No shouts, but a very good call!

I mentioned this album in my "want to listen to" list last week. It is released Monday 30th April but thanks to the great folks at Boomkat Records I had the vinyl version arrive in the post on Friday. I have already listened to it at least half a dozen times and it is quite something.

Let's just start with the LP itself: it is two very well pressed discs of heavy vinyl, as there is no attempt to cram the 44 minutes on to a single one, each in its own illustrated slip cover and both contained in an outer sleeve (as illustrated above, with the logo in glossy foil rather than merely printed), plus there is also an A3 poster/lyric sheet. All this for £2 ($4) more than the regular CD - no contest I'd say! It is the most beautifully designed and executed LP package I have seen in a long time. To be quite honest if I didn't actually like the music, and since I had never heard anything from it or indeed either of Electrelane's previous output it was quite possible, it wouldn't have mattered too much!

Now for the music: It is actually quite difficult to describe because it mostly relies on textures and the creation of soundscapes quite heavily, indeed four of the eleven tracks are entirely instrumental and the and lyrics don't tend to be an overpowering element on the others. The result is best described by that often double-edged term 'atmospheric'.
To me it reminds me of walking through a familiar landscape on a very foggy day, or perhaps a vivid dream that has that strange feeling of being real but somehow distorted. I suspect that it will split opinion as I can see that if it doesn't in some indefinable way "make sense" on first listening then it is going to prove hard going. [Writing this review certainly is proving hard going.]
I won't suggest anything it sounds like because I can't think of much that will help in that way. Although in no way the same it is worth noting that Electrelane supported Arcade Fire on the UK leg of their recent tour and if you are a fan of the less "chart-orientated" end of indie then you might find this is well worth a listen...
...and also another album that will baffle your friends with when you play it in the car!

2007 so far, and my "want to listen to" list (Part 2)

I better finish this topic pretty quickly because the list of things I want to listen to is getting longer faster than I can possibly add them to this blog or - importantly and also much more expensively - to my music collection!

The first is a Brighton-based band, Electrelane, that has recently come to my attention due to the fact that they supported Arcade Fire on the UK leg of their world tour. That I had not heard of it is rather inexcusable as they have been together for the better part of a decade and are to release their fourth studio album on 30th April.

No Shouts No Calls will be available on 12" vinyl.

The second is also Brighton-based; in this case an eight member collective that I had already heard of although perhaps maybe most people haven't! In 2006 Shoreline released a brilliant 5-track 10" EP, From Eden, Home And In Between - on vinyl only - on 'Yesternow Recordings' (YES001) .
Their début album, Time Well Spent, should follow fairly soon, also on 'Yesternow Recordings'. I say "Brighton-based" advisedly; the leading lights in Shoreline are main vocalist Beatrice Sanjust di Teluada, who is from Italy, and Tom Cowan who hails from Burton on Trent. What does their music sound like? Well I've seen it described as 'acid folk' a couple of times but how much does that help most of us? It is however certainly not 'alt-folk' either...
Entirely acoustic, it has a indefinable child-like quality. Often dream-like the lyrics sometimes seem to make sense and sometimes they don't, but they are a source of wonder and their actual meaning utterly unimportant. Most strikingly, Sounds Like may not even have any meaning at all but these are truly musical nursery rhymes for adults.
The reason that I have not made any comparisons between Shoreline and other acts is because, at the moment, I quite simply can't think of any!
Last but not least is this one:
Laura Marling - London Town (EP)

This was released only on 7" on Monday 9th April, by WayOutWest Records. If you can still find a copy available - and don't even think about quizzing Amazon about it - then it is well worth having!
She is not actually a 'Londoner' at all but comes from Eversley, on the fringes of Reading. Her music sounds more like alt-folk than acid-folk, but does it also overlap with anti-folk? I think so - and the problem with all these so-called 'genres' is that they are so numerous as to be quite meaningless. Almost as numerous indeed as the new generation of (mostly) guitar-wielding UK singer-songwriters, that are variously so labelled, and with whom I have no problem at all!

