Albums of 2019

Annual list time. If you’ve been here with me before you’ll know that my choices for the blog’s albums of the year are strictly limited to the new albums I’ve got my sticky mitts on during the year. Spotify doesn’t count, just purchased copies in whatever format. Which tends to rule out the dozens or hundreds of really good releases you’ll see elsewhere on year-end lists. I guess I could call it ‘best additions to my collection’, etc, or the stuff I listened to most, but it hardly matters, you know the drill.

10. Chromatics - Closer to Grey

I’m not sure whether Closer to Grey is the fifth, sixth, or seventh Chromatics album. Or something else entirely. It rather depends on whether or not you count re-released drumless versions of past work, and whether or not you count the apparently completed but still unreleased Dear Tommy, a much hyped, long shelved, full-length project from a couple of years back. Such are the mercurial and mysterious ways of arch-perfectionist and key Chromatic, Johnny Jewel. But whatever album number it is, Closer to Grey is the first Chromatics outing I’ve picked up since 2012’s excellent Kill For Love album, and the most important thing in all of this is that it ticks all the right boxes for long suffering fans. Or, at least, this fan. Those boxes include Chromatics’ commitment to a dreamy shoegaze aesthetic, Jewel’s devotion to creating widescreen cinematic imagery, and a much loved predilection for oddball covers - in the case of Closer to Grey, that means a reimagining of tunes like ‘The Sound of Silence’ (Simon & Garfunkel) and ‘On The Wall’ (The Jesus and Mary Chain). I do have a few reservations over the durability of Ruth Radelet’s voice across multiple listens. On one hand her vocal is light of touch and weightless, while on the other, it has a tendency to come across as a little thin and a tad too bland. What works well in isolation, on individual tracks, can be less engaging over the full course of the album’s journey. But that’s a minor quibble, and Closer to Grey comfortably makes the cut for this year’s 10.

9. Beat Rhythm Fashion - Tenterhook

2019 gave us the chance to reconsider the too often overlooked legacy of early 80s Wellington post-punkers BRF. There was a short national tour and, most unexpectedly, a brand new album. Just like those autumn gigs, Tenterhook felt intimate, personal, and heartfelt. A very welcome return, even if it does turn out to be a temporary one. R.I.P. Dan Birch. My full review is here.

8. Mercury Rev - Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited

Speaking of the scarcely anticipated, I really didn’t expect this one to feature on any year-end list when I downloaded it early in the year. Curiosity led me to it, mainly because I’d seen a few Bobbie Gentry TV “specials” when I was growing up, and I knew a little bit about Mercury Rev already. As the title informs us, it’s Mercury Rev’s take on the 1968 Bobbie Gentry release The Delta Sweete, with an alt-country meets modern day Americana crossover spin. Guest vocalists include luminaries such as Nora Jones, Hope Sandoval, Vashti Bunyan, Phoebe Bridgers, Beth Orton, and Lucinda Williams. Although Gentry’s best known track, the chart-topping ‘Ode To Billie Joe’ didn’t actually feature on the 1968 original, Mercury Rev include it here, and Williams’ interpretation of it is one of the best (of many) versions I’ve heard. On the surface, Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited was an easy listening affair, and it got a lot of workplace airtime as a result, especially across the first six months of 2019, but scratch below that surface a little and you’ll find Gentry’s themes were often anything but easy listening. A revelation.

7. The Specials - Encore

More Tales of the Unexpected. Anyone noticing a theme here? New work from a band that first emerged some 40 years ago. A blend of just about everything you could possibly want from the three remaining Specials (plus friends) ... ska, funk, straight pop, social commentary, and political activism. My full review is here.

6. Pitch Black - Third Light

I’m not sure what more I can say about my love for Pitch Black. I’ve written so much about the duo’s music already - on this blog and for NZ Musician (here) - that it almost feels indulgent and a touch fanatical to offer more words. Given the lengthy gap between 2007’s excellent Rude Mechanicals and 2016’s equally great Filtered Senses, official album number six (excluding a plethora of fantastic remix releases), Third Light, arrived a lot earlier than many of us had anticipated. All of the usual Pitch Black touchstones are present and accounted for; dubby techno drenched in atmospheric electronic wizardry and bassy production genius, but if there is a slight departure on Third Light it’s that this work feels a little more chilled out and ambient than any past release. ‘One Ton Skank’, ‘Artificial Intolerance’, ‘A Doubtful Sound’, and the title track itself are all up there with the best work Pitch Black has done.

5. Minuit Machine - Infrarouge

Infrarogue ticked so many boxes for me … a little bit retro, a little bit synthpop, and large helpings of the melodramatic dark stuff. Something close to perfect, and I couldn’t get enough of and Helene De Thoury and Amandine Stioui’s unique take on the complexities of modern life. My full review is here.

4. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen

Nick Cave has always skirted around the periphery of a lot of music styles and genres I’ve been into over the years, but I’ve never really considered myself a fan. I liked the obvious Murder Ballads-era stuff, and I’ve enjoyed some of his other work over the years, but he’s never really been high on my radar whenever new music has been released. I picked up a copy of Ghosteen just because it was there, and I’d read a lot of mostly positive social media commentary about it. To say that death is the primary theme of Ghosteen would be an understatement, and that’s hardly surprising given Cave’s personal journey and the still obviously raw tragic loss of a teenage son. Words about Jesus, ghosts, the king of rock n roll, stars, horses, and (even) the three bears have never before sounded so vital and fresh. And what a terrific voice that man has … “I’m just waiting now for my time to come, I’m just waiting now for my place in the sun, and I’m just waiting now, for peace to come ...”

