Albums of 2012 … Afterthoughts …

I’ve had a few thoughts on some of the other albums I listened to through 2012, some of which I’ve reviewed here, and some others that didn’t stick around long enough to earn a review.

The albums that didn’t make it into the final ten fell into two categories: firstly, those albums downloaded and binned after a few listens, and secondly, those albums downloaded/purchased that I actually liked, kept, but didn’t like enough to include in the ten.

It’s the first category that provides a surprise or two. Looking back, I was pretty quick off the mark to download and bin a couple of acclaimed new release albums that would ultimately prove prominent on year-end lists elsewhere. Albums I had downloaded on the strength of positive reviews, but nonetheless albums I just couldn’t gel with.

For example, the Frank Ocean album wasn’t in my ten, ubiquitous though it was on any number of other blog year-end lists. Nor the none-too-bad Hot Chip release. Neither did indie darlings Grizzly Bear feature. New albums by all of the above were downloaded, listened to (more than once), and discarded.

 

Ocean: an orange shade of purple

Much loved though they all were elsewhere, those albums got the recycle bin treatment because I knew I wouldn’t be listening to them on any regular basis going forward. But not before I’d extracted the few tracks on each that I’d connected with (for playlist purposes).

A friend of mine – even as a fan of the Frank Ocean album – summed it up best for me when he said (paraphrasing here): “it’s almost as though critics were shocked to discover a half decent R&B album in 2012 and (over) reacted accordingly” … but for me Channel Orange remained over-hyped, and Ocean came across as something of a poor man’s Prince.

I also (downloaded and) binned new work from past favourites like The Cult, Dandy Warhols, and Smashing Pumpkins. All were mediocre – at best – when measured against deeds of yesteryear. And Muse, past masters when it comes to these year-end lists, well, what they gave us – odd album cut excepted – was the ridiculous posing as the sublime. It too was binned.

So what made it into the second category, albums that made it all the way to the end of the year, only to miss out? Albums I liked, kept, and will listen to again. The better than decent also-rans:

Coming closest of all but just missing the final ten was Leftfield’s Tourism (reviewed here), and it probably rates as my live album of the year. I gave this a thorough workout through the early part of 2012.

Orbital’s Wonky, something of a comeback album that, for the most part, lived up to the best of that pioneering outfit’s past work, also came very close to making the cut.

 

The Raveonettes: great Danes

The Raveonettes featured in last year’s ten, and 2012’s Observator was a similarly strong release that suffered only from feeling a little too familiar, mainly on account of sounding a lot too much like 2011’s Raven In The Grave. All the same, it still rates as another great album from the prolific Danish duo.

And Paul Weller’s Sonik Kicks didn’t quite win me over enough either, despite it being another solid release from a man who shows no sign of slowing down.

The Haunted Man, the latest from Bat For Lashes is also a very listenable body of work, and the feeling persists that I need to give this one a few more spins. I really came quite late to this one and perhaps haven’t absorbed it fully. On any other day The Haunted Man would more than likely have made the ten …

Had the second half of Bobby Womack’s The Bravest Man In The Universe been anywhere near as strong as the first half it too would have been a certainty for the ten, but as noted in my original review (here) it just sort of limps to an unfulfilling conclusion.

 

Bobby Womack: soul man

The Dub Pistols’ Worshipping The Dollar (reviewed here) is another that came close and it found itself on semi-permanent pod rotation for a month or two mid-year.

Upon further reflection, I was very tough on The xx’s Coexist, which has appealed to me a lot more since I wrote my original review (here), but I’m quite sure the band will console itself with the reality that far more highly regarded critics (than myself) deemed it a worthy effort, and it doubtlessly features on the majority of those year-end album lists found elsewhere.

Ditto, Cat Power’s Sun, another album that kept revealing more and more of its subtle charms well after my initial review (here) was uploaded. I look forward to her gig in Wellington (tonight already!).

My ‘New Zealand’ album of the year has to be local-boy-done-good Myele Manzanza’s solo debut effort (reviewed here).

I also had a fair bit of time for Ladyhawke’s 2012 album, Anxiety, another highly polished synthpop gem from Masterton’s Pip Brown.

 

Ladyhawke: pomp and polish

But those two are merely the tip of the iceberg during what was a great year for “local product”. My only issue is that I didn’t get around to listening to enough of it.

Reissue of the year if only for the fact that I didn’t fully get into it first time around and it therefore still felt remarkably fresh: Paul Simon’s masterpiece, Graceland, which came with all the additional bells and whistles offered by repackaging.  

