Another week and another free/pay-what-you-want Daylight Music event in London, to flesh out your Saturday.
Daylight Music 194: Field Harmonics + Component#4 + Benjamin Thomas Holton, with Seamajesty (Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN – Saturday 20th June, 12pm to 2pm)
The second label showcase of the season, this time for Staffordshire-based Wayside and Woodland Recordings, bringing Field Harmonics, Benjamin Thomas Holton and Component#4 to the Union Chapel’s stage.
Following 2013’s critically acclaimed debut album ‘Walls’, Midlands electropop favourites Field Harmonics spring into 2015 with an even more accomplished and confident sound and vision, bolstered by the addition of new frontwoman Bryony Williams. Eighteen-year-old multi-instrumentalist Williams joins musician/producer Rob Glover (of ambient pastoralists epic45) for Phase II of Field Harmonics, bringing with her an assured swagger far beyond her years and an iconic vocal style that perfectly complements Glover’s crisp production.
Benjamin Thomas Holton has been creating and releasing music for nearly 20 years, whether as part of ambient pastoralists epic45, with the folk tinged song and sound experiments of My Autumn Empire or under various other shadowy pseudonyms. For this exclusive solo performance, Benjamin will be performing stripped down versions of songs from the forthcoming My Autumn Empire album ‘Dreams Of Death And Other Favourites’, as well as a handful of songs from previous releases.
Component#4 is Mike Rowley. Born and raised in the postindustrial, post-Thatcher remnants of the Black Country, Rowley’s music draws on the decaying factories, vandalized bus shelters and litter-strewn canals which formed the landscape of his childhood. Live, Rowley is joined by Andy Langford on drums and will perform versions of tracks from the 12″ EP ‘Barbed Wire Sunday’ and the recently released Component#4 debut album ‘Into Memory’.
The afternoon will also feature short laptop-based sets by Seamajesty (a.k.a. James Yates) using material he has recently built up under the project of ‘Tea and Biscuits’. Previously the drummer for such bands as The Pattern Theory and epic45, or session percussionist for German metal bands WFAHM or The Ocean, James’ current work as an engineer has helped him home in on certain directions he knew he wanted to pursue. To this end he built a studio in his garage, and started experimenting, recording to analog wherever possible and using several car-boot-found reel-to-reel and cassette tape machines to shape the recordings, adding a much loved lo-fi grit.
Free entry, but donations are (as ever) encouraged.
As an additional bonus, since this is an early afternoon event it still leaves you free to go to that inaugural Baltic Music Society concert in the evening. Not that I’m putting pressure on you…
Some more early June gig previews for London – these would have been in the previous post if I’d picked up on them earlier.
Firstly, a Facemelter promotion (from the experimental rock/post-hardcore wing of the Chaos Theory organisation whose jazz gigs I’ve also enjoyed)…
Alright The Captain + Iran Iran + Porshyne @ The Facemelter (The Black Heart, 2-3 Greenland Place, Camden, London, NW1 0AP, Friday 5th June , 7.30pm
Three heroes of math rock, alternative and post-rock travel from different corners of the UK to unite and form this amazing lineup.
Derby-based trio Alright The Captain masterfully combine virtuosic instrumentalism with unabashed musical experimentation and have effortlessly established themselves as a sonic force to be reckoned with, thanks to their increasingly inimitable, uniquely imaginative brand of math-rock. Their sprawling and varied career has seen them sharing stages with post-rock luminaries including Mono, toe, 65daysofstatic, Pelican, Tera Melos, ASIWYFA, Maybeshewill, Adebisi Shank (RIP), This Will Destroy You, ZU and many more. Their new album ‘Contact Fix’ (which ‘Musical Mathematics’ describes as “div(ing) in and out of math rock, prog and post rock – but, at its heart, it’s different”) has gone down a storm.
Iran Iran are another supremely talented bunch of musicians who stunned and impressed all who saw them at ArcTanGent last year. With insanely complex rhythms and thunderously heavy riffs, the four-piece from Bristol have evolved since their excellent first EP ‘Crystal Math’ and are packing a punch. They’ve played with Future Of The Left, Cleft, Alright The Captain, This Town Needs Guns, You Slut!, Alpha Male Tea Party, Death Pedals and many others. Fans of complex musical wizardry or heavy riffs will love their new EP ‘Milk Time For Spiders’.