3. Antipole - Radial Glare

Antipole topped this list in 2018 with Perspectives, and Karl Morten Dahl returned this year with yet another fine post-punk album in the form of Radial Glare. The retro-fuelled music of Antipole is intoxicating in every way and there’s not a single moment on Radial Glare where I’m not fully engaged. Quite possibly the best thing to come out of Norway since a youthful baby-faced assassin Ole Gunnar Solskjaer started terrifying Premier League defences and banging them in for fun at Manchester United in the mid to late 90s. My full review is here.

2. The National - I Am Easy To Find

I think I must have read or heard just about every criticism possible over the past half dozen years or so when it comes to The National ... you know how it goes: “boring, bland, colour by numbers, white-bread boomer rock” that trades on the reputation of a couple of fine early albums made by the band. Music made by middle aged white men for a fanbase not too far removed from that precise demographic. I’ve heard it all, and yep, critics are entitled to those opinions, whatever their starting point. But they’ll never convince me that’s all there is to it, and every National album across that same period has, to one degree or another, had plenty going for it. Which probably makes me a fan. I certainly fit the aforementioned notional demographic. Unashamedly so. In fact, I Am Easy To Find is the third of three post-2013 National albums to make this blog’s year-end list, and I’d go so far as to suggest it’s the band’s best full-length work since 2010’s High Violet. A fastidiously crafted set of tunes that took me on a warm and familiar journey with each and every listen. The addition of female voices (including choral elements) was a major point of difference from past work, although Matt Berninger’s compelling and emotionally charged baritone remains a highlight, particularly on standout tunes like ‘Oblivions’, ‘The Pull of You’, ‘Hey Rosey’, ‘Light Years’, and ‘Not in Kansas’. With so much going on across its near seven-minute trip, the latter track was something close to the blog’s song of the year ... if there was such a thing (don’t encourage me).

1. VA/On-U Sound - Pay It All Back Volume 7

Oh no! A compilation album! … how can that be? It breaks just about every unwritten rule of year-end reflecting to list a various artist/compilation label sampler as your blog’s album of the year. But who really cares about rules that aren’t written down? This was outstanding. Every bit worthy of the long wait. 23 years after the last release in the renowned Pay It All Back series, Volume 7 exceeded my own expectations in every way. All hail the production virtuosity of the dub master himself, Adrian Sherwood. My full review is here.

Close, but no funny cigar (another ten):

There’s no room on this list for one of my favourite bands, Iceland’s Of Monsters And Men, who released Fever Dream. Each of the band’s two previous albums have featured on this list in past years, but Fever Dream was a disappointment for me, with OMAM having abandoned the mystical and magical in favour of a far more generic stadium-ready sound.

Had Dead Little Penny’s Urge Surfing been released earlier in the year it probably would have made the cut because right now, as at mid-December, it feels like a real grower. Certainly, it’s one of the best local albums of the year in that dark shoegaze-y vibe I love so much.

The Radio Dept’s 2019 “album” I Don’t Need Love, I’ve Got My Band is decent, and I’m a fan of Sweden’s finest, but it’s not really a “new” album, merely a compilation of past work, clumping together two previously released EPs from 2003 and 2005. Worth a listen if The Radio Dept is new to you.

I listened to Ladytron’s self-titled return a fair bit, and loved a lot of it, but it just fell short on account of it not really breaking any new ground. New Ladytron, just like old Ladytron, which, most years, is not a bad thing to be.

Angel Olsen’s All Mirrors is another of those albums that would just as likely have featured more prominently here had it been released earlier in the year. I probably haven’t listened to it enough (yet) but I suspect it’ll be well represented on year-end lists elsewhere. Olsen is one to watch.

Underworld’s Drift series was an ambitious undertaking. I downloaded a job-lot 40-track version which clocks in at nearly six hours. There’s some truly great stuff in there, but that’s a hell of a casual listening exercise, and Drift wasn’t really an album in any traditional sense of the word.

The Raconteurs’ Help Us Stranger was a throwback to a far simpler time. A time when classic rock dinosaurs roamed and ruled. Help Us Stranger showcases Jack White and Brendan Benson’s love of all things 1970s, and it was mostly an enjoyable listening experience. The odd cringeworthy moment excepted.

Prince is no longer with us, but his musical legacy lives on. Originals is a collection of Prince performing songs he wrote for other artists, or at least, those he allowed other artists to release. It cements his status as not only one of his generation’s most underrated songsmiths, but one of the greatest vocalists of the past 40 years.

Foals released two albums in 2019. Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Parts 1 & 2. Released months apart. The earlier release is probably the one to savour, if only for the way it veers into an unlikely synthpop realm, but both are worthwhile efforts and I’m surprised Foals aren’t gaining a lot more commercial traction.

Finally, in terms of albums, Marvin Gaye’s You’re The Man was an interesting release. Recorded between 1969 and 1972, it was originally intended as a follow-up to Gaye’s acclaimed What’s Going On (1971) but was shelved by Motown and remained unreleased until early 2019. I’m a little unclear about whether it was Motown boss Berry Gordy or Gaye himself who pulled its initial release but the fact is, despite some of the content being a little patchy, fans of Gaye, or classic soul, will find a lot to love on You’re The Man.  

Which brings me nicely to reissue of the year: I just can’t go past the 25^th anniversary deluxe release of R.E.M.’s Monster (1994). The original album, a remix of the original, a bunch of unreleased demos (mostly instrumentals), and live versions from its era. Monster has always been regarded as something of a black sheep within the band’s canon, but this reissue - especially the remixed album and even some of the unreleased work - brings into clear focus just how good the music of R.E.M. was during the band’s pomp.

