Bruce Springsteen - The Promise

Another catch up piece. The Promise actually came out in November and most of you probably know all about it by now. However, despite that and the fact that it's by a world recognised artist, I thought it was worth a mention, due to the sheer quality of the material.
What you have is a double CD of 21 songs recorded around the time of Darkness On The Edge Of Town, but which didn't make the cut. Some have surfaced in different forms since, but some have been left buried for years. To think that while recording the follow up to the crossover album Born To Run, the record company allowed him to record forty songs, of which only ten made the final album and that there would be three years between the two albums is unthinkable nowadays, but the correct decision in hindsight. Presumably virtually no artists starting out nowadays will have the longevity that Springsteen has enjoyed. For now, simply take pleasure in the fact that Bruce has now seen fit to dust these songs down and give them the airing they deserve. That they were never intended as a complete album, makes the way they gel an even greater surprise and delight.

The Promise is out now on Columbia
Bruce's website is here

The Humdrum Express – Elevation Of Trivia

Another new album appears from mercurial singer songwriter The Humdrum Express. It starting with Keepin’ Score, in which he goes a bit Frank Turner on us, setting the world to rights. Other tracks like What A Carry On! have an eerie new wave vibe, this one specifically a bit reminiscent of Wire or Tubeway Army. While two contrasting bands in many ways, the comparison works. A lot of this is due to the production on the album, which has the vocals sound like they have an odd tunnelling echo effect on them. Two’s Company is much better with the effect lifted. The New Doctor Who is reflective and a bit Billy Bragg, while Battle Of The Blands side swipes interminable band competitions, populated by run of the mill acts doing uninspired covers.

There’s an element of Half Man Half Biscuit’s inspired wit as he takes pot shots at message board menaces (Message Board Hooligan) and in part armchair patriot football fans and other types (What You See). Rather than using straight in your face humour though, it’s down with a lightness of touch, merely pointing out the ridiculous, and letting you make up your own mind on things. The best is saved until last with Moral High Ground. In a volte face, he chucks out I, Ludicrous style pithy observations over a skittering industrial electro-lite beat. The vocals being nice and high in the mix you find yourself knodding in agreement at the remarks and being absorbed by the cracking beats.

Elevation Of Trivia is self released and available from The Humdrum Express website

Braindead Collective - The Whites Of Our Eyes

Normally improvisation leaves me cold, but there is something quite wonderful about this. It is the first collaboration between Oxford / London kraut-jazz-drone experimentalists Braindead Collective (featuring members of Guillemots, The Epstein, Keyboard Choir and others), and the Scotland-via-Lancashire purveyor of lo-fi creaks and drones, Rob St. John and was recorded on the coldest day of a freezing British winter in Oxford’s oldest church – St.Michael’s on Cornmarket St – by microphones strategically strewn from pews and rafters. You can listen to it via the player below, and pick up a download in exchange for a donation to Shelter.

Matt Longo - Alexandria

After the downbeat tone of the last post, here comes something else to restore my faith. Not only that, Matt Longo gives singer songwriters a good name, a difficult thing when acoustic troubadors are ten a penny and worth even less nowadays. Wonderfully angelic vocals that leap hither and thither, some sweet melodies and an uplifting air all contribute to make this splendid mini album something special. You can listen to it on the player below. Click on the player to find all the links your heart desires and to download the album for free.

Wonderflu - Lota Schwager EP

This is the first in a series of brief year end recommendations, in an effort to catch up the backlog that has been created by my current disenchantment with reviewing. With personal time ever decreasing, I simply don't want to spend it listening to an ever increasing number of distinctly average bands. Some things however are worth bringing to wider attention, such as this, the latest EP by Pavement-esque Parisien band Wonderflu. Normal service will be resumed sometime soon...have a listen to this below in the meantime.

Edwyn Collins – Oxford Academy 05/11/10

Much has been made of Edwyn’s miraculous recovery from two cerebral haemorrhages and a bout of MSRA, and it is true that the fact he is even here to play the show tonight is amazing. Leaving that to one side for a moment, this is a brilliant show by anyone’s standards. Tonight we get a rich and varied selection of tunes from the beginning of Orange Juice, through seven solo albums up to the freshly released Losing Sleep. Edwyn makes his own way on stage after the band take up residence, and they give him a funky backing track to arrive to. And what a band. Paul Cook of the Pistols on drums, long time Morrissey band member Boz Boorer on keys and sax and Andy Hackett of the Rockingbirds on guitar for starters. Pick of the band is lead guitarist Tom Edwards who plays some wicked licks, but in a wonderfully understated way. It’s some achievement to stand out in this line up, as Boorer delivers some delightful teasing sax interludes and Cook looks like he’s having the time of life on drums, and having much more fun than any Pistols reunions.