So that’s “the albums of 2012”. If not the best, then certainly my “most listened to”. It was a year where more streaming/download options than ever before – not to mention a procession of different listening devices, each one better than the last – resulted in instant access to a wider range of music than I could ever have previously imagined. Right now it’s hard not to feel a little bit like a lucky old cat licking a super-sized dollop of fresh cream.

Here’s a clip from one of the albums I binned in haste, and probably shouldn’t have. Hot Chip’s gem ‘These Chains’, one of my single tracks of the year … lifted from (the 2012 album) In Our Heads:

 

 

 

 

Albums of 2012 # 1: Celt Islam – Baghdad

When I was posting a short series of ‘Just Browsing’ posts to highlight a few of my own favourite downloading sources a while back, I had fully intended to include Celt Islam’s Soundcloud page but never quite got around to it. Here’s a guy with virtually no commercial profile whatsoever, yet he’s making some of the best electro-dub-world crossover tracks you’re ever likely to hear. He calls it Sufi Dub, and he gives most of it away.

Celt Islam (aka Muhammad Abdullah Hamzah) is a Manchester-based composer and producer with an extraordinary talent, and the album Baghdad – released digitally in late 2011 – is perhaps the ultimate example of his widescreen musical vision thus far.

 

I say widescreen, yet ironically it is probably only the niche market appeal of his work that has held him back from wider acclaim. I suspect some of this stuff is not all that accessible to an awful lot of people, a situation not helped by the limited marketing scope of a self released album.

But it’s widescreen in the sense that it blends so many different genres to produce something of a genuine world music hybrid. No single style dominates an absorbing mix of dub, electro, drum’n’bass, and dubstep, with African flavours and Middle Eastern influences being the most prominent.

I picked up my copy of Baghdad mid-year, having previously compiled a pick and mix playlist of some of his earlier output. It blows me away every time I listen to it. So much so, it soon became the irresistible and only option when it came to selecting my number one album of the year. I can’t say for sure that it was my “most listened to”, but it is the one that made the most impact on me.

 

It somehow all feels very international, very global. The absence of vocals (for the most part) probably helps. I don’t really know whether having some sort of global vision is a key philosophy behind Sufi Dub, but it feels good. It feels like it connects a wide range of musical strands, something that’s open to all colour and creed, just patiently waiting to be embraced as a theological and meditative blueprint for a better world.

At a time when global unity feels like a forlorn hope – even if it remains every bit the main ideal we should all aspire to – Baghdad offers a brief reprieve from concepts like xenophobia and ethnic difference. A journey across a border-less world, no less.

If only more people knew about it.

Highlights: ‘Tribernetikz’, ‘The Silk Road’, ‘Sarayda Dub’ (clip below), ‘Presence’, and ‘Sinking Sand’.

 

 

 

Albums of 2012 # 2: Of Monsters And Men – My Head Is An Animal

Okay, so this one was a major surprise for me. Something of a bolt from the blue. One that came all the way from Iceland in the form of an album that became something close to my “happy place” in 2012.

Of Monsters And Men is not a name I was familiar with at the start of 2012. By the end of the year though, the band had become practically impossible to ignore, and music from My Head Is An Animal, the band’s inspired debut album, was everywhere – on the charts, on mainstream and independent radio, on music television and its various cyber offshoots, and just about anywhere else you cared to look.

 

I heard it in shopping malls, at award ceremonies, and I’ve even heard it used as interlude music during breaks in play at international cricket. I lost count of the number of times I heard a snippet from the album underscoring or subliminally sound-tracking some form of advert or “feelgood” news brief over the past six months or so.

Usually this would be a bad thing, of course. A very bad thing. Having the music you love being used in this way. In the way it all but destroyed ‘Blue Monday’ for a generation that once adored it. In the way any number of Beatles tracks have slowly but steadily lost their lustre over the decades (let it go! - Ed). A bad thing for the music, and often something that results in a vastly reduced shelf life for the band or artist that created it.

Yet, curiously, Of Monsters And Men have – thus far at least – managed to turn this theory on its head. Just getting these snippets and extracts out there has worked heavily in the band’s favour. Album sales have soared, particularly in the US, where the exceptional debut single ‘Little Talks’ led the way by going Top 20 within weeks of its release. Commercially, at least, familiarity hasn’t yet bred the level of contempt normally synonymous with over exposure. So far.

Now the trick for Of Monsters And Men (and label Universal) will be to ensure that level of exposure – subliminal or otherwise – doesn’t lead to negative type-casting and a permanent loss of long term credibility.