EP of the year: Contenders by Contenders. Punk rock out of Hamilton. Everything about this release is short and sharp. Must be played loud, preferably with copious amounts of beer at the ready. A shout out too for the young Wellington electronic artist Miromiro, who released two fine synthwave-y EPs during the year, Toucan and Andreev Bay. I was a big fan also, of Kool Aid’s Family Portrait EP.

Gig of the year: Blam Blam Blam at St Peter’s Hall, Paekakariki. No question. I waited 38 years to see the reformed band play live after seeing a much more youthful version as a youngster myself back in 1981. It’s hard to go past bucket list events like that.

In a similar vein, Beat Rhythm Fashion at Meow was quite special too. Other locals who rocked my world included The Beths at San Fran and Miss June at Meow. Of the international artists who visited these shores, Gang of Four at San Fran was surprisingly good, and a less well attended set at the same venue by the Dub Pistols got my 2019 gig-going year off to a flyer. Herbie Hancock in Wellington was the biggest “name” I saw live, but that particular night was less enjoyable for me, for a number of reasons that I simply don’t have room to expand upon here …  

I’ve kept you long enough. Thanks for reading and thanks for supporting everythingsgonegreen in 2019. Wishing you merry festivities and happy holidays. Play safe, and don’t get arrested.

Album Review: Cigarettes After Sex - Cry (2019)

I can scarcely believe I loved the first Cigarettes After Sex album as much as I did. The 2017 debut held enough appeal for me to name it one of the blog’s best albums of that year, and it had enough going for it to convince me to travel all the way up to Auckland for the band’s Powerstation gig of early 2018. Two years on, after listening to the band’s follow-up album, Cry, I’m really struggling to recall what might have possessed me.

There’s no question that Cigarettes After Sex make fastidiously crafted, dark and dreamy pop music, with exquisite, immaculately presented melodies right at the core of everything. All things that usually appeal to your pop-loving blogger. But Cry feels like a pale replica of that debut, and there is very little to distinguish it from album number one, save for the fact that it’s not nearly as convincing, fresh, or clever in its intent or execution. 

Cry offers us the same old formula, the same old guitar effects, the same old melodies - albeit, admittedly, many of them are things of great beauty - and the once hauntingly unique androgynous vocals of Greg Gonzalez now just come across as being repetitive and tiresome. Even a little bit creepy in places. The songs deal with break up, longing, loss, sex, and unrequited love. Perfect fare for the angsty post-pubescent mass that accounts for a good portion of the band’s fanbase.

So perhaps that’s the problem I have with it? Not fitting the demographic for which its intended. Or perhaps something has changed with me over the past two years? I’ve become overly cynical … I’m certainly less tolerant of Cigarettes After Sex, and the only sense of longing I’m now feeling is a desire for the band to tone down the “mellow” and turn up the rock n roll. 

Or maybe I just wanted the band to show some sign, any sign, of innovation and progression on the follow-up? I don’t think that’s an unreasonable expectation, but the truth is, Cry holds very little appeal and it’s all a little bit too saccharine and sterile (musically) for my taste – even though some of its no-filter lyrics are the polar opposite of that description … see “a little bit creepy”, above. 

Not that Gonzalez and co would care less about what the likes of me think about their art. They’ve got their audience, and their formula. What worked last time out will just as likely work this time around, and they clearly have no need to turn things up beyond the tried and trusted. Suffice to say though, for all that the debut briefly appealed as something very special, very much for and of its time, the all-too-familiar younger sibling, Cry, won’t even get close to making this blog’s shortlist for album of the year in 2019.

A Double Dose of Scratch: Rainford and The Black Album

Producer, artist, and all-round reggae superstar Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry isn’t one to live on his weighty legacy. Now well into his 80s, Perry has produced two studio albums in less than two years as he continues his journey into the new sounds of Jamaica. Craig Stephen takes a closer look: 

Rainford (2019)

Perry’s umpteenth studio album was co-produced with dub reggae producer extraordinaire Adrian Sherwood. Perry as ever provides the vocals, sounding, yes, like an elderly man, but a man with fire still burning in his belly. 

Some tracks have a freestyle, go-with-the-flow format, with Biblical allusions that veer into babbling chants, snarls and shrieks. 

The final track, perhaps ominously but appropriately, is ‘Autobiography of the Upsetter’, and while I expect Perry to continue for a few more years yet there will naturally be a point at which the book is closed. This feels like some sort of career-capping memoir as Perry reminisces on his life in music. 

Unfortunately, the vocals ebb and flow and there are words that are hard to comprehend. He begins by saying he was born Rainford Henry Perry in Jamaica in 1936, informing the listener that his father was a freemason, his mother an Eto Queen (no, I don’t know either) … “They shared a drink together, they then go on to make a Godly being/ Just look at me.” 

Among his reminisces are how, he says, he made the Wailers, and in particular its frontman: 

“Bob Marley come to me saying ‘my cup is overflow, my cup is overflow, and I don’t know what to do. Can you help Mister Perry?’ Yes I can, I give you Punky Reggae Party.” 

He later reminds listeners of his work with Susan Cadogan, who had a number of big reggae hits in the UK including the Perry-produced ‘Hurt So Good’. 

A couple of tracks, if we are honest, don’t quite continue the quality but ‘Makumba Rock’ partially makes up for such slackness – it is an unhinged jam where Perry alternately cries like a baby, bleats like a goat, and whines “I want my mommy, I want my daddy” as heraldic horns blast forth and a hardcore dub rhythm transports the listener back to 1974 and near the end warns Britons: “Prince Charles will not be King.” 

