Archive for March 12th, 2010
Crookers Tons of Friends Review
March 12th, 2010 | Author: admin
Dance music culture moves faster than cat years. Over the last three or so years it became so restless that it lost its attention span altogether, as a mutant strain of music emerged that the blogosphere called crack- or fidget-house.
Which lands us in the back yard of Crookers: two Milanese hip hop heads who preferred to make wonky club tracks with delirious build-ups and insane bass-riddled breaks. Their sound is one that went viral across clubland.
Debut album Tons of Friends is, in true hip hop style, 12 months late and towers over us as a daunting and dense work. Their biggest hit, a remix of Kid Cudi’s Day ‘n’ Nite (which peaked at number two in the UK) only makes an a cappella appearance, despite its dominance as the party tune of two consecutive summers: a rare feat in fast-moving festival circles.
But it’s to Crookers’ credit that they don’t chase ghosts here, instead opening up space to feature 25 collaborators across 20 tracks. The roll call of rappers includes Kelis, Pitbull, will.i.am, Cudi, Spank Rock and Rye Rye, and all apply their lyrical licks with vigour.
More unconventional guests include Soulwax, Sepultura’s Mixhell, Major Lazer, Poirier and Drop the Lime – who hurl in their studio knowledge – whilst vocal contributions from Roisin Murphy, Miike Snow and, rather incongruously, Tim Burgess are all effectively consumed and assimilated into monstrous club bangers. Such an amount of guests means nearly every track sounds like a lead single, destroying conventional album architecture in favour of full-throttled bounce.
Hold Up Your Hand, featuring a turn from Murphy, shines through with its sleazy German schaffel-beat whilst Cooler Couler sees Yelle enjoy a menacing and boisterous jaunt though pop. One of the absolute highlights is Miike Snow’s Remedy: an oscillating piano stomper layered with an old-school rave breakbeat which is a glitchy call-to-arms certain to rip up most dancefloors with filthy aplomb.
Tons of Friends is 100% party focused. If you want four-to-the-floor ghetto bass, sleazy RnB and the balls-out bravado of hip hop slammed onto perverted techno then you are in the right place. It’s just a shame it wasn’t around 12 months ago to bathe in the laser limelight of its true historical moment.
My Brightest Diamond Shark Remixes Review
March 12th, 2010 | Author: admin
There’s a certain convention to the reviewing of remix albums, one which revolves around pointing out the fact they’re usually not very good, before quite frequently going on to draw attention to No Protection – Mad Professor’s 1995 dub remix of Massive Attack’s Protection album of the previous year – as an increasingly distant example of how such things can be done correctly.
Still, it’s fair to say that you wouldn’t expect My Brightest Diamond – aka musician Shara Worden – to embark upon a remix record without aiming to make a serious piece of art. That she’s done it once before, with 2007’s Tear it Down (which contained remixes from 2006 debut album Bring Me the Workhorse), bodes well too. Her 2008 string quartet record A Thousand Shark’s Teeth was years in the making, and the fact Shark Remixes emerges another two years down the line is telling of the labour that’s gone in. A double-CD set, effectively consisting of four distinct, coherent EPs, Shark Remixes doesn’t quite have the original’s storm-lashed grandeur, but in all other respects must be held to at least equal it.
Composer Alfred Brown begins things, adding an intimacy to the hauteur, larding the songs with intricate percussion, groaning old strings and phantasmal hisses of static; Son Lux offers more warmth with a suite of chattering, dynamic electronics – his standout take on Inside a Boy starts like a Bond theme and accelerates to virtually gabba-like velocity. Roberto C Lange provides a hissingly surreal stew of found sounds and ambient effects that drag the once-strident record to a pleasantly peculiar outer suburb of the consciousness; lastly, Asthmatic Kitty labelmate DM Stith strips things back to their bare, bare minimum, the amusingly/exasperatingly named ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ peeling away source track On Top of the World until it’s just a warm little heartbeat of delicately fizzing strings.