"Britain Has Talent"and we certainly don't need Simon Cowell's latest reality TV idea (of that name) to prove it.
From the ever-so-delicately picked 'hardly there' sound, to the full punk-rock blast of bands such as Glasgow's 'The Hedrons', it is already a fact; Maxïmo Park even provided an apposite summary with the track 'Girls Who Play Guitars', which features on their new album 'Our Earthly Pleasures'. Long may it remain the case!

A strange beast called Anniemal! Those 2005 albums... (part 3)

This time it is not rock, which has typified the previous parts of this occasional series, that is in the spotlight but pop and it is good to be reminded from time to time that, for all the rubbish that it brings, it has still has a shimmering diversity. It sadly also goes to show that good albums don't necessarily sell well regardless of the reviews they garner. These were three that greeted this:

• An astonishing debut - The Sunday Times
• Brilliant spiky electro-pop - NME
• Life affirming in every sense - Q Magazine

I find it very hard to disagree with the above comments and that is why it appears again here - in fact I'm a serial reviewer of this album!

Imagine a very strange pop cocktail:
Start with a large shot of new millennium Kylie, (Who knows what will she do on her forthcoming album? That, for now at least, is still anyone's guess and maybe Dumfries' Calvin Harris, producer and songwriter, simply isn't telling and who could blame him!), a shot of Rachel Stevens at her best and finally fill up the glass with quirky fizz, that of the kind that has made the Scandinavian countries legendary for producing more good music than their small populations might suggest reasonable. If you can then you might just have some idea of what to expect from 'Anniemal'.

Annie is from Norway and this is her début LP but you would never guess. Although neither conservative nor self-consciously weird in style or content it is very listenable from start to finish and it only gets better with repeated listening. That it is far more than a competent début is quite obvious it but it is also a stunningly confident one. It combines a mixture of electronica - both new and old - with pop of many kinds, touches of R'n'B and rock, and a noticeable dance sensibility in a way that is somehow quite lacking in both self-consciousness and pretension. It is one of those rare albums that gives the impression of actually being created, rather than merely planned, perhaps helped by the fact that she co-wrote and produced the majority of the tracks.

It starts with 'Intro', which has Annie talking over a variety of bleeps and electronic anniemal noises. This is followed by the Richard X produced 'Chewing Gum'; he also produced the quite different sounding 'Me Plus One'. As he produced Rachel Stevens' 'Some Girls' the connecting influence is certainly there.
Another outstanding track is 'Heartbeat' again co-written and produced by Annie. Many a well-established artist would kill for a track like this, while on the other hand the rather happy dance influenced 'Greatest Hit' (this is slightly reminiscent of Faithless tracks featuring Dido, if she were on Prozac) samples 'Everybody' by Madonna, who is undoubtedly a big influence on Annie's music.
The title track 'Anniemal' seems to me to be a subtle parody of Abba's 'Money. Money. Money.' with the opening lines, " She's a locked up girl, in a RICH MAN'S WORLD" and so it goes on, but it is far too clever to ever be crass. It is very hard to find a filler track on this album, or indeed even a predictable one.
There is also the wonderful 'Helpless Fool For Love' that is as near to perfection as a pure pop song gets and, towards the end, the epic disco pop of 'Come Together', which runs to a little more than seven minutes. Buy it - these days almost nobody makes albums like this!

Why buy foreign language music?

My first response, I have to say, is simply "Well why not?" and to be honest I'm quite happy with it.

It isn't, unfortunately, always a sufficient answer to a question that I'm asked surprisingly often and sometimes even by friends that I might have suspected knew better! I think this is actually mainly a matter of perception - that such music will somehow be "difficult" therefore, by default, it will require a special effort to appreciate.
There certainly is music that falls into that category, and I can understand why many wish to avoid the effort it entails, but is just as likely to be sung in English. As far as I'm concerned music is for fun and sometimes I give up on artists that I thought I might like for no better reason than the fact that, when it comes to decision time, I decide I simply don't care for their music; but I don't find that foreign language music is overwhelmingly likely to fall into this category if it is of a genre that I generally like.

