Album Review: Manchester Orchestra - The Million Masks of God (2021)

First things first: Manchester Orchestra are not from Manchester, England. Nor are they from Manchester, anywhere else. Manchester Orchestra are not even an orchestra. They’re an Atlanta, US-based alt-rock four-piece, and the band’s 2021 album, The Million Masks of God, is album number six in a career that dates all the way back to 2004.

Over the course, the band have appeared at big festivals such as Lollapalooza, Coachella, and Reading, and despite having an otherwise relatively low profile outside of their homeland, they’ve clocked up an impressive number of live television performances on US variety/chat shows like the Late Show with David Letterman (4 times), Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel Live! … if I hadn’t heard the band’s music, you could say it’s exactly the sort of mainstream rock resume I’d normally be a quite wary of and steer well clear of.

 And yet, here we are, late into 2021, and The Million Masks of God is shaping up to be one of the very best new release albums I’ve heard all year. I’d heard snippets - or singular tracks - lifted from the band’s previous full-length outing A Black Mile to the Surface (2017), all of which left enough of an impression for me to pick up The Million Masks of God almost as soon as it was released.

I initially thought the band might have some loose connection (or shared membership) with Seattle indie-folkers Fleet Foxes, such is the similarity in style, and the frequently layered vocal offerings of singer Andy Hull are not all that dissimilar to those of Fleet Foxes main man, Robin Pecknold. Albeit Pecknold and Fleet Foxes rely more heavily on actual harmonies than filters and studio wizardry such as over-dubbing.

The Million Masks of God feels like an assured and self-aware release, an album with a range of lyrical themes - although death does seem like the most predominant concern - and a blend of musical styles. With Hull’s vocal delivery perhaps becoming the album’s most consistent feature, and arguably, along with clever wordsmithery, the glue that holds it all together.

It’s an album of emotional peaks and troughs, where soft acoustic moments sit comfortably alongside edgier or heavier rock-out flashes. Where grand orchestral flourishes push hard up against what I suspect is the band’s more natural (collective) instinct to just relax and let everything breathe. Where the production is often lush, yet the arrangement occasionally sparse or spacious.

Nothing ever feels too rushed or forced. There’s conflict and contradiction to be found on The Million Masks of God. Equal parts joy and sadness. You get the sense on some songs that Hull is genuinely working through issues as he sings about them. Whether it’s mortality, afterlife, or perhaps that most confusing of life perennials, a human relationship. Searching for an answer without ever really being certain about the question.

Whatever else it is, it’s a brilliant listen, a journey, and a stick-on certainty to be one of this blog’s albums of 2021.

Highlights: ‘Angel of Death’, ‘Bed Head’, ‘Telepath’, ‘Dinosaur’, and ‘The Internet’.

EP Review: The Emptys Response - Nový Den (2021)

Nový Den is a three track EP from Wellington multi-instrumentalist Jamie Scott Palmer, wearing his solo artist hat as The Emptys Response.

Released in early January of 2021, Nový Den loosely translates (from Czech) to mean “a new day”, which seems quite apt for a new year release, but I also suspect the title may be of greater personal significance for Palmer; as someone I’ve followed closely on social media for a few years he strikes me as a guy who is constantly looking to move forward, to challenge himself, and to challenge wider society’s accepted norms. Someone who craves answers to many of life’s more difficult questions. I’ve met Palmer out and about very briefly a few times in Wellington, usually at the tail end of gigs, which isn’t always the best environment to discuss such matters, or to get a full grasp of what makes an artist tick, so all of the above is merely an impression I’ve formed and not necessarily the gospel according to those who actually know him well.

What I do know for certain is that two of the more recent musical projects Palmer has been involved with - Dreams Are Like Water and Buffalo Bunny - produced some of the best beneath-the-mainstream-radar indie rock I’ve heard from these shores across the past decade. I’ve previously raved about the solitary Dreams Are Like Water release (here), so I won’t go into too much more detail about that. Suffice to say, Palmer’s contribution (keys, occasional guitar) was an integral part of that band’s appeal.

