(Originally posted February 2002)

Well, I started 2001 with the high-hoped New Years Resolution of going to the cinema at least once a week. Needless to say that plan fell by the wayside pretty quick. So, 2002 started with the same resolution but with my fingers secretly crossed behind my back. When I say ‘going to the cinema’, you must understand that this can be extended to mean ‘getting a video out’ due to the exceptionally fuckwitted policy of my local Warner Village cinema (the only cinema I can get to easily) of only showing the most mainstream and popular films. So last year and this year so far has meant no ‘Ghost World’, no ‘Mulholland Drive’ and no ‘My Neighbour the Totoro’ but all the romantic comedies and action shitebusters I can stomach.

But it’s not all bad, you understand. I do get out into more than a five-mile radius from time to time, and am blessed with an ACTUALLY GOOD QUALITY Blockbuster nearby, so no need to start killing and burning stuff just yet.

This is supposed to be some kind of roundup of things that rocked my tiny, insignificant world last year (in a cinematic sense), so I’ll start incorrectly by frothing over LORD OF THE RINGS, even though I didn’t actually see it until this year. I expect most people have seen this by now? If not, you gotta. Yeah man you gotta. I know it’s more than three hours long; I know the books are hard going, but it’s a great great film. It follows the book (book one of the trilogy – the second two books will follow as two further films) pretty closely, and keeps just the right side of cutesy goblins’n’hobbits fun by never failing to take its subject matter seriously or pay it the respect due. The plot could seem scant (where’s that magic ring gone? let’s go find it) but there’s depth and philosophy there if you want it, and if you’re not consistently blown away by the beautiful magical settings and exquisitely executed set pieces then your seat’s facing the wrong way. There’s special effects aplenty, but this is no special effects movie, it’s one of the few to use effects to complete the vision of the director (Peter Jackson – he of ‘Bad Taste’, ‘Braindead’ and ‘Meet the Feebles’, bizarrely, and later the somewhat sinister ‘Heavenly Creatures’, which is worth checking out) rather than to round out the trailer with arbitrary explosions and monsters. I can’t really write about Lord of the Rings without slipping into ‘it’s ace! you have to see this!’ over and over again so I’ll leave it there.

Another ‘ace! see! etc.’ movie of 2001 was AMELIE; one for all your romantic fools out there. ‘Charming’ is the key word here in this French-made-and-set story of a naive young woman arriving in Paris and deciding to help out strangers in random ways, along the way finding friends, delight in her own actions and, of course, love. Aw. Does it sound like a load of old sentimental toss? I imagine so. Somehow it manages to skirt around sickbag territory though, partly because of the nice playing of the lead character (by Audrey Tautou) as a scatty, cheeky joker with a ‘naughty’ sense of humour, partly because of the bizarre situations set up along the way (which come together by the end of the movie in a surprisingly unexpected way) and partly because of the beautiful filming of the story – all rich warm colours and subtly off-the-wall angles and styles. Maybe it’s because I saw Amelie on my own at the cinema, keeping out of the cold, but it’s what the oft-used phrase ‘heart-warming and compelling’ was written for.

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(Originally posted February 2002)

Oh no oh no oh no, I’ve left myself way too little time to write this, and I can barely remember yesterday, let alone the whole of last year. What shall I do ? What shall I do ? First of all, I’ll calm down before I fall off my elegant brushed aluminium chair – deep breaths, it’s not a race – and the best thing is probably if I just get going with this. No guarantees for the reliability of this here list, and no apologies for neglecting to mention some of the brilliant releases of last year which I’m obviously about to forget. Let’s get on. Here we go now with…

MY BEST FAVOURITE RECORDS OF 2001, OH YES
(not all released in 2001, you understand. just my favourites of the year. OK? And they’re not in any order. So keep your bleedin’ shirt on.)

OXES
OXES (LP)
Remember that Trumans Water LP, Spasm Smash Ox Ox Ox and Assss, or whatever it was called? Well, beef that up a tad, give it more angles and poke its teeth with a turned-off power drill for a while and bam! there you have this OXES album. Hurrah!

HOOD
COLD HOUSE (LP)
And yes! YES! it is raining and cold outside as I type this – just as it should be. HOOD continue in the melancholic vein of their previous two albums, adding a touch of garble and a spring of hip hop to the mix. But they still haven’t managed to cheer me up, thank heavens.

VINCENT GALLO
WHEN (LP)
Another reason/excuse for me to mention BUFFALO 66, one of the greatest films in recent history! Yip! Woo! Not that this album’s anything to do with it, unless you consider the trembling introspect on display here something of an aural equivalent to the visuals of the movie. I do. I haven’t heard the soundtrack to the movie, mind

THE FUCKING CHAMPS
IV (LP)
ROCK! blart!! Proper old school metal played with a math-rocker’s eye for detail and a comedian’s eye for dual-guitar harmonic action.

