It's not boring... It's consistent!

I had some rather ambitious ‘Most Anitcipated Albums of ‘09’ list cooked up but it seemed a little silly, as one of the albums of the year fell into my lap (courtesy of Beat magazine). While this is technically doubling up, I think it’s too great a record to receive too much attention.

(EDIT: So it turns out not only was my review published in Beat, but it was made CD Of The Week, which means it got up onto Beat's website! Hooray!)

Akron/Family - Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free

(Dead Oceans, 2009)

The album cover for Akron/Family’s latest is a raggedy, tie-dyed rendition of the American flag. It’s a fitting image, as the band’s music is a skewed version of Americana. Like fellow nationals Wilco or a loose-limbed Flaming Lips, their latest finds the group exploring and experimenting new sounds without aggravating the listener.

It might, however, come as a shock to anyone who familiarised themselves with Akron/Family through 2007’s Love Is Simple.

Set Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free could be the work of an entirely new band and it marks a turning point in Akron/Family’s career, displaying not only a new liberation and innovation but, it is also an album of ‘firsts’. Their first as a three-piece after the departure of founding member Ryan Vanderhoof, their first for a new label (Dead Oceans) and their first self-produced record.

They are not alone however, accompanied by a small buffet of horns, woodwind and strings that not only complements their core arrangements but enabling the grander visions on offer here.

Here is a band that treats songs like ideas, not just another name to put on the set list - and it shows. It’s almost impossible to predict where the album is headed next, as it splays its way from one musical spectrum to the next offering a bevy of delightful surprises (as well as surprising delights) along the way.

The album opens with the Afrobeat influenced Everyone Is Guilty and River . Two cuts that are proof that Vampire Weekend aren’t the only ones who have given Paul Simon’s Graceland another spin recently. The former starts with an incessant groove before teetering into cyclic guitar patterns and multi-tracked chanting reminiscent of Yeasayer, River however takes a similar blueprint but blooms into a lilting anthem.

The territory suddenly shifts with the experimental drones of Creatures and then a harmonica on the opening of The Alps & Their Orange Evergreen introduces a more traditional folk/alt-country sound; a sound that follows for the (semi)title track Set ‘Em Free, Pt 1.

Then there’s the rollicking epic that is Gravelly Mountains of the Moon, beginning with docile flutes, then a lurching horn ensemble, before exploding into a full blown psych-rock wig out. Following the lush Many Ghosts comes the burst of aggressive static that is MBF. The elegiac They Will Appear winds the record down to the finish, followed by the warm paean of Sun Will Shine transforming into a drunken bluster of horns.

The final track Last Year finishes with a chorus framed against a simple piano pattern, repeatedly singing “Last year was a hard year for such a long time/ This year is gonna be ours”

If Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free reaches enough ears yearning for new music, then 2009 is most certainly theirs.

Check it out:

Stream Everyone Is Guilty from the band’s MySpace

River courtesy of Stereogum

P.S. Seems I wasn’t the only writer who noticed the whole album artwork analogy, it either shows that great minds think alike – or a complete lack of ideas amongst the music press…

Here’s some examples:

AllMusic.com Review

The Line Of Best Fit Review

Drowned In Sound Review

Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plauge Lovers (Columbia/Sony, 2009)

Poor old Manic Street Preachers, they just can’t seem to escape the spectre of Richey Edwards.

An original founding member, he was the band’s key songwriter and controversy magnet until he famously up and disappeared in February 1995, now missing presumed dead. It’s a tragic story, but the remaining members – James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore - overcame adversity and delivered one of rock’s triumphant comebacks in the form of 1996’ Everything Must Go. They then rode a series of patchy but doggedly determined albums until the career slump of Lifeblood. It risked finishing the group off until they pulled a stunning turn-around with the commercially and critically viable Send Away The Tigers.

The key point being that by this time it seemed everyone – including the band themselves – had respectfully laid Edwards’ legacy to rest. But here they go picking at old scabs and reminding everyone again.

Intended as a tribute, their ninth studio album amalgamates lyrics from Richey Edwards’ old journals, Wire, Bradfield and Moore crafting new music to accompany it.

Tribute or no, it’s a regressive move. Send Away The Tigers introduced the Manics to a new generation of (younger) fans; even NME magazine – the mouthpiece of the fickle youth – crowning them with the ‘Godlike Geniuses’ award

It’s a gamble then to assume that their newer fans will follow them on their journey back to their political art roots. It’s as if they want to show the new bloods their tragic history.

It’ll surely be a thrill for long term Manics fans. Journal For Plague Lovers finds them returning to the rougher edges of their earlier work, complete with raw production from Steve Albini and Dave Eringa, complete with the same acerbic poet laureate vernacular and sampled philosophical recordings of their earlier records. It’s as if Journal For Plauge Lovers follows an imaginary timeline where everything after 1994’s The Holy Bible never happened. Which implies an awful bit of wish fulfillment – that Richey Edwards never disappeared. Aesthetically speaking, not much has changed but it’s strange that MSP should choose this point, when their stock hasn’t been higher than their mid nineties glory days, to choose to make a record like this.

The whole affair feels like a step backwards, after all this is what Send Away The Tigers did so well, blanketing it’s barbed social commentary in enjoyable guitar anthems laden with just enough hooks to generate a sing-a-long. It’s hard to imagine anyone singing along to wordy refrains like, “Oh the joy/Me and Stephen Hawking we laugh/We missed the sex revolution/When we failed the physical” (Me And Stephen Hawking).