Brightoners Porshyne dance between ambient intervals and melodic vocals to intensely intricate, fantastically crunchy prog rock riffs. With just a few single releases and a session filmed by Small Pond Recordings, they already sold out their first headline show in Brighton. This is your chance to catch the band before their career takes off.
More info here and here, and tickets here (£5.00 advance, £7.00 on the door).
At the end of the same week, Georgina Brett’s Tuesdays Post event returns to Stoke Newington with another evening of ambient/progressive live music, including ‘Misfit City’ favourites Darkroom…
Minny Pops/Spaceheads/Darkroom/Georgina Brett & Hems @ Tuesdays Post, (The Others, 6 Manor Rd, London, N16 5SA, Friday 7th June, 7.00pm)
Formed by vocalist/band leader Wally van Middendorp in Amsterdam in 1978, Dutch electro pioneers Minny Pops took their name from a primitive Korg drum machine. The band released several singles and a debut album, Drastic Measures, Drastic Movement, on independent Dutch label Plurex before joining the legendary Manchester label Factory Records in 1980 (which resulted in them being produced by Martin Hannett, touring with both Joy Division and New Order, and becoming the first Dutch group to record a Peel Session). Singles including Dolphin’s Spurt, Secret Story and Time were followed by the acclaimed album ‘Sparks In A Dark Room’ in 1982. The band released two further albums (‘Poste Restante’ and ‘Fourth Floor’) before splitting in 1985. In 2012, the band reunited for a series of gigs in the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium and recorded a 7-inch single for Tim Burgess’ O Genesis label. After a pause to draw breath, 2014 has seen Minny Pops performing live once again.
Spaceheads are a cosmic duo of trumpet electronics and drums. Formed in 1990, they have developed a blend of electronics and sunshine fanfares over the course of ten albums, three EPs and much touring across Europe and the USA. Andy Diagram (also of James) plays trumpet with a mobile phone stuck to the top with a fish slice and Richard Harrison plays drums with big bendy metal sheets stuck to the top. They create live looped layers of brass driven by flurries of free flowing funky drums. Andy and Richard have achieved an intuition of what each is about to do next which makes their semi-improvised gigs a joy to behold. They release their first studio album in ten years – ‘A Short Ride On The Arrow of Time’ – this Autumn.
Darkroom – the UK-based duo of Michael Bearpark (guitars) and Andrew Ostler (synths)- expertly ride the line between luscious, old-school progressive rock and modern ambient electronics. At times reminiscent of early Tangerine Dream with hints of Fripp and Eno, they create clouds of sequenced synths, chewy grooves, and looped phrases to support a variety of acoustic and electric guitar melodies that twist and turn in surprising, occasionally aggressive, ways.
Hems Aka Henrique Matias will be playing live with Georgina Brett. Henrique is a multi-talented composer, programmer and DJ. He specialises in Multimedia programming (from internet things to Max/MSP and similars), although not all his live music and performances sounds like computer music (sometimes he takes his drum machines and crazy things out of the house). Georgina Brett’s music is created using her voice and effects pedals, creating instant choirs of sound, often in an hypnotic style. The point of this music is not only to captivate with extraordinary timing and melodic style but also to help the listener to relax in our ever-increasingly fast world.
Interactive visuals and multimedia projections are by Hanzo and Rucksack Cinema.
More information here – tickets £7.00 on the door.
By all accounts The Forge (in Camden Town) has spent the last few years becoming one of north London’s most interesting small venues for mixed music. I’ve yet to go there and see for myself: but in its full June calendar (also featuring funk, jazz, classical and Cuban music as well as assorted poetry) the following four concerts caught my interest:
Notus Winds & Eliza McCarthy (Wednesday 3nd June, 7.30pm)
Part of the classical monthly series Wednesdays at The Forge, this time featuring award-winning chamber ensemble Notus Winds and solo pianist Eliza McCarthy with a program of contemporary compositions (more information here). Tickets £10.00 to £12.00.