I say this for two reasons:

• We have all known each other long enough to be happy to take what comes and only to opine that "This album is utter s**t!"if that is what really needs to be said, because it blatantly crosses some unspoken boundary (and we even tend to be fairly forgiving about those) without giving or taking offence. It happens rarely but, as we have all been on both the 'giving' and the 'receiving' end at one time or another, so there there is a certain equity too.
• They are generally quite aware of most of my musical foibles (but clearly not this one) - however some of them also secretly like Rachel Stevens' solo albums. I know exactly who you are and of your irrational, entirely self-inflicted, guilt - that's why the CDs tend to be in the car when appropriate!

The same suspects however generally profess not to listen to song lyrics, but if I play a foreign language album regardless of how non-foreign it sounds, you can be pretty certain that it will be commented on before the end of the second track at the latest. The first track might sometimes get away with it, I suppose, due to inattention or possibly the thought that it might have been merely some artistic "experiment" but clearly lyrics do matter as part of the song as a whole (which perhaps makes some people's equally negative attitude towards modern instrumental music understandable) but maybe not particularly as regards their actual meaning?
I own quite a lot of music, whether whole albums or just individual songs, sung in a variety of mostly European languages from Icelandic and Welsh to French and Spanish. The obvious question now is which is my favourite?
When it comes to studio albums, and for start to end listening pleasure it beats Camille - Le Fil into second place, there is still only one real contender:

Dónde Están Los Ladrones? Shakira, 1999.

It was also the first album that I purchased without ever having heard so much as a single track taken from it (something I now however quite often do without thinking twice about it) - so the fact that it was sung entirely in Spanish hardly seemed relevant at the time . I then reviewed it almost five years ago. How time flies - it was one of my earliest efforts at reviewing and the first to tackle a foreign language album - but I still wouldn't change a thing I wrote then and that is surely the sign of a really solid album; one that has staying power.
Here is that review, complete and original, as it is still to be found on amazon.co.uk. It has dated in the meantime, but the ways are an interesting reflection on the passing of five years in the story of pop music...

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
An album not to be dismissed!, 27 April 2002

I like 'Laundry Service', and happen to think that 'Suerte' the Spanish version of the [UK] hit single 'Whenever, Wherever' is way better than the version in English. On the other hand I think 'Objection (Tango)' is magnificent! I don't speak Spanish, and therefore wondered if a whole album might be too much. I bought 'Dónde Están Los Ladrones?' anyway, and I'm very glad I did! Please let me digress for a moment. Shakira has often been compared to Britney in the popular press, but that is unfair to both of them. Britney sings songs written for her, and usually does so well. Skakira writes her own lyrics and music, so she can set her own musical agenda, and her albums therefore comprise many influences without seeming disconnected. Without the added distraction of two languages, this is perhaps more obvious on 'Dónde Están Los Ladrones'. It may seem a strange comparison, but it is the same sort of accomplishment that Dido achieved with 'No Angel'. Both are brilliant, but not directly comparable! My favourite tracks on the album? Dónde Están Los Ladrones (up-beat, as summer beckons), and the bitter 'Inevitable'! Both made me reach for a Spanish-English dictionary. My least favourite is 'Ojos así' which appears in two versions on this album, and again in English as 'Eyes like yours' on the album 'Laundry Service'."

