it's also about personal redemption. I have no idea who the bulk of these songs are about, but they do feel very specific.

Take a song like 'It's All Ahead of You' for instance. Besides it being quite possibly the prettiest thing Gavin Friday has ever done, it fulfills an incredibly articulate point of view from one estranged lover to another.

"It's all ahead of you if want it. It's all behind you, if you can let it go. . .Do you know that the best is yet to come?"

Wonderful stuff.

If I were to compare this to any of Friday's previous albums, I'd say it's most easily likened to Adam 'n' Eve because it takes on a very misleading stock "alt rock" approach; very polished on the surface, but carefully layered upon closer inspection. Instead of coming off as an overcooked cheesefest, every song offers a different approach to mainstream "alt-rock." The one track where the album actually does rock out ('Where'd You Go? Gone') sticks out on sheer dynamics alone (not to mention, it's easily a musical highlight).

With the closer 'Lord, I'm Coming' Gavin Friday recaptures his older theatrical persona, as he takes on the role of someone on their death bed and the realizations that encounter someone in that situation. A darkly beautiful homage to life's codas, it stands as an incredibly brain nutritious closer to an album filled with enough brain food to keep me going for quite a while.

It also just happens to be catchy as heck at the same time.

He has a way with words that has become refreshingly direct. He can say something convoluted one line and then redeem himself the next with the simplest arrangement of words. It's as if he is talking to someone so specifically that there is an aural paradigm shift that takes place and the most ambiguous words become the most appropriate. Therefore, all of us are drawn in and all of us can relate.

Album's defining quote: "Once I was young and then I grew up."

Don't wait so long to make another album, please.

~Austin

David Sylvian — Died in the Wool: Manafon Variations

Listening to David Sylvian's post-millennium albums (save for Nine Horses, which was indisputably a crowd pleaser), you're just confronted with the darkest, dreariest side of the human mind. Most of the music is acapella and it has the sense to it that it was conceived by a man in total seclusion, just pondering away at his thoughts for hours in a starkly lit room over several cups of decaffeinated tea. Yeah: not tons of fun, but grounds for some serious soul discovering.

I kept my thoughts on the initial Manafon album brief because I found it a very difficult album to listen to. Truth be told, I've not gone back to it much since my initial few run-throughs. If the man has a knack for something, it's making his audience uncomfortable. But it's not in that Miles Davis way where I don't want to hear his next move. I just don't want to be able to relate to it as much as he is able to make me.

Make no mistakes, Died in the Wool is not a remix album in the same sense that The Good Son vs. The Only Daughter was. Where that album had guests take on the task of basically making the songs fully arranged with complete band backing tracks, Died in the Wool just simply makes the already sparse arrangements a bit more orchestral. Consequently, not as sparse, but not necessarily as immediately as accessible either. Indeed, most of the songs rely on a very post-modern classical ideal. The strings are atonal and unpredictable. Dissonantly beautiful one second, bleak and menacing the next, with accents of woodwinds and David's voice as the articulate centerpiece, Died in the Wool isn't so much a remixing job as it is a revision.

There are reused vocal tracks with new arrangements (and different titles) and some things that are just plain old brand new. If you picked up the odds and ends collection Sleepwalkers, you were treated to a couple of Manafon-period outtakes that, along with the proper album and this new revised version, make for the ultimate deluxe downer edition of the album.

As the music stands, I actually find this version the most listenable, as the string accompaniments are able to fill the space, but not clutter the dynamics. In the case of some songs —most namely, the title track— I would say that this version is an improvement. However, as such sparse music demands total attention on all of the elements, the vocals inevitably take the spotlight. David is bummed. He has been for a while. And yet, even when treading familiar water, he still finds ways to be poignant and articulate as few vocalists are able to be in contemporary times. I just wish he could look at the bright side more often (take, for instance, 'Small Metal Gods,' the one time that he does, and it's clearly the highlight of both versions of Manafon).

It's not until the all new, eighteen minute track 'When We Return You Won't Recognise Us' that it may occur to the listener that David Sylvian's music sounds like no one else' output, past or current. He is blazing trails into territory only hinted at by others. I often hear this music and think that while other combos are using a hybrid of instrumental prog and post-shoegaze sounds, David Sylvian is actually creating a music that is post-modern in its rock and roll singer pretenses. Blending atonal post-modern classical, hints of free jazz, glitchy post-production and a good old fashioned confessional singer/songwriter narrative, I think of his current output in the most literal interpretation of "post-rock" music.

I just wish he would tour America. Dammit.