Programme:
Harrison Birtwistle – 5 Distances
György Ligeti – Ten Pieces
Arvo Pärt – Quintettino
Anders Hillborg – Six Pieces for Wind Quintet
Fenella Humphreys: Bach to the Future Part 1 (Tuesday 9th June, 7.30pm)
The first of three concerts presented by violinist Fenella Humphreys, featuring commissions of six new works by six of Britain’s leading composers to accompany Bach’s glorious 6 Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin. This first concert includes new works by Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Gordon Crosse alongside extraordinary music by Bach, Scott, Westhoff, Hindemith. Tickets £10.00 to £12.00.
Programme:
Cyril Scott – Bumble-Bees (1928)
Johann Paul von Westhoff – Suite no. 5 in D minor (1682)
Gordon Crosse – Orkney Dreaming (2014)
Fritz Kreisler – Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice op. 6 (1911)
Paul Hindemith – Sonata op. 31 no. 2 ‘Es ist so schönes Wetter draussen’ (1924)
Johann Sebastian Bach – Partita no. 3 in E major BWV 1006 (c. 1720)
Cheryl Frances-Hoad – Suite no. 1 (2014)
Eugene Ysaye – 2nd Sonata op. 27 (1923)
Reciprocity: a new work by Daniel Patrick Cohen (Wednesday 10th June, 7.00pm)
Reciprocity is a 28 minute work for voice, taped narration, eight celli, piano, and percussion. The piece was composed by Daniel Patrick Cohen from six poems by the late Darya Farha, a Canadian poet, therapist, filmmaker and clothing designer. Darya was an extraordinary woman whose sharp intelligence, dry wit, distaste for orthodoxies and boundless empathy fuelled restless journey through her unfinished life. Darya died of breast cancer in 2011 when she was 46, and Reciprocity was commissioned by her sister Juliana Farha, who lives in London. Reciprocity is not about cancer, however. Instead, its human and universal themes of joy, pleasure, fear and anger, along with its intriguing instrumentation are sure to engage a broad audience. You can read more on the project here, and here. Tickets £6.00.
She’Koyokh & Veda Slovena Bulgarian Choir (Thursday 11th June, 8.00pm)
In a unique collaboration, She’Koyokh & Veda Slovena Bulgarian Choir combine the fiery panache of klezmer and Balkan music with the timeless beauty of Bulgarian voices, weaving Jewish, Turkish and Balkan music into the rich tapestry of the Bulgarian choral tradition. Read She’Koyokh’s piece on their Veda Slovena collaboration here. Tickets £10.00 to £12.00.
(All events taking place at The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, London, NW1 7NL)
Saro Cosentino – an art-rocker with a knack for cinematic arrangement – sees himself as the musical equivalent of a film director. This seems to be more humble than it’d suggest: it means that he masterminds the writing and production for his songs but stays in the background, passing the final responsibility for voices and lyrics to selected singers and instrumentalists.
As he puts it, “a director coordinates and selects the roles for the actors… I chose the singers and musicians for the pieces”. Perhaps a rather precious way of saying “I wrote outlines of songs for various kinds of singers, then went looking for them”, but it does give us the opportunity to play around with his metaphor.
OK. Let’s do that.
Saro, if viewed as The Great Director, reminds me of one of those European cinema auteurs – one of those talents whose childhood was inspired by Hollywood, whose initial own-language triumphs were led by a highly personal vision; but who’s now working uneasily between Hollywood and home. His true drive seems to be towards smoky, luxurious romance. Long pans across emotive vistas filled with meticulous detail, where the very light that flickers off the faces and corners of the camera’s subjects has a tangible element; the creation of bank-busting sets and tableaux to call new environments into existence, against which romantic protagonists play out their personal dramas as the world smoulders behind them.
However, at the same time he’s tempted and pressured (by studio heads? by test groups?) to go for something brasher, more obvious. Hence the same album that can boast 9:47 PM Eastern Time (twelve minutes of trading ambient loops with the Chapman Stick of King Crimson‘s Trey Gunn) can also boast the FM blare of Bite the Bullet, in which Karen Eden power-bleats the sort of hand-wringing, state-of-the-world pop hogwash that Tears for Fears cornered when they went shit in the late ’80s. Harrumph.