And the Buffalo Bunny stuff - collaborating with performance artist Victoria Singh - of 2019/2020 was almost more David Lynch than Lynch himself. The duo’s early 2020 Covid-themed track ‘2 Meters’ (clip here) was easily the best musical realisation of the dystopian or pre-apocalyptic collective angst created by the first global lockdown I heard during that period. The nonchalant or subtle mimicry of that whole “be kind to one another, follow the leader, and don’t ask questions” theme within ‘2 Meters’ was subliminally brilliant, mischievously subversive, and for many, right on the money. There were other great Buffalo Bunny moments too, and it is of some regret that I caught only the tail end of one of their rare live sets (at Wellington’s Pyramid Club) during their all too short-lived existence.

Which brings us to The Emptys Response and Palmer in his solo guise (phew, we got there eventually), by some distance his most prolific platform when it comes to work released online. Across many years. Including the Nový Den EP, which amounts to three relatively lengthy atmospheric instrumental tracks which blend together or cross-pollinate a number of different genres, from ambient to electronica to dark post-punk to a mild form of spacey psychedelia.

There was a certain irony for me that I was stuck in motorway traffic gridlock when first absorbing the scene-setting opener ‘The Drive Home’ which is effectively a probing low key synthetic pulse that threatens to explode at any moment without ever quite managing it across its near eight-minute duration. It is dark and quite tense without ever becoming too overwhelming. More of a mood or vibe than anything else, and I’m still trying to decide whether the drums are program generated or the result of a more human or live organic approach, on a loop. There’s a lot to be said for a live drum sound, and if this isn’t that, then Palmer’s done a pretty good job replicating it.

The second track, ‘Terraforma’, feels more substantial and is perhaps the most accessible of the three on offer. A dense, repetitive, almost bleak slice of semi-industrial grinding electronica which builds in tension to become quite riveting, it’s probably my pick of the bunch. See clip below.

The final track ‘11:11’ - which not coincidentally is its length - is an exercise in spaced out ambience and it’s another which slowly builds in intensity as we journey through its various subtle mood changing soundscapes. Ethereal and entirely beatless until just before the seven-minute mark, it may upon first listen feel a little directionless, or prone to drift for too long, but subsequent listens will reveal that there’s a lot more going on than might initially be obvious.

You can check out Palmer’s extensive collection of solo work on his website here.

Album Review: Brain Damage meets Big Youth – Beyond the Blue (2021)

Released earlier this year on the Jarring Effects label, Beyond the Blue is an album with quite a sobering backstory. A collaboration between legendary Jamaican DJ Big Youth, France-based dub producer Martin Nathan (aka Brain Damage), and Jamaican-born studio veteran Samuel Clayton Jr., it was recorded in Kingston in March 2020, just as the first wave of Covid-19 sent the planet into meltdown, and lockdown. And that’s when things took a tragic turn for the worst.

The trio had barely started the process, recording just a few takes before both Nathan and Clayton Jr. contracted the virus. Nathan somehow managed to return to France, with the remaining pair opting to try to continue with the album in Kingston alongside fellow Anchor Studios producer Stephen Stewart. Sadly, Clayton Jr. would not survive, succumbing to the virus before the project reached completion. 

With the support of his label, Nathan resolved to finish the album, mixing the work-in-progress and adding the finishing touches back in Lyon, after eventually winning his own prolonged battle with Covid-19. The result is Beyond the Blue, a masterclass in reggae toasting and dub production, and a fitting tribute to the talent and determination of all three key protagonists. 

For the uninitiated, Big Youth (Manley Buchanan, to his Mum) is something of a legend in Jamaican DJ circles. With the recent loss of Jamaican uber producer Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, you could say he is one of the last great survivors of the reggae’s 1970s and 1980s golden age. Now in his 70s, he is one of the pioneers of the popular “toasting” vocal style, alongside contemporary U-Roy, who coincidentally, is another of the genre’s greats to pass in 2021. 

The album itself is superb. A compelling mix of rootsy flavours, rocksteady, ska, jazz (yes, jazz) it finds Big Youth in fine vocal form. There’s a couple of jazzy remakes of the classic ‘I Pray Thee’, which bookend the 12-tracks on offer, and beyond the usual declarations of faith and chants of praise, there’s a fair bit of prescient social and political content as well. As you’d expect. 