The Black Album (2018)

The Beatles released The White Album; Metallica released a self-titled album that became known as The Black Album. Both colours completely dominated the respective covers. The difference with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s work is that it reflects his skin colour, and the blackness of the cover is his wrinkly, ageing hand. 

This is the artwork, but it suggests a theme. Or a statement. 

With Robbie Lyn and former Perry producer Daniel Boyle in tow, Perry has created an album that harks back to the 1970s halcyon days of reggae and dub. To add to the retro feel each track is followed by its dub version, which means that the vinyl version spills over on to two disks. Some of these versions are as good as, or perhaps even better, than its daddy.

The opening track, ‘Mr Brown In Town’, includes Perry’s declaration that “I'm still alive, refuse to die”. You can’t argue with that.

Continuing with the colour theme, let’s skip to ‘Your Shadow Is Black’, a track that has that roots reggae feel as Scratch and background harmonies mingle in true 1975 fashion with obscure, repetitive lyrics rattling off frenetically. Then hold on for the dub version with the beautiful amalgam of flute and melodica brought to the forefront with a minimal amount of lyrics.

The Beatles reference at the beginning wasn’t merely a clutch at an album with similar tones of colour. The Black Album includes ‘Dub at Abbey Road’, which is not a version but the original track, that sees the apparently mad Jamaican recall The Beatles’ heyday and their LSD consumption. 

Furthermore, the vocal sessions for this album were held in the famous Abbey Road studio where the Scousers recorded the eponymous album half a century ago. 

I immediately struck up a rapport with ‘Captain Perry’ in which the gaffer transposes himself “on the high seas .. on the moonbeam .. on the mother ship …”. He doesn’t miss a trick, so the female backing singers would have us believe.

Those vocal harmonies lend a contrast to Perry’s limited range, a clear flaw in the album but it would also appear, if I listen really intently, that this is a trick to deliver some risqué statements. Stripped of the mumblings, the dub version, with its focus on the chorus is a superior, minimalist beast. 

Clearly, Perry will keep going until his body stops, and even as I write I see there’s a new album with Brian Eno (yes, that Eno) which we’ll endeavour to get to as well.

Album Review: Minuit Machine - Infrarouge (2019)

I think it was probably one of those “free” The Blog That Celebrates Itself compilation album downloads that first introduced me to the music of Minuit Machine. A 2015 tribute album to The Smiths, where Minuit Machine - aka Amandine Stioui and Helene De Thoury - took on the unenviable and potentially quite thankless task of covering ‘How Soon Is Now?’, a track so beloved by particularly fussy fans of The Smiths, the duo was always flirting with fire.

But they somehow managed to pull it off with no little amount of credibility still intact; walls of Numan-esque synths combined with ice cold femme fatale-style vocals miraculously reinventing the feted tune, to leave it with distinctly haunted goth-rock aftertaste. It was, for me, the standout track on an otherwise uninspiring and ordinary tribute album.

That same niche but immensely satisfying formula is applied again on Infrarouge, Minuit Machine’s third studio album, released on the Synth Religion label earlier this year. Slow-burning rhythms push hard up against layers of dark foreboding synth, only to then bounce off, yet still complement, the duo's richly melodramatic vocals.

Infrarouge is something of a comeback album for the duo, a belated follow-up, after a brief hiatus, to 2014’s Live & Destroy and 2015’s Violent Rains. I’m not sure how Stioui spent the intervening years, but De Thoury has been working hard to carve out a successful “solo” career (as Hante.) within similar darkwave, synthwave, and goth-rock realms.

There’s drama aplenty in both the words and music found on Infrarouge; frequently claustrophobic yet still very grand and beautiful tunes that deal with the complexities of modern life and human relationships. With titles like ‘Chaos’, ‘Empty Shell’, ‘Fear of Missing Out’, ‘Sacrifice’, ‘Forgive Me For My Sins’, and one of the best, ‘Drgs’ … “we are doomed to stay alone, drugs, I need something to fill me up, I need something to kill the rage, drugs, the world is ending but I don’t care, we all die but I don’t care”… (whoa, steady on! - Shiny Happy Ed)

There’s also a much-improved fleshed-out remastered version of ‘I Am A Boy’, which first appeared on the duo’s debut EP of 2013, Blue Moon.

De Thoury wrote the music and produced the album, and I believe she’s responsible for most, if not all, of those delicious towering synths, while Stioui wrote the album’s lyrics and takes care of the vocals.

At ten tracks across 43-odd minutes, Infrarouge is a terrific album, something of a masterclass within its genre, by 2019 standards at least, and as comebacks go, this one is way better than anyone could have anticipated. 

One of my favourite albums of the year so far. 

Here's 'Forgive Me For My Sins' ...

Album Review: Antipole - Radial Glare (2019)

Following on from the 2017 album, Northern Flux, and the excellent 2018 remix project, Perspectives, blog favourites Antipole returned last month with another full-length effort, Radial Glare.

Antipole is Trondheim-based Karl Morten Dahl, along with regular co-conspirators, the Brighton-based producer Paris Alexander, and vocalist Eirene. Just like those previous releases, Radial Glare is an intoxicating journey into the netherworlds of dark melodic coldwave, only this time around, the vocal palate is expanded to include a couple of tracks featuring Marc Lewis, who may (or may not) be better known for his work with post-punk outfit, The Snake Corps.