VARIOUS OLD CHANCERS
CHOCOLATE SOUP FOR DIABETICS (LP)
Classy old compilation of sixties psych out mayhem featuring, among others, the wonderful FLIES with their drudgealong cover of ‘Stepping Stone’ and DANTALION’S CHARIOT giving it some flutey tripout magic too. I just wasn’t made for these times!

VARIOUS POST ROCK TYPES
ROCKET RACER BOX SET
This looks neato in its little white box containing three seven inch singles containing the sort of repetitive drone-based noise candy you may well expect from TANK, PORTAL, LACKLUSTER, YELLOW 6, THE AND/ORS and STYROFOAM.

THE FREED UNIT
CHEWINGUMOUTH (7″)
And wouldn’t you know it, this single was out on Rocket Racer Records too – the crazy old American alternotypes that they are. Rocket Racer I mean, not The Freed Unit. Hey, you know what I mean. This is their finest hour I think, a rollin’ ode just on the weird side of a weird Flaming Lips tune. Perhaps.

THE PRETTY THINGS
SF SORROW (LP)
“My boyfriend looks like Phil May out of the Pretty Things” – anyone who tells me where that quote came from can have a special prize. More psychedelic madness going on here, with this – ooh – concept album which sounds like Rolling Stones go Beach Boys in a Brian Wilson stylee. Which is, pretty much, what it is.

AVROCAR
CINEMATOGRAPHY (LP)
OOOH class. An album which sounds like waking up after sleeping for a hundred years, breaking up with somebody you never really liked, reminiscing about the good times with that person, etc etc etc. Shame it’s CD only. Boo hiss. But at least the gentle chiming nature of the album doesn’t get interrupted by needle noise.

SONIC YOUTH
ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING THEY’VE DONE
Oh, just because, alright? 50% of my time last year was spent listening to Sonic Youth.

(Originally posted December 2001)

Today’s lesson begins with some ramblings about an ACTUAL, REAL BOOK with words in it and everything. Because oh yes, I do more than just listen to records, I live a fulfilling and exciting life which occasionally involves reading and watching the telly. Anyway, this ‘ere book is called ‘The Creation Records Story’ and is a great big eight-hundred page mutha of a tome, covering the, er, Creation Records Story from shambolic beginnings in the early 80s up to becoming The Record Label Of Oasis. And along the way, of course, we meet all kinds of crazy pop kids such as The Jesus And Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, The House Of Love and Teenage Fanclub. It’s an interesting story not just because any sane music fan will and must own many of the records mentioned along the way, but also because in a proper in-depth kinda way it takes in the surrounding independent music scene which grew up from punk days, through the eighties, up to today, when ‘indie’ means something entirely different to the pop man in the street. It’s packed full of juicy little anecdotes and revealing insights into the machinations of the evil big business side of music, it if nothing else it’ll make you dig out some of those old 7″s in wraparound sleeves to remind yourself of times gone by.

But, no time for reading? Then let’s get on with talking about some records. Or CDs. (Much as I hate CDs, they don’t seem to be going away).

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(Originally posted October 2001)

Hey kids. I’ve just been listening to the 14 Iced Bears, and if you don’t remember them, then that’s not entirely important (although it’s quite important, as they were REALLY RATHER GOOD). The point is, where is all the good music these days? Why do I fill my time with all these old records, when surely I should be listening to the hip sounds of youth and getting down to where it’s at in the scene. I can barely get it together to buy anything even vaguely new any more, my shopping habits are erratic to say the least and leave me clutching weird armfuls of records from all over the place and from random years and people. Such is the delightful nature of aimlessly shambling through one’s musical life. Still, this isn’t a confession, it’s an excuse to pad out some space before I get started on a paltry selection of reviews of the only half-recent records I’ve got lying around here right now. Sit down comfortably, this won’t take too long…

First up is a 7″ split single featuring V/VM and PORTAL, on the simply marvellous Earworm Records, which upon first impressions looks a bit dull, sitting as it does in a generic Earworm company sleeve and having as it does no labels on the record to speak of, just an area of white. this does mean it’s difficult to tell which side is which, but you’ll know soon enough by listening to the damn record, fool. Portal’s two tracks are on the sinister side of relaxed, with super-repeated, super-barren frightening child’s story style melodies burrowing into your head and fiddling around with stuff, like the more melodic, more unnerving parts of the Aphex Twin‘s ‘Volume II’ in one way, and like stripped-down versions of an old David Cronenberg film soundtrack in another way. pretty cold-sounding, but atmospheric to the point of suffocation. V/VM, on the other hand, are clearly disturbed in several ways, and proffer some kind of twisted happy house tune which has been fed backwards through a sharp blender and brought up on a diet of sampling and knowing glances at people with worse record collections than itself. Strangely enough, for all its cut-up oddity and scratched record (in the traditional sense) charm, it manages to be simultaneously respectful and damning of the ten or so old tunes it’s sellotaped together with. You can’t say they’re not originals.

