The Optimist - the difficult second album...

I've wondered about this for a long while and the wait turned out to be longer than perhaps anyone intended, as circumstances conspired to make it more difficult than perhaps it might have been.

The thing is that I still love 'Fantastic Playroom' as it has so many memories for me too [see here] and I thought that, without reason and not for lack of talent, its successor could fail to live up to the expectations that I would have of it.

Many circumstances mean that the exuberant pop, and sometimes nu-trance influenced sound of 2007, probably wasn't going to work quite so well in 2010 and for more than a few reasons; not all of them down to the music-buying public.

First single 'Chaos' is just about sufficiently familiar and comforting to remind why NYPC were so impressive the first time out. If you want my reference points on 'Fantastic Playroom' it reminds me slightly of 'The Get Go' or, perhaps more so, 'Talking, Talking', which was the most soul-searching song on the first album.
The bulk of the second album is however more uniformly reflective but also very accomplished in its repositioned mood - and the title mirrors this sentiment - without becoming either maudlin or self-indulgent.

Catching the zeitgeist once may have been just good fortune; to do it twice takes time and patience.

Festival wish list - New Music 2010 - Part 8

To finish what has, aside from music and a great weekend in North Wales, been a rather lack-lustre month I thought I would add some things that have caught my attention in the last few weeks. When I started about two hours ago I had a pretty clear plan in mind; that it became well and truly wrecked on the rocks of new discoveries is just one of those things and also for the longer term good...

These are just some of the acts I originally intended to mention. I've mentioned some of these artists, if only in the side-bar, already so here are a few of them. In truth the list of those still to mention is actually now longer than it was when I started!

Esben and The Witch, Brighton, UK.

Exquisite, romantically inclined, comfortingly gothic (and occasionally electro-acoustic) new-traditional: I recommend any song you can find and they are confirmed as playing Truck Festival 2010. Last year's 'Marching Band' served as a shot across the bows of the competition, and my God has the competition become formidable on all fronts, but the one track that sticks in my mind just now is the more recent 'Lucia At The Precipice'.

The Ruby Suns, New Zealand.
Their album 'Fight Softly' is already available (released by UK label Memphis Industries) and they are confirmed to appear at End Of The Road 2010.

Ones that I have not mentioned before, and that I'd like to see live, are:

Beach Fossils, Brooklyn, NY.
I have heard a few songs and 'Day Dream' is not atypical.

Islands Lost At Sea, Bolton, UK.

The début album is 'are having a lovely time' and to be released in the UK on 26 April.

I could, and soon will, add more but it is past that time tonight. A few throw-away suggestions including, perhaps, some returning acts less well known:

Operator Please! - Australian five-piece in support of their second album 'Logic', due shortly.

New Young Pony Club - new album 'The Optimist' represents a distinct realignment by Ty Bulmer and the crew following 'Fantastic Playroom', which was their 2007 début. For more on this album see here:

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2010/04/optimist-difficult-second-album.html

Lots more, it seems... New Music 2010 - Part 2

I'm still working on a list of the live performances that I have enjoyed the most in 2009. They seem to fall in to two fairly distinct categories; on one hand those that I was well aware of from recorded output and thus wanted to hear live and, on the other hand, ones that were essentially an unknown proposition. Many in this latter category were new acts and many of those will be releasing their first full LP in 2010.
This one is released by Wichita Recordings (12" LP, CD, d/l) on January 25, 2010 in the UK.

The Big Black and The Blue is the follow-up to 2009 EP Drunken Trees.

First Aid Kit, while an act that fell in the latter category, are very likely to appear in my 'Best of 2009 - live!' and which I hope to have posted by the end of tomorrow.

Another band releasing an album in 2010, this time their second, is miles away from Swedish acoustic in style and is London's New Young Pony Club. I can't wait and it too has live music connotations: July 2007 saw me at a festival for the first time in the modern era and the first headline act I saw there, on the Friday evening on the Sunrise Stage at Latitude 2007, was NYPC who had just released their début album, Fantastic Playroom. That was probably pretty much the moment that I realized being at a festival was something that I really did want to do and not simply some nostalgia-induced aberration. As yet I do not know the title or release date for this, but the fact that is confirmed is heartening. The last was released by Modular Recordings but I have no confirmation of that for this one.

Borrowed thoughts...

I've never before done this on my blog but I hope that the Richard in question, who is no relation to me, doesn't mind too much that I'm plagiarising his post (see it in full here) from Amazon.co.uk. I've done it simply because I think it is an absolutely perfect comment on much of the best of 2007 and it is all done in just 150 words or so...

Now we're cooking, 21 Aug 2007

Here is the recipe required to make the perfect 'Fantastic Playground':-
Firstly we will need the core ingredients of: New-Rave and New-Wave. Try not to worry if you don't have any New-Rave in because a touch of 'Electro-Clash' will do just as well. The important thing is that we create a rhythmic dance groove.

We will now need to add in some layers of synths, plus lashings of angular guitars. I recommend the use of: Blondie, B-52s, New Order, David Bowie (think his 'Scary Monsters' album - what with all those bleepy synths and angular guitars) and Duran Duran (it's that 'Girls on film' style bassline).