In the end that’s very Manic Street Preachers. Why coast on the success with a Send Away The Tigers Part II when you can flick a big V sign at everyone and make it hard on yourselves?

Could it be the Manics were simply out of ideas? Surely they have too much love and respect for their fallen comrade to plunder his journals for the purposes of shortening their record contract. No, perhaps this is the final exorcism they need before they can finally move on.

Journal For Plague Lovers isn’t a bad record, it isn’t as bloated or creatively lean as 2004’s Lifeblood, but it’s certainly an act of willful rebellion, which is probably a fitting tribute to their old figurehead. After all here’s a band whose opening mission statement was an album called Generation Terrorists, and in that regard they’re still kicking and screaming twenty years after their birth.

Check it out:

Jackie Collins Existential Question Time from the band’s website

A brief taste of Peeled Apples on the band’s MySpace

Hopefully that’s inspired you to check out some great new music.

Also, be sure to check out my mate Sean’s brand spanking new blog: Sonic Sandwiches

Also avert your browsers back to NobodyMove! as it finally lurches back to life

Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen

Don't really have a theme or a plan for today's post, so sorry in advance if it's muddled and, heaven forbid, crap. Chalk it up to wanting to remain on my strict routine of one post per week.
So what to do, what to do.
Well I thought i'd originally just nick some of my reviews from Beat magazine that hadn't been published yet, but I'm feeling generous (that and I might be really creatively bankrupt somewhere down the line) - so instead I thought i'd just chat about some recent albums i'm really digging.

Ah! I just thought of a theme, consider the link between these two to be 'Wildly Unpopular Genres That I'm Trying to Defend (Again)' - yeah, that's catchy...

Pure Reason Revolution - Amor Vincit Omnia (Superball, 2009)

Firstly, the facts. Pure Reason Revolution are an English progressive rock band, only they're not your usual run-of-the-mill prog rock band. Well at least they're not anymore...
The band's debut, the excellent The Dark Third of 2006, was a refreshing, powerfully confident work and an assured opening statement from a group that made an oft criticised genre fresh and exciting again. Though heavily indebted to Pink Floyd, it's centrepiece Bright Ambassadors Of Morning named after a lyric from Floyd's track Echoes, it nevertheless managed to balance it's influences with a thrilling concoction of heavy rock, layered harmonies and the occasional flirtation into electronica.

Shortly after the Victorious Cupid E.P. in 2007 however, the band slid back into obscurity, the departure of two band members didn't help matters and it looked, for a while, like that it was the start and end of a great band. But thankfully posts on their MySpace site began small waves, releasing some unreleased material and hints of a complete change in sound. The remaining members Jon Courtney, Chloe Alpner, Paul Glover & Jamie Wilcox soldiered on.

Jump to today and we have Amor Vincit Omnia which signals the stylistic shift in the Pure Reason Revolution sound. Opening track Les Mahleurs signals the new intentions from the outset, bathed in staggered, bassy synths and a pure dancefloor backbeat, it could just as easily be something by The Presets or Cut Copy. It's quite the shock to any fan, but it soon becomes clear that the band haven't ditched all the elements that made them so great. Their boy/girl dual vocals (courtesy of Courtney & Alpner) remain essential, opening the album in fact, as well as their cylcic lyrical patterns that loop and dance on top of each other. The passionate melodies and singing lend the record a human quality in the face of the newly attached army of synths, keyboards and sequencers. This does result in a distinct lack of crunchy guitars and virtuosic drums, which isn't to say the record doesn't rock. One spin of Victorious Cupid or Deus Ex Machina dispell fears that the band have gone completley electronic. The focus instead has shifted into forging ahead with a modern integration of electronic music with the spirit of progressive rock.

Whereas the more traditionally influenced sounds of their debut will be missed, that void is much more likely to be filled than the strange new genre that the band have invented here.
No, Pure Reason Revolution instead have charted a course for an entirely new constellation that seamlessly combines electronica with prog rock affectations. There may not be long-winded guitar and keyboard solos or a fictional narrative running through Amor Vincit Omnia, but they sure as hell have managed to maintain the genre's character.
Witness the two track, three-part evolution of Keep Me Sane/Insane-Apogee-Requiem For Lovers which has all the lyrical pretension and musical progression of classic prog, but instead distilled into a focussed six minute mini-opus.

While the album's first half settles the listener into the brave new results of the group's experiments, it is the tail-end of the album that contains the biggest rewards. Bloodless begins a charming pallete of plink-plonk synths and sequenced horn parts before shiftinng into a melancholic hymn.Disconnect takes that most obvious electronic music staple, the vocoder, and uses it as a catalyst for an upbeat electro-ballad while The Gloaming is a ruminative epic that floats and builds into a trance.
The closing (semi) title track AVO is, appropriately, a show-stopper. Despite being one of the shortest tracks on the album, it manages to achieve an epic drama usually reserved for long-winded compositions. Thanks in part to its marked break halfway in, where the music halts in favour for a slowly rising three-part incantation of the album's latin title, which repeats as a meditative chant while the music rises into a powerful coda. That latin translates as "Love Conquers All" a theme that courses its way through the album, especially lyrically.

Amor Vincit Omnia is a triumphant return as well as a reimagination of Pure Reason Revolution and they should be commended for their invention alone. The three year gap since their debut could have resulted in a case of 'too little, too late' but instead they have risen against the odds to craft something strikingly new without sacrificing the components that made them so great in the first place.