Next next next. This is a three 7″ box set from Rocket Racer records, and it looks fantastic – minimal yet a delight to open and treasure. As the insert says, ‘it’s been a while since i’ve seen a 7″ box set’, and i couldn’t agree more, it’s great to see effort being made to produce this kind of artefact, so much attention to detail, and so much belief in the music contained within. and the music? well, there’s more PORTAL, this time they seem to have cheered up somewhat and give us a skippy light breakbeat mixed with ominous synth sounds and quiet echo-heavy vocals. respect. the other side has THE AND/ORS who take the more traditional guitar band route and use it to good effect, with a lazy and plaintive song that sounds like an old Sarah Records band existing nowadays, operating at a slower speed, and with a slightly warped edge. The second record kicks off with YELLOW 6. I say kicks, but it’s more of a slow shuffle, with lulling, shifting sounds intermingling amongst pleasant acoustic guitar, like certain areas of Godspeed You Black Emperor! or even Aerial M. It’s bee-eautiful. LACKLUSTER bring things weird to the flip, with what some might pretentiously say is a ‘soundscape’, but what I pretentiously like to call ‘a bad-dreamy passing of noise’ which recalls cold winds on miserable evenings and drifting lost at sea. or at least recalls ideas like those. like Portal’s stuff on the earworm record, it’s certainly unnerving, and definitely memorable. STYROFOAM, next, sound the most electronic of the folks in this box, with a tune which could have been produced in the early 1980s on 1970s equipment. But recorded in the 1990s. It builds and builds, piano sound over synth sound over drum machine sound, not really going anywhere, but never getting dull. TANK round off this superb selection of talent, and stay true to their flawless form with a Neu! style urgent repetition, sounding utterly meaningful without the need for lyrics. They have it going on, or off, or something.

And there I will end. Only two reviews, you cry? Well, quality beats quantity every time. And those two releases are of The Quality which should make all you dear readers go form a band, or release a record, or write something, or produce something worthwhile. As Add N To X would say, ‘you must create’.

Go on then.

Now, I can’t remember why I was sent a demo CD from 4tRECk – I get stuff sent for review, but I also get stuff sent that concerns Audioscope and/or Fourier Transform. I have no way of telling what this CD’s ‘purpose’ is. Damn my disorganisation.

Anyway. Regardless. I’ll mention it here because it’s veh good. A weird Anglo-French dinky-donky sounding set of tracks produced by one man and his portastudio, that mixes sensitive folk music with the structural oddity of American Heritage/Don Caballero/etc. Interesting for no other reason that it sounds both familiar and new, and it’s music that makes me smile.

The lot of a part-time reviewer is a strange one: half the time it seems like time is being taken away from listening to music I really want to hear, being instead spent piling through endless rounds of CDs from going-through-the-motions promo companies, where more art goes into the writing of a press release than into the music being desperately hailed as Something Important. It’s hard to remember the reasons for having got into this ugly scene in the first place; the occasional jolt of enjoyment to be had from one of two things:

1. Receiving a free promotional copy of a record I was already planning on buying;
2. Receiving a free promotional copy of a record I would never have bought, but which is a serendipitous glimpse into the world beyond my normal listening habits.

This three-track demo CD is an example of the second situation above. Far, far from the music I tend to listen to through choice these days, this is straightforward blues-based indie music, with one foot in the laddish guitar melodies of early Oasis and Ocean Colour Scene (remember the days when people genuinely, unashamedly liked those two bands?), the other in the unblinkered world of young musicians who have yet to be ground down by the relentless demands to be new, groundbreaking or boundary-pushing.

Sure, this is traditional, simple music – ‘Then I’ll Be Leaving You’ opening up like REM’s ‘What’s The Frequency, Kenneth’ before loping into a blues-scale-verse-chorus-verse-mid-paced song where you can certainly see what’s coming. However, I find it absolutely listenable. It might be the vocal style, which is more Davy Jones sensitive than Liam Gallagher growl; or it might be the sheer lack of surprises (everybody’s doing musical surprises, these days); or it might be the nostalgic twist of pleasure I get from this. Two further tracks ‘Sebastian Melmoth, You’ve Got A Nerve’ and ‘Hollow Eyed and High’ introduce, respectively, a touch of Faces-tinged piano mixed with Byrds-style western strum, and, well, a combination of the first two tracks’ styles. (I did say that this wasn’t surprising stuff).