Well, whatever else one might find fault with, it can’t be disputed that Saro has assembled a high-powered instrumental cast to flesh out his own detailed wash of synths and guitars. Cellos and Anglo-Indian percussion (from Dizrhythmia’s Pandit Dinesh and Gavin Harrison) join with the works a whole crowd of Peter Gabriel regulars. There’s David Rhodes’ unorthodox, chameleonic art-guitar; the eerie wails Shankar gets from both his double electric violin and his voice; there’s the watery keen of Kudsi Erguner’s Turkish ney flute, and John Giblin’s extraordinarily vocal fretless bass – as well as the presence of regular Gabriel engineer Richard Blair to help with programming and holding it all together.
Perhaps inevitably, ‘Ones and Zeros’ emerges as a less wracked, less personal, poppier echo of Gabriel’s ‘Us’, or of Kate Bush’s ‘Sensual World’. It’s a swirl of poly-cultural textures and emotive adult pop, with a profound love of instrumental colorations and orchestrated with sounds of the human condition taken from all over the globe. And it does sound lovely, meticulously embroidered in luminescent glittering threads of melody.
Enter the Saro Multiplex, then. Pay the elegantly cropped man on the door, who’s thumbing through the Italian Art Rock Quarterly. Pick up your packet of art-popcorn from Mozo ‘n’ Rael’s Snack Shack, and take your look at the choices on offer on the different screen. I think you can assume that Bite the Bullet is the second-string drama: the one with the C-list hairdo-actress in peril, the sort that’s been sold as nail-biting but is actually more nail-varnishing. (Hear Karen Eden twitter about TV and dreamlife, wince at her gooey harmonies, dodge the pretty bomb: note the fleeting brilliance of the arrangement, and stroll out halfway through.) Go on to calculate that 9:47 PM Eastern Time is the slow-moving ‘Koyaanisquatsi’-type visual study – it’ll be playing in the room with the art students, shots tracking up skyscrapers and speculating upon the bright streak of dawn. Set aside some time to see that one right the way through. And look at the posters again.
Well, with cellos at the ready, you’ve got the choice of a slightly superior mainstream drama (maybe a maverick cop film, maybe a Joe-Bloke-in-peril job) with Defying Gravity. The one forged from the stuff of determination (“Just for an instant / of our forever, / this beggar would be King…”) and the refusal to give up, the one where you can share, for a moment, the pain of the trouper. Art-rock journeyman Jakko Jakszyk delivers one of his trademark tight, passionate vocals – the most immediate performance on the album, full of regret and a simmering outrage, the last flare of anger before resignation sets in.
Give Karen Eden a chance to wipe out many of the feeble memories of Bite the Bullet with Behind the Glass, on which she sounds more like Briana Corrigan than Stevie Nicks, and feels more like Juliette Binoche in ‘Three Colours: Blue’ than Sandra Bullock in a straight-to-video. Here she’s a lone, withdrawn observer, near-impassive, watching the injustices the world deals out but this time refraining from protesting. Merely letting the reaction flow out silent and free from the core of her, like a long stream of cigarette smoke. Strings poise; Giblin’s bass growls, a peril held in check and lurking. The moment passes by. Beat; cut; quick fade into black.
As accomplished as they are, those are the studio money-spinners, the comparative rush jobs. If you want to go for something a little more rhapsodic, you’ll have to move up a level; up to what’s showing in the smaller cinemas, where the eyes fixed on the screens are more intent.
When, as in these, ‘Ones and Zeros’ is good, it’s seriously good. Peter Hammill (playing against a reputation as abrasive art-rock bruiser via one of two appearances as romantic lead) offers an extraordinarily moving performance on From Far Away. You can even picture the close-up – eyes wide and bright, awestruck with the force of his own passion, breathing sheer faith into the well-worn love words; an English Sinatra without the arrogance. On Days of Flaming Youth, Shankar’s spooky keen and bright Japan-styled flecks of guitar and electronics gust in slo-mo circles while Tim Bowness takes time out from No-Man to sigh tenderness all over a song of the betrayals of younger days. It prowls and flickers, disturbing piles of trash in the corners of your memory as his voice rises to a throaty howl and gasp: “It feels so real, it feels so true, / the theft of the world that you knew / by slaves of flaming youth…”
Or you can enter Saro’s cinematic visions by the most inspirational way. You can just walk in off the street, numbed by loss and cradling a broken heart in hands gone suddenly cold (as I’ve just done) and find the core of your predicament captured and held, mirrored, onscreen. This is Phosphorescence – a ‘Brief Encounter’ for the art-rock set, and the album’s crowning glory. Hammill again, under a black velvet dome of sky, afloat on a sea of reflected starlight and rippling fluorescent eel-trails with reed-flutes undulating past, a thrill and a breeze on the cheek. And a lyric of something almost unbearably affecting. A love that hits in one slow flash (“this moment lasts a thousand years, this look is longer than our lives…”), changes you irrevocably then passes on, never to be caught or held again. “We will never pass this way again / But we’ll always feel each other’s presence… Ships pass in the night, / and in their wake they leave just phosphorescence…”
And you’re left stunned in the dark as the credits roll, unable to move from your seat for the things that are crowding up in you. Hit to the heart. Light-struck.