(Pleasingly, I’ve read a few reviews that have compared Of Monsters And Men’s music to that of Arcade Fire. Rather more worryingly, I’ve also read a few pieces where the words “Mumford & Sons” have been offered. It would seem there is a very fine line indeed).

 

 

There is just something so very uplifting about My Head’s offbeat mix of indie pop and folk. The harmonies, the big pop choruses that propel the music to a series of peaks, the sense of almost childlike wonder in the singing voices of dual vocalists Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir and Raggi Pórhallsson. I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what it is, but it’s big, it’s bouncy, and it’s a helluva lot of fun. A happy place, even.

There is no great sense to be made from a set of lyrics that focus on the surreal, the mythical, and the fantastical. But that doesn’t really matter, Of Monsters And Men make even the most trivial and frivolous feel epic. It’s more about the shape and form than it is about the minutiae of detail.

For what it’s worth, there’s a strong maritime and nautical theme running right across the album, with everything from songs about life on the high seas to charming little ditties about insects and pond life. We get the odd song about matters of the heart to bring us back down to earth occasionally, but mostly Hilmarsdóttir and Pórhallsson’s narrative is all about otherworldly adventure stories and all the wonderful imagery that comes with that.

Anyway, it seems pointless to go on. I loved this. I played it often. It made me happy.

It’s such a beautifully crafted album it seems a little harsh to single out specific tracks as highlights … but: ‘Dirty Paws’ (clip below), ‘Mountain Sound’, ‘Little Talks’, ‘Six Weeks’, and ‘Your Bones’.

 

 

 

Albums of 2012 # 3: The Orb & Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry – The Orbserver In The Star House

After all of the advance promotion and social media hype for this album, I have to say I was a little underwhelmed by The Orbserver In The Star House when I finally picked up a copy on CD.

I’d whet my appetite on the continuous drum-roll of preview mixes and pre-release samplers, but somehow it felt lightweight and flimsy when listening to it in its physical form; a throwaway piece of dub/crossover fluff, and the result of little more than a few weeks worth of studio frivolity for Alex Paterson and Lee Perry. A wee bit of fun on the side, before each man returned to whatever else they had on the go.

A few months on, I’ve softened on that first impression. It may well still be all of those things, but having repeatedly taken this out on a series of road trips over the past three months or so, having given it the car audio treatment, having “open road tested” it, if you like, I can unequivocally state that it’s every bit the carefully crafted work of art I initially anticipated it would be.

 

 It isn’t as though the build up wasn’t justified. Each man is a production genius, a past master in the art of what was once considered cutting edge dub, a student and innovator of the form. It seems only natural that the pair should collaborate in the studio sooner or later. That it wasn’t sooner is the only surprise.

With dubstep and its confusing multitude of sub-genres dominating the bass music landscape, there would undoubtedly have been temptation for Paterson and Perry to deviate from what they know. To offer their own unique take on the latest trends. That they didn’t, that they stuck to the tried and trusted forms of what each man does so well, is of some relief, and it offers no little testimony to the collective self belief that runs right through The Orbserver In The Star House. Some of it might be distinctly “old school”, but if that’s the case, it’s a seat of learning that today’s young tykes can only marvel at and learn from.

Perry is once again in imperious form with his stream of consciousness ranting and raving, toasting atop of Paterson’s electro noodlings to create an upbeat and warm summery vibe throughout. None of Perry’s observations are especially profound but they’re frequently offbeat and humorous … more “sly grin” than “laugh out loud”.

 

No, this isn’t an album that you can take too seriously. Yes, there is something distinctly off-the-cuff about it, and yes, it may be lightweight and fluffy in nature, but what I hadn’t realised at the outset was that all of those elements are a big part of its ongoing appeal.

Definitely one for the summer.

Highlights: ‘Ball of Fire’, ‘Soulman’, ‘Hold Me Upsetter’, ‘Golden Clouds’, and one of the most unusual takes on Junior Murvin’s ‘Police And Thieves’ that you’re ever likely to hear.

There’s been a few great remixes of material sourced from the album already, here’s the popular OICHO remix of Golden Clouds:

 

 

 

Albums of 2012 # 4: Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles (III)

Compared to the first two Crystal Castles albums, from 2008 (I), and 2010 (II), self titled album number three feels a little bit like the band’s equivalent of a “pop” album.

Both of the earlier releases were slightly flawed efforts on account of each one containing at least a couple of tracks that were virtually unlistenable. Tracks so abrasive and inaccessible (to my delicate ears) they all but ruined the listening experience unless I was prepared to periodically activate the “skip” function. For all of the highlights on the first two albums, and there were certainly more than a few, (III) is the first Crystal Castles album I find myself loving from start to finish.