Check It Out:
-Les Mahleurs & AVO can be streamed from the band's MySpace
-Plus here's a live performance of Deus Ex Machina



Mastodon - Crack The Skye (Reprise, 2009)

Mastodon always managed to stay just off the edge of my radar. Though I was intrigued by (of all things) their artwork and some of their alt-metal riffage, there was always something that put me off about their brutal approach, what seemed a tipping of the scales to the blunter end of metal fans. All that has happily changed with Crack The Skye.

The band's fourth album, it's a contradiction in terms in that it's a natural progression of the band's dense oft psychedelic metal but also a record whose softer edges may polarise long-term fans. It's precisely this calmer approach that has opened up the band's powerful sound to the tools of melody and harmony, the opening salvo of Oblivion and Divinations demonstrate a newfound grasp of harmony that makes for spacey (as opposed to fast, techincal) guitar solos and memorable choruses wihtout compromising the band's dense, heavy guitars.
Mastodon have always been the metal band's metal band, held in high esteem amongst their peers, their albums featuring collaboration with the likes of Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Cedric Bixler-Zavala (The Mars Volta) and Scott Kelly (Neurosis) who contributes vocals again here, on the title track.

Crack The Skye sees Mastodon in a freer, contemplative mood fulling giving in to their ambitions and musical explorations. Reuslting in them drifting further out into their heady, complex compositions. Not since Tool has a band dazzled so with its amazing song structures. At once invigorating the powerful rhtyhms and riffs that support them as well as justifying the extensive track lengths such as The Czar which shifts and mutates through four distinct sections, and winding closing track The Last Baron - both hitting the ten minute plus mark.

Supporting these vast excursions is the album's narrative, yes that's right Crack The Skye is a concept album. This will come as no surprise to those who have followed Mastodon thus far, they've covered an album about fire and flaming horses (Remission), an album based on Moby Dick and a trek up a mountain side battling against both the elements and fantastical beasts in the form of Blood Mountain.

So what is Crack The Sye's narrative then? well, *deep breath* it follows the story of a paraplegic who astral projects himself into a wormhole that takes him back to Tsarist Russia, where a cult of sorcerer-types discover his lost soul and put it into the body of Rasputin. Rasuptin then attempts to usurp the Czar but is murdered releasing both his and the protagonist's soul into the void, Rasputin then must lead the wandering astral projection back home but then they're confronted by the Devil who attempts to steal them, making for an epic final battle that could the harm both souls.

....or something like that.

To be honest it's not so much the story that is important, you hardly get the narrative from the lyrics anyway but as with most concept albums, it is a thematic thread that ties the complex explorations together. Besides, to follow the album in a strict story would take away from the mystery and psychedelic fug that the band manage to conjure anyway. Their power and rhythm becomes meditative and as each track burns and fades into each other it's like tectonic plates shifting, there's a drastic change in geography but it's still the same planet.

Massaging this combination of heavy metal aesthetics with moody, melodic ambience is producer Brendan O'Brien who has produced and mixed a number of cross-over acts, chiefly Incubus and Audioslave, which aids in reaching the kind of audience Mastodon is stretching out to.
Those worried that O'Brien's mainstream success would neuteur Mastodon's immense sound can rest easy, the whipcrack drums and complex guitar arrangements are cranked to the fore of the mix without getting in the way of the vocals.

Actually that's a key point to Crack The Skye, it's vocals are as important a texture now as the rest of the band unit. With lead vocals shared between the Ozzy Osbourne-ish yowl of Brett Hinds, bassist Troy Sanders and for the first time, drummer Brann Dailor. As well as swapping vocal duties, there are a number of subtle vocal harmonies that are peppered throughout the album, particularly on the psychedelic Quintessence and the mid sections of The Czar.

Crack The Skye might be an awful lot to take in for those not trained in prog rock escapades, high concept metal, stoner rock or anything in-between. But it's precisely the densely-layered textures and evolutions that emerge after several listens that make it such a rewarding and mysterious journey. This thinking man's metal may lose them some stubborn fans who refuse to let go of the Metallica chug that they used to make, but for the rest of us - we are openly welcomed to the strange new world of Mastodon.

Check it out:
-The suitably trippy official website of the album Crack The Skye
-Oblivion and The Czar on YouTube.

Whew - good old word count bug kicked in again.
Well, in the immortal words of Farmer Hoggett:
"That'll do pig, that'll do"

Lights, Camera... Audio?

The Rant seems to be diving into a few uncharted territories as of late, ie. video clips, irregularity, a lack of comments (oh wait...). So to bolster the freshness i thought i'd offer up another crazy interesting list. This time dealing with soundtracks in a little list I like to call...

10 SOUNDTRACKS THAT ARE BETTER THAN THE MOVIES THEY'RE FROM

Shazam! I would like to say that the idea for this post was my own but all due credit must go to my friend and fellow Ugly, Sam. It's all about movies - some bad, some good - in which the sound is superior to the visuals. There's a very simple test for this, would you rather listen to the soundtrack - generally in half the time - or watch the movie?

1. The Boat That Rocked

The film that started the discussion that led to this list I believe. Also a great example in that the film is not especially bad (though some will strongly disagree with me), but when you've got a two disc compilation of sure-fire classics as this, the film simply can't compete. It's only fair, after all, the film is all about peoples' passion for music and once again it shows writer/director Richard Curtis' great (if slightly schmaltzy) music taste.

