Number 7 of 2006 — Tina Dico: In The Red

It’s almost impossible to listen to Tina Dico without hearing the influence of Zero 7 and vice versa. This is despite Tina Dico co-writing just two tracks on Zero 7’s When It Falls. Tina’s career however predates her appearances with Zero 7, and as this year’s re-releases of Notes and Fuel shows, her style has remained pretty constant since 2001, gradually depending less on acoustic arrangements, becoming more complex and filled out.

This is the first impression one gets with In The Red: like Lunik’s Life is on Our Side, there’s great satisfaction in listening to a record which so clearly fulfills its objectives and works as a coherent piece of work. It exists as an album, rather than as songs that are related merely by their identical release date. Released in her native Denmark in 2005, and in the UK last year, Tina wrote the songs over a period of four years, then some others to tie those together, giving everything a context and building relationships between the songs. In The Red, boasts great performances from the musicians and from Tina’s wonderful smokey vocals, with Tina acting as therapist and patient. Relationships aren’t nearly as blunt or as full of minutia as that of twee-pop Hello Saferide’s Annika Norlin, but everything is obviously heartfelt and experienced – in turns introspective and counselling, depending on the song and the subject. In The Red is full of exceptional songwriting and imaginative lyricism.

There’s an understated beginning to the album, with the introduction to Losing being simple piano lines and strings, providing a teasing lead into Tina’s vocals before the full band comes in with the chorus, which is quite an unexpected string laden crescendo. Touches of acoustic percussion and electronic blips and noise carry the song along in between – these small details are common throughout the album, providing continual interest through repeated listenings. The majority of the arrangements are built on acoustic and electric guitar (the former played by Tina), bass and drums, supported by the occasional piano and other keyboards. Tiny riffs are dropped in to the mix to highlight certain lyrics. Although the majority of the songs are melancholic, they’re rarely soporific. Warm Sand and My Mirror triumph through the blossoms in their choruses.

But I think the emphasis should be on the lyrics. Taken as a whole, the album is a compelling collection of emotional struggles, sometimes with Tina as the protagonist, but most often she’s the one providing comfort and wisdom – even to herself. Nobody’s Man takes a puzzling relationship “Nobody feels the weight of your mission / Nobody can set you free / Nobody knows the way to your fortune / Nobody and least of all… Me” but embraces its inevitable peculiarities. Give In suggests that it’s useless looking for perfection in ourselves or others, recommending that one should instead welcome the confusion and unknown.

In The Red sees Tina “on a rescue”. Intimacy evoked with sparse production that grows into sweet rocking multitracked vocals that close the song. She seems intent on trying to understand her own feelings and those of her friends and lovers. Sometimes introspective, at other times offering support and therapy to others. This balance is held throughout the album. Use Me is the ultimate submission, in some respects a companion to In The Red – remarking that “I’ve touched you where it hurts” – it benefits from subtle elegiac keys, pleading for someone to come through their unhappiness. The Joni-esque Room with a View documents the time she was in London, away and apart from her boyfriend, but grateful that she doesn’t have the lives of those she observes through her window.

Tina says in an interview that the songs are “personal rather than private”. By that she means she’s extrapolated her own experiences, reflecting them in such a way as to be applicable to her listeners, becoming sufficiently ambiguous so that anyone can relate to them. It’s this that makes the emotional connection, far above her peers, such as the oft-referenced and ridiculed Dido whose songs are little more than Twitter-ings.

Head Shop is the curio in this collection: Always one who is aware of their feelings, her life gets overturned by one whose “insight threw me like a typhoon”. Together they plot “great escapes”, to elope, only to find he abandons her – “he never turned up that night”. This lesson learned drives the desire for faithful companionship, despite the bad times, and is something she clearly demands and believes in. “I’m nothing without you, I’m hollow without you” – emphasising similarities and differences on “My Mirror”, and the thrill of idiosyncrasies: “I find in his look an insecurity childishly submissive / I say foolish things, I do strange things for attention”. This opinion is repeated most obviously on the dubby masterful One, where “All you need is one”, these pair of songs are uplifting in the dour context of the rest of the album, but that’s the essence of the album, the message, if there is one.

[iTunes UK]
[Amazon UK]

Number 8 of 2006 — The Sounds: Dying to Say This to You

Swedish five piece The Sounds don’t quite know whether they’re a rock group or a bunch of people making dance music. This, their second album, is on first listen as vacant and insubstantial as pop music can get, and whilst there are depths to the lyrics (as well as some lovably weird couplets), it’s best to just let it rush over you because ultimately, Dying to Say This to You is a big bouncing ball of fun. Avril Lavigne would kill for songs like these.

If your memory goes back so far as the 1970’s you’ll hear Blondie clearly in the musical thrust and angsty eagerness of Maja Ivarsson’s vocals. And, like Blondie there are places and phrases for simple repetitive synth lines which sparkle on almost every track, but never overreach themselves. Their sonic nature balances the grinding, sometimes thrashy guitar work and basslines very nicely.