 

Anyone familiar with the work of Toronto’s Alice Glass and Ethan Kath will know that the only way to listen to the music of Crystal Castles is LOUD – preferably with the aid of headphones to shut out any peripheral or background noise. That isn’t really a recommendation, it’s a prerequisite for ensuring maximum impact. Crystal Castles exist only to be played loudly, very loudly. Or to play live, which I strongly suspect is very much the same thing.

(III) isn’t a pop album in any traditional sense of the word “pop”, but in context of the extremes that Crystal Castles tend to operate at – ranging from experimental industrial noise to cutesy synthpop – it sits dangerously close to the crossing-over end of the spectrum. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because in the hands of vocalist Alice Glass, even cutesy synthpop can be made to feel dissident and subversive.

 

Applying FX to the Glass vocal is critical to the album’s appeal; whether cut up or buried deep in the mix, wailing, screeching, or more orthodox singing, the voice of Alice Glass serves as an outlet for everything from rage, pain, and loss, to tenderness, serenity, and calm.  Sometimes all wrapped up within one track. A cross-section and wide range of emotional responses that Kath’s electro wizardry supplements perfectly.

 

It is no surprise that Crystal Castles have become firm concert and festival faves right across the globe in recent years. While the band’s sound is clearly heavily indebted to technology and the more sterile environs of a studio, there is just something so perversely visual about it. That probably has a lot to do with Glass being able to channel Angry Rock Chick 101 at whim, but it’s also about the kaleidoscope of colour and chaotic imagery created by Kath’s constantly challenging music.

I was gutted to have missed them in Auckland recently … wrong place, wrong time.

Highlights: ‘Plague’, ‘Wrath of God’, ‘Affection’, ‘Pale Flesh’, ‘Violent Youth’, ‘Telepath’, and the closer, the ever so slightly demented lullaby, ‘Child I Will Hurt You’.

 

 

 

 

Albums of 2012 # 5: Jack White – Blunderbuss

You always know exactly what you’re going to get with Jack White. That’s one of the things I like most about him. He isn’t everyone’s cup of tea though, and over the past few years I’ve been sensing a subtle backlash against White and his retro-styling.

It seems that from the time the White Stripes formally announced a split in the wake of White’s wanderings – both “solo” and within new projects – his whole relationship with the music press somehow has changed. The man once heralded as a genius, and the most important artist of the first decade of the new millennium (by at least one major UK-based music mag), is now, according to some, nothing less than a fake and an imposter. I’m really not sure what has changed? Jack certainly hasn’t.

 

White’s default modus operandi has always been to mine the past for all it’s worth. We’ve seen it with the Stripes’ version of edgy crossover blues-rock, with the Raconteurs’ take on classic rock, and we’ve seen it most recently with the Dead Weather “side-project”, a raw variation on each of the above. And he does it again on Blunderbuss, his 2012 offering, a solo affair … (well, all of the White Stripes albums were essentially solo affairs too, but let’s just go with it for now).

 

From the opening flurry of the antique keyboard on the album opener ‘Missing Pieces’ right on through to the fading harmonies at the tail end of the closer ‘Take Me With You When You Go’, we’re transported into White’s world. A world where pre-owned can be presented as new without the aid of software. A world where rock rules, and if the guitar isn’t already actually king yet, then that’s only because the terrific wordsmithery has long since laid claim to any metaphorical throne.

White’s storytelling takes us on a series of short, sharp journeys to places we’d otherwise tend to forget about. Dark places. Places that more often than not feature eccentric people, outsiders, lost souls, and fringe dwellers … sometimes even Jack in the third person. All the while providing us with musical recall of where it all stems from, reminders of the various strands that have fed this thing we call rock music. Jack White is nothing if not a past master of achieving that.

And naturally, we also get the now regulation excursion into country – slide guitar, fiddle – on several songs. At 13 tracks over the course of 41 minutes, there’s a nice balance about the album, and it succeeds in feeling both familiar and fresh.

 

 

The album’s best track, ‘Love Interruption’, is a part confessional founded primarily on an electric piano, an acoustic guitar, and a barely repressed sense of anger. Whatever else “love” means, Jack just wants to feel it with brutal intensity. None of this safe, comfort zone stuff for him. A plea for pain, lust, hurt, revenge … and no little amount of murderous intent. You know – all of the usual things one normally associates with love (!) … and in turn, the track represents the very essence of everything there is to love about Jack White, all wrapped up in a two-and-a-half minute burst.