~Austin

The Horrors — Skying

I'm probably too old to be getting as much enjoyment out of this album as I am. But I've always said in the past that it's not an issue of how much you wear your influences on your sleeve — it's how you use those influences as a jumping off point that matters.

I know very little about where the Horrors came from. I mean, the basics are there: London band, started noisy. From what I'm to understand, every one of their so far three albums has been quite different from the last. But if Skying has anything to say about it, the band will be looked back upon as one of the most faithful —and simultaneously, one of the most creative— bands of the new millennium post-punk revival.

Sure, there's shades of all the greats here: Cure, Joy Division, et cetera, et cetera. But what really sets this album —and the Horrors in general— apart from their deplorably derivative and obnoxiously pretentious immediate predecessors is genuine interest and love of the music they are playing. Indeed, on Skying, it feels like honest restoration and not just a halfhearted attempt at recreating something.

Take an earnest approach to the usual 80's new wave influences and throw in a completely unforeseen shoegaze —indeed, a nearly psychedelic— element and you get a formula for something that would've been unique in 1991 — not to mention twenty years later. Indeed, when the small keyboard symphony of opener 'Changing the Rain' hits its chorus, it's clear that this band sticks out in 2011 — but not because they sound like they came from this generation.

For most of the album's fifty or so minutes, it settles into a very convincing dream pop groove. And, I guess, if I had one big criticism of it, that would be it: it sticks in that one lane almost too well (and I say this like we couldn't have thrown that same criticism at the Cocteau Twins all along). But, well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it (hello again there, Robin and Liz).

Truly, the band sounds absolutely enamoured with all of the great British rock music that was ignored by the mainstream in the wake of punk. The influences are countless and I can name drop bands for days that this album reminds me of, but I can't really say anything specific because there are just simply shades of influence. There are no direct nicks, be them through riffs or melodies. The band has just found a way to convincingly capture a snapshot of a vibe, a mood, a complete generation of sound.

Take a song like 'Endless Blue' for instance. Sure, in 2011, I can go and label it a complete Chameleons imitation. But, the fact remains, besides members of that band, I don't recall anyone doing a Chameleons imitation this well. Singer Faris Badwan seemingly can't help but sound like Mark Burgess (as he does for the entire album) while guitarist Josh Howard has Reg's tone nailed. Insert the flawless tempo and arrangement shift and I'm sold. Pretty stunning stuff, actually.

Amidst the rockin' and yet dreamy closing three song trilogy ('Moving Further Away,' 'Monica Gems' and especially 'Oceans Burning') is where the largest influence that looms over the album shines brightest. And I can't really help but love that, finally, someone has gone properly back to the Verve's A Storm in Heaven for inspiration, as it's one of the most sonically unique albums in modern British rock. Throw in some especially trippy moods lifted from Slowdive and you get a fittingly climatic closing to the Horrors' mini-masterpiece.

I can't say enough good about this album, honestly. Already a big fan of the music that clearly inspired it, I've been waiting for years for a band to come along and not just play new wave like like their favorite bands did, but to play it like they were there: simultaneously inspired by, and trying to outdo, all of their great peers.

Because this album surely would have fit right in with those greats had it existed twenty years ago.

~Austin

What's New?: 8.1.2011

British pop stuff, mostly. . .

(but not "britpop" **shudder**)



Roachford — self-titled (1988)

Kind of an overproduced British soul-rock thing. I picked it up because it was name checked as a similarity to Terence Trent D'arby's early work. It's like that stuff, but a little less organic and more dated-sounding. The songs are a bit cheesy too. I don't hate it though, because it is a pretty convincing meshing of styles. Of all things, it reminds me a bit of the Style Council at times. I really do like the song 'No Way' as well. But overall, yeah, it's just ok. Glad I only spent 98¢ on it on Half.com.

Terence Trent D'arby — Neither Fish nor Flesh (1989)

Fuck the hate, this album is serious bidness. It's more organic, funkier and the songs are just all around better than The Hardline. Why could anyone deem this clearly superior product subpar? Because you're an asshole that got mad at him for challenging the Beatles. That's why. I think it's time we just address this right now: Good ol' merckah didn't take too kindly to that shit and it was high time for a backlash when he released an even better album in its wake. It's like what Prince was trying to do at the time, but better. 'Attracted to You' is about as close to James Brown as the 80's ever got, while 'Roly Poly' nearly outdoes Prince at his own game and 'To Know Someone Deeply Is To Know Someone Softly' makes a case for the tag of "Neo-Soul" being pure bullshit the entire time. I mean, seriously guys (who am I talking to?). This album kicks butts and takes names like it's been advertising that it's going to do such a thing for at least six months previous. Call him pretentious if you will, but definitely don't write him off because of it. Because this album will make a fool of you. I really like the dichotomy at play throughout the album that pursuing a relationship in a world so torn seems rather ridiculous, and yet it's still something most of us seek. A fantastically underrated album and definitely a candidate for lost classic status. Very easy to hear this album's influence on Maxwell as well (one of current favorites, to be sure). Love it.

