Music magazines are often seen as full of people who like to be known for spouting pretentious claptrap, whilst hoovering up obscure records by artists from obscure genres. It’s not all true. A quote from yesterday:

Canada, whatever else one might say about it, apparently has no shortage of reverb pedals.

Mallory O’Donnell, reviewing Avril Lavigne’s comeback single Keep Holding On

I mentioned recently that Joanna Newsom’s new album Ys left be baffled and smitten. Yesterday evening I spent a little time getting better acquainted with it. This meant listening to it on my hi-fi rather than my little office speakers and with the lights out, accompanied by a bottle of wine.

Joanna’s debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender is a unique adventure: songs played on harp and harpsichord, with imaginative, weirdly-worldy lyrics, sung in the voice of a 5 year old girl. But, Ys is different. Different because it exposes the purpose of that debut album, which was to demonstrate that she could write songs. Throughout Ys, Joanna basically looks at that album and says ‘Okay, I’ve done some simple songs, now I’ll do what I want to do!” The Milk-Eyed Mender is a come-hither tease for the main event, which is Ys.

Ys is spell-binding. And it requires complete undivided attention. Let your mind wander anywhere else and the spell will be broken, and yes, you’ll end up being baffled too. You need to concentrate on everything: Joanna’s stories, the way she sings, the melodies she sings, and the orchestral backing. It’s this orchestration which one could think of as ‘difficult’. Because, whilst Joanna sings and plays her harp, the backing meanders, as if to dab paint on the worlds she constructs. Sometimes holding back, sometimes scampering forward beyond the song. The aftertaste of the orchestration is just as important as what is actually played. Despite the lush production, there is so much missing. And that’s very cool. Don’t be put off by the length of each track either – there is no time or space when listening to this album.

Go and buy Ys, please. You may not hear anything like it for the next four hundred years.

[Amazon UK]
[Guardian Review]

So many thoughts, so little time. Apologies if it sounds a bit showbiz:

Nice to see that one-time dance diva Tina Cousins is back with a new single. Unfortunately, it’s a uninspired cover of Wonderful Life, which looks and sounds as interesting and inviting as a trip to the supermarket. Similarly is Dannii Minogue’s new single Perfection, which seems stuck in 1997. Even the remixes – based on the iTunes Music Store previews – are bland. Can’t polish a turd can you?

Since I’m on the theme of covers.. what’s up with Alanis Morrisette? Recently there’s been that peculiar acoustic version of Jagged Little Pill, and now we have a cover of Seal’s Crazy. It thinks it’s a dance track. But why a cover version? Has she lost her guitar? Run out of chords? Forgot to get new strings? Just bought a new drum machine?

Bananarama seem intent on their comeback. Their second single Look on the Floor tiptoes in and around the ‘chilled dance’ category. Although the title could be a hook for a dozen drunken night club jokes. Texas have a new single out shortly. Can’t Resist is rather good if you’re into chilled dance, and it’s heaps better than their first single from their forthcoming album Red Book – and it’ll be interesting to see if it’s copy-protected. Sorry, geek joke.

Pity these three: One time member of S-Club n, Jo O’Meara, probably the only one who could sing, has just released her debut album. Judging from the radio plays of the first single it remains in first gear. And judging from the track titles, it’s targeted at 12 year-olds. Frightening. Lisa Scott-Lee is doing no better with her dire comeback single Electric. So dire in fact that some lyrics have to be muted out when put on daytime TV. Girls Aloud also seem to be going further downhill. Their new single sounds like two songs stapled together, playing snap with verse and chorus, but I think there’s a great Ladytron song in the chorus somewhere.

Thankfully, putting all of this in perspective is German comedy-metal band Rammstein. They have a new video on rotation. Benzine (chorus ‘BENZENE!!!’ – repeated many times) is a hilarious CGI-driven trip which out-carnages Burnout.

