Music

Apart from accidentally reviewing two tracks from 2007 and having to scrap them, March was another fantastic month of music releases and teasers. You can read words about it below, or just click this to listen to it yourself. Or both!

The Futureheads – The Beginning of the Twist
The Futureheads are members of the large crowd of English bands who’ve had their tyres inflated by NME over the years. Probably because they’re self-described as Post-Punk revival which is enough to for most bands in the UK to at least get an agent to snoop around their MySpace. The Beginning of the Twist is a track that works hard to justify their categorisation, though it fits the more pop-dance-post-punk title – Maxïmo Park style – than it does the gothic haunts of Joy Division. Tightly packed with addictive riffs and frenetic punk drumming The Beginning is hopefully the beginning of a catchy and danceable new album.

Boy Kill Boy – Promises
Another similar Post-Punk band is Boy Kill Boy who released their first album Civilian in 2006. It was decent, but Boy Kill Boy showed potential rather than performance. They seemed the kind of band that, hypothetically, Western Bulldogs recruiting manager Scott Clayton would take at a late pick and then spend two years developing in the reserves before unleashing them into the mainstream. Unlike all the other picked bands that would impress with occasional flashy things, Boy Kill Boy showed strong ability in all the basics. They could write songs with clever hooks on the back of sonic rock blasts but that weren’t quite showy enough to secure a spot on Conan. Two years of training later and Boy Kill Boy’s sophomore album Stars and the Sea is showing so many signs of improvement on their already dominant sound. The opening track Promises has more subtle production tweaks and pulls off all the one-percenters amongst it’s rocking riffs. Boy Kill Boy is a band to keep track of in the future.

Lykee Li – Breaking it Up
Artists like Robyn and Feist have been showing lately what a lush, female voice can do to stand up against the tidal wave of highly processed pop singers that mass market tunes every year. With the backing music coming from indie-pop instrumentals rather than cheesed out keyboard arrangements there’s more space for quirks and more chewiness in the unpolished rhythms. This makes artists like Sweden’s Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson – AKA Lykke Li – sound more personal and human on their albums. Breaking It Up is from her new album Youth Novel which was produced by Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John. It’s full of human touch, with Lykke’s voice providing most of the melody in each verse over the percussion and rhythms. There’s enough accent on her words to immediately decide she’s cute and the choruses seem so happy even if it is a song about breaking up.

Gnarls Barkley – Run
Another group who shows that production work is more about soul than just something to dance to when you’re drunk is Gnarls Barkley. This well known duo is fronted by soul singer Cee-Lo Green and beatsmithed by the funky Danger Mouse who shows no sign of losing his eccentric touch on The Odd Couple. Run is a dancefloor smash no doubt, but it’s uplifting even when you’re sober and sitting in your car, or wearing headphones on the train trying to resists the urge to leap upwards and dance. It’s not conventionally built in that there’s very little build up in what is not so much a short song, but more it’s more a shot of compressed grooviness. Other than a jazzy synth solo towards the end there’s not much room to breathe. There’s just too much life in it to rest.

Jamie Lidell – Wait For Me
We now transition from black to white boy funk and mention the latest album from Warp signee Jamie Lidell. Following on from his 2005 food for the soul album Multiply is Jim in which he continues the journey into funky sounds. The Motown Sound and other sixties/seventies influences aren’t hidden here at all. Instead Jamie revels in the funky piano, gospel harmonies and groovy basslines. Wait for Me is just a sample of the pleasure and of Jamie’s captivating soul voice that’s on every track of Jim.

Adam Green – Morning After Midnight
Adam Green is an anti-folk singer. If you’re not sure what anti-folk means I can offer a brief explanation: consider an average folk song that’s visited a carnival and entered the fun house. As it strolls past rainbows of brightly coloured lights its image ends up bent and skewed upon the rows of dusty mirrors before it comes out on the other side.
The result is anti-folk. Warped and exaggerated folk songs with the kind of production you’d expect to come from wanky musicians looking to experiment beyond the ordinary. But any cynicism felt about pretentious artists - or a Moldy Peaches’ member having a new release so hot on the heels of Juno – quickly dissolves when Green’s charming voice booms into full swing. His baritone croons and light-hearted approach to every verse on Sixes and Sevens tie the whole cheeky album together. As with Green’s earlier work the lyrics are rarely comprehensible but they’re the appropriate vehicle to deliver every function and accessory of his voice.