Radial Glare consists of 11 tracks, clocking in at just a few ticks over 45 minutes, and it’s a thoroughly absorbing listen from start to finish, with Dahl’s signature guitar style and careful exploitation of repetition being key to the album’s wonderfully hypnotic flow and wider feel. 

Icy keys/glacial synths add depth and texture, every track dripping with a weighty darkness and brooding atmosphere, and naturally Eirene’s often ethereal vocal – both orthodox and when buried deeper in the mix – only adds to this general sense of unease. 

Much of Alexander and Dahl’s production work is quite remarkable, and there are moments which hint at references to the work of the great Martin Hannett (Joy Division, New Order, many others) for the way the music is allowed to breathe, its use of space, its uncluttered melancholic vibe, and the notion that quite often, less is actually more.

I won’t single out highlights because everything here exists as part of a greater whole, there’s no filler, and after many listens over the past fortnight or so, Radial Glare has truly taken on a life of its own.

Here’s 'Syndrome' featuring Paris Alexander:

Album Review: New Order - ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes ... (2019)

I’m not sure the world needed a New Order live album in 2019, but we’ve got one anyway.

The awkwardly (or ridiculously) titled ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes ... was recorded live at the Old Granada Studios during the band’s five night residency in July of 2017, as part of that summer’s Manchester International Festival. 

The album features a 12-piece synthesizer ensemble with composer-arranger Joe Duddell, but naturally, what can’t be captured on the double CD or triple album set - despite being referenced in the title - are the visuals provided by renowned English NYC-based conceptual artist Liam Gillick. Perhaps there’s a DVD for that? 

To be honest, the additional synths barely make an impact and aren’t particularly obvious to my ears. The live warts n’all feel is rich or pure enough, but mostly the album is a little patchy in both content and execution. 

Certainly, anyone expecting a greatest hits-type setlist will be disappointed. None of the band’s early hits are included - no regular live favourites like ‘Temptation’, ‘Age of Consent’ or even ‘Blue Monday’ - but we do get a decent take on ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, plus middling singles like ‘Sub-culture’ and ‘Shellshock’. Also, there’s some Joy Division stuff - ‘Disorder’, ‘Decades’, and ‘Heart & Soul’, included amongst the 18 tracks on offer. 

It seems obvious that this set was more about giving less heralded album cuts an outing – see the likes of ‘All Day Long’, ‘Vanishing Point’, ‘Your Silent Face’, and ‘Elegia’. And given that vocals are one of the least impressive features of the release (sorry Barney), I should add that my favourites on the album are ‘Ultraviolence’ (minimal vocals) and a pretty epic instrumental opening track, ‘Times Change’ (off Republic). 

There are better New Order live releases out there – many fans will argue Live at Bestival 2012 easily trumps this one. In fact, there are probably better New Order live bootlegs out there. I picked this up because I’m a New Order completist, but really, I’m left with the feeling that this adds very little to the band’s wider legacy.  

Album Review: Mungo’s Hi-Fi & Eva Lazarus - More Fyah (2019)

Craig Stephen's been dreaming of long summer nights and barbecues on the deck ... 

***

My first aural stimulation by Mungo’s Hi-Fi was at the esteemed One Love festival held at a velodrome in Wellington during the hot summer of 2010, when a pair of peely-wally Glaswegians caught the mood of what was ostensibly a reggae festival but had broadened out to include the likes of Don McGlashan and Sola Rosa.

It was only last year that I re-discovered the by now much expanded soundsystem through a contribution on the excellent Puffer’s Delight compilation album - reggae, dancehall, dub et al brewed in Scotland which was also released by Scotch Bonnet.

More Fyah features Eva Lazarus, a new name to me, but I doubt she will be to the legions of dancehall, grime and reggae fans in the UK. It seems a logical move. Lazarus’ nifty vocal style matches a duo prepared to mix and match, delving into just about every style you’ll hear in any ethnically diverse suburb of inner London.

The dream team begin proceedings with a cover of the S.O.S. Band’s ‘Just Be Good To Me’, re-nosed as ‘Dub Be Good To Me’. They’re not the first act to have had the same idea - Norman Cook’s Beats International did so in 1990, reaching No.1 in the British chart, at a time when that still meant something. Perhaps it might be more appropriate to call it a take on Cook’s classic.

On the bass-heavy ‘Babylon Raid’, Mungo’s weave a sample of Max Romeo’s 1970s roots reggae anthem ‘Three Blind Mice’ around Lazarus’s furious attack on unsympathetic police tactics with a mock sample of a flat foot’s warning about noise control thrown in for good measure. The title track is a ragga party banger with summer barbecues in mind, while ‘We Weren’t Made For This’ is a scorching ska bomber, celebrating ditching a shitty job and finding somewhere nice to explore: “never designed for a nine-to-five, Monday to Friday, stay alive,” sings Lazarus as she prepares to pack a bag.

Mungo’s and Eva are reminiscent perhaps of Audio Active, the underrated Japanese dub/electronic/ hip-hop act retro-reviewed on these pages recently, in that there are no barriers, no walls to hold them back, and a world to explore. I’d like to say this could be one of the albums of the year but it isn’t without its irritating moments, and on the last two tracks, most notably ‘Warrior Code’, which doesn’t offer much new, I’m already thinking of which tracks I can repeat play.

Nevertheless, it’s an intriguing and worthy release during a year that hasn’t offered too many killer albums as yet.

Album Review: Kool Aid - Family Portrait EP (2019)

If you type the name “Brian Tamaki” into Google, you’ll doubtlessly be directed to a plethora of pages relating to the self-appointed pastor/leader – and confirmed xenophobic homophobe – of New Zealand’s own ridiculously cultish Destiny Church. 