I know what you are thinking, and I was sceptical too.
I like 'Laundry Service', and happen to think that 'Suerte' the Spanish version of the hit single 'Whenever, Wherever' is way better than the version in English. On the other hand I think 'Objection (Tango)' is magnificent!
I don't speak Spanish, and therefore wondered if a whole album might be too much. I bought 'Dónde Están Los Ladrones' anyway, and I'm very glad I did!
Please let me digress for a moment. Shakira has often been compared to Britney in the popular press, but that is unfair to both of them. Britney sings songs written for her, and usually does so well.
Skakira writes her own lyrics and music, so she can set her own musical agenda, and her albums therefore comprise many influences without seeming disconnected. Without the added distraction of two languages, this is perhaps more obvious on 'Dónde Están Los Ladrones'. It may seem a strange comparison, but it is the same sort of accomplishment that Dido achieved with 'No Angel'. Both are brilliant, but not directly comparable!
My favourite tracks on the album? Dónde Están Los Ladrones (up-beat, as summer beckons), and the bitter 'Inevitable'! Both made me reach for a Spanish-English dictionary. My least favourite is 'Ojos así' which appears in two versions on this album, and again in English as 'Eyes like yours' on the album 'Laundry Service'.

2007 so far, and my "want to listen to" list (Part 1)

Perhaps 2007 got off to a slow start, or maybe it was mere impatience on my part, but about a month ago it finally seemed to be getting in its stride. Now it is much like the M4 on a Friday evening - a huge queue, and getting longer by the minute, for which neither love nor money offers any possibility of a quick solution!
On a more positive front it is threatening a whole crop of wonderful prospects , which I think could be very interesting, that are naturally receiving far fewer column inches than the second albums by 'The Arctic Monkeys', 'Maxïmo Park' and 'YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO'. It is interesting that the last two are both bands from the North East [of England], which at least to me seems to have been rather under-represented in the last few years though 'Field Music' is another band very worthy of a mention.

Much of my "want to listen to list" is music from abroad but there also is plenty to be found in it that isn't. The problem is manifold - not only is it a very long list but is a quite disparate one; some of the items are already released and merely newly of interest to me, or at least they have a release date, while others are not and some of the artists don't even have a recording deal.
I won't generally mention any artist release that I have already covered in this blog (you can count them in by default) unless it is new since the last post on that artist. Here goes...

These first two I should have in my paws by early next week at the latest - possibly even tomorrow if Royal Mail is feeling well disposed toward me - and as soon as I have listened properly I'll be reviewing them here.

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse
CD and vinyl album, Canada, Jagjaguwar Records, 2007.

Birds of Wales - Fall of The 49 EP
CD EP, Canada, Invisible Hands Records, 2007.

There are also a few more electro-pop surprises in line for release fairly soon and, despite the so-so popularity of the genre in recent years (well about twenty-five years to be honest), there seems to be growing major-label interest .
Here are two, both released on 'Universal', that I certainly want to listen to:

• Sophie Ellis Bextor - Trip The Light Fantastic (Universal) 21 May 2007
• Dragonette - Galore (Universal) 16 July 2007

For those like me that can't wait that long, and also remain mystified why Annie - Anniemal was not a huge success (it is to be the next in my occasional series of reviews of 2005 albums that I still regularly listen to), I'm planning to get Robyn - Robyn (Konichiwa Records, 2007) ASAP. From the various descriptions of it that I have read it probably sounds like something that might have happened had Gwen Stefani and Annie (with possibly a little help from Goldfrapp) decided to gang up on Courtney Love and Pink but, before anything ugly happened, they all reconsidered the wisdom of a feud and melded into 'Robyn' instead. It just has to be worth a listen... and it is already released.

Another forthcoming release, again on a major label, is Siobhan Donaghy's second solo album, Ghosts, which is to be released on 25 June 2007 (Parlophone). Her first, Revolution In Me (WEA - London Records, 2003), arguably sounds even better now than it did then, but sold woefully at the time, not least because it was given next to no marketing push by the label.
Most of Europe unfortunately can't pronounce her name, or even recognise it when it comes on the radio, but few who have heard the blistering and slightly unhinged pop of the single 'Overload', which in 2000 catapulted 'Sugababes' to #1 in the UK singles chart and then to pop stardom, is likely to forget it.
She not only wrote this song (and many of the others on the album One Touch) but also sung most of the lead vocals, including those on 'Overload'. She then left the group quite suddenly, part way through their first tour of Japan, and shortly before super-stardom arrived. It is not hard to see why: in a 2003 radio interview she was asked what her favorite magazine is and and the answer, without any hesitation whatsoever, was New Scientist. To say the least this floored the interviewer good and proper. It also rings very true and celebrity is quite simply not what she is about but honesty is; they make poor travelling companions.