Terence Trent D'arby — Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'arby (1987)

This album has good songs, it just takes forever to get to the point with them. The very first song ('If You All Get to Heaven') is case in point. It takes a full minute for the darn thing to actually get to the tune! Not that I don't like a good build up, but the way it's done on this album feels contrived. And the formula is unfortunately repeated a few times. Of course, 'Wishing Well' is the big hit and it's definitely in the vein of those classic giddy, well-intentioned and resonating, but ultimately meaningless, catchy as heck 80's pop tunes (see also: 'Just Like Heaven,' 'Melt With You' and so on). The album mostly sounds like a more euro-centric Prince of the time (how much does 'Let's Go Forward' remind you of Lovesexy, for instance?). I do like it quite a bit, just not as much as his follow up album. To close with a classic modernization of 'Who's Lovin' You' is effective, I must admit. Still, there's a lot of dated sounds here. But that the album still stands up as unique statement and, considering when it was released, that says something indeed.

Shelleyan Orphan — Century Flower (1989)

Kind of Bowie meets Fairport Covention at a Fleetwood Mac show in 1978. It's got those big swooping choruses and riffy moments, but mostly played on acoustic instruments and a mesmerizing female vocalist in Caroline Crawley (she's actually a bit reminiscent of Harriet Wheeler). The first three tracks on this thing blew me away. One of the best (and most convincing) integrations of violin into a pop/rock context I've ever heard, honestly (seriously, check out 'Tar Baby'). The best thing about this album is its restraint. You feel like the choruses, though already very captivating, should be all noisy and relentless. But they're not. They're just there: lovely and reserved. Pure class. It is unfortunately a case where the band toploaded the album with its best material, as nothing else really recaptures the awesomeness of those opening three tracks. But it is a good album. Definitely.

Shelleyan Orphan — Humroot (1992)

A helping hand from Boris Williams and Porl Thompson (who were both, at the time, of the Cure) really helps the duo flesh out their songs and the potential really sounds fulfilled here. A wonderful little carefree jangler like 'Burst' seemed impossible on Century Flower, but it sounds totally natural here. The big one here is the incredible ballad 'Sick.' A meditation on the intense inner feelings experienced whilst in love, its sparse vibrato jangle and leisurely pace feels like a dreamy sea of realization amidst a galaxy of insecurity. The rest of the album retains the mild folk-rock elements from before, but it's just better executed here. Not a bad one in the bunch. Excellent stuff.

Seal — self-titled (1991)

I avoided it for so long because I remember 'Crazy' being on the damn radio everyone hour, on the hour when I was ten (or so it felt like). Do love his voice. Rough most of the time, smooth when it needs to be. The acid-house opener 'The Beginning' wins points with me because it's a song about music. I just like when music celebrates itself. Like, yeah, your broken heart is awesome, tell me about it and I'll listen. But what do I really want to hear about? How awesome music is! I mean, who can disagree with that? Assholes, that's who (apologies to deaf people everywhere!). It's big budget pop music. I like that some of the songs have mini-movements in them (take the acoustic first half of 'Deep Water' contrasting with the fully produced second half, for instance — that works really well). Enough time has passed for me to hear 'Crazy' now and appreciate it as just a really god pop song. There is a bit of U2-itis to the whole thing where the music seems to have this sense of self-importance that threatens to drown out the appealing tunes with a really "poignant" "message" that ends up being about nothing. But, at this point, that doesn't happen. The closer 'Violet' is just plain excellent. An eight minute meditation on the confused realization that it's time to move on from a failed relationship. It's the one track where the message is spot on and he totally nails it. The musical backing is nearly ambient in its scope, but with an added backbeat. It almost seems like the whole album builds musically to this track, as it literally saves the best for last. And it really makes you appreciate the production of the entire album. Sure, it's big budget Trevor Horn production, but I dig his work with the Pet Shop Boys from the same era for similar reasons, so I took to this pretty well. Bottom line: it's just good pop music, with a flair for the dramatic side of things. I mean, I can't imagine anything half as artsy (or emotionally affective) coming from a contemporary pop musician, can you?

~Austin