José James Blackmagic Review
March 12th, 2010 | Author: admin
Minneapolis-born José James is blessed with the sort of honeyed baritone that would have made him a jazz star in whichever decade he emerged from. If that has you primed for the sort of anodyne crooner that’s resident in cocktail bars worldwide, though, think again. James found his way into the genre through the loops of Daisy Age-era hip hop acts like De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest before discovering Ellington and Coltrane and enrolling on New York’s forward-thinking New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music Vocal Program.
Happily, his music reflects this, making a decent fist of reconciling the weighty history of his chosen idiom with a style firmly rooted in the modern. Helping James out on his second album, Blackmagic, is a raft of producers, including jazzy Detroit house veteran Moodymann, Brooklyn producer Taylor McFerrin and Warp Records’ electronica sensation Flying Lotus. The opening Code, featuring Flying Lotus at the controls, is a fine example of this synthesis. Soft, oozing funk with a liquid keyboard line, James is restrained but insistent in his delivery, and the whole thing has a woozy, organic feel.
Such is typical of Blackmagic, which draws extensively on hip hop and dance culture, but presents its fusions with a blurry, down-tempo spin that should keep all but the most staid jazz heads onside.
Warrior, for example, is an interpretation of Emotions, an instrumental track by dubstep veteran Benga – but James’ band approach it like a live jam, swinging drums and scurrying piano delivered with a propulsive repetition that’s curiously reminiscent of the early work of Chicago post-rockers Tortoise. The Moodymann-produced track, Detroit Loveletter, meanwhile, slows down house rhythms to a jazzy shuffle peppered with languid Rhodes keys, and while the extraneous sounds might verge on chill-out cliché – mmm, running water, nice – James’ commanding, almost criminally sensual delivery smoothes over any flaws.
Jenni Molloy Bach ReLoaded Review
March 12th, 2010 | Author: admin
A loose convention, when it comes to jazz does classical, is that there are lots of layers, counterpoint, and interlocking motifs. Expansion rather than reduction of sound is the order of the day. Yorkshire bassist Jenni Molloy bravely reverses the trend, opting for the relatively naked setting of a bass-drums-sax trio where the absence of the expected piano is very much an asset rather than liability.
There are wide open spaces that are further widened by the sparse work of tenor-soprano player Stuart MacDonald and drummer Chris Sykes, the latter working a small kit a la Leon Parker and opting to focus on one area for lengthy periods, so that the minimal deployment of cymbals and toms on some tracks lends a dry patter to proceedings. This entirely suits the general sobriety of the prevailing atmosphere. That said, Molloy is not just putting Bach through the improviser’s merry wringer but taking fragments of suite and partita, a slice of a sarabande or a snatch of allegro, and spinning them into new compositions that also have classic reference points from Wayne Shorter to Miles Davis to South African township chorales.
Clocking in mostly at 10 minutes, each piece is mindful of the great clarity with which Bach constructed narrative light and shade, and thus wheels through many movements in its life cycle. All of the players, particularly Molloy, who has a rich, deeply statuesque tone that approaches that of a veteran such as Buster Williams, proceed with enough focus and thrust to imply a larger orchestral sweep while retaining the tight cohesion of the trio format. But then again MacDonald drops out often enough to let the leader enter into a duo formation with Sykes and state a theme that he later picks up and doubles, so that the melodic and rhythmic roles are constantly shifting a la jazz even though their eloquence is precision a la classical.
Carly Simon Never Been Gone Review
March 12th, 2010 | Author: admin
There comes a time in a recording artiste’s career when they feel the need to revisit the hell out of their oeuvre. Rockers and jazzers of a certain age who, dare one say, have run out of new ideas, often go back into their old catalogue to have a look around and see what they can retool for whatever audience they have left.