We will now need to add in a very large amount of sauce - judging by the suggestive lyrics.

Finally, give it a good stir and bring to boiling point, then serve.
* This is also suitable for vegetarians, vegans, CSS and Klaxons fans.

.... and it is also, while music is often intended to be taken seriously, so very light-hearted as was the single 'Ice Cream'! That is a wonderful touch and one in which, with 'Fantastic Playroom', we have been truly indulged by New Young Pony Club should we care enough to listen. I'm quite sure that in our formative years we were told - at least a thousand times and by all and sundry - to listen carefully, pay attention and to do what we were told to do.

Be that as it may at least I now know what all those really boring précis exercises at junior school were really supposed to teach me (I suspect that they didn't...) but I promise to add some more original material very soon!

Next up for review - New Young Pony Club

Now in this case I had heard good things about NYPC but almost nothing of their material (except for the single 'Ice Cream') before Latitude and so, as they were headlining the Sunrise Arena on Friday evening, they were high on my list of "must see acts". In fact I was so confident that I would like it I actually ordered their album Fantastic Playroom, which was released on 9th July on Australian label 'Modular Recordings' even though they are a London band and on vinyl as it is available thus, the evening before departing. It actually arrived the day I returned and it was to prove a "good thing" - it instantly transported me back to the previous Friday evening and reminded me why a few bruised ribs were sustained in a wholly good cause.

The Sunset Arena was a venue too small for them and I can well see them performing on the Uncut Stage, or even the main stage, at this (or other similar events) next summer. I suspect that they might follow a trajectory similar to that which CSS have enjoyed in the last year.
The album Fastastic Playroom isn't as good as I expected it to be - it is, in a surprisingly measured and amazingly controlled sort of way, far better than I imagined it would be; perhaps I find it this way because it was a bit unusual to have heard them live before hearing the album? On the other hand it is very largely by playing live that they have secured their current enviable reputation. Go figure - as yet I can't - but no complaints!
Their live performance, whipped to a frenzy by icon-in-waiting Tahita Bulmer, really was quite special and certainly not rambling or self-indulgent. It was stopped once, fairly early on, when the barrier at the front of the stage collapsed and also terminated five minutes early; in both cases the reason given was "Health & Safety" and for once in this dangerously over-regulated world it actually seemed plausible!

This was the moment they launched the set with single 'Ice Cream'.

Photograpy was by this time getting rather difficult and by the time they performed 'The Bomb' it was impossible at the front of the boisterous crowd; not helped by an extremely uneven surface that, while the crowd was entirely good-natured, threatened to cause everyone to collapse in a huge heap. The Sunset Arena is a tent set up in what is really no more than a clearing in the woods and as such it is rather better suited to more earthy music...

2007 so far, and my "want to listen to" list (Part 4)

Lots of new items on my list - so no change there - and they are roughly divided into two categories:

• Those that are not new but I want to listen to.
• Those that are simply new.

Amongst the second category are:

• New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom. This is the début album from the London 5-piece, fronted by Tahita Bulmer, who are signed to the Australian indie label Modular. They are playing at Latitude next weekend, so lucky me. They are not really new-rave, as some of the reviews say, just new pop and all the better for it. It is available on vinyl too!
  

The album is out tomorrow, 9th July.

• Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War. The new album from one of Canada's finest bands and the follow up to their 2005 album 'Set Yourself On Fire'. Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan are something of a gold-standard when it comes to boy-girl vocals in my opinion.

It is due to be released in Canada, by Arts & Crafts, on 27th September.

You can download the track "The Night Starts Here" from the Arts & Crafts website. Click here to go straight to the link.

• The Go! Team - Proof Of Youth. The second album by the London & Brighton sextet is to be released in the UK by Memphis Industries (MI) on 10th September, and in America the following day by Seattle's Sub Pop Records. Their first LP, Thunder, Lightning, Strike (2005) was also released by MI in the UK but by Columbia in the US. If anyone could make the sun shine then The Go! Team would be my bet, with CSS (another SubPop signing and a Latitude Festival act) a very close second! The sleeve will probably look a bit like this and the CD will be MI099CD, but we can hope for a vinyl version too as MI are pretty sound in this regard.
  

• Ash - Twilight Of The Innocents. This is to be the last Ash album as they have decided that, with the advent of downloading, the return of the singles band is beckoning once again. That is how they feel and you can't fault them for their integrity - throughout vinyl's darkest hour they always released everything they did on vinyl - and there is no reason to think that they will not continue to do so. What they got in recognition is to become, arguably, one of the most under-rated bands of the last decade! During the writing of this album Charlotte Hatherley (the fourth member of Ash, as both a lead guitarist and vocalist, from 1997 -2006) left for a solo career. She released her début solo album Grey Will Fade (Double Dragon, 2005) , while still with Ash. In 2006 she quit and has since released her second solo album The Deep Blue (2007) on her own Little Sister Records label, including vinyl of course. She plays Latitude Festival next weekend, and also the Reading/Leeds Festival in late August, which also features Ash.