Saro Cosentino: ‘Ones and Zeros’
Resurgence, RES 129CD (604388203222)
CD-only album
Released: 13th October 1997 Get it from:(2020 update) Original album best obtained second-hand. ‘Ones and Zeros’ was reissued in 2015 in remixed and remastered form as ‘Ones and Zeros Reloaded’: all videos included in this review are from the ‘Reloaded’ version. Saro Cosentino online:
Cut‑ups are wonderful things. TV samples. Answering machines. Category‑defying noises. Harsh vocals. Scattershot free associations. Beautiful vocals. Hazy guitars. Clattering electro‑rhythms. A sense of the surreal. A sense of the melodic. Glorious eclecticism. The perfect post‑modern pop group.
Hallelujah! R.O.C. are back.
And against the odds, too. The debut album of this transatlantic trio (Fred Browning, Karen Sheridan and Patrick Nicholson, with roots in American, Ireland and Britain) welded pop music with a wilfully obscure grab‑bag of eclectic styles. Spookily emerging out of nowhere, it was critically hailed as the pinnacle of the ’90s zeitgeist, but the record‑buying public remained resolutely silent. Yet, here are R.O.C. ‑ back! ‑ on a new major record label deal (Good on you, Virgin, I take back everything I’ve ever said about the majors… well, almost…)
Dada opens the album with a statement of intent akin to the surreal art movement of the same name. Grasshoppers and various indecipherable speech samples give way to pounding, discordant and (very definitely) tuneless harsh electronica, accompanied by sinister laughter. Jeez, they’re such awkward people that you almost get the feeling that this is the spirit of ROC laughing at you for not understanding it, not getting it. Not very welcoming, either musically or emotionally. Thus, not for nothing does the oh‑so‑English conversation (too formal, too well‑accented to call rap) of the next track (Dis)Count Us In begin with the question “Are you still with me?” before Fred Browning relates a tale of watching a woman across a crowded room, to a backing of post‑modern electro‑pop.
All change. Mountain is R.O.C. as a slightly less comatose Mazzy Star performing to acoustic guitar and warm This Mortal Coil‑style atmospherics. Karen’s lyrics detail her observations ‑ highly emotional but somehow dispassionate ‑ of someone whose life has no direction and is spinning out of their control ‑ “Here we go again, / You’re going to take another rollercoaster ride through hell” ‑ in a beautifully recorded wash of womb‑like electronics.
Cheryl is a pop Suicide for the ’90s, an almost cheesy pop melody set to gleaming pulsating electronics and interludes of demolition percussion. Karen sings (Cheryl’s?) lyrics of a big fuck‑off to a man (antiquated sexist attitudes, thinks he’s God’s gift) and states her own terms for independence; “If it’s all the same / I think I’ll move on up… / I’m gonna get myself some dedication.”
Ever Since Yesterday starts as an acoustic‑guitar based lament to the departure of Fred Browning’s lover before all manner of randomly‑emitting Disco Inferno‑ish sampledelia and phased electronica makes its presence felt, distorting the whole sonic collage and moving it out into the realms of post‑rock. Instead of fading out, it collapses in on itself as the tape mangles. Gorgeous.
25 Reasons To Leave Me features Browning returning to his husky Shaun Ryder vocal style, set to a loping laid‑back musical backing not unlike a more uptight Happy Mondays; whilst K.C is a dry disconcerting, upfront recording, led by a simple and affecting sequence of organ chords, later joined by a soloing trumpet and brass accompanying a vocal of more third‑person observation from Sheridan. It’s no criticism to say that this track resembles late‑night bedsit pop at its best. Kind of a meeting between Prefab Sprout and The Cure, if you will.
