New single: The Midnight Bell, 28 Feb 10

Amazon: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002XGIHO0/
MySpace: www.myspace.com/thehighwire
Last.fm: www.last.fm/music/The+High+wire

If the album opener New Terrain isn’t stunning enough, it can also be played backwards, turning into new song, Nervous.

What follows is one gorgeous track after another, peaking in the middle with Cartoons and Macramé Wounds before dropping you back down gently on the other side. There aren’t many albums you can’t wait to play again even before you’ve finished the current rotation, this is one of them.

The full title of the album is a poem:

No more stories
Are told today
I’m sorry
They washed away

No more stories
The world is grey
I’m tired
Let’s wash away

‘No More Stories…’ is an experimental album, taking elements from seemingly disparate genres and putting them together to see what happens. The result is art rock disguised as glorious pop, all upbeat, summery loveliness. What we are to admire is the detail and how it all works together.

Think of it as musical embroidery: delicate elements contrasted against the weightier; the surprising heaviness of masses of tiny beads and sequins and the strength of fine fabric that supports them. The album is so pleasing to the ear, some people are already sneering at them for ‘appealing to the mainstream’. Usually the sign of a good album, is that. This one is not far from a 5/5.

The only thing that lets it down is the lyrics. Whether the intention was to be obscure and abstract in a poetic way, or whether it was to sing something, anything, along with the music is unclear. It’s a shame because the music is so jaunty and cheerful, you really do want to join in. As it is, what’s there is good enough to get by with, even if it doesn’t really make sense.

To date, Mew haven’t made much of an impression on charts outside of their native Denmark. They ought to with this, their fifth and best album. Highlights include the epic Cartoons and Macramé Wounds which veers into Supertramp territory, Introducing Palace Players and Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy, but don’t just listen to those three. Start with track one and leave it alone.

for JunkMedia.org

The first listen is rewarding. Bosque Brown sounds like Cat Power doing acoustic alt-country; production is lo-fi with all the errors intact; songs vary in length so the forty minutes pass by quite quickly.

Unfortunately, the first listen is where it’s at. Subsequent plays reveal all the flaws and shortcomings. The three short ‘On and Off’ tracks are the first to be skipped, becoming increasingly annoying with each appearance. The album as a whole doesn’t survive a good hammering and Mara Lee Miller’s gothic horror voice starts to grate after a while.

This is not to say the music isn’t charming in its minimal simplicity, or that Mara Lee Miller isn’t talented. Album opener, White Dove, and So Loud shine. What’s wrong is the album is unfocused and directionless. Some sharp and ruthless editing would make for better listening.

It’s an album you want to like but lets you down.

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Ambient music is usually associated with cool, cerebral sounds, distinct notes that focus the mind and allow it to wander. Rarely does ambient music sound warm or summery. Rameses III, from Croydon, south London, achieve just that with their new album, I Could Not Love You More.

The music is soft as it drifts and wanders. Notes are rounded and in the background, gentle vocals add a human touch without saying anything. Found sounds find their way into the scapes. Cloud Kings introduces rain. No Water, No Moon ends in birdsong.

There’s early Cocteau Twins in the shimmering guitars, particularly reminiscent of Victorialand (1986), which makes it the kind of ambient that came out of punk, leaning towards goth. Underneath is medieval drone, lending a timeless feel. Echoes remove the music from this plane to another. You don’t want to leave.

The tempo may be downbeat but it’s peaceful rather than melancholic, although there are moments of bittersweet beauty. The music ebbs and flows like slow ripples with some sort of rhythm, the patterns of which shift with each mood. The final track, All Shall Be Well, seems to be stuck in a moment that doesn’t introduce anything new until halfway through its 11 minutes, as if you were watching a sunrise.

Acoustic guitars, electric pianos, Mellotrons and field recordings blur into each other as each track melds and melts into the next. At nearly an hour long, you don’t notice the time pass.

If you are in London, you can see Rameses III perform a one-off set for free at the Union Chapel, Islington on 28 Nov 2009 at 12 noon.

http://www.unionchapel.org.uk/events.php/224/daylight_music_p_joslashrgensen_rameses_iii_seasons_p

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The xx create pared back, skeletally minimal perfect pop songs aching to be covered by powerpop bands such as Girls Aloud, Sugababes or the Scissor Sisters. As it stands, there’s no point coming to it full of beans, the music won’t reach you. Wait till you’re working or ready to unwind at the end of a long day, that’s when the album will open up.