Involving, ambitious, musically diverse, clever, electronic, rock, ambient, playful, pretty, angry, loud, soft, away with the fairies, down to earth, piano, not-piano, talky talky, soundbites, samples, backwards samples, sexy, things ripped to pieces and put back together again, oh and we’ll change this song halfway through, mmm.. drums, electronic drums, big drums, Bang Bang Bang. Gosh. Blimey. Wow.

You can buy it here

Pitchfork: “You know, if Kristin Hersh doesn’t rock your world, you simply don’t deserve the gift of life.”

That was in 1996.

50 Foot Wave thought that they would be able to release an EP every nine months or thereabouts. Releasing a sizeable set of music when they were ready, rather than having to fit in with traditional album-sized collections. With the release of their first EP last year, they discovered it didn’t quite work out that way. The problem is that radio stations and music stores don’t give EPs prominence which meant that one of the cornerstones of their musical philosophy fell away.

Correspondingly, we have had to wait a little longer for the next installment of 50 Foot Wave. It is therefore an album and it includes some tracks from their debut EP. Rumours were that it was going to be harder. The rumours were right.

Golden Ocean is heavy, hard and fast. In places fast enough to tumble over itself. But all the while each track has it’s own pace and detailed construction. The changes in melody and rhythms and the frankly mind-boggling time signature changes, drops and fills. As Kristin admitted when the EP came out – “it’s a shitload of counting”. Something you wouldn’t expect from something this raw. This does however make some songs difficult to appreciate on first listen. Once you’ve gotten into them, though, you do end up with a smug look on your face, thinking, I know exactly what’s going to happen next. Even If You Don’t. (Which was also dead giveaway at Throwing Muses gigs.)

Opening tracks Long Painting and Bone China caused me a little bit of concern. They don’t seem to have same intelligent construction that’s evident throughout the rest of the album. Thankfully, Pneuma is the epitome of 50 Foot Wave. A perfect demonstration of the heritage of the band. It’s mid-career Throwing Muses, machine pressed to draw out its essential components and fed through dirty amps in dirty bars.

Petal continues with more nods to Throwing Muses, but the coda just plain rocks. It’s loud. Stop, start, veer off somewhere dark and flail around wildly for 20 seconds. Then it’s onto the next song.

Sally is a Girl should really be a Throwing Muses song. And by the time we get to this, 50 Foot Wave starts to make sense. The problem with much of the rock / punk music around today is it’s too nice. Too welcoming. And too simple. Consider Kerrang, which throws Avril Lavigne into its playlist. Fortunately, when you’ve been writing music for over 20 years, you can do what you like. It’s not about careers any more (up to a point), but it’s about making music and getting the hit you need. But it’s not just thrash. There are tunes here. Pneuma, Clara Bow and Diving for example. Lyrically things are as obtuse, direct or as personal as they’ve always been for Kristin, but there’s little of the rich-but-scuffy vocals of her solo work. This time, she screams.

Golden Ocean is a bright spark in the drearily predictable world of commercial rock music. It’s not quite the album I was hoping for, some of the music is too grubby and linear for my liking, but it makes a change from the shiny happy punk that spews out of our radio stations today.

I’ve written recently about music being emotion. Some of my music collection is emotion on tap. iPods are portable emotions. Emotions kept in electronic vials; random access mind altering drugs.

I listened to Tori Amos’ first (proper) album Little Earthquakes on Monday (whilst watching snooker on television – I can do this and pay attention to both). Twelve years after its release I think I’ve finally understood it. A collection documenting missed opportunities, regrets, mistakes, wrong doings, being wronged, but most of all the transcendence of life. All ‘little earthquakes’ aside from the massive life altering autobiographical earthquake of Me and a Gun. So there’s the so-painful-it-hurts-me Winter. The joyful Happy Phantom. The blooming Silent all These Years. Despite, or because of this, it feels like being hugged by a particularly amorous duvet.

Album review
Buy from iTunes