And naturally, given the context, there are also a couple of references to the virus itself. There’s a nice touch on a couple of tracks where the recording of in-studio spoken narrative or preamble is left in, raw and unedited, presumably as a tribute to Clayton Jr. 

I especially enjoyed the old school rocksteady-paced stuff, with the ridiculously infectious, yet relatively simple groove of ‘Those Days’ in particular, quickly becoming a firm favourite. 

But they’re all pretty good tunes, and Martin Nathan, wearing his Brain Damage hat, deserves enormous credit for not only providing the compositions which allow Big Youth to shine, but for bringing the project to completion at a time when it might have been easier to simply shelf it. The album can be found on Bandcamp here. 

R.I.P. Samuel Clayton Jr. 

Here’s the 2020 version of ‘I Pray Thee’, which opens the album:

Album Review: The Killers - Pressure Machine (2021)

I can’t say I’m a big fan of The Killers. I quite liked a couple of the band’s early singles, but I’ve never really been drawn to any of the many album releases, and I think party anthem ‘Mr Brightside’ is one of the most overrated pieces of bombast ever to pass itself off under the guise of an iconic indie rock tune. 

Which will make it all the more surprising when I tell you that I’m absolutely loving the latest Killers album, Pressure Machine, right now. I’m not sure quite how I got here. 

To compound just how disconcerting this is for me is the fact that as a long-term sceptic about the worth of Bruce Springsteen in the widescreen view of rock history (not a fan), I reckon Pressure Machine might just about be the most Springsteen-like album ever made by a bunch of musicians not called the E Street Band.

The biggest issue I’ve had with both Springsteen and The Killers in the past is that inescapable in-yer-face over-produced celebratory or triumphant “big” sound so beloved by so many. Subtlety and understatement have seldom been in the vocabulary of either Bruce or (Killers’ all-American hero) Brandon Flowers. Unless the album is Springsteen’s stripped-back masterpiece Nebraska, which admittedly is rather great, or as with this case, a 2021 rebirth for The Killers called Pressure Machine. 

The overriding vibe of the album is one of smalltown midwestern America, out in the back blocks of beyond, with tales about “hillbilly heroin pills”, opioid abuse, poverty, blind love, bent truths, sexual difference, suicide, and as on one stand-out track (‘Quiet Town’), the supposedly true story about the death of a teenage couple after they were hit by an oncoming train. Real life, observational, blue collar, gritty, grassroots stories that will surely resonate. 

The bonus being you won’t have to listen through too much sonic overload in order to grasp the theme of each song. Aided by short introductory spoken/dubbed narratives for most of them. The lyrics are right up in your face, but only because they’re not being drowned out, and because Flowers doesn’t have to strain to be heard above the din. Which means that musically it’s a little more stripped-back than might have otherwise been expected. A lot of acoustic guitar, some steel guitar, large helpings of harmonica, plus there’s a fair bit of atmosphere-enhancing cello and violin/fiddle etc. 

There are moments when the aforementioned “big” sound kicks in, resulting in a few of those overbearing pompous moments, but for the most part it feels a hell of lot more authentic and honest than anything I’ve ever previously heard from The Killers. Flowers sings these songs with an integrity and humility I’ve never before associated with him or his band. Where Flowers’ vocal might once have pushed me away, on Pressure Machine it draws me in close. 

And that might just be the key to my enjoyment of this Killers album, one that I picked up on a whim. I’m thankful that I did so. 

There’s no filler here, and the highlights include ‘West Hills’, ‘Quiet Town’, ‘Runaway Horses’, which features Phoebe Bridgers, ‘In Another Life’, and ‘Desperate Things’.

EP Review: Camomile Dawn – Bruttissimo (2021)

I've seen the music of Camomile Dawn described as "house" or "dance music". Which isn't really all that accurate. I struggle with each of those labels. The four tracks found on the Bruttissimo EP play out rather more like a frayed-around-the-edges form of synthpop. Equal portions melodrama, psychedelia, and melancholia. Not unlike the Cocteau Twins, yet not really like the Cocteau Twins at all. And that’s without even starting on the (lack of) requisite bpm factor. If this is dance music, then it’s dance music for dancing on the inside. Little head bobs, finger taps, and warm brain fuzzies. That sort of thing. 