Whilst the sound is dark, it wouldn’t be right to label them ‘melancholic’. There’s no sadness here. It’s dark as in nighttime, intimacy, romance. It’s dark as in whispers and stolen kisses.

The music is Cocteau Twins ethereal, elegant and sophisticated; the lyrics subtle and clever, all the more seductive for the just-there European accents of lead vocalists Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim. The tempo throughout the album is languid and lazy; all torpor and fatigue; think Mazzy Star. There are no offensive bangs or crashes, nothing to jangle one’s nerves. It’s smooth and its done with an edgy Cure-like sensibility.

You get an idea of how powerful their songs would be in a ‘normal’ format when you hear their cover versions. Their take on Womack & Womack’s Teardrops is a triumph. Hot Like Fire was Aaliyah’s favourite song and The xx have done her proud. In interview, Romy said, “With a cover you should take the essence of it and completely change the music side of it.”

Like Soap&Skin, who I wrote about recently, The xx have yet to reach the age of twenty and also like Soap&Skin, their music belies their youth. Production was undertaken by the band’s own Jamie Smith. It should come as no surprise the talented youngsters hail from same south London school as the likes of Four Tet, Burial, Hot Chip and the Maccabees

Highlights of the album include Infinity, with the will she/won’t she lyrics against borrowings from Chris Isaak and Jimmy Somerville; the debut single Crystalised; and Basic Space.

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Soap&Skin is nineteen year old Austrian artist, Anja Plaschg. Classically trained in piano and flute and largely self-taught in computer sound programming, her debut album, Lovetune For Vacuum, is less a pop album and more an art-piece.

Sleep, nightmares, horror, terror, death, the drama of the macabre are all themes explored in the album. Her style recalls artists such as Julee Cruise for Angelo Badalamenti in the Twin Peaks soundtrack, Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins (Elizabeth Fraser), Scott Walker in Drift, Joan Wasser, and of course Björk.

The music is pure emotion, dark and brooding, at times disturbing though at no point ever uncomfortable. Using conventions familiar to us from horror movies, with a slight nod to Michael Nyman, the effect she elicits from the listener is that of rapt fascination. The range, depth and variety is complex and vast, repeat plays revealing finer and finer detail. This is an extraordinary and original album from a relative unknown.

Plaschg doesn’t so much indulge her feelings as describe them. At times painfully beautiful and others jaggedly torn, Plaschg holds her listeners on a knife-edge as she paints her world and draws them in.

Her songs are like little pieces of theatre, little vignettes. “When I was a child I toyed with dirt and I fought / as a child, I killed the slugs I bored with a bough”. Largely piano-based, there are elements that shouldn’t be there: screams rending in the background, birdsong, unworldly insects, the sound of the wind, or her own voice going from singing to wailing, as if she can’t hold things in anymore.

In her home country, Plaschg has already been noticed by film-makers. Her work has been used in two movies: the horror sequel Dead In Three Days 2 and the adult FILM IST. a girl & a gun (Film is: a girl and a gun).

The music isn’t right for summer days; it’s autumn music. The album will come into its own around Hallowe’en when, coincidentally, a vinyl release is scheduled.

Dead In Three Days 2 – Trailer http://www.terrorfeed.com/index.php?id=Dead-In_Three_Days-2-Trailer

Official site: http://www.soapandskin.com/

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http://www.we7.com/#/album/Brownswood-Bubblers-Four-Compiled-by-Gilles-Peterson!albumId=365158

Artist: Cousteau
Track: The Last Good Day of The Year
Tags: chamber pop, lounge, downtempo, sophisticated, melancholic, autumn, english, british, chill, chillout, my gang rotw
Similar: Nick Cave, Richard Hawley, Tindersticks, Black, Colin Vearncombe, The Divine Comedy, Scott Walker

Ever since I first heard this song at the beginning of the decade, I’ve played a little game come the end of summer – to note the last good day of the year when it comes and to make the most of it. The rules are: it has to be as summery as possible, warm, dry, sunny; it has to be as late in the year as possible, the further into autumn the better; I have to treat myself to something simple, usually an ice cream; and I have to play the song.