Highlights:
The Turtles - Elenore
Procol Harum - Whiter Shade Of Pale
The Easybeats - Friday On My Mind

2. Garden State

I never really got Garden State, for a directorial debut (by star Zach Braff) it's fairly impressive. Overall though, despite starting well, it's ideas just didn't seem to gel for me. Not so the soundtrack, beginning with Coldplay's Don't Panic it goes from strength to strength with a consistent mood and tone that gravitates around acoustic instropection. From Indie darlings The Shins to some classics (Nick Drake, Simon & Garfunkl) and winding things down with an excellent cover of The Postal Service's Such Great Heights by Iron & Wine. And as much as I love Natalie Portman, it's hard to go past Sam Beam's dulcet tones.

Highlights:
The Shins - New Slang
Nick Drake - One Of These Things First

Iron & Wine - Such Great Heights (Postal Service Cover)

3. Vanilla Sky

Cameron Crowe is another director with impeccable musical taste, his years spent as a teenager submitting to Rolling Stone magazine certainly helped. As such his soundtracks are usually of a very high quality. Whether it was his youth captured in Almost Famous, almost single handedly turning Elton John's Tiny Dancer into a revival hit; or his earlier film Singles with it's tie-in with the Seattle grunge movement feautring cornerstone acts such as Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam & Soundgarden. But Vanilla Sky, his misunderstood Tom Cruise fronted remake of 2001, trumps them both. Featuring the biggest and most respected names in music (Radiohead, R.E.M., Dylan) alongside some personal choices of Crowe's (Red House Painters, Jeff Buckley). All this and he even managed to convince an ex-Beatle to record the title track as well as including an unreleased (at the time) Sigur Ros track in the ending sequence.

Highlights:
Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place
Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill
Julianna Gianni (Cameron Diaz) - I Fall Apart

4. I Am Sam

Speaking of The Beatles...
I Am Sam is all about a mentally handicapped father and his battle to keep his daughter, the link being he's obsessed with the fab four and the film is peppered with references. Or was it all an excuse for this cleverly marketed and executed soundtrack?
Even though The Beatles have been covered to death and even though there'll never better the originals, there's still some good takes on here and still better than the highly manipulative film.

Highlights:
The Vines - I'm Only Sleeping
Ben Folds - Golden Slumbers
Eddie Vedder - You've Got To Hide Your Love Away

5. Stigmata

The movie was a rubbishy thriller shot in the style of 90's slasher flicks with quasi-religious overtones. The soundtrack is automatically superior to the film in every way as it contains one of the greatest songs ever written: the remix of Björk's All Is Full Of Love - that eventually trumped her original album version by its inclusion on her Greatest Hits set. That epic aside, the soundtrack is still noteworthy with a selection of moody numbers by the likes of Massive Attack, Afro Celt Sound System and even David Bowie. The latter half of the CD is dedicated to the film's evocative score composed by none other than virtuoso rock pianist Mike Garson & Billy Corgan (back when Smashing Pumpkins weren't synonomous with 'desperate attempt to reclaim formy glory').

Highlights:
Björk - All Is Full Of Love
Natalie Imbruglia - Identify
Mike Garson & Billy Corgan - 1,000,000 Voices

6. The Darjeeling Limited

Just slightly predating Slumdog Millionaire's popularisation of Bollywood came Wes Anderson's quirky comedy (now that's a tautology) and it's compilation soundtrack of Bollywood pieces, predominantly from Indian auteur Satyajit Ray. Included also is Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go To (My Lovely), the key song from Hotel Chevalier, the short that precedes the film proper. It's meditative acoustic guitar chords and Sarstedt's swooping, circular melody seem to fit snugly alongside the majority of masala on offer here. Also included are some curios from The Kinks, The Rolling Stones and even some Debussey.

Highlights:
Peter Sarstedt - Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)
Shankar Jaikishan - Bombay Talkie
Vilayat Khan - Arrival In Benaras (from The Guru)

7. Marie Antoinette

Sofia Coppola had already set a trend for fashionable as well as enjoyable soundtracks with her previous films thanks to her musical buddies Air and Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine), for The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation respectively. But for her rock n roll portrait of the French monarch, Coppola went all-out with a two disc set. Though the film was criticised as a matter of style over substance, it was hard to fault the smorgasboard on offer in the audio department. It takes in 80's cult acts such as Bow Wow Wow, Siouxsie Sioux, The Cure and New Order as well as a healthy does of modern groups such as The Strokes, Aphex Twin and a return appearance from Air. When it came to the soundtrack Marie Antoinette let Coppola have her cake and eat it too.

Highlights:
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Hong Kong Garden
The Strokes - What Ever Happened?
Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy

8. Easy Rider

Bit of a controversial one, this. It's hard to argue against the importance of Easy Rider in ushering in a new wave of American cinema, nor it's influence - mirrored in the soundtrack. For better or worse, without Easy Rider we wouldn't have all those albums entiteld "music from and inspired by" or "music from the motion picture."It was one of the first to promote a compilation of contemporary tunes instead of an accompanying score, it's rock and garage sounds perfectly complemented the free spirit and controversy of the film too. It's soundtrack has become a part of popular culture, few can disassociate Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild without images of revving Harleys hitting the wide open desert road.

Highlights:
Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild
The Band - The Weight
Roger McGuinn- Ballad of Easy Rider

9. Purple Rain

It may be taken for granted now, and even laughably melodramatic on a revisited viewing, but back in 1984 Purple Rain was the coolest thing going around. Capitalising on Prince's rising success, it becomes clear the script and film are clearly shoehorned around the songs, some of the biggest of his career, even today. Conveniently presenting a sort of mythological back story to Prince's near-arrogant ambition and beguiling sexuality via a love story with protege Appolonia. That makes the film sound far more interesting than it is, save yourself the time and give the record a spin instead. Unlike the film, the album is wildly inventive, eventful and the display of a unique artist in full control of his artistic abilities and ambition.

Highlights:
Prince & The Revolution - Let's Go Crazy
Prince & The Revoltuion - When Doves Cry
Prince & The Revolution - Purple Rain

10. Godzilla

There can be no greater disparity between the quality of a film and it's soundtrack than Roland Emmerich's trainwreck remake of Godzilla. Perhaps in fear of the impending stinker to be, TriStar pictures went on an elaborate, multi-pronged advertising campaign that included roping in Sony Records to do the soundtrack. The resulting soundtrack (Godzilla: The Album) pooled deep and wide from Sony's excellent stable of labelmates featuring excellent original recordings from some killer bands, including a much touted re-tool of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir from Puff Daddy that managed to enlist Jimmy Page (Come With Me). Most ironically though, none of the tracks appeared in the film, though the record is annoyingly laced with samples of Godzilla's shriek. If you can put up with that though, it's a great collection that vastly outstrips the feces that was the cinematic equivalent.

Highlights:
Jamiroquai - Deeper Underground
Rage Against The Machine - No Shelter
Ben Folds Five - Air
Foo Fighters - A320
Silverchair - Untitled

And there you have it.
Got any suggestions or grievances? Feel free to comment below

If You Go Down To The Woods Today

For this post i'm going to touch on something that I would usually avoid, namely: music videos. Now, before I begin upon my little thematic playlist, let me put the rant in Al's Music Rant for you
I've never really liked music clips - i think of them like TV advertisements. Not in their function or purpose, but in the fact that the majority of them are awful. Which means that when a good one comes along it really stands out. Too many music videos take a banal premise and run with it for the entirety of its three minutes (the bitches and bling approach), that or they'll start off well and then drop the ball or just become boring over the course of the song.
There are some great artists and directors out there who treat the music video as an artistic medium on par with their artwork, music and image; but too many bands cast off their videos as an obligation. Few are the videos that have turned me onto a new band, i might hear the track and think it's good but a bad video can really stop me from checking out more as it may show a lack of creativity. Harsh? probably Fair? definitely. The only video that springs to mind that got me on to a band i'd never heard of -with the ensuing album being thoroughly enjoyable- was Carpark North's Human.
I also revile any video that tries to cutely take a visual interpretation of the song's lyrics or the name of the band. It's too weak a concept, even for two or three minutes - so don't do it. There's an alarming tendency for artists to stick timidly to their genre. Rappers gloat for the camera while they show off their monetary prospects in slow motion, Indie kids opt for dark, jagged dance halls maybe with the occasional choreographed dance from some tre chic indie chicks, electronic artists seem allergic to appearing in their own videos instead using animation or bad actors in their stead. And so on and so forth.
I totally understand demographics and visual consistency and all that rubbish. But just once, I wish a mainstream pop artist - let's say, oooooh Britney - would work with a visionary like, mmmmmm, Michel Gondry.

....oh wait, maybe Kylie Minogue beat her to it. And guess what? i like Kylie more than Britney (sorry, Ruth).

Starting to see my point? but enough, onward and upward. Anyway, I hosted my first show for 1700 yesterday, that's right. AMR has made the leap to TV (sort of), 1700 is a live music show on Channel 31 5pm weekdays, with yours truly hosting on Thursdays with the good lass Fawn.
But enough plugging, our clip of the week was Chairlfit's Evident Utensil and it got me thinking "there's an awful lot of music clips lately that have people prancing around in a forest!" And with a little research it turns out I was absolutely right. Enjoy

Chairlift - Evident Utensil
Director - Ray Tintori

This clip uses a fancy technique called 'datamoshing' - a highly technical process whose details i won't go into here, all you need to know is it makes for a very, very cool visual. Not a bad pop song too. It's twee sing-a-long obscured by some mysterious violence that's happening visually.

MGMT - Electric Feel Director - Ray Tintori
Ah! we have an auteur on our hands, Mr. Tintori has MGMT in an equally foresty, weirdly psychedelic environment. Pretty similar sans the datamoshing technique really.

Florence & The Machine - Dog Days Are Over
Director - Tom Beard
With this knowledge in mind, I assumed that this video too was done by Ray Tintori. It's suspiciously similar in theme and tone, perhaps there's a videos in forests for cool indie conspiracy afoot. But wait maye this all started with...

Sigur Ros - Gobbledigook (NSFW Version)
Director - Arni & Kinski

It's cheeky, innocent nudity is perfect for the bouncy acoustic incanation of the track. In short, here's a video i love as it continues the album's theme and art to a visual medium. There's something playful about it too, even if it may have inspired all these videos of people prancing about in the woods.

Death Cab For Cutie - Soul Meets Body
Director - Jon Watts

Even my beloved Death Cab join the club, sure they eventually head indoors to transmit their melancholy anthem across the globe, but that opening walk through a magic(ish) forest is pretty distinctive.

Goldfrapp - A&E
Director - Dougal Wilson

In the band's defense, this is more of a glade than a forest. But still plenty of prancing about, thanks to some cool choreography and what can only be described as 'Leave Men'. Killer track too.

Mogwai - Batcat
Director - Dominic Hailstone

Bringing us to the finish is Mogwai and their genuinely scary mini-horror movie. Set in a forest sure, but a distinct lack of frivolity here. The director, Hailstone, has previously worked with Chris Cunningham and as an effects man on Harry Potter. That explains a lot...