Joining the ranks of the old-school repeaters is Carly Simon. This collection of old songs, re-recorded by Simon with new arrangements (which also suit her age-changed vocal style), joins The Best of…, Greatest Hits Live, Clouds in My Coffee, Anthology: Reflections, and Carly Simon’s Greatest Hits as the latest recycling of her back catalogue. Her work does lend itself well to this kind of treatment; not being a clapped-out male rocker, she has no need to sound loud, and nor is she lumping it out on the dancefloor like, say, Tom Jones. Simon’s work has always leaned towards the jazzy and, while she hasn’t done a Joni Mitchell, who recently went back to her old hits but made them smokier and bluer, she has added new layers of experience and meaning to them.
If at times the impression left is too breezy (the elephant in the career that is You’re So Vain sounds almost embarrassed to be here), at others it’s extremely potent. Coming Round Again, with a lyric that always dealt with the passing of time as well the lot of a woman, is particularly effective here. The same can’t be said of You Belong to Me. In its original incarnation, as a duet with Michael McDonald, it sounded like a funky preview of what McDonald would pen in the 1980s; but now it sounds shaky and bland, a shadow of what it was.
Kris Drever Mark the Hard Earth Review
March 12th, 2010 | Author: admin
Fresh from winning a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Group with his ‘day job’ band Lau, this Scottish singer, guitarist and occasional songwriter releases his second solo set.
After a debut as great as 2006’s Black Water almost anything would disappoint. But while Mark the Hard Earth doesn’t quite reach the heights of that record, it is still impressive, and has a strong, slow-growing charm.
Drever has assembled much the same team of players, with Roy Dodds (drums) Ewen Vernal (bass), Donald Shaw (keyboards) and guitarist Ian Carr serving him well, as does fiddler and producer John McCusker. Irish American multi-instrumentalist Tim O’Brien is the most distinctive new collaborator, adding the sonic equivalent of subtle marker pen highlights to many songs with his mandolin, banjo, ukulele and harmony vocals. Irish singer Heidi Talbot is the other novice, duetting with Drever on The Banks of the Nile, the most familiar piece on a selection which, as before, mixes old and new writing.
Of the latter, Drever has again chosen two songs by Edinburgh songwriter Sandy Wright. Both are sentimental waltzes, although neither is as distinctive as his contributions to Black Water. Boo Hewerdine’s country-gospel flavoured Sweet Honey in the Rock is, though, up to his usual high standard. Best of all is The Crown of London, by Drever’s brother Duncan, a pulsing number with a melody that simply bores into your brain and stays there, along with some great lyrics: “The devil’s made plans for the wealthy man / he’ll never get to me”.
The self-penned title-track is a stark, enigmatic waltz that’s the slowest grower of all, introducing a wintry theme that resurfaces several times. Of the more instantly accessible material, there’s the sprightly, countrified This Old Song, with its tricky tempo changes, and a lovely version of The Call and the Answer, which fans of The Dubliners may know.
Of the traditional pieces, the ballad O’ A’ the Airts has especially fine backing vocals by Talbot, and the closing Freedom Come A’ye matches words by the great Scottish poet Hamish Henderson with the tune of Bloody Fields of Flanders, to strikingly solemn effect.
Jimi Hendrix Valleys of Neptune Review
March 12th, 2010 | Author: admin
Seattle-born guitar genius Jimi Hendrix died 40 years ago this September. Valleys of Neptune is the latest in the avalanche of unreleased Hendrix material that followed that premature demise.
Apart from Axis: Bold As Love outtake Mr Bad Luck (a prototype Look Over Yonder), the dozen songs herein are studio recorded tracks laid down after 1968’s Electric Ladyland but before Hendrix began work proper on First Rays of the New Rising Sun. Most feature the original Jimi Hendrix Experience, two have Billy Cox in place of Noel Redding on bass, one features Hendrix and other musicians.