Mr Whippy 99 ice cream with raspberry ripple and a Cadbury’s Flake, for Liam McKahey who is probably missing these things now he has emigrated to Australia

What with an August that was more like November this summer, I thought the last good day of the year was pretty much upon us, but checking the weather forecast, I see we’re in for improved temperatures with a possibility of them going into October, giving us an Indian Summer.

So now we can all play the game!

You won’t hear the song in Last.fm or their MySpace because the band don’t own the rights. The only place you can hear it, if you haven’t before, is in YouTube. Unless you want to go here.

Cousteau are a London-based band who formed ten years ago. I recall a press interview once where they said they got their suits from Oxfam. I remember being very impressed – they look incredibly stylish. Properly masculine. That and Liam McKahey‘s baritone voice. Someone has tagged the band swoon in Last.fm. They’re not wrong.

Liam McKahey

Cousteau belong to the same roster of artists as Scott Walker, Nick Cave, The Divine Comedy, Tindersticks, and Black, led by Colin Vearncombe who has since gone solo. Here’s something that might excite you – Liam McKahey has gone solo too and has an album due for release in October on Series 8 records. If the release date coincides with my last good day of the year, it will be too much. Yay for the internet, even though he’s moved to Australia, I’ve been able to add him as a ‘friend’ in MySpace and can’t wait for more news.

Photo Shoot for Sirena UK Cover

In the meantime, the rest of the band continue as Cousteau, although for legal reasons, they use the name Moreau in the USA. Their 2006 release, Nova Scotia, is still available, some tracks from which can be heard on their MySpace and can be heard in full in Last.fm under both names: Moreau – Nova Scotia; Cousteau – Nova Scotia.

Incidentally, although ‘The Last Good Day of The Year’ enjoyed international success, it was never a hit. Who knows, maybe that will change sometime now downloads are counted in official charts.

All Music Guide
MySpace – Cousteau
MySpace – Liam McKahey

Babs _{My Gang}

Cousteau, Liam McKahey far right

Admin – Stats as of today :

Video:
Date Added to YouTube: February 18, 2007
Views: 50,129, Ratings: 154, Responses: 0, Comments: 71, Favorited: 522 times

Last.fm listeners of this track – 2,731 (not available)
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm – 12,522
Position in Last 7 Days: 1 / 37
Position in Last 6 Months: 1 / 781

Stats after 7 days: (to be added)

YouTube: The Specials, live, 1980

I am really enjoying the ska tracks in Amy Winehouse‘s current album, Back To Black (Deluxe Edition). One of the songs she covers is Hey, Little Rich Girl, originally by The Specials.

The Specials were part of the short-lived ska revival at the end of the 70s / early 80s. I always saw Terry Hall as the Damon Albarn of the day: clever, witty and incredibly talented. I’ve watched his career with fascination – Fun Boy Three, The Colourfield, collaborations with The Lightning Seeds, Stephen Duffy, Dub Pistols, Gorillaz and Tricky. I am over to the moon to find he announced earlier this year that The Specials will be reforming for tour dates this autumn, and possibly for some recording. Another ska revival? I hope so!

Here’s Amy Winehouse’s cover of the same song. Hey Little Rich Girl .feat Zalon & Ade. Her singing style has evolved to the kind of slurry jazz of the greats. Usually, you hear it in the voices of singers who have been around for a couple of decades or more and have developed their craft to such a degree, they have the confidence to play around and not try so hard. Amy Winehouse has been singing for just over a decade and has reached that stage already, only in her case, her talent is burning so brightly it’s taking her with it. I listen to her now with a mixture of admiration and sadness. She’s not long for this world, is she?

YouTube: Amy Winehouse – Hey Little Rich Girl (Glastonbury 2007)

Babs _{My Gang}

The Specials – Official Site
MySpace
Wikipedia
Allmusic
Terry Hall – Official Site
Wikipedia

Admin – Stats as of today:

Video:
Date Added to YouTube: July 02, 2006
Views: 119,488, Ratings: 257, Responses: 0, Comments: 154, Favorited: 782 times

Last.fm listeners of this track – 5,268 (fully streamable)
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm – 14,901
Position in Last 7 Days: 38 / 74
Position in Last 6 Months: 37 / 1,439

Stats after 7 days:

Video:
Views: 122,080, Ratings: 264, Responses: 0, Comments: 161, Favorited: 797 times

Last.fm listeners of this track – 5,308 (fully streamable)
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm – 14,952
Position in Last 7 Days: 32 / 96
Position in Last 6 Months: 37 / 1,439