Little wonder then, that the band formerly known as Brian Tamaki and The Kool Aid Kids (previously blogged about here) have decided to dump the satirical and more offensive elements of that moniker to now go by the far more palatable and manageable name, Kool Aid. It’ll certainly help to cleanse the murky waters for any newbie searching for information about the Christchurch-based band.

The name may have changed but the band is essentially the same group of musicians and thankfully there’s been only minimal tweaking of the indie-meets-psychedelia modus operandi found on past work. 

The Family Portrait EP is the band’s third release of note; following on from the 2014 album Hot Buttered Blasphemy, and the seriously good 2015 EP, The Enchanted Castle. It amounts to six songs of lo-fi goodness, with three-pronged fuzzy guitar, infectious mellotron, and shared his and hers vocals – from Luke Towart and Violet French – at the core of everything the band offers here. Plus, there’s some trademark humour to be found in a generally strong set of lyrics. 

Although it’s not a Flying Nun release, it’s exactly the sort of sound that particular label specialised in. It may just be a Christchurch thing. And while nothing here, for my money, is quite as instantly catchy as ‘Eating Glue’ (from The Enchanted Castle release), all six tunes offer something different and the EP has no obvious weak moment. In fact, it’s a great listen … grab it below:

Album Review: Blabbermouth - Hörspiel (2019)

Craig Stephen returns with another guest review ...

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Blabbermouth – now there’s a band name and a half – are two Englishmen with a long history in diverse and enigmatic acts. Lu Edmonds has appeared in two versions of Public Image Ltd with John Lydon as well as The Mekons and Billy Bragg’s band; Mark Roberts is a former member of The Godfathers and has also played, ahem, with the Bay City Rollers. Thankfully, there’s none of the Tartan boy band poppycock on Hörspiel (which translates as radio drama in German). 

It’s more interesting perhaps to note the guests, including throat singer Albert Kuvezin, Mekons vocalist Sally Timms and “the Blabbermouth Voice-Robot Ensemble”. 

Over nine tracks you will hear singing or audio in Russian, Turkish, Spanish, Japanese and even English as well as French-Canadian and Tuvalan (from an obscure area of Siberia), and the ‘voices’ of Marx, Stalin, Eisenhower and Tony Blair.

It’s an album that I don’t imagine being played on Radio Happy; but it is an album whereby experimentation and challenging notions abound. 

The concept is a world, not too far in the future, where artificial intelligence - AI - and robots have become our new rulers. It’s not a new idea as sci-fi has been toying with the threat, if you like, for decades, but the notion of humans being a helpless minority in a world of advanced, and fearful, technology we have ourselves created, isn’t one that often gets much traction in the music world. 

Appropriately, Edmonds and Roberts use industrial, post-punk, ambient and world music using everything from accordion to Hawaiian guitar. It has a “let’s throw it all in and see what happens” feel about it. 

So, on ‘Facts Don’t Lie’, the duo delve into weapons of mass destruction and the fake-news underbelly via a cut-up of the Chilcot Inquiry into Britain’s role in the illegal war on Iraq that concludes with the irritating tones of ex-British PM Tony Blair. And ‘Maschine-Fragment’ dissects the supposition that the last freedom in a world of pervasive and invasive AI is art. 

It isn’t by any means an easy listen, with Kuvezin’s throaty modus operandi difficult to adjust to. And yet its pursuit of the notion of a post-human world is intriguing and frightening; the usage of such diverse musical instruments and sub-genres as well as the concept of “guest appearances” from the dead and the living make for a body of work that ensures it will never be afforded the status of a throwaway pop album.  

Album Review: On-U Sound - Pay It All Back Volume 7 (2019)

I’ve got to be honest: I’m generally such a committed fanboy of just about everything the On-U Sound label releases, I fear I can’t really review this album objectively. I’m concerned that my love for the work of (producer) Adrian Sherwood - across something close to four decades now - will blind me to anything other than its most obvious flaws or shortcomings. But I’ll do my best ... and if I can’t be totally objective, then at the very least I can offer some information about what you can expect from Pay It All Back Volume 7.

The main thing you need to know that it’s the latest release in a long-running series of sampler compilations for the On-U Sound label. It was released in late March, some 23 years after the release of Pay It All Back Volume 6. 

Yet, even after such a lengthy period, many of the same artists who graced the first six volumes - which covered work from the early 80s to the mid 90s - feature again on Volume 7. See, for example, offerings here from label stalwarts like African Head Charge, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Mark Stewart, Little Axe, Doug Wimbish, and Sherwood himself. 

But it’s far from retro-centric; it’s not a nostalgia document. It’s a sampler to showcase new, recent, or forthcoming On-U Sound releases, Sherwood mixes of material not exclusive to the label, and/or previously unreleased stuff that never found a home elsewhere. 

As such we get a genuine hybrid of musical styles (except generic rock and pop) with the one common denominator being that everything here has, to one degree or another, been touched by the hand of Sherwood. That’s the glue that binds. 

Highlights include: the Play-Rub-A-Dub mix of Horace Andy’s classic ‘Mr Bassie’, Neyssatou and Likkle Mai’s version of Bob Marley’s ‘War’ (see clip below), Denise Sherwood’s ‘Ghost High’, Congo Natty’s ‘UK All Stars in Dub’, Sherwood & Pinch’s ‘Fake Days’ (featuring LSK), Little Axe’s ‘Deep River’, Ghetto Priest’s ‘Slave State’, plus the Coldcut/Roots Manuva collab, ‘Beat Your Chest’, which closes the album … and of course, there’s the understated magnificence of ‘African Starship’, which is a typically eccentric taster from the now 83-year-old Lee Perry’s 2019 album, Rainford ... climb aboard with “Pilot Perry” if you dare! 