This, though, is not some kind of great lost missing link album. Several of the tracks, like the cover of Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love and Elmore James’ Bleeding Heart, and a trio of rehashed Experience favourites, were done as studio warm-ups or rehearsals for forthcoming concerts. Even the conventional studio tracks mostly feel as cold and flat as rehearsals, rather than layered and nuanced in the manner of LP cuts. Additionally, the fact that these 12 tracks have a running time of an hour is a bad sign. That Hendrix was always best when he combined virtuosity with brevity is demonstrated by the flaccid eight-minute version herein of Red House, which can’t hold a candle to the taut, classic Are You Experienced original.
The core of the album is four tracks previously unreleased in any format. It’s an underwhelming quartet. Lullaby for the Summer starts out interesting courtesy of an exciting riff, but it soon disappointingly dawns that there are no vocals, while Hendrix’s solo is caterwauling. Ships Passing Through the Night is okay, but essentially just an identikit 12-bar blues with above-average guitar passages. The title-track is dreamlike and slick, but possessed of the type of rather aimless melody line that afflicted Hendrix’s work in later years. Closer Crying Blue Rain is, unlike anything else here, poised and rich. However, it has no vocals, peters sloppily out and (like Mr Bad Luck) is rendered historically worthless by additional bass and drum recording done in 1987.
The fact that this climax comprises the closest thing to a substantial recording on the album is an indictment of a release that one suspects would not have made the stores had the Hendrix estate not wished to offer a bone to new label Sony following the end of their distribution deal with Universal.
Spice Girls Greatest Hits Review
March 12th, 2010 | Author: admin
Five girls, unashamed to spout opinions and punch their stamp onto everything, took the whole world by storm when they unleashed “Wannabe” on an unsuspecting audience back in 1996. Ginger, Scary, Sporty, Baby and Posh created their own revolution before Geri fled, they went a bit R&B and everything went silent.
Now in 2007, they’re all back together, claiming they’re still bezzie mates and finally releasing a greatest hits CD. Featuring all of their singles, as well as advert soundtrack “Move Over” and two new tracks, this compilation actually makes you realise that while their success was down to the whole package, their songs were in fact really, really good.
A Spice ballad was mainly for Christmas, and only a cold heart could fail to love their first festive #1, the shimmering “2 Become 1″. The heartbroken post-Geri “Goodbye” provided the girls with their last really good single and, despite it being released mid-summer, “Viva Forever’s” layered vocals and fairy-filled video has stood the test of time.
It’s not often that a band manages to do both ballads and dancefloor stompers well, but this is no ordinary band. “Spice Up Your Life” actually sounds better now than it did back in ’97 and their piece de resistance “Who Do You Think You Are” still manages to fill dancefloors. And don’t let’s forget “Stop”, the only Spice Girl single that failed to reach #1. Sounding like it could have come straight out of the 60s, this is one song we’d love to hear a Mark Ronson rendition of.
The obligatory two new songs hark back to the days of Spice and Spiceworld rather than their more urban third album, Forever. “Headlines” has a classic Spice ballad feel while “Voodoo” ramps up the fun and flavour of “Spice Up Your Life”.
If you were one of the many haters of the Spice Girls back in the day, then this CD isn’t going to change your mind about them. But if you grew up watching their every move, then this is a slice of nostalgia that miraculously still sounds fresh today.
Ellie Goulding Lights Review
March 12th, 2010 | Author: admin
That Ellie Goulding topped the BBC’s Sound of 2010 poll and won the Critics’ award at the Brits counts for precisely nothing as of now. Her debut album signals the next chapter in the career of an artist who, with only a pair of singles reaching the world beyond the music industry, seems to have been handed success on a plate. But the past is just that, the page has turned; here is where Goulding truly lays down the foundations for either a 15-minute stand or, she’d hope, a lengthy tenure in our hearts.
Good news: Lights is an expectations-passing collection that should see fans of the singer’s material to date elevating her to superstar status – perhaps not Gaga league, but certainly the equal of the current solo female du jour, Florence Welch. Both possess vocals that can rub a listener the wrong way, but Goulding’s lyricism surpasses Welch’s exacerbating I’m-so-wacky-me artifice, connecting on a commendably affecting level with no little frequency.