Other highlights include ‘Missing Pieces’, ‘Sixteen Saltines’, ‘Freedom At 21’, and ‘Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy’ … but there are no duds on Blunderbuss, just variety, and a few timely reminders of a far less complicated world.

Albums of 2012 # 6: Chromatics – Kill For Love

I’ll admit to being a bit of a latecomer to the music of Chromatics, with the 2012 album, Kill For Love, being the band’s fourth full-length studio effort, but the first to attract my attention.

When I first heard Kill For Love I was convinced it was going to be my album of the year, or at the very least something close to it. I get a bit excitable like that sometimes.

Then I decided it maybe wasn’t quite as good as I first thought, that it was probably about two or three lengthy tracks too long, and that it had too much of the dreaded “filler” content.

In truth, at 17 tracks and over 90 minutes in length, you actually get two really good albums packaged up as one.

Hailing from Portland, Oregon, Chromatics started life as a punk-orientated four-piece around 2001, but by 2005, only guitarist Adam Miller remained from the original quartet, and the band’s sound had softened considerably. From all accounts, the catalyst for the move to a more radio-friendly sound appears to have been the arrival of vocalist Ruth Radelet, and that of talented multi-instrumentalist Johnny Jewel (of label and tour-mates Glass Candy).

The album is such an eclectic mix of influences and styles it is difficult to pigeonhole the band. While the post-punk markers are obvious; dark challenging lyrics, chiming guitar, waves of synth, it lacks the directness and brevity usually associated with the genre. It feels widescreen and sprawling, in a good way. And to tag it as prototype indie* or post-punk is a little at odds with the sheer variety of instrumentation on offer (a lot of piano/keys, see cello at the start of ‘The Eleventh Hour’ etc).

I’m generally not a fan of autotune and/or the vocoder, but use of it on a couple of the more woozy atmospheric tracks on Kill For Love works well. I suspect this is the voice of Jewel, with Radelet taking care of vocals on the majority of tracks. It also gives the album a very contemporary feel, a modern twist on what is otherwise essentially a quite retro-flavoured album. Elsewhere, Radelet sings in a very nonchalant fashion, like she’s not particularly interested, or couldn’t care less. This creates a sense of distance, a lazy ambience, making it feel a little other-worldly in places.

Chromatics on stage 2012

But what really gives Kill For Love its pop sheen is the album’s glossy production, which is credited to the band itself, but if Glass Candy’s work is anything to go by, I think Jewel must have played the leading role in the studio. It never sounds anything less than immaculate, every track fastidiously pored over to create exactly the right mood.

One of the real highlights of Kill For Love is ‘Into The Black’, a cover of the Neil Young classic ‘Hey Hey My My’, which opens proceedings. Kicking off your breakthrough album with a cover of one of Rock’s definitive moments is a risky business, but these guys do it well, and it is testimony to the band’s self-belief that they would even consider such a stunt in the first place.

Other highpoints on the album include the title track, plus ‘Lady’, ‘The Page’, ‘Candy’, ‘Birds Of Paradise’, and ‘The River’. I’m not so convinced by the 14-minute album closer ‘No Escape’ though, which just sort of fades in and out without really going anywhere.

Overall, Kill For Love is a great album, and I can’t wait to see where Chromatics take things from here.

* Renowned indie streaming/download site Indie Shuffle rated Kill For Love as that site’s No.1 album of the year.

Here’s ‘Lady’ ... judge for yourself:

… and a non album track, featuring Ida No (of Glass Candy), a cover of the New Order classic, ‘Ceremony’:

Albums of 2012 # 7: Delilah - From The Roots Up

2012 was great year for female solo artists. Jessie Ware, Claire Boucher (Grimes), Natasha Khan (Bat For Lashes), Regina Spektor, Cat Power, and Lana Del Rey, are just a few of the more prominent names to gain both critical acclaim and/or commercial plaudits for their album releases during the year.

Some we knew a little bit about before, but others, not so much. Cue perhaps an awkward acknowledgement that Adele’s grip on the pop charts – over what is now a THREE year period – may have been a contributing factor to any perceived opening of the floodgates.

And flying a little further under the radar we had Paloma Ayana Stoecker – aka Delilah – a prodigiously talented 22-year-old singer/songwriter with a breathy vocal, who released arguably the strongest set of songs of all in the form of her album From The Roots Up. An album that was pretty much conspicuous by its absence on the multitude of other more renowned blog year-end lists.

But that, of course, doesn’t mean it wasn’t any good. At one point mid-year I just couldn’t get enough of this album (as I said in my review here) … an obsession that passed eventually, but not before it had provided the soundtrack to a large chunk of my obligatory mid-winter blues.