Edwyn has a book to prompt him of the lyrics, but it’s an entirely natural delivery and the band adds a little beef to some of the more twee OJ numbers. The quality of the songs and show are such that I forget all about A Girl Like You until it kicks in pre-encore. For the start of the encore there is an acoustic interlude which is divine, then the band return with Frankie from the Heartstrings (who were excellent in support earlier) for a storming In Your Eyes from the new album before they deliver my favourite OJ song, Blue Boy, which sounds fantastic. Before the gig I was biased towards Edwyn’s talents and hoping it would go really well for him, while at the same time worried it would all go wrong. I needn’t have fretted; Edwyn has overcome another big challenge and then some.

Originally published in Nightshift

Various – Home Volume 2

It’s a difficult task putting together a compilation album, but after the musical success of Home Volume 1, Rash Records are having another go at it. It is a pretty mixed bag, but as it is free to download, it’s definitely worth the few clicks effort.

First up Toodar’s song Toy is a pleasant noodle and squiggle that improves on a fairly basic acoustic tune. The Poems singer has a delightfully rich country voice, and Can You Come For Me sounds like Jealous Guy drifting across the plains. Sweet harmonies abound on Orwell’s I Need A Friend, like the delightful Teenage Fanclub. We Have The Right To Starlight by Cult Of Wedge glistens like an amateur Kraftwerk, while No One In Particular by Bobby Wotnot and Snippet is like a trippy White Town. The Men From Delmonte produce She Was Beautiful, a repetitive spoken word, ambient piece, like Little Fluffy Clouds for the downbeat thoughtful set. Louise Le May’s effort Cassandra is rather odd, like Tori Amos doing some bland piano based showtune, but it’s also rather touching and endearing. Whispers by Mr Fogg is pleasant enough, even though it is just emotive singing over a squelchy synthesised tune. Decent, but not groundbreaking. Testbild tinkle nicely with All Of The Fishes, Wim Oudjik is way out of place with some old dancehall reggae that clashes with beatboxing and Hawaiian shimmies to make it the best thing so far. Make You Happy by Better Fires is rather gorgeous. It’s a simple tune, with some delightful female vocals, like Laura Marling but with more warmth. Butterfly Perception by Mank is a noodle from a lost film and finally we get the stupidly named Tim and Sam’s Tim and Sam Band with Tim and Sam. Their Choices threatens to be a lovely sumptuous big sounding alt folk thing, a bit like Sufjan Stevens, but never really takes off.

Home Volume 2 is available as a free download from Rash Records

Round Up 4

Oxford based band Dial F For Frankenstein combine the urgency and vigour of youth with a hard working essence and sound of yore. USA sounds like Midway Still, all flannel shirts and attacking guitars. There’s the fizz of the Wedding Present in there too. Combine that with a crazily catchy chorus and you have a cool thing indeed.

Flash Fiktion are a London trio specialising in walking the fashionista tightrope while staying just on the right side. With its jabbering keys new single Leni crosses Pop Will Eat Itself with Nine Inch Nails times some asymmetric haircut techno.

Apparently The Jolly Boys are a legendary Jamaican band. So quite why they’ve been roped into producing an album of bland reggae covers of pop tunes is anyone’s guess. It’s pretty tiresome, with one tune melding into another in a big sloppy mess.

Harper Simon’s Berkeley Girl is a quite gorgeous little acoustic ditty, but is rendered rather pointless by its close similarity to his dad’s work.

Frank Turner’s Try This At Home is a rollicking Levellers style protest tune, and one of his best things yet. If you know Frank, you’ll know what it sounds like. If you don’t, then you really should. The Pogues style chorus, as if they were doing Irish Rover, is enough alone to win you over.

The Duke & The King release the lead single of their new album Long Live The Duke & The King. It’s called Shaky and it’s a lovely piece of blissed out country with sweet harmonies and a touch of Laurel Canyon meets West Coast vibe. It’s a relic of older times, and a lovely one at that.

Dial F For Frankenstein's single is out now and available from their myspace
Flash Fiktion's single is out now on Split Records
The Jolly Boys album is released on 13th September by Wall Of Sound
Harper Simon releases Berkeley Girl on 13th September on [PIAS] Recordings
Frank Turner's single is out now on Xtra Mile Recordings
The Duke & The King single is out on 20th September, released by Loose Music/Silver Oak

Antartica Takes It! – Constellations

Antartica Takes It! continue pops obsession with the extraneous exclamation mark onto their second album. Lead track Bossa is gorgeously twee, with children’s instruments and a sweet ukulele tune. C&F is You Can’t Hurry Love for the Herman Dune crowd; while Straight To Your Heart is a wonderfully shaky, ramalama, joyous bursting heart of a tune. This is sunshine in song form. The female sung Try Try Try is like Standard Fare in the cracked sunlight and contains some of the Research’s early spirit. The title track features a twee voice and sounds like a hyperactive Jens Lekman. Lions Of Love is an indie pop shantying Decemberists, Stay In Bed a female sung shonky bike ride and Spirit Of Love a delightful indie pop cheery tune. It’s like skipping in springtime. Thunderstruck is Lekman vs Dune and if you’re a fan of either of those acts, you should love this album.

Constellations is out now on How Does It Feel To Be Loved?

Antartica Takes It! myspace is here

Angel Corpus Christi – Elvis Elvis

The latest of Angel Corpus Christi’s tribute albums, does a fine take on Elvis. It’s Now Or Never is reimagined as a sultry, sassy little bossa number. One Night is a mysterious smokey lounge thing, while Don’t Be Cruel is either Massive Attack or Primal Scream’s dub version of Higher Than The Sun, trippy, woozy and beautiful. Teddy Bear follows a similar pattern and Are You Lonesome Tonight is like a Parisian café tune.

Elvis Elvis is out now and available through her website.

Cleemann – 45 Minutes Mostly About Caring

Cleemann is the project of Copenhagen based musician Gunnar Cleemann and 45 Minutes Mostly About Caring is the first album of a trilogy. Lead track Ambitious is sumptuous and delicate. It’s a slow motion groove with some dreamy European inflected sighed vocals. Righteous is a bit like Antony (of The Johnsons fame) vocally. Most of the songs on here are generally brooding parting of stormcloud moments, when the beauty reappears. Then you get Repairman, which is a bit Richard Hawley. Passing by the loveliness of both parts of Absent, we get the sublime Edwyn Collins silkiness of Collide. Optimist is gossamer light and entirely beautiful, mainly due to the voice which has a dream like quality. It sounds like this should soundtrack some artistic work by Michel Gondry. A delightful album from another plane in a dream world.

45 Minutes Mostly About Caring is out now on Series Two Records

Round Up 3

Secret Rivals new one, It Would Be Colder Here Without You (self released), is the best thing they’ve done so far. The Oxford band keep improving as they hone their sound over time, the scratchy messiness replaced with a far more assured band letting the melodies shine through. Its mid eighties indie pop, with a Bis shouty bit at times and a touch of new wave effervescence. Rather lovely indeed.

Liechtenstein follow up a splendid debut album with a new single, Passion For Water (Fraction Discs). It’s a sweet little thing, with a repeated line making up a hummable chorus. Trying to come up with a comparison is difficult, because it sounds so minimal and retro, yet refreshingly modern and new. Spending Time With You skips with joy in its heart, as you’d expect from the subject matter, and a sixties girl group shimmy. On The Tram is a rush and a jabber and the land is theirs.

Next up is the Almost Verbose EP (February Records) by Brilliant At Breakfast. Splashdown is lounge music with gorgeous coquettish female vocals, an even more sensual Sarah Cracknell if you will. Beautiful stuff indeed. Strawberry TV is an infectiously catchy breezy bit of summer pop like The Lucksmiths used to make. Nobody Ever Died Of A Broken Heart is some delightful whimsy with a scary pay off, while If Monday’d Never Come is brisk twee pop, like the Concretes gone fey.

On the same label is the Secret Charisma EP, Complications (February Records). The title track is a bit of chirpy indie pop, with weird vocals that waver in and out. Intentional or not, it makes me a bit sea sick. I’m not entirely sure it works. Angel, Please is rickety indie, kind of like skiffle updated for the C86 set. Lord Thomas however is fantastic, some kind of ghostly folk song. It’s something that’s been plucked from the realms of folklore and resurrected through a haze of wistfulness.

The Spectrals 7^th Date (Slumberland Records) is sluggish in a good way, just swaying and tinkling with a knowing cool. Oddly, Don’t Mind on the flipside is almost a continuation of the a side. It’s similar in style and attitude and has a melody that doesn’t lift its head from its slumbers.

The Wendy Darlings release the Not A Match Made In Heaven EP (Marineville Records). Zero Zero Seven is a cracking shrieked fuzzy thing, all that is best in girl led indie pop. Suffer Girl is a bit Velvets cool, with an excitable side. Sunday So Bored is shambolically and energetically great brisk pop, while Seven Years Bad Luck is a slinky shimmy, a bit like The Hot Toddies song HTML. Gorgeously understated and affecting.