She’s not a bad vocalist, but there are moments when an endearing cuteness crosses into uncomfortable irritation, a purr peaking to a piercing squeal. With words cut-and-pasted across compositions that dance with contemporary class – the presence of Starsmith (Marina and the Diamonds, Paloma Faith) and Fraser T Smith (Tinchy Stryder, N-Dubz) ensures an up-to-the-moment production modernity shines through – there are parallels with Frankmusik’s enjoyably breathless patter throughout. The polish, laid thick but even, keeps the consistency controlled – ballads like The Writer and I’ll Hold My Breath retain the glossy attraction of singles Under the Sheets and Starry Eyed. Wish I Stayed is the album’s skilfully sound-scaped highlight, percussively brutish but comely of light keys.
What really sells Goulding as a hyped artist with substance enough to qualify the acclaim, though, is her way with words. She’s not showy, but cuts to the core of each matter with the accomplished efficiency of an artist twice her age. Considering she only signed her deal in the autumn of 2009, Lights represents a superb achievement in this respect – hackneyed heart-on-sleeve emoting is conspicuous by its absence, deliberately curt posers dominating proceedings. “Who am I to say I’m always yours?” she asks, and in one line addresses more romantic uncertainty than entire albums from her would-be peers.
Who, if you’d not already guessed, she spectacularly surpasses. 2010’s poll-winners’ party has only just begun, but expect Goulding to be the last one standing.
Goldheart Assembly Wolves and Thieves Review
March 12th, 2010 | Author: admin
London sextet Goldheart Assembly have been doing things the honest way for the past couple of years, charming small crowds before moving on to larger rooms and small festivals and, via a BBC Introducing leg-up at 2009’s Glastonbury Festival, they’re now looking likely to embrace a considerably bigger audience with the release of this debut album.
Its timing is perfect, with Mumford & Sons enjoying unforeseen mainstream recognition and Fleet Foxes still regularly popping up on daytime radio. Goldheart Assembly’s sound isn’t quite as folk-indebted as the former’s dusty demeanor, and nor is it as magically whimsical as the latter’s otherworldliness, but there are definite elements of similarity, particularly the strong vocal harmonising. Perhaps a closer comparison, compositionally, is The Magic Numbers – take their sunshine-flecked pop at its finest, throw in a little spit and sawdust, and you’re in the right place.
Parallels aside – useful though they are for immediacy – Wolves and Thieves makes a decent stab at stamping an identity of its own once properly underway. Opener and single King of Rome is a splendidly rollicking, country-kissed pop-rocker that has wormed its way onto playlists with the same effortless ease exhibited by Fleet Foxes’ Mykonos. Both songs resonate with an innate familiarity, yet simultaneously seem to present something sparkly new. Whatever the formula for such instant-of-appeal offerings is, Goldheart Assembly have it committed to memory. But they don’t stick to it exclusively.
Anvil softens the mood, xylophone chimes underpinning a delicate acoustic ballad; So Long St Christopher, meanwhile, swells proudly with archaic organ tones preceding a lycan howl of freak-folk-ish temperament. Jesus Wheel is the album’s dark heart, a rumbling rumination on the acceptance of inadequacy, yet the following Reminder is a quasi-shanty sure to raise a smile. The album expresses its diversity without ever distancing itself from the core components that make it work: namely James Dale’s affecting lead vocals, carefully entwined yet purely organic instrumentation, and an overall vibe that’s got its roots in pastoral Californian pop of the past.
It’s not overly showy nor ground-breaking, and it will stir thoughts of other, perhaps slightly more accomplished performers. But such is the inherent sweetness of Goldheart Assembly’s debut that the listener can’t fail to be touched by its charms, slight though they are, and all signs here point to a deserved increase in popularity and perhaps a second album to truly celebrate.