Tapes ‘N Tapes – Hang Them All
Another sophomore album this month, this time from Minnesotan rockers Tapes ‘N Tapes. Following their self produced debut, the new album Walk It Off was mastered by former Mercury Rev guitarist David Fridmann. His previous studio works include Weezer and Mogwai as well as the low-fi butchering that he gave to Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah’s album last year. Fortunately, his effort on Hang Them All and the rest of the Tapes ‘n Tapes record stays much less noticeable. The band has matured in the three years since The Loon and the hooks are stealthier now, but more mesmerising. Hang Them All is definitely the standout on the album on first listen. In an interview about the album it was said that the songs were written to be more ambiguous and the lyrics are easily something you can get behind without really knowing what it’s about. It’s a rocking track full of pace and a wailing organ that builds to a tumultuous finale.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien – Slam Dunk
It’s a month of funky tunes it seems with another release to cruise to from Del Tha Funkee Homosapien. There’s been limited output from this talented MC and producer in the past few years, with an appearance on the Gorillaz Clint Eastwood being his last notable surfacing. But new album Eleventh Hour – his first release on Definitive Jux – is full of winners of which Slam Dunk is one. With a casual drawl over bass heavy beat I find a lot of 90’s throughout the whole piece. The intelligent rapping isn’t likely to get this dropped on many pub-club dancefloors but Del’s lyrics, flow and beats are all tight.

Son Lux – Betray
If you’re over the funk by now you can try relaxing to this down-tempo piece from Son Lux. His debut album is another quality release from Anticon records this year and At War With Walls and Mazes indicates they’re onto a winner. Like most releases on Anticon it’s hip-hop influenced indie but Son Lux’s slow moving beats aren’t rapped over. The majority of tracks sound more organic, with drums as predictable as spattering rain. It’s not danceable either, instead the arrangements and rising and fall of the rhythms in Betray is more meditative. It’s captivatingly beautiful. The only source of warmth in the arrangement is the fiery, funky bass guitar which flickers like a sole burning light in darkness until halfway through when the gale of wind instruments blow it out. From the psych-out onwards the song becomes more of a bitter lullaby that gracefully puts itself to sleep.

The Foals – Cassius
Math Rock experienced a lot of publicity last year following the success of Battles album Mirrored. Good for Foals then, who fit into the same genre but with less of the raw grunginess of Battles and more trumpets. There are even UK post-punk influences present in this Oxford’s groups work and vocals that weren’t present in the more serious Mirrored. They’ve added more chirp into the... equation. Cassius is fluffy with tightly strung guitars and horn work. Add the catchy lyrics and it equals giddy fun.

Guillemots – Cockateels
Guillemots have been evolving to a more dance-influenced version of the outfit that released Through the Windowpane in 2006. It works for them. There are still the same beautiful orchestrations and soaring harmonies involving Fyfe Dangerfield’s voice and whatever instruments the experimental band choose to fly with it. Cockateels does doesn’t take long to take off into the atmosphere under the energy of another harmony of backing choir singers. The new album Red is much more upbeat than the last album and this is a shining example of glorious, avant-garde pop wonder.

Elbow – Grounds for Divorce
Grounds for Divorce starts with a chain gang melody of percussion, finger-plucking and claps. It’s catchy. But even after it starts becoming rocked up, by far the best feature of the first single from Elbow’s new album The Seldom Seen Kid is the lyrics. It’s lyrical storytelling at its finest. This one’s about hereditary alcoholism. Sincere lambasting about ‘a hole in my neighbourhood down which of late I cannot help but fall’ strikes just the right balance between lyrics that are effective with symbolism but stop beyond Smells like Teen Spirit like scatteredness. It’s worth the effort to listen to the words because when you Magic-Eye-like reveal what he’s actually singing about the song becomes quite moving, or at least impactful. After you’ve stopped scrutinising the singing you’ll also recognise quite a solid beat to it all as well.

The Dodos – Fools
The Dodo’s, despite the name and coming from the Bay Area, aren’t a Slim Thug alter-ego. They’re quite the opposite, really, a two piece indie folk rock group consisting of percussion and a guitar. Despite the limited instrumentation they still seem to conjure up expansive sounding melodies, though Fools is helped with quality atmospheric production and echoing warbles of the title throughout.
This is not a slight against their talent, but The Dodos and in particular this song sounds like it was made as a busking song. This is partly because of the acoustic guitar and the innovative percussion which adds drumming to both the rhythm and the melody (less people equals more cash for booze). But it’s mainly because it’s the kind of warm, reflective track that seems perfect to be played casually on a city street corner while thousands stride by engrossed in their own lives. The new album Visiter is out now.

M83 – Highway of Endless Dreams
Saturdays = Youth, the latest from M83 doesn’t echo the same sound of 2005’s Before the Dawn Heals Us completely. It goes in new directions, but Highway of Endless Dreams is a good connector between them, showcasing immaculately his whole filtered-guitar-reverberating notes that build and build into a peaceful chaos sound. Highway is a definite builder, but its climax is one of fade-to-black rather than burst into light. The final harmony of bass, distortion, and angelic mutterings is magnificent. And fortunately the rest of the album comes off just as epic.