Obviously 4 Believers (terrible name by the way lads, I’d urge a change if possible) are never going to set the world on fire. But is that so wrong? Here’s a band just getting on with things, and it’s occasionally a relief to hear that.

By crikey, I really like the Johnny Foreigner album. I know it’s been out a little while now, but I’ll reiterate what you can already read in many other places – get it, it’s great. Here’s some music:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW6Bfy7K3Tc[/youtube]

Capillary Action’s previous album, 2005’s Fragments, was a riotous mess of oh-so-hip angularity and pleasingly backward-looking progressive rock arrangements. So Embarrassing continues along similar lines and themes, crashing headlong into the forked crossroads of jazz and prog with eleven tracks even more deranged, confusing and inventive than ever.

Opener ‘Gambit’ sets the tone – being seemingly angular vocal-led guitar music, before breaking into screaming hard rock noise, introducing chamber music strings and then collapsing repeatedly on itself. It plunges into skipping, vocal harmonies, piling on more noise and, illogically, muted trumpet. Throughout the album one track falls indistinguishably into the other: before you know it, ‘Pocket Protection is Essential’ has appeared and turned proceedings into a Herbie Hancock-style jazz fusion odyssey. This music is so complicated that it must be scored and performed – surely it’s not dreamt up by a band unit? – it’s amazingly precise, and has the vibe of ‘trained musicianship’ all over. It’s generally melodic, but with considered atonality sprinkled liberally between tracks. If there’s a hit in here, it’s ‘Elevator Fuck’, a 1960s spy show theme tune turned uptight, with rolling melodies, xylophone and trumpet. The mid-song church organ break is followed by some outstanding fuzz synth repetition, and it’s a super-catchy piece.

Vocally, there’s a lot of Elvis Costello-style pronunciation in here; with some Robert Wyatt feeling to the precise, conversational lyrics. In fact, there is much of Soft Machine’s experiment circa Volume 1/Volume 2 at play, and late 60s/early 70s progressive rock seems more of an influence than the modern bands this superficially recalls (Battles, Don Caballero, Oxes and so on). Capillary Action use modern sounds and styles to further some kind of compositional dream. It’s almost too relentless in its inventiveness and chaos – at times, it threatens to be just too much (for example, the mariachi stylings of ‘Paperweights’ or the vocal style that can grate at times). All in all, however, things are held together. Moments like the heavy metal power chord action in ‘Bloody Nose’ and the vocal chant/drum ending to ‘Badlands’ quickly dissolve any doubts. An outfit like Capillary Action are always going to be too downright bizarre to be of mass interest – but that’s what they have going for them. This isn’t an easy listen by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a surprisingly rewarding one.

Capillary Action
Pangaea Recordings

The good folks at Cityscape sent me a marvellous panoply of things to do with this release – not only a nice-looking snow-white 7″, but a CD, DVD containing the ‘Sometimes’ video and even a badge. So they’re already scoring high on generosity alone. Not that I can be bought, of course. Merchandise releases gone by have twinned low-fi ‘knowing loser’ pop with subtle electronica, but on ‘Sometimes’ it’s as simple a format as can be: plinky-plonk piano and sweet-hearted lyrics skipping along over a relaxed, summer-in-the-park arrangement of walking bassline and brushed drums. It’s all very cute, innocent and likeable, akin to a Badly Drawn Boy whose face you do not wish to smash in. B-side ‘Glitterati’ follows in a very similar vein, with fresh-feeling music and a vocal delivery that leans over Pulp’s garden fence. This isn’t a record for the cynics or noisemongers amongst you, but there must be some pop fans left out there?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM41ws8BY2E[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh1yY-QrRiw[/youtube]

Proof that Brian Jonestown Massacre aren’t the only band in LA still livin’ like it’s 1968, here are The Quarter After, who have just released their second album Changes Near. Yes, yes, you’ve heard this sound before, many times. But is anything really new any more? And isn’t it the case that there’s something about the jangling, hazy West Coast psychedelic sounds of bands like Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds that will never cease to please, especially when it’s pulled off with this degree of finesse and authenticity? Changes Near takes its lead from those bands, and mixes in a heady cloud of mid-period Ride squall, which for me brings it out in front of sheeny mid-80s psych revivalists like Rain Parade or Plasticland into a stranger, darker place – and psychedelia always works better with an undercurrent of anxiety. Not that this is a hellish trip – anything but. The darkness is balanced with twangy country-style jaunts, and as a whole the album is good enough to be more than the sum of its influences. It’s an album that could only, realistically, have come out of LA. Pass the patchouli.