Cold Chill Just Lately details the crossed wires, cross‑currents, accusations and arguments of a relationship break‑up. This rather harrowing subject is carried by the track’s broken, exhausted vocals. He’s not happy, but there is a certain black humour typical of R.O.C.: “But I guess it’s just a fucked‑up world we’re living in, / and you know it couldn’t get much worse. / But then it turns you over and fucks you in the ass… / She only cares about herself / She never cared about me.” Such bile is performed to an incongruous accompaniment of smoothly enveloping, ebbing waves of sound, a lurching rhythm, and throbbing strings adding a chamber‑pop element.
The final track, Ocean And England, opens with the sound of thunder and rain, and a bare strummed guitar‑‑the poignant musical lead is then swapped to a ringing electric piano and harpsichord before a huge sampled orchestra swoons in. Like many bravely experimental acts, ROC always remember that, sometimes, all one needs is a song and an affecting melody. “Ocean And England” is just that, and even includes a lovelorn lyric: “Hey you, / the ocean and England are so far away. / Won’t you consider coming home / to be with me again?”
Ultimately, though, this album lacks a little of the debut album’s magical Wonderland atmosphere ‑ swapping the feeling that anything could happen within the space of the next track for the feeling that yes, plenty will happen, but it will be more regimented and organised. Yet how many bands would have the sense of vision to travel, in one album, from the surreal and experimental to pure pop and simple emotion?
R.O.C. Still utterly beguiling.
R.O.C.: ‘Virgin’ Virgin Records, CDV 2829 (7 24384 29472 4)
CD-only album
Released: 8th September 1997
Get it from: (2018 update) quite a rare release these days, best obtained second-hand.
When a band have made it, are popular, and their songs are heard in every commercial outlet, a person is simply playing a game of pathetic one‑upmanship if they smugly proclaim: “Oh, I liked them when they were a cult band. They’ve gone all pop now!” These are very sad people.
Ahem. Now…
I liked James when they were a cult band. They’ve gone all pop now. Yes, I admit it. I am a sad person and I claim my five pounds.
In truth, I lost touch with James after ‘Gold Mother’, when they entered the pop stratosphere and those T‑shirts became ubiquitous. My attitude to Sit Down exemplifies my attitude to ‘Whiplash’. Sit Down started life as a strumalong of identification with those who felt alone or slightly dispossessed, insecure. It was re‑released as an epic soundtrack which seemed to command “You WILL Sit Down!!”. And whilst every baggy‑shirted indie kid and raver performed the increasingly meaningless charade of plonking their arses on the stage, that song (and James themselves) sounded, to these ears, like a New Age, slightly more subtle Simple Minds. When my mother chose Sit Down as her favourite song, opined that Tim Booth was “a nice young man” and started asking me which one in the band was “James”, my interest in the band as a pop entity virtually evaporated. (You none‑more‑punk, you! ‑ ED.)
‘Whiplash’ promises much. It is heralded as “a return to form”. For old James fans, this is a pronouncement we’ve heard before. But the opening track, Tomorrow, has the pulsing rhythm, the simplicity and directness, the expanding layers of sound that I so remember were classic James; and so it is better to forget, perhaps, that this song is about three years old and first appeared in embryonic form on ’94’s experimental excursion ‘Wah Wah’. Elsewhere, Lost A Friend features verses with a skeletal musical backing and Booth returning to hitting all those strange half‑note harmonies of old, before breaking into the obligatory big chorus. It’s still James’ version of their Big Music, but it no longer lumbers like an over‑produced fabrication as in recent years. Sadly, trite lyrics like “my TV’s telling me / that all of our money goes into the military” and “I see some soldiers with guns / they are killing for fun / they are killing to entertain me” do not raise my political consciousness one iota. May I call you Bono, Tim?
This album’s biggest problems come where the much‑vaunted contemporary feel exerts itself. There is always an awful doubt when a band returns from a long break saying that they’ve been listening to techno/trip‑hop/drum’n’bass/ambient (or whatever; delete as applicable), and the new masterpiece is produced under these influences. Eighty per cent of ‘Whiplash’ features these dabbles in new styles, mostly unsatisfactorily.