Not with a bang, but a whimper

Hello all,
so very sorry to be absent so long but i have been a very busy bee and the usual time and effort it takes to write a post or album review, i have been putting in to my Beat magazine submissions. Speaking of which - you should be picking up Beat anyway but - you should all be picking it up from your local record store (Dixons always seem to have a bevy of them).
So that's not all that's been taking up my time - i've also been involved in a Comedy Festival show called Occupation: Ugly. This isn't quite the place to be plugging it, but if you're interested check out the Comedicate or Comedy Festival websites.

Anyhoo, i've been tinkering with another themed playlist to tickle your earbones. Enjoy.

(EDIT: Ah, it just wouldn't be a return to blogging without being served a takedown notice, so the playlist now consists of the requisite YouTube clips)

AMR's Apocalypse Playlist

OK here's the deal, songs about the end of the world - literally or metaphorically - with your usual dose of music trivia as well as a fictional account of just what kind of end of the world scenario each track would be soundtracking. So get to the bunkers! pray for your souls! It's the end of the world!

David Bowie -Five Years
The Facts: The opening of Bowie's seminal 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, a concept album in itself about the end of the world. Five Years until the end of the world, or in our case Fifteen Tracks.
The Fiction: Let's stick with the orignal, as the lyrics say "News had just come over/we had five years left to cry in

/ News guy wept and told us/ earth was really dying." What a great scenario, five years seems too soon to rectify any damage and yet far enough to have to deal with the awful dread of the inevitable end. Sounds like any evening news bulletin really...

My Chemical Romance - The End
The Facts: Concept albums are a great place to mine for armageddon scenarios, so too we have the emo royalty of My Chemical Romance and The Black Parade. Setting the tone and template for the album in sound and theme, it too helps our playlist with some dramatic posturing. The Fiction: A vast crowd of people convene and rally against the dying of light and life, marching down the city streets as the fires explode from the concrete and people collapse in the streets with jagged smiles on their faces.

Muse - Apocalypse Please
The Facts: With a brilliantly pun-tastic title and suitably apocalyptic lyrics, Bellamy charges his piano into a cacophony of rhythm supplied by his bandmates to create a suitably grandeloquent finale. The Fiction: As the last rockets escape from planet earth, those left behind - stranded - embrace their final moments as a kind of biblical miracle, as devastating as it is awe-inspiring.

Blackfield - End Of The World
The Facts: The side-project for Porcupine Tree frontman Steven Wilson and Tel Aviv's answer to John Lennon: Aviv Geffen, Blackfield give the apocalypse an appropriately melancholy anthem. The Fiction: What if the human race weren't wiped out by a single cataclysmic event but instead had to limp on dealing with the fallout of the apocalypse? It may as well be heaven or hell really...

Gorillaz - Last Living Souls
The Facts: The end of the human race is filtered via Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's cartoon simians and their genre defying pop. The Fiction: a sea of burnt fields and craggy mountains, a small band of pilgrims wander across the landscape in search of salvation, though secretly they have abandoned all hope of ever surviving - they soldier on in unison, casting aside their grievances with a sing-a-long.

U2 - Until The End Of The World
The Facts: The theory is that this song is actually about the final hours of Jesus Christ, trust U2. But i think it works perfectly well as a modern parable for modern excess and narcissitic partying - something Jesus represents anway right? The Fiction: With the impending news of the end of the world, everyone just ignores it and gets down and dirty with mass hedonism as has never been seen before. Shopping, partying, fornicating - it's all here in one last excessive hurrah.

Dave Matthews Band - When The World Ends
The Facts: The apocalypse as love song. If your'e lucky enough to be with the one you love when the clock hits zero it would make sense to sing your love's praises until the final moments, complete with a cheekily abrupt cut-off The Fiction: A Romeo and Juliet recite their final vows as their shadows are framed by a vast mushroom cloud.

Tom McRae - End Of The World News (Dose Me Up)
The Facts: Using modern media infatuation and saturation as a metaphor, McRae's cynical lullaby decries religion and apathy as any kind of salavation from not only the end of the world, but the state of it. The Fiction: The depression and sadness of mankind is so dense, it's like a living fog that winds its way across states, oceans and people. Engulfing and consuming everything in its path.

Medeski, Martin & Wood - End Of The World Party
The Facts: Like a funky theme tune to a seventies cop show of the same name, jazz fusionists Medeski, Martin & Wood offer a glimpse to earth's last days as toe-tapping boogie. The Fiction: Against a sky of permanent midnight - humans, monsters, demons and angels all live together on the burnt out rock of Earth's once lively surface. But hey, they're all in it together.

Metallica - My Apocalypse
The Facts: It just wouldn't be an Apocalypse Playlist without some heavy metal now would it? And who better to provide it than Metallica and a cut from Death Magnetic, in which they recapture the speed metal theatrics of their eighties output complete with grisley lyrics and chugging guitars. The Fiction: Just picture any number of Metal album covers and take your pick. Whether it's an oversized demon reaping a bloody swathe over us or an army of skeleton soldiers marching upon earth's feeble forces. It's any and all of the above, but always with a maniacal, toothy laughter echoing in the background - is that the sound of James Hetfield himself?

Avenged Sevenfold - The Wicked End
The Facts: Avenged Sevenfold manage to blend not only punk aesthetics with progressive metal tendencies, but also some emo-centric lyrics with full on Chrstian fire and brimstone. And there is no better example of this than their 2005 album City of Evil and the seven minute opus of The Wicked End, complete with a choral breakdown that Tim Burton would approve of. The Fiction: Continuing our metal theme, the grim reaper sweeps the land in a skeletal chariot. Cause unknown, only now the consequences, as his gleaming scythe cuts down thousands upon thousands in a sweeping carve.