In recent months however, I’ve moved on, and the thought of listening to it again holds very little appeal. I made a copy for my 15-year-old daughter and suggested she might like it.

That’s as it should be … despite my bravado about pop music being non age specific, it was never really an album for a 40-something bloke. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate it for what it was ... something close to an unheralded pop masterpiece.

For the record, my daughter loves it – for its themes, for its of-the-minute relevance, for its sense of teenage angst, but I suspect she loves it mostly because, as a student of music herself, the album is nothing short of being a compositional work of art.

And of course it probably helps – from her perspective – that Delilah’s roots are firmly planted in the dubstep camp!

(That said, From The Roots Up is NOT a dubstep album. I suspect if Delilah had wanted to go down that path she would have called upon genre heavyweights Chase & Status, the outfit that helped launch her career in the first place).

Here’s Breathe:

Albums of 2012 # 8: Adrian Sherwood – Survival And Resistance

I think I called this one correctly in my original review (here) ... this is an album that improves significantly with repeat listening. So much so, it became a permanent fixture on my pod during the last couple of months of the year.

I really wasn’t sure what to make of it at first. It felt strange and experimental. It didn’t feel much like the Adrian Sherwood I’ve come to know and love over the course of nearly three decades. But I should never have doubted him; Survival and Resistance will eventually reveal all of its hidden charms only if you’re prepared to listen closely enough and persevere.

I returned to it many times, and each time I did, I discovered something new, something fresh, something I hadn’t noticed previously. More often than not it was only something very small; it might be a background noise, a few bleeps, a slice of reverb, or any number of the myriad of dubby FX Sherwood specialises in. They’re always practically impossible to catch first time around. But sure enough, it’s the small things that form the greater whole, and in the end that whole amounted to a damn fine album. Indeed, testimony to the age-old adage that “thou shalt not review too soon” …

(okay, I just made that last bit up … but it nevertheless acts as a default rule very much in sync with everythingsgonegreen’s lazy arse lack of focus when it comes to brand new releases).

No doubt that Survival And Resistance was one of the more “eccentric” albums I listened to and absorbed during 2012, but ultimately, also one of the very best.

Here's a taster: U R Sound (with Timothy Leary and unknown hippy chick sharing um, vocals ...):

Albums of 2012 # 9: Metric – Synthetica

Confession time: I’ve always reserved a special place in my heart for that guilty pleasure otherwise known as synthpop. No matter how sugary, how cheesy, or how blatantly commercial it may be, give me a half decent synthpop album to listen to, and your author instantly transforms into a very happy boy indeed.

Given that my formative pop music listening years coincided with the first wave of synthpop - Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan et al - I guess that none of the above should come as any great surprise. Those earliest musical influences can be very hard to shift from the psyche.

And in 2012 it would seem that the genre was very much alive and well. Some would even say it was thriving. Whether it was the retro styles of Hot Chip, the aggressive synthrave of Crystal Castles, the more offbeat variation as presented by Grimes, or this, Synthetica, the fifth studio album by Canadian four piece Metric, it felt like a fresh synthpop fix was never too far away during the year under review.

I’ve followed the work of Metric for a number of years now, with the 2009 album Fantasies also being one of the best albums of its year (according to me, obviously). Fantasies is certainly the release that tends to get the credit for providing the band with its most sustained commercial breakthrough, albeit a relatively minor breakthrough in big picture terms. I’m not really sure whether or not Synthetica will ultimately be recalled as a better overall album than Fantasies, but it feels like the band’s most consistent body of work yet, a better collection of songs, and an album void of anything in the way of obvious filler.

The voice of Emily Haines is pivotal to everything Metric does. Haines has a great vocal range – from gravelly and vulnerable, to silky smooth and assured – and on Synthetica we get a masterclass vocal performance from the ex-Broken Social Scenester. Right from the opening lines on album opener ‘Artificial Nocturne’ (... “I’m just as fucked up as they say, I can't fake the daytime, found an entrance to escape into the dark” ...) Haines grabs each track by the scruff, every word utterly believable, every song a short journey into the shadowy and frequently tumultuous world of Metric.

Musically a lot of Synthetica is synthpop-by-numbers (perhaps the clue is in the title) – glossy, lush, and often multi-layered, but where the band really excel is in the art of creating great pop hooks. Just as Haines wears her heart on her sleeve, the band itself is not afraid to present an unrepentantly commercial front. Even without its warm electronic vibe, even if those layers of synth were stripped away, there would still be a fairly formidable power-pop core right at the very heart of this album.