The aforementioned flaws and shortcomings are few. Only a couple of tracks (of 18) leave me feeling a little cold, but I guess that’s the nature of sampler compilations. And, in my experience, so far as On-U Sound compilations are concerned, those tracks are just as likely the ones I’ll be listening to most this time next year. 

My own purchase was a rare foray back into the world of the compact disc - my OCD preventing me from deviating from the format I collected the first six volumes in. The supplementary booklet not only offers a plethora of information about the tracks included on the album, it also provides a comprehensive year-by-year guide to the label’s entire back catalogue.

Introducing ... Neutrikk

Neutrikk are a newly-formed Waiheke Island/Auckland-based duo, consisting of Nikki Ngatai (Oyawa) and Lee Catlin (These Automatic Changers), and their recently released (eponymous) debut EP is well worth picking up as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp. Five immaculately produced pop-electronica tracks, which sit at the more eclectic end of the spectrum, and grow in stature with each and every listen … stream or download below:

Album Review: The Specials - Encore (2019)

What an unexpected treat. Brand new material from The Specials after all these years. And in the form of my expanded deluxe version of the album, it comes with a swag of old favourites in a live setting to supplement the new stuff. I can’t really ask for much more than that ...

There’s always a danger such a prolonged hiatus between “official” albums will work against an band, more so when that band is so intrinsically linked with a certain time and place. As The Specials most certainly are. And when that band is missing more than half of its original line-up, well, the task of being relevant and remaining true to its fanbase is especially difficult.

But key foundation personnel Terry Hall, Lynval Golding, and Horace Panter, manage to pull it off with some aplomb on Encore, and the album’s predominant themes - immigration, racism, poverty, urban life, mental health, gun crime, politics, corruption - remain as relevant today as the social issues tackled by the band in the late Seventies and early Eighties.

Plus they get some help, with the indomitable Steve Cradock on guitar, renowned jazz stickman Kenrick Rowe on beats, and much travelled session man Nikolaj Torp Larsen on keys. And of course, there’s the guest vocal appearance of civil rights activist Saffiyah Khan on the reimagined King Tubby classic ‘Ten Commandments’, which she well and truly makes her own.

There’s funk in the form of ‘Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys’, a disco-fied Equals cover, which opens the album, and on ‘BLM’, where Golding’s narrative confronts racism, offering just a few specific examples of the many times he’s been subjected to it over the years.

‘Vote For Me’ and ‘Breaking Point’ are more in the style of the old school ska we’re more used to from The Specials, while ‘The Lunatics’ revisits Hall and Golding’s 1981 Fun Boy Three hit of the same name, and again, it feels even more prescient today - with Brexit, Trump, the rise of right-wing nationalism etc - than it did during the dark days of Thatcher’s regime. If that’s even possible.

The third cover (of the ten “new” tracks on the core album) is an NRA-baiting rejig of ‘Blam Blam Fever’, which was a minor hit in the late Sixties for Jamaican group The Valentines.

Terry Hall’s spoken lament ‘The Life and Times (of a Man Called Depression)’ deals with issues relating to mental health, and it’s probably the best thing here, complete with horns, and an unlikely Doors-referencing keyboard breakdown.

The “bonus” live material comes from two separate gigs, at Le Bataclan (Paris) in 2014, and at The Troxy (London) in 2016. The Paris set includes ‘Gangsters’, ‘A Message To You, Rudy’, ‘Stereotype’, and ‘Ghost Town’, while highlights from the London set include ‘Too Much Too Young’ and a cover of Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’. Plus there’s plenty more.

It’s a veritable feast. The old, the new, the borrowed, and the (chequered) blue. All immaculately packaged and produced for both newcomer and hardcore fan alike. Something close to perfect.

Doom Parade

Something from a more obscure angle, and a pay-what-you-like download on Bandcamp, I'm currently enjoying this seriously good funky/jazzy afrobeat EP. Coming at you straight outta Tauranga. Get some in ya.

The Return of Beat Rhythm Fashion

For me, Beat Rhythm Fashion were always one of the great lost New Zealand bands. Indeed, one of the great lost Wellington bands. A near mythical band I’d seen on Radio With Pictures back in the distant sepia-tinged days of 1981 or 1982. A band I was unable to witness live and up close, simply because I was too young. By the time I was of an age to start attending gigs, they’d long since disappeared. Over before they really got started. But I loved what I’d seen and heard, and over the past couple of decades I’ve regularly sought out YouTube clips of the band’s precious early singles, 'Beings Rest Finally', and 'Turn of the Century'. What I never expected to happen was that in 2019 there would be a new album, Tenterhook, or that I’d finally get the chance to see Beat Rhythm Fashion perform. Albeit a version of the band without founding member Dan Birch, who died in 2011.

Dan & Nino Birch, photo: Charles Jameson

That gig is at Wellington’s Meow, this coming Saturday night, and it will feature original guitarist/vocalist Nino Birch (Dan’s brother), well-travelled drummer Caroline Easther, whose connection with Birch and BRF extends all the way back to 1981, and Failsafe Records’ main man Rob Mayes, who produced Tenterhook. It is, to some extent, a bucket list event for me, and for the past few weeks I’ve had Beat Rhythm Fashion’s music on high rotation. Ahead of the gig, I want to share a few interesting/related links for the curious (see footer), and to record a few thoughts about each of the band’s albums - not comprehensive reviews - just a few notes on each.