Tool - Ænema
The Facts: The (sort of) title track from their second studio album, Tool imagine if Los Angeles was swallowed by the ocean, taking with it the surfeit of artificialiality, consumer culture and a bunch of scum who deserve it (Fuck Ron L. Hubbard/and fuck all his clones). In short, flushing away all the crap and starting over - just like an enema. The Fiction: Let's run with that swallowed L.A. scenario because it would also mean the destruction of Hollywood, and probably America's economy proper. Plus all this is happening because the polar icecaps melted - so goodbye Australia, England, and 3/4 of the world's surface.

The Doors - The End
The Facts: Best remembered as the opening to Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. There has been few greater synergies between song and image as this. Robby Krieger's chromatic guitar fiddling combined with Jim Morrison's Oedipal fantasy make for a spooky and terrifying end indeed. The Fiction: War. Endless, bloody, meaningless War. So consumed by the engines of conflict the world eventually pushes the big red buttons the world over and blows itself up in a smoke of nuclear arms, biological weapons and blind hatred.

Radiohead - Idioteque
The Facts: A harsh, glacial beat loops as a wailing Thom Yorke intones a series of holocaust driven prophecies and buzz words. It could all be hyperbole if it wasn't for Yorke's keening sincerity, "We are not scaremongering." The Fiction: With the sun's energy and power fading, and mankind's race to the outer stars lapsing horribly - the earth is transformed into a dark and icy tundra of desolation.

R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
The Facts: In actual fact it's considered a surreal polemic on the re-election of Ronald Reagan, but with Stipe's fabulously open-ended lyrics, it's always been used as a chirpy anthem for our own annihilation. The Fiction: That's great it starts with an earthquake, and ends with a big song and dance. Because hey, we're all done for, but we feel fine.

Sigur Ros - Untitled #8 (Aka Poplagid)
The Facts: Though the lyrics of the Icelandic group's album ( ) are utter nonsense, (Hopelandic they call it) to which this track closes, you can still feel the emotion in them. This is more of a personal choice because in a state of fevered sleep i once had a terrifyingly realistic dream soundtracked by this song (which follows). That and the band often use it to close their live sets, which led me to dub the track an example of Ragnarok-N-Roll. The Fiction: A planet-sized meteor slouches it's way towards earth, as people of every colour, creed and nation gather to face the comet, so too does a prophetic vision reveal that the oncoming meteor too is populated. It's own inhabitants reflecting earth's in a firey mirror. As the two planets' inevitable collison draws ever closer, the striking similarities become clearer and clearer till it is as if each face of the human race is staring into it's exact copy. A large flash and...

Spooky, well, barring any world-wide plauges or a worsening in the GFC, i should be getting back to a more regular pattern of blogging. But in the meantime, do pick up Beat, and check out my various album reviews.

Cheers Dears

No Lily On The Horizon (aka It's Not Me, It's U2)

Is it just me or is 2009 just not zinging with music yet? Perhaps i'm jumping the gun a bit (It is only March) or perhaps i've been in this blogging game long enough to know that it's not brilliant music all the time. Don't get me wrong, there's already some highlights in recent times i can think of, but i've been finding myself struggling to passionately vomit post after post (a condition that's normal i promise). Jaded amateur music criticism aside, here's some reviews of some albums I have been enjoying. Take a gurnsey, oh, and apologies for the epic word count, but i figured after two weeks off i'd make up for lost time.

Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You (Regal, 2009)

A lot has happened in the three years since Lily Allen’s debut, 2006’s Alright, Still. Allen’s surprise success, word of mouth via myspace and sparky media presentation, opened the doors to a number of talented young female artists in England. Most notably Kate Nash and Adele, and to a lesser extent Duffy and Laura Marling, still these songstresses haven’t filled the void left by Allen’s absence.

Opener Everyone’s At It sets the tone for the album and is more ambitious than anything from her debut, mixing pulsing drums and a wealth of studio trickery with Allen’s still-cutting lyrics, here focusing on the behind-the-doors attitude to drugs.

Following is The Fear, an excellent lead single, rich in production with a chorus of canny synths for a refrain and Allen’s self-referential words pushed to the fore, “I want to be rich and I want lots of money/ I don’t care about clever I don’t care about funny.” The irony being that her open approach is at once both clever and funny.

Take Not Fair mixing humour with straight up realism “Oh I lie here in the wet patch/in the middle of the bed/ I’m feeling pretty damn hard done by/ spent ages giving head/then I remember all the nice things that you ever said to me/Maybe I’m just overreacting maybe you’re the one for me.”

Her disarming honesty, complete with cursing, makes her charming and likeable. Of course it helps that carrying her words is a brilliant command of effortless melody. Fuck You begins like the beginning of some romantic soapy and its bright chirpiness remains even while Allen decries racism and bigotry. Sure, it has novelty hit written all over it, but it shows her excellent ability to balance credibility with savvy pop smarts.

There’s more to the album than just canny lyrics too, where previously Allen dealt in national styles like ska and garage, It’s Not Me, It’s You looks wider positioning Lily Allen as a massive genre-flirt. Not Fair contains snatches of rock-a-billy and 22’s middle eight is rag-time piano, elsewhere there’s dance pop, dark ballads and Never Gonna Happen sounds like Zorba The Greek given a fresh funky lick of paint.