And while that might seem a little too conventional and possibly even a bit retro for some in 2012, it certainly isn’t anything to be ashamed of. Not when it is done this well.

Highlights: ‘Artificial Nocturne’, ‘Youth Without Youth’, ‘Speed The Collapse’, and ‘Breathing Under Water’ ... look out too for the appearance of Lou Reed on the less impressive ‘The Wanderlust’.

Here's 'Artificial Nocturne':

Albums of 2012 # 10: Dead Can Dance - Anastasis

My only other reference point for the music of Dead Can Dance is the 2005 ‘very best of’ release, Memento. That album is of course a compilation of more than two decades worth of peaks, so as far as benchmarking levels go it’s a fairly lofty height to live up to.

As far back as the early Eighties Dead Can Dance always seemed to be one of those “bands” skirting around the periphery of stuff I liked – think, say, 4AD stablemates This Mortal Coil/Cocteau Twins for an immediate marker. Yet I never really formed a particularly strong bond with anything they released at the time, or indeed, over time. A copy of Memento would seem like more than enough for the casual fan; all I’d need, a representative work, and an acknowledgement of their existence. Surely?

Well, yes, but then none of the above accounts for DCD’s capacity for pleasant surprises. For an ability to conjure up something special, a belated swansong even, when least expected …

Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard’s decision to reform and collaborate on a new album – 2012’s Anastasis – some 16 years after the release of the duo’s last album of new material under the Dead Can Dance moniker was, even in this age of nostalgia overload, a major surprise.

For Anastasis to then go on and become one of more impressive albums of the year speaks volumes about how productive and far reaching that “comeback” has been. Rather fittingly, I’m told that the album’s title (Greek) can be loosely translated to mean “rebirth” (or something akin to that). No question they got that bit right.

It also led to a hugely busy year for the duo, with an extensive tour across North America and Europe throughout the northern hemisphere autumn, a trip that even scheduled a gig in the troubled hot spot that is Lebanon (Beirut).

Not that Anastasis is a dramatic departure from anything DCD has offered us previously, and Perry and Gerrard clearly haven’t set out to reinvent the wheel; what worked before still works. As always we get a highly unique variation on what most of us would call goth – part classical or neo classical, part pop, part world music … but it’s never anything less than 100% arty and always true to the duo’s dark roots.

If anything, the album feels like a slight progression on DCD’s tried and trusted forms. Maybe it is just better technology all these years on, but there’s a real depth to Perry’s carefully crafted sound collages that I’d not noticed before, and Gerrard’s heavenly vocal remains as rich as ever.

If there’s a downside it’s that some of the lyrics feel a little awkward at times, shop-worn or a little cliché even. Listen too carefully and you’ll doubtlessly find a couple of cringeworthy moments. Perry and Gerrard share vocal duties, seldom together, Perry’s strengths being the darker tracks, with Gerrard practically flawless on the more eastern flavoured or world music styled tracks.

                                                                                                                                                                          

Highlights: the string drenched opener ‘Children of the Sun’, a sweeping epic to kick things off. ‘Amnesia’, which lopes along harmlessly before slowly revealing the darker themes at its core. And while the old-worldly Celtic textures of ‘Return of the She-King’ also resonate strongly with me, the real jewel on the album is ‘Opium’, a beautifully constructed masterpiece featuring a great vocal from Perry; Goth 101 … and a lot more besides (link below).

Album Review: The xx – Coexist (2012)

Following on from a more than useful debut album a few years back, the new full length release from The xx was eagerly anticipated in my house earlier this year. When it arrived – as Coexist – I have to say my initial feelings about it were less than complimentary, and in many ways it felt lightweight and throwaway in context to its benchmarking predecessor. I sat with it, gave it time, let it breathe, and digested it some more.

Yes, first impressions were that Coexist was a little too minimalist and bland for its own good, but it’s the sort of album that we’ll perhaps look back on in 18 months time and celebrate it for the vast number of remixes it spawned. If ever an album felt ripe for the addition of a little gloss it’s this one. Perhaps. I guess that will all depend on the quality of those remixes.

 

A compact 37-minute 11-song crawl, the album is so “samesy” at first, some tracks feel almost indistinguishable from others. It also feels just a little underdone, not much more than an exceptional demo, and a harsh critique of it would suggest it has the words “unfulfilled potential” written all over it. Coexist feels like it forms the core of a really solid release, but it lacks the requisite bite or substance to lift it beyond the ranks of the ordinary. Perhaps that’s where those remixers and producers will come in. Harsh? … again, perhaps.

