https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cu6FOUW6s4
Michael Jackson
Xscape
[Interscope]
In which we find ourselves pondering the real—and what actually constitutes a Michael Jackson song? Surely the algorithims to digitally recreate Michael Jackson’s voice and affectations in perpetuity – a couple of autotune wobbles aside – already exist? This collection of retooled demos thankfully is accompanied by the original demos, which at least offer us a glimpse of something other than an elaborate marketing experience with the original version of Love Never Felt So Good (dated as just post-Thriller) highlighting the gulf between the “real” thing and the simulacra.
Words: Ian Lamont
Sharon Van Etten
Are We There
[Jagjaguwar]
Van Etten sounds versatile on Are We There: Your Love Is Killing Me could be a PJ Harvey outtake, Our Love’s chorus owes a lot to Beth Gibbons, and piano-led I Know could be Joni Mitchell singing. From meek opening track Afraid of Nothing, Van Etten hits a vein of confidence somewhere around Taking Chances and springs with self-assurance on the ballsy closer Every Time the Sun Comes Up: “People say I’m a one-hit-wonder, but what happens when I have two?” You’ve answered your own question, Sharon.
Words: Eoin Tierney
Fucked Up
Glass Boys
[Matador]
Following an 80 minute-long rock opera was always going to be a difficult one for Fucked Up. They’ve reigned things in to a comparatively tight 42 minutes and ironically enough it’s somehow less immediate than David Comes to Life. The production is a little cottony, sapping some of the energy from the songs, giving them an overtly psychish feel which takes a bit of getting used to. It works for the most part though, the only outright bad moment on the album being the gross glam-rock outro on Warm Change.
Words: Ivan Deasy
Ought
More Than Any Other Day
[Constellation]
The striking image of hands clasped together in solidarity that adorns the cover of Ought’s remarkable debut was discovered laying atop a dumpster. In a sense, nothing encapsulates the Montreal four-piece’s appeal, potency and raison d’être more than this nugget of trivia. Over the course of eight songs that span from wiry, Women-esque post-punk to droning cello-driven melancholia Ought celebrate a kind of togetherness in isolation. Even if life seems like a dumpster sometimes, at least we’re in it together.
Words: Danny Wilson
Guided By Voices
Cool Planet
[Fire Records]
GBV’s production rate sometimes outstrips demand, but asking them to lay off the new music so we can all catch up misses the point – they release album after album to stay fit, rippling Lou Ferrignos to flabby Schwarzneggers like The Pixies. Album number 21, Cool Planet, is well-trodden territory: crackling production, bizarre lyrics, everything under two minutes. Occasionally though Robert Pollard’s singing sounds overly familiar, like you’re passing through the ghost of Watch Me Jumpstart, understandable really when they’ve recorded 1,500 songs.
Words: Eoin Tierney
Survival Knife
Loose Power
[Glacial Pace]
13 years on from the autumnal melancholy of the final Unwound LP, former frontman Justin Trosper is back with a different-but-kinda-the-same new band. There’s a good-time rock’n’roll sensibility in some of the songs that would not have flown in the po-faced 1990s indie scene but the second half dips comfortably back into the discordant angularisms of old. It’s a welcome return for one of the lesser heard voices in 1990s weirdo rock.
Words: Ivan Deasy
Hercules & Love Affair
The Feast of the Broken Heart
[Moshi Moshi]
Having presaged the resurgence in popularity of camp, funky disco over recent years with their 2008 calling card Blind, it’s strange that Hercules & Love Affair never really managed to make significant hay while the sun was shining brightly on said pastures. The Feast of the Broken Heart* shows that Hercules & Love Affair have, it turns out, moved on from disco to a harder edged house sound replete with a selection of guests vocalists including John Grant. What it turns out like is an album of Storm Queen re-runs, some more passable than others.
Words: Ian Lamont
Little Dragon
Nabuma Rubberband
[Lomo Vista]
For a band that one associates with high-fashion and Scandinavian sleekness, Little Dragon slips into curious bursts of complete tastelessness at times throughout Nabuma Rubberband. Part of me thinks that missteps like the title track are attempts at appropriation of some naff 1990s tropes that just make this record seem too ironically distant to encourage much real devotion. By comparison with last month’s similarly synthetic Arcadia by Ramona Lisa had an inner warmth missing here.
Words: Ian Lamont
Helena Hauff
Return To Disorder
[Panzerkreuz]
A dense, claustrophobic hiss of pulsating monochromatic retro electronica is the calling card of Helena Hauff. This is terse and at times brutal stuff made from intense repetition where the inimitable cowbell sound of a TR-808 drum machine is probably the most significantly melodic element. Return To Disorder feels like an exercise in a highly-stylised minimalism constrained by vintage technologies for maximum immersion in the vicious world it paints.
Words: Ian Lamont
Xeno & Oaklander
Par Avion
[Ghostly International]
Despite a reputation from their live show last summer for visceral electronica bleep-bloopery enthralled with old-school technology, Par Avion is in fact shot through with a songiness that aligns it with 1980s electronic pop like Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, with perhaps a slightly gothier tint. Sean McBride and Liz Wendelbo’s vocals work well in isolation or together, his gruff and vaguely Curtisian, hers elegiac and sweeping. Not a summer record but one worth keeping in storage for the darker months ahead.
Words: Ian Lamont