The final thing this time is by Looking Glass, The First Real Target EP (self released). What do you get if you take the best bits of Midlake, Sufjan Stevens and Fleet Foxes and roll them into a lovely rustic ball? Looking Glass, that’s who. It’s an interesting EP that is obviously designed as an artefact rather than with any commercial purposes, as the tracks get better as the EP goes along. Cracking stuff.

All releases are out now.

Battle For Prague – Red Sky Stares EP

Here’s the second EP from Battle From Prague, recorded on analogue equipment in a Victorian Manor House. That was intended to capture their live sound, which on this showing is definitely a good thing. Lead track Modern Spirit is a snarling beast, wired to rock and roll. It has an indie rock cool about it, fresh enough to make you love it but also drawing on American guitar rock influences. We Used To Drink reminds me of Wilco with a tad of Stephen Malkmus tired drawl to the vocals. It’s like Wilco in that its unassuming and gentle, but has hidden depths that are revealed with further listens. I also think of Archers of Loaf when I hear this, but without the wilful amateur playing. Saboteur falls somewhere between the two, most reminding me of Hope of the States and their song Enemies:Friends, while finally Peccadillo is not as good as the other but still decent, earnest Yank alt rock.

Red Sky Stares EP is out now as a free download or a CD to buy from the band's Bandcamp page

Round up 2

Attention All Departments, the new single by The Winter Olympics is a monster of a song, a pulsating electro, snarling rock beast. It’s ridiculously over the top, especially the vocals, but it has grandiosity its hard not to love. It hunts you down and as you cower in the corner expecting to be beaten, drags you onto the dancefloor. Flipside They Launched A Probe is more bombastic stuff, like a coy indie band having their soul possessed by hard rockers.

Amadou & Mariam release the wonderfully joyous Africa as a download single; accompanied by some fairly pointless and not very different remixes by Bob Sinclar and Radioclit.

The oddly named Life & Times Of have their debut single out as a free download. Ballet falls somewhere between Radiohead and Wild Beasts and on first listens struggles to find its own identity. Greasy Magpie flounders moodily in its own dark corner of the world without achieving much.

For a band formed like so many nowadays under the influence of C86, Young Michelin have taken those inspirations and made something rather lovely, rather than merely aping their forebears. It is chirpy indie pop with a decidedly electro feel, and features words sung in the band’s native tongue of French. Indie poppers of the world get behind Young Michelin. They’ve released one of the best EPs (EP Eponynm) of the year and a decidedly simple and joyous pleasure.

Slumberland have reissued Sound Of The Westway, the sole album from the Swiss all girl group from the eighties, Chin Chin. Pretty much all you need to know if that it’s a shambling delight, and will please fans of The Shop Assistants and The Flatmates.

Finally Fraction Discs release the latest single from Twig. It’s a lush rickety splendour, both Hourglass and Scattered Dreams reminiscent of Edwyn Collins finer solo stuff, with the emphasis on the vocal similarity.

The Winter Olympics single is out now on Office Rock Records

Amadou & Mariam single is out now on Because Music

The Life&Times Of single is out for free download on August 2nd from their website

Chin Chin's album is out now on Slumberland Records

Twig's single is out now on Fraction Discs

I Am Kloot – Sky At Night

Perennial underachievers I Am Kloot are back with a new album, their fifth so far. The underachieving is not necessarily down to them, but the failure to connect than with anything but a hardcore following. Of course, the fanatical should be enough in itself. In the past I’ve heard the odd track but never been inspired enough to investigate further. However if any album should be the one that gives them access to a wider following, it’s this one. Northern Skies is Nick Drake fronting Elbow, a simply sublime and beautiful pop song. To The Brink follows, another sumptuous Northern pop song. String laden and reminiscent of Richard Hawley, it also reminds of Elbow, whose Guy Garvey and Craig Potter are on production duties. It’s only when we get to track 4, the bluesy Lately that the quality dips. It’s something that wants to be really soulful, but ends up a bit turgid. When they follow it with a lovely acoustic number like I Still Do, you wonder why they found the need. There’s then a selection of songs when they go all muso and bland on us, which is a major disappointment. There are too many songs that seemed to have been noodled away at in a dark smoky room. Radiation is a rather splendid thing, soulful vocals and a beautiful melody that build in a way like the Polyphonic Spree but uncluttered by excess instruments. Same Shoes wraps up the album in melancholy fashion.

Sky At Night is an odd album, at times brilliant, emotional and catchingly melodic, at others over wrought and dull. It’s well worth wading through to seek out the good bits though.

Sky At Night is out now

I Am Kloot website is here