Bring Real Freedom (2007) 

One of the reasons I refer to Beat Rhythm Fashion as one of this country’s “great lost bands” is because for some 25 years its only material legacy was three early singles, and no accompanying album. Failsafe Records put this right with the release of this 2007 compilation, which included those singles, the related B-sides, and a selection of live tracks from that same early period. It’s essentially the album we didn’t get at the time. The first two singles, ‘Beings Rest Finally’ and ‘Turn of the Century’ are obvious stand-outs, as are ‘Welfare State Rent’, ‘Song of the Hairless Ape’, ‘Art and Duty’, and ‘No Great Oaks’, although it remains something of a mystery to me all these years later which of the latter pair was the actual third single. I’d always thought it was ‘Art and Duty’ but I note that the band’s “Discogs” page lists ‘No Great Oaks’ as the A-side, not the flip. There’s also an early version of the current (2019, digital only) single ‘Hard as Hell’. Bring Real Freedom’s live material, recorded by Chris Cullinane, restored by Rob Mayes, scrubbed up very well, and was a long overdue bonus for those fans seeking a more expansive set than anything offered at the time. The belated album served to document the band’s pioneering post-punk roots and strong early-Cure influences, and given the overall strength of this work, I’m left to ponder what might have been had Dan Birch not made the decision to relocate to Australia in 1982. A move that ultimately meant the end of Beat Rhythm Fashion, or at least, what might become known as “phase one” of Beat Rhythm Fashion.

Tenterhook (2019) 

If there is a “phase two”, or to be a prolonged phase two - and Nino Birch has suggested there’s more to come - then Tenterhook is a great way to kick things off. There’s a lot to like here, and lost brother Dan’s influence remains omnipresent, with four co-writing credits on some the older material featured - ‘Hard as Hell’, ‘Freezing Mr Precedent’, ‘Optimism’, and ‘Property’ - plus there’s a Dan Birch original (from 1993) in the form of the excellent ‘Nothing Damaged’. More than that though, Nino Birch’s own songwriting on Tenterhook’s newer material is exceptional, and there’s a sense of genuine progression here, with an expansion beyond the band’s original palate to include more pop-styled hooks and a much fuller sound. I wouldn’t go so far as to say any of it is particularly uplifting, but it does feel less gloomy, less generic, and perhaps more personal than the circa 1980-1982 stuff. Particularly on the track ‘Dan’, where Nino Birch attempts to offer some context around his brother’s death, with that tune’s lyrics resonating most, to remain firmly stuck in my head long after the track has finished. Credit must go to the work of Easther and Mayes too. In fact, perhaps the biggest triumph of all, on an album full of them, is the fragmented way Tenterhook was pieced together, with the three core constituent parts - resident in Australia, Japan, and New Zealand - somehow managing to produce an immaculate fully formed whole. 

Sample lyrics from ‘Dan’ … 

“You were never at home, so you got wild with all your drinking
Your common pathways were lost in the acute darkness of your thinking
And your friends watched you leave from the tyranny of distance
But you never achieved from this path of least resistance

Oh your mind, twist and turned
As your soul crashed and burned
You were never up for this ride
So what the hell were you thinking
Damn it Dan, Damn it Dan!”

Some great links if you’re keen to learn more about Beat Rhythm Fashion, both past and present: 

Andrew Schmidt’s Audioculture profile from 2013

Radio New Zealand’s interview on the second coming (broadcast last week)

Gary Steel’s recently published Q&A with Nino Birch. A prolific writer about the Wellington 1980s post-punk scene, Steel was there for the first incarnation of the band

Beat Rhythm Fashion on Bandcamp

Album Review: The Dandy Warhols - Why You So Crazy (2019)

The thing about The Dandy Warhols is that they have their moments. Moments of real promise. Moments that transport you back to the band’s turn of the century pomp. Little glimpses of what the Portland band offered on a couple of terrific albums from that era; The Dandy Warhols Come Down (1997), and Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia (2000). Those albums were slightly flawed masterpieces in one way or another, but on each one, the good overwhelmingly outweighed the bad.

Sadly, almost inevitably, on every Dandys album released over the past decade or so, the opposite applies, and those moments have been fewer and further between. They’re still there, those ever-infrequent morsels of hope, but in truth, it’s a hope that’s framed only by ill-conceived faith, and “moments” are probably not enough anymore. Not when they’ve been doing this thing for a quarter of a century or more. Give or take. 

So we get a few moments on Why You So Crazy, most notably when the band stick to tried and trusted formulas - with the almost Velvet Underground-aping fuzzy power pop psychedelia of (lead single) ‘Be Alright’, and the Iggy-lite country/redneck parody of ‘Motor City Steel’. Beyond that, there’s not much here to get excited about. 

There’s quite a lot of that faux-country groove thing they’ve so often used for filler on past releases. More than might be considered wise, and it reeks of a tacit acceptance that nobody takes the band too seriously anymore. With a sense that the band itself is saying: “you can’t take this shit seriously, we clearly don’t, so don’t even try” ... or perhaps it’s merely that the band just don’t have any fresh pop hooks these days, so they revert to the comfort zone of a long-held default. 

As for the rest of the material on Why You So Crazy, amid a procession of not-all-that-interesting noise, I can make out fragments of songs, or ideas, mostly half-formed, some more developed than others, but to call them “songs” would surely be overstating it. They’re just moments - thirty second glimpses into what might have been. What once was, but no longer is. 

I had high hopes for this release. Even when armed with the knowledge that the past decade hasn’t been kind, I hoped that the good would outweigh the bad. But it’s always the hope that kills you, right?