The album’s first single, She’s A Star, is the most startling and perhaps most successful, sounding like Suede-lite. But it lacks Brett Anderson’s detailing of urban degeneration, suburbia and glamorous smack habits. With Suede, She’s A Star would be blackly ironic ‑ she would be a lonely girl in a dead commuter belt, or a wasted junkie. But Tim means it ‑ she really is a “star”. That’s lovely for him and her (whoever she may be), but ultimately rather naive for us.
Go To The Bank is roughly the third song on the album that mentions TVs, so James have obviously spent their time away wisely. Seemingly a diatribe against the evils of money, the lyrics leave a bad taste in the mouth with the repeated line “it all belongs to Caesar…” Is someone rather peeved about recently having to settle a large bill for unpaid taxes, eh? This track and the next, Play Dead, are full of techno effects that ultimately do not go far enough. They dabble in electronica, but still align themselves to typical James nervy strumalongs. But the two styles don’t gel, and they’d be more satisfying as one or the other. Play Dead, in particular, could be one of James’ truly haunting acoustic numbers if it dropped the excess techno zeitgeist baggage: it is one of the few obviously beautiful melodies here.
Greenpeace (oh Tim, do you have to be so fucking obvious? What next? Veggie? ’90s Hippie? Beanbag?) is a dark, slightly rockier take on trip‑hop, alternating between distorted vocals and ambience in the verses and a chorus that feels like it’s built on the bassline of Massive Attack’s Safe From Harm. It is leaden, and rather desperate to show how contemporary it is. Where James once had that aura of being a band of weird but pleasant loners down the end of the corridor, they now come across more like insufferably tedious born‑again Christians; but, as Greenpeace shows, ones who are desperate to prove to the church elders that they are hip and rebellious, and that “this is what the kids are into.”
It’s all so frustrating when elsewhere there’s such a blatant demonstration of the simple, peculiar emotional alchemy that James can muster so well. I’m talking about Blue Pastures, a quiet, near‑acoustic whisper of a coda to ‘Whiplash’s technophilic sprawl. Jim Glennie’s bass rings like a sleepy bell, guitars fill out dark clouds in the sky, and James’ old Patti Smith influences are evoked once more as Booth unwinds the story: someone quietly putting things to rights, then walking out into the snow to die. Their thoughts slow, the ground gets closer. Snow covering. Peace arriving. Fade‑out. Perfection ‑ for once, we respond with tears of compassion and recognition rather than of frustration.
But in the reckoning, this album is a disappointment after the marvellous and underrated ‘Wah Wah’. Which proved that, in the right laid‑back conditions and with the right production influence from Brian Eno (who part‑produced and “interfered” with this one, but evidently not enough), James could come up with the post‑modern experimental pop they so desperately seek on ‘Whiplash’. Chained, often rather clumsily, to the typical James of old, the two styles pull against each other. U2 have managed to cling to the bandwagon by enlisting the best technoheads around. If James want to do likewise, they’d better get someone who can do a better job at improving the rather leaden attempts at electronica on here. Or they can forget the zeitgeist and return to being the pre‑pomposity weirdo folkies still to be glimpsed occasionally.
Which way, Tim?
(review by Col Ainsley)
James: ‘Whiplash’
Mercury Records/Fontana Records, 534 354‑2 (731453435421)
CD/cassette album
Released: 24th February 1997
Oops. I’ve come to what I thought was a serious, arty gig to find exotic scarves hanging from the ceiling and a little green-nylon Christmas tree sitting in the corner. What with this, the candle-lit tables and the cheerful little greetings flyers under said tree, I get the feeling that I’ve crashed someone else’s Christmas party.
This particular party’s being thrown by violinist-turned-singer-songwriter Anna Palm, known for a journey that started with busking in Covent Garden and Chelsea and went on to a stint with acoustic punk-folkers Nyah Fearties, a handful of albums and singles on One Little Indian, and support contributions to a variety of artists from Yes‘ Steve Howe to New Wave synth poet Anne Clark, ascerbic dream-pop realists Kitchens of Distinction and avant-Goth experimentalist Danielle Dax. It’s an interesting resume. Well, I hate to bad-mouth my hostess, and maybe it’s unfair to judge an artist from an event coming across very much as a fun gig, but I’m decidedly underwhelmed. Despite an indie all-star band (with various members of The Farm, Loop Guru and Kitchens of Distinction taking time out to back her up) she fails to shine.
It’s not as if she doesn’t try: a Violet Elizabeth figure in a frilly little-girl party dress, she’s as full of explosive energy as a pan of popping corn, exhorting people onto the floor to dance, singing with verve (if not always great pitch) and sawing acrobatically at her violin. But the band is under-rehearsed and scrappy, falling apart much too often. Anna’s songs, too, lack individuality and the delivery to make them memorable. A shame, as when she sets bow to strings some spirited and slyly lovable playing emerges.
Anna’s obviously a good player, but as far as being a singer-songwriter goes she still doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself. File under “needs work” and leave it at that for now. However, the mess does yield up one unexpected delight – a dance-groove version of Kites, compelling and grin-inducing, with Anna’s riotous violin scurrying over an early-’90s style baggy beat and the whole thing carrying a strong hint of I Will Survive. A novelty, perhaps, but it’s good to see Simon Dupree’s old hippy hit hopping onto a modern groove and feeling right at home. These particular Kites really fly. I wonder if the Shulman brothers (who notoriously hated their early Dupree-ism despite its success) might ease up and grin and bop along if they were here to hear this.
The real reason why I’m here is a duo called Mandalay, hiding further down the bill: it’s the new project by multi-instrumentalist and electronica aceSaul Freeman, who used to perform a similar role as half of the band Thieves alongside stratospheric singer David McAlmont. Thieves are long (and acrimoniously) split now, with what would have been their debut album a little uncomfortably repackaged as the stunning McAlmont debut (and if you haven’t heard that, you missed one of the most vitally progressive pop records of 1994).
Now Saul is quietly rematerializing, in partnership with singer Nicola Hitchcock, to reclaim some of his lost thunder. But although it shares the glittering crystalline texture of Thieves’ songs, Mandalay’s music is nowhere near as easy. As with Thieves, Cocteau Twins should be mentioned (especially when listening to the effects-swallowed guitars of Enough Love); so too should the frozen sadness of Portishead (especially on the chilly trilling of Enough Love). but Mandalay is more involved and intricate than either. These are multi-dimensional songs, Nicola’s frail but enthralling vocal melodies elevated from the ground on staggeringly complex musical architecture courtesy of interlocking blurry sequencers, obsessively repeating samples and eerie guitar treatments. Saul stands impassively amongst his host of computers and effects racks, gazing absently down at his guitar and its network of pedals. Every now and again he’ll tap and flick at the strings and a second later a whole web of music will swell from the speakers.
Mandalay’s style – stately, kaleidoscopic and coolly hallucinatory – is best exemplified by the silvery net of sampled vocals, the stabbing kick drum and the harmonica-skank guitar of More Than Venus: Nicola’s whispering Bush-y enunciation gives the perky melody an awkward, appealing sensuality. Walk By the Sea rumbles by on an ominous 3/4 riff, double-looped spiral claustrophobia and panic-pitch piano plinking. The Waiting gives full reign to Saul’s subtle space-age guitar work: cunningly-placed “brang”s and attenuated bell-notes amongst the fabric of a languorous techno-warble.
There’s plenty of pop in this (and, despite the duo’s clear and ineluctable whiteness of manner as well as appearance, more than a helping of trip-hop) but Mandalay are also decidedly post-rock. They’re part of the astonishing movement which also includes Moonshake, Laika and the late-lamented Disco Inferno, and which junks the conventional hierarchies of rock instrumentation in favour of the uncanny textures of digital sampling and electronic ensemble processing. This might not sound appealing to the traditionalists out there, but believe me, Mandalay are much more than noodling experimentalists. Try to think of their songs as angst-under-amber, refracted into confusing multiples by an unearthly light. Unsettling but beautiful pop for an uncertain info-saturated future. You want progression? It’s happening here.
Anna Palm online:
Mandalay online:
Additional notes:(2020 update) Anna Palm now lives and occasionally performs in Stroud. Mandalay recorded two albums for V2 Music before splitting in 2002: both Nicola Hitchcock and Saul Freeman have continued intermittent solo careers.
Swoon. /swo͞on/ A verb. To be emotionally affected by someone or something that one admires; become ecstatic. Here are some people and things that make me swoon. #swoon #swoonage
Misfit City 