Art is seldom so black and white. Bruttissimo is moody grey, with flecks of sunlight peeking through. Presented with a stylish French sheen. It all works quite well. Except perhaps for the EP cover design, which looks a little bit like one of those paint-by-numbers canvas artworks my dear old Gran used to occupy her time with.

Whatever else it is, the EP is one of the best short form releases I’ve heard all year. 

Joe Muggs kind of nails it in his write-up for “The Best Electronic Music on Bandcamp”, August 2021:

"Just when you think there can’t be more mileage in fizzy, nostalgic, lo-fi house, here comes another alias of Turkish producer Sumatran Black to make it feel fresh again. All the signifiers are here: The voyeuristic feeling of finding an old VHS of someone else’s wedding, the cosmopolitan and stylish voiceovers, the fizz that becomes part of the instruments. It’s rich, it’s romantic, it’s irresistible."

EP Review: FRTG13 – Supersymmetrie (2021)

Here’s a thing. Another great recommendation from Fabrizio Lusso’s excellent White Light // White Heat website. Another great name-your-price digital download on Bandcamp. Dark industrial synthpop crossing over seamlessly with more orthodox forms of post-punk. Coming to you by way of Hanover, Germany. With a nod and a definite debt to compatriots Kraftwerk. Five tracks, the best of which are the title track, ‘Supersymmetrie’, and the more than vaguely familiar ‘Computer Welt’. 

Grab a copy from the link below, and if you like this, why not go back further and pick up a copy of last year’s Corona Sessions, which is also name-your-price.

Album Review: Sneaker Pimps - Squaring The Circle (2021)

Nineteen years is a long time between the release of albums, yet the fully formed return of Sneaker Pimps in 2021 might have you believing they never really went away. They did, for roughly a decade, while key protagonists Chris Corner and Liam Howe pursued other projects. Corner kept busy with an underrated solo project called IAMX, while Howe has been quite prolific as a production guru for many of pop music’s good, great, and downright awful.

 I was a bit of an IAMX fan for a few years around a decade ago, and I thought Corner’s 2009 album (as IAMX), Kingdom of Welcome Addiction, was one of those beneath-the-radar gems that often tend to slip by unnoticed and unloved, sans much promotion or media interest.

Squaring The Circle is album number four for Sneaker Pimps, and whilst there’s no real banger to match the band’s best-known hit ‘6 Underground’, which went top ten in 1997, there’s plenty here to keep old - and presumably some new - fans happy.

There’s no real change in formula, and although the wider pop-electronica genre no longer enjoys the same level of hype it did during the band’s phase-one pomp, Sneaker Pimps are past masters of the art, and improvements in technology have doubtlessly aided a seamless comeback for Corner and Howe.

Anyone expecting “progression” or a change in approach might be disappointed. If anything, this is slightly more lightweight than earlier Sneaker Pimps work, fitting rather more neatly into the pop realm than might have been anticipated – particularly when you consider how bleak or challenging some of Corner’s solo work became.

Corner takes care of much of the vocal duties, but there’s a nice balance across the entire album thanks to the shared vocal presence of the multi-talented Simonne Jones, who adds elements of light to soothe or counter Corner’s often angsty darker edge.

At 16 tracks it’s a relatively generous listen and it feels as though Squaring The Circle deliberately builds to some sort of mid-album peak before tapering off slightly. Certainly, my own favourite tracks sit snug within the album’s core … the likes of ‘Stripes’, ‘Black Rain’, and ‘Love Me Stupid’, even though the pre-release singles - ‘Fighter’ and the title track - feature as album bookends.

All told, Squaring The Circle is pretty decent, and a pleasant surprise.

Introducing ... Graysons

I know nothing about mysterious Austin-based post-punkers Graysons – other than the fact that the band hails from Detroit and is currently based in Austin (clearly, thanks Bandcamp). I wish I knew more, but it probably doesn’t matter too much – the important bit is they sound great and their debut full-length release, I, is currently up on Bandcamp as a name-your-price digital download (link below). The album itself ticks all the right boxes for me, sitting at the darker end of the post-punk spectrum, veering occasionally towards shoegaze. Nine tracks, clocking in at just over half an hour, the highