Mail & Guardian reviewer Lloyd Gedye trawls through the latest music releases.
French Kicks
Swimming (Just Music)
Swimming is New York indie outfit French Kicks’s fourth album and it’s an album that takes a bit of time to get inside of. But once you’re in their swirling Talking Heads-influenced jams, it’s something to behold.
In fact Swimming is quite an appropriate name, because at times it sounds like it was recorded underwater, but just as it becomes too claustrophobic it comes roaring back to the surface for a deep breath, with great bass rhythms, propellant minimalist drumming and some beautiful chiming guitar.
Highlights include the opener Abandon and the delightfully up-tempo New Man. However up-tempo is a relative description here because Swimming has a hypnotic dreamlike quality to it, where the melancholy is effortlessly conveyed without sounding forced or making you want to slit your wrists.
So while New Man can be described as up-tempo in relation to the other songs on the album, it’s hard to imagine the band breaking a sweat while working through it. While French Kicks are contemporaries of The Strokes, Interpol and The Walkmen, nowadays they have more in common with later period Talking Heads and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, while tracks like Said so what and Atlanta have subtle hints of the Beach Boys.
I find it fascinating that while the big boys of the early noughties New York scene like The Strokes and Interpol have disappeared off into mediocrity with disappointing third albums it is The Walkmen and French Kicks who have developed into delightful nuanced bands with killer fourth albums. This album is a treat and it will become a good friend in 2008. Highly recommended!
MGMT
Oracular Spectacular (Sony BMG)
It’s hard not to like Brooklyn, New York’s It-Boys MGMT, formerly known as Management, when the first thing that greets you when slipping their debut album into your hi-fi is the delicious first single Time to pretend. ‘I’m feeling rough, I’m feeling raw, I’m in the prime of my life / Let’s make some music, make some money, find some models for wives / I’ll move to Paris, shoot some heroin, and fuck with the stars / You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.” All of this is set to a catchy-as-hell song, with throbbing bass, 80’s styled synths and handclaps, which sounds very much like the psychedelic pop of later period Flaming Lips. It’s not surprising then to find out that it was recorded by regular Lips producer Dave Fridmann. Unfortunately the rest of their debut album Oracular Spectacular doesn’t quite live up to this grandiosity. Don’t get me wrong there are other very cool moments, like the down tempo anthem The Youth that has touches of Suede and Pieces of what, which sounds like it could have been released on an early Flaming Lips record. However there is nothing that comes close to matching the album opener and so you are left feeling disappointed and cheated. Who knows, maybe the next album will be more consistent, because this is definitely a band to keep an eye on.
Infinite Livez Vs Stade
Morgan Freeman’s psychedelic semen (Just Music)
How can you not love an album with a title that great? Welcome to the insane hallucinogenic world of the UK’s craziest rapper Infinite Livez and his partners in lunacy Swiss electro jazz outfit Stade.
This is the second collaboration between these complimentary musical forces; the first was 2007’s Art brut fe de yoot. Now there really is no need for a warning with this album, the title does that for you, but if you like your hip-hop a little to the left of underground, then this is the album for you.
A perverse sense of humour, dark fuzzy minimalist beats and Livez’ manic fronting all combine to create a bizarre netherworld that you will not easily forget. Like Sun Ra, Funkadelic, Public Image Limited and Kool Keith tripping hard on the sun, watching the earth go bang! Now don’t freak out, the brown acid is not poison, it’s just badly manufactured.
Clark
Turning Dragons (Sheer Music)
Many international publications have described Clark AKA English electronic musician Chris Clark as the heir to Aphex Twin’s throne. While I can understand the comparison to an extent, I have to disagree.
Clark’s music is very hard rave music that channels some of the Industrial genre’s aesthetic traits. While the scattershot beats and rolling synths on tracks like For Wolves Crew are reminiscent of Aphex Twin’s work, Clark is his own kettle of fish.
Aggressive hard-hitting rave and techno tracks are the order of the day, peppered with clangs, bangs, fuzz and scratches.
It is drug music for sure, not the kind of stuff you want to sit around your lounge listening to, unless you and your mates are out of your collective tree, in which case its hard to imagine you sitting down to this album. Nevertheless, Turning Dragons is a very interesting album indeed, a kaleidoscope of sounds that come together to create a disturbing yet funky soundscape. Not essential, but definitely worth a listen.
Various Artists
Jerome Derradji presents the American boggie down (Kurse)
BBE and Still Music label owner Jerome Derradji have teemed up to bring you this slice of disco, funk and boogie tracks. It’s a two-disc compilation — the first a mix by Derradji himself — of rare recordings from the Past Due Records archives.
The second disk is an unmixed compilation of mostly the same tracks, which include the rare Chicago’s Morning After and Detroit’s Monofide. The Morning After track Get It is a killer and features very afro-beat styled horns, while Monofide’s Party is a great stomping dance floor filler.
However my highlight has to be the Fabulous Kings with their If you like what you’re doing, which is another horn-driven disco-funk monster. Warm keys, funky basslines and soulful vocals are the order of the day and if you are looking for a disco soundtrack for your house party, then this might just be the one.
White Williams
Smoke (EMI)
Cleveland-based musician White Williams’s debut album attempts to stake his claim as the new-Beck, but much as the new-Dylan tags have never done anything for anybody, so, too, will this one.
Don’t get me wrong, Smoke is a very clever album. The way it manages to seem so aloof and disassociated yet not appear inconsequential is a finely crafted balance, but I just can’t help feel that all we are dealing with is a clever lad with a design degree and a fantastic bag of influences and not much else.
I mean, yes, Brian Eno, the Talking Heads, T-Rex, Roxy Music, Kraftwerk, Paul Simon, The Pixies and, ahem, Beck were great, but a stylised aloof recycling of them by some kid crashing on his mates couch with a laptop, guitar and synthesizer?. I might wrong, maybe White Williams will go on to make me eat my words, but right now I am saying he’s a two-bit chancer.
Christopher D Ashley
Cruel Romantics (Sheer Music)
Do you remember the days when bands like Yazoo and Depeche Mode dominated the airwaves? If you’re suddenly excited by that little trip down memory lane then jot down the name Christopher D Ashley, because his brand-new album Cruel Romantic is probably right up your alley.
Yes people, this an album full of crisp beats, rolling synths and even some vocoder just for good measure. The NME described the album as ‘sluttish warehouse electro” and I’d have to say that is fairly accurate, but I can’t help feeling that this album is completely superfluous.
I mean those classic Depeche Mode albums still sound amazing, I know, I was just listening to 1986’s Black Celebration in my car the other day. If you wanted a more modern version of that sound, The Faint’s 2001 album Danse Macabre was a killer collection of new wave/synth pop that makes this album seem kind of lame. But then maybe it’s just me.