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out...

The 1980s haven't generally been held in particularly high musical regard for the last fifteen years or so, but it would be very wrong indeed to deny their existence.
For one thing the decade had its indubitable highlights - even if they were sometimes accompanied by miserablist lyrics, such as those of the track of the title of this post - taken from The Smiths 1986 album "The Queen Is Dead". Although I never much cared for their music at the time, sure as hell it was to prove an incredibly influential combination that released four albums of which this was the third. Stephen Patrick Morrissey wrote the lyrics for the most part while Johnny Marr kept the whole show from drowning itself in melancholy by dint of his inspired, and actually amazingly (before such things were really recognised as such) pop-hooked guitar parts. In fact their influence has if anything increased exponentially with the passage of time.

Another thing that makes the 1980s interesting again is that it is the last decade that current teenagers can't actually remember at all - and that in itself means that it is worth a retrospective if only so those of us who can are able to say "I told you so." with a meaningful degree of authority! Perhaps even more interesting still is that some of the bands spearheading the revival are also too young to remember it first time around, so they are able to take a fresh look at what it had to offer and just how best to interpret it twenty years later. Like all decades the 1980s didn't begin or end with the simple turning of calendar pages, but took influences from the preceding one and then ceded its own to the next.

If Debbie Harry were thirty-something years younger and happened to have black hair, which would however have admittedly missed the point of the 'Blondie' image, she [and the band for that matter] might now have looked like this...

For those of us old enough to remember, or even perhaps own, Blondie vinyl releases, or young and dedicated enough to still have the energy to search them out in flea-ridden second-hand record stores, the evidence in the artwork only becomes more compelling.

Written, with Georgio Moroder, for the film American Gigolo this was a huge hit in 1980.

Thinking along "Parallel Lines" the image below, adapted from the artwork of the US release, is the proof in black and white.

The band is Stefy and the four-piece hail from Orange County, CA (the real life OC but the fourth track on the album seamlessly blends the real thing with its small-screen alter ego) and is signed to US independent Wind-up Records, whose byline is the almost too-cheesy-to-be-true 'developing career artists' and their début The Orange Album was released in the US in late 2006.
Their first single Chelsea, a light-hearted and very catchy blast through early 1980s electro synth-pop territory, is out now in the UK and The Orange Album will be released here a fortnight tomorrow (23rd April - and distributed by Sony BMG) .
It is a timely reminder that the 1980s were also great fun musically and I for one can't wait...

...luckily I don't have to!

It might not be genre changing - and perhaps that is actually why it is so appealing - but if you hanker after more "new 1980s reminiscent pop electronica" then I suggest the following:

Client and their new album Heartland; it is gloriously unreconstructed but, very unusually, sung and played by an all female threesome 'Client A' , 'Client B' and 'Client E'. They are something like The Pipettes, and the circumstances of their formation are not so dissimilar, but they play and sing rather than sing and dance. Their influences are also quite firmly rooted in the music of twenty years later!
Dragonette (also www.dragonette.com) is an equally valid contender and the first single "I Get Around" is lead vocalist Martina's utterly wanton, yet also quite inadvertent, electro-pop riposte to Nelly Furtado/Timbaland's multi-million selling 2006 US #1 single "Promiscuous".
They aren't doing too badly for a Toronto couple that met randomly just over a year ago at a gig in their home city. They married four months later and, in the meantime, decided that London might just serve their joint musical ambition better! They soon recruited the other two band members once they arrived in the UK and it seems to have worked out quite well. For most of April they are on tour as the main supporting act for Sugababes - the biggest selling UK female act of the 21st century.