The only real time her charm fails her is on Him, him being God, and her tackling an issue just a bit above her – no pun intended. Where most of her songs contain an important subtext beneath a surfeit of off-hand language, it doesn’t gel properly here. It isn’t as crassly serious as, say Joan Osbourne wondering ‘What if God was one of us?’ but it reeks of tackiness just as badly.

Allen’s second album shows that her debut wasn’t simply a fluke, nor that her style is simply a shtick, while she’s unapologetically ‘pop’ and modern - her cheeky delivery and accessible variety make her the most interesting (and likeable) version of a diva in an age.

U2 – No Line On The Horizon (Island, 2009)

In a parallel universe where U2 aren’t one of the world’s most popular bands fronted by one of the world’s most recognisable pop stars, the release of No Line On The Horizon would be a triumph. Imagine it were the debut of an unknown entity, it would be considered a masterpiece, but – back to reality – it isn’t; it’s the product of a band whose every move is categorised with high expectations. Besides it contains the hallmarks of a group with years of experience.

Produced by the classic team of Brian Eno, Steve Lillywhite and Daniel Lanois, it’s at once capitalises on U2’s traditional sound that they’ve galvanised from 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind and 2004’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb while pushing them in some more adventurous directions.

While Bono remains Bono, all Christian references and yearning philosophy, this album sees him writing in an intriguing character driven mode. Album closer Cedars of Lebanon imagines him as a war correspondent “trying to make a deadline/Squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline.” Elsewhere the playful rocker Stand Up Comedy dips into self-parody “be careful of small men with big ideas” and the laid-back epic of Moment of Surrender contains a fantasy of anonymity “I did not notice the passers-by/and they did not notice me.”

Along with the lyrical variety is a panorama of styles. Essentially the album is strung together by a series of big radio-friendly songs such as Magnificent and I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight complete with sing-a-long choruses. But it’s the moments in-between that offer the most variety. Taking in everything from spiky rock in the form of the title track, while Breathe and lead single Get On Your Boots provide something playful. Elsewhere there’s a wintry ballad suitably titled White As Snow while the seven minute groove of Moment Of Surrender instantly cements itself among the ranks of the U2 canon alongside One.

Even for a band that has never shied away from thinking and living large, it’s an ambitious record; attempting to appeal both to the newer admirers, an iPod friendly generation, as well as the long-term fans that put the band in such a lofty position in the first place. For the most of it they succeed too.It’s very easy to forget that this is a band that’s been around for nearly three decades. Their age only shows in positive reflections like their adeptness with the studio and Bono’s occasionally richly weathered voice, despite their age they still manage to find the energy and excitement from every new album; they’re surely the envy of their peers.

Speaking of which, when recently asked by Q magazine if there were any heirs to U2’s legacy, Bono replied impishly “I would love to see more people try to knock us out. Y’know, we’re trying to get down into the middleweight. Because that’s the only place where there’s company.” Bono, love him or loath him, that’s a confidence bordering on arrogance, but in this case he’s absolutely right.

A pinch and a punch for the first of the month

It seems the horizons have expanded for the ol' rant. First up i've been accepted as a writer for Beat Magazine and on top of that Al's Music Rant will be a formal part of The Elephant Room a news and information site, with a little bit of humour and a lot of love. Go check it (and moi) out.

Working on a couple of reviews and playlists at the moment, so here's a lil' something to tide you all over.

Chris Cornell used to be a powerful voice, both literally and figuratively, in the alternative rock scene – but the operative phrase here is ‘used to be.’ While his stint as frontman of Audioslave marked a high-point for the vocalist, he soon left in search of a solo career. Like most former singers of big rock acts that set forth on their own, his solo endeavours thus far have been a patchy affair.

Although gaining resurgence thanks to his rocking Bond theme song (You Know My Name), the resultant album, Carry On, sank all momentum with by-the-numbers tunes and some horrible missteps (including a ‘serious’ cover of Billie Jean, that the less said about, the better).

So how does Cornell address his flagging relevance? By going R&B of course. You read that right. Scream sees Cornell teaming with the pop crossover superproducer Timbaland to create a strange brew indeed. At first listen you could mistake it for another of Timbaland’s Shock Value productions – until you hear the former Soundgarden singer’s distinctive growl. Even then it’s occasionally neutered into a wash of harmonies and treated vocals.

In fact Timbaland’s signature sound is all over the record often battling with Cornell’s presence for space. While it does indeed contain his grizzled croon and rock guitars to the fore, they fight for space amongst the finely polished rhythmic backing. Where it should be a mesh of styles, instead it’s, well, Long Gone’s sound and lyrics say it best, “like oil and water we always clash.”

Elsewhere Climbing Up The Walls, Sweet Revenge and Time are probably the best examples of the genre hybrid that Cornell and Timbaland are attempting to create, but most of the rest of the tracks are muddy, confused affairs that either flit too abruptly or too plain dull to engage.

Redeeming the album are the intriguing segues that give a flow and consistency to the record. But if the best thing you can say about an album are the parts between the songs – then there’s been a horrible miscalculation.

If Cornell is attempting to find a new audience, he finds himself in an uphill struggle. His name is of little significance to the R&B/pop scenesters who will only discover this album through Timbaland’s name, and his glossy production sheen is a bit much for rock purists to take on. The album is stuck in a unique purgatory between the two styles, a place where only the curious and the blindly dedicated will tread. It’s good to see an artist like Chris Cornell try something different to shake up expectations, but it feels more akin to desperation than innovation.

Check out the title track:Chris Cornell - Scream (YouTube)

and the man's website: Chris Cornell