If that is indeed harsh, then it is a harshness that comes from a sense of expectation. Maybe even over expectation. And if that expectation was based solely on what we got on the debut, then it was rather ill-conceived all along … on the basis that the first release was also a very stripped back, oftentimes sullen affair, why would the follow-up be any different? … if it’s party rock n roll yer after, then The xx is not the band for you.

 

What Coexist most certainly is though, is a Break-Up album. Possibly even The Break-Up Album of the year … if that sort of thing is your bag. Coexist is a bit like a wake. A brutal autopsy on a failed relationship. A death-by-one-thousand cuts, heartfelt, grievous journey into a world of heartache and despair. A one-way, one dimensional journey at that …  so don’t go looking for any last minute reconciliation, or anything remotely resembling a happy ending.

C'mon give us a smile ..
 

The boy/girl vocal thing is pivotal to everything of course, set as it is against a backdrop of vast open space, minimalistic chord structure, and the occasional tickle of a solitary keyboard. But this one is all about the songwriting, those inescapably bleak lyrics, drenched in self reprisal, with only the occasional flicker of denial, hope, or promise being allowed to peek through the multiple layers of inward pointing gloom.

I suppose it has actually grown on me (insert your own wart joke here) the more I’ve listened. It’s just so damned hard to take in one sitting, that’s all. Individually, buried within playlists, alongside more uplifting material, these songs tend to shine. Collectively though, across as long a half hour as you’re ever likely to wish for, these songs blend into one. A whole that is not necessarily greater than the sum of its parts.

 

So it’s a Break-Up album, no more, no less. I’m sure it’ll all feel so much better in the morning. Always does, apparently.

Er, the “highlights”: ‘Angels’, ‘Chained’, ‘Fiction’, ‘Sunset’, and ‘Swept Away’ …

Here’s a remix of ‘Chained’ … albeit one that is rather at odds with the ethos of the original version (upping the bpm factor tends to do that), but it is also a version that adds so much more texture and colour to the version found on the album, and it best exemplifies my earlier point about the potential of many tracks off Coexist to be extracted and refitted:

 

 

 

 

Album Review: Cat Power - Sun (2012)

I’ve never really been a big fan of Cat Power. I enjoyed her album The Greatest from a few years back but generally Chan Marshall’s voice does nothing for me, and more often than not it has been her more bluesy work that has appealed the most – her husky vocal providing a perfect foil for the heavier sounds that particular genre inspires. One or two of her cover versions from earlier albums also held some attraction, but on the whole, I’ve always felt Cat Power albums were a touch on the boring side of bland (hey, I’m trying to be kind).

Sun, Cat Power’s 2012 full-length effort, all but abandons the blues in favour of a more pop-orientated approach ... and surprisingly enough (for me), it seems to work much better than I had anticipated. The album certainly appeals as perhaps the most intimate and original release of her career, the songwriting in particular being a key strength on this one. And the lyrics feel as though they come from a deeply personal place as Marshall sets out to offer insight into some of the more peculiar elements of the human condition. Even a cursory glance at a few of the song titles – ‘Always On My Own’, ‘Real Life’, ‘Human Being’ – tends to confirm as much.

I guess it is Marshall’s lack of vocal range that has irritated me most of all on past work, but on Sun she disguises those limitations well, and the album’s wider pop sensibility and superb instrumentation offers some respite there. It is because those pop hooks are subtle rather than generic or obvious that it works so well, and more generally, the album comes across as a cohesive piece of work.

The variety of styles on Sun – from slow electro to harder-edged rock – also ensures that boredom is never the factor it has been in the past and I found myself pretty much fully engaged from start to finish. There’s a real tension, a feeling of anxiety even, that permeates across the whole thing, even if it remains difficult to pinpoint exactly where that sense of angst comes from.

The best tracks include the opening sequence/quartet of ‘Cherokee’, ‘Sun’, ‘Ruin’ (the lead single), and the infectious ‘3,6,9’, but the journey remains enjoyable enough throughout; ‘Human Being’ provides a real highlight midway through, and look out too for the suitably restrained cameo performance of one Iggy Pop on the near 11-minute epic ‘Nothin’ But Time’ – a track that genuinely sounds like something a prime period Rolling Stones could have made their own circa 1972.

Overall, this is a surprisingly strong album and a very enjoyable listen. And while it doesn’t really alter my feelings of indifference about Cat Power’s earlier body of work, or make me a convert, Sun is a good one, a keeper, and it probably qualifies as Marshall’s most consistent effort to date.