Indeed, youthful attitude and punky aggression (in a nice way) is the main feature of this album (q.v. Avril). You get this right from the start, with the bass-driven intro to Song With A Mission and Maja’s shouty vocals that just overreach themselves the right amount. In some respects there is nothing new in any of the songs: the intros are grabbed from the usual guitar-bass-drum suspects, with the occasional keyboards. The middle-breaks are present and correct, and the synths often follow the vocals precisely. But, it’s all done so well, although the chorus of Tony the Beat takes you down the dark alley of 1980s Europop. There’s even a saxophone in the break before everything collides horribly towards the coda. Worringly, it works.

Painted by Numbers launches with a chorus and a most magnificent cheesy synth line; the verses underpinned by just bass and drums. The whole song revolves within itself a couple of times before a piano break brilliantly leads the remainder of the instruments back in to conclude the song. It’s the highlight of the album. The up and down boppy Much Too Long comes close.

Night After Night is the only change of gear in the album, a thoughtful piano-led mid-album ballad which then re-appears at the end reworked into a more predictable form. This break from normal programming highlights a potential variety which should be exploited. Because if you take the album in one sitting, every song is pretty much like every other song. However, if you’re happy with the formula, as I am, then there’s not much wrong with it. Every song just tweaks and re-arranges it to keep one’s attention. Plus, it’s over so quickly that you can play it twice in the same time that you could listen to most of American Doll Posse. At this moment, I know what I’d rather to do.

[Amazon UK]
[iTunes UK]

Number 9 of 2006 — iiO: Poetica

A wise man once said: “Poetica was about writing a real song first”. That wise man is Markus Moser, knob-twiddler behind iiO, the most exciting pop-dance act of the past six years. Those words are important in understanding why Poetica is not what you might expect.

Poetica was in production for four years, despite being finished in demo form in the summer of 2001, and finally released in the UK in 2006. Disputes with music industry and ‘associates’ led to its delay, so what you get with Poetica is a historical document and a statement of belief – music made on iiO’s terms.

It’s therefore surprising that despite five singles being released prior to the album, there’s a wealth of other material on the album to enjoy. It would be quite easy to tack another substandard four tracks on and cash-in. iiO make the brave move of getting all of those singles out right at the start of the album. This avoids A-B comparisons and allows the listener the opportunity to get to know the other songs without anticipating the next big single.

So what of those singles? Well, that’s another surprise – fundamentally they are different from what you might have heard already. The clue is that those singles, with their multiple remixes are plainly remixes. Even the original mix of Rapture is different to what appears as the opening track on the album. Rapture feels perceptibly slower and less busy, but still holds those subtle additional fills that complete the backing to Nadia Ali’s vocals. The middle-break and drop remains too – and the same is true with its sonic sibling Kiss You. What you get with the singles on this album is a sparser approach, leaving the mid-range to Nadia’s voice. Because it’s her lyrics and her extraordinarily unique voice that are the focus of the album.

If you want a clearer example, Smooth eschews the jostling swoops and dives of its Airbase Club Mix for a sleepy slow dub ballad – a technique repeated with the semi-breakbeat of Runaway and on new track Rebel. Its execution is in the torch song territory (if not its spirit) and it works brilliantly. The nine minutes of Chastity breaks away from this design with a staggeringly long intro, and an ad-lib outro.

There are two flaws in the album: Tantric is, in places, a mess – a car crash involving Istanbul Market and Ministry of Sound. However it exploits Nadia’s impulse function melisma and it’s unnervingly catchy. Closing track Poetica sounds like something from Billie Ray Martin’s Four Ambient Tales and would have been better not being on album, and just placed on the sleeve notes. That would have been fiercely artistic too.

Excepting these tracks, the remainder of the new ones are of the same quality as the singles, perhaps even better. Is It Love – the only single to be released after the album – broods with longing, alongside a simple pulsing backing track. Give It Up almost shows signs of bursting through into a full-on dance track, but never succeeds – indeed it probably doesn’t want to. The restraint is remarkable. No, the closest we come to club music comes in the sawtooth synth and snares of The One – it’s also the emotional pinnacle of the album.

Nadia’s lyrics are several levels above the usual pop dregs, and in some places breathtaking. This is crucial for a collection of songs which demand one’s attention to voice and words. I’m particularly fond of Rebel’s “Audit me, however you may want / I own a slang that you’ll never pronounce.”

Those left wanting more from iiO might be disappointed: Nadia left in 2005 and is now developing a solo career with guest vocals on Creamer & K’s Something to Lose and Armin van Buuren’s Shivers – neither of which matches iiO. But The Voice is still present, and fundamentally that’s what makes this album succeed. It’s the best album of its genre since Electribe 101’s Electribal Memories.

[Poetica – iTunes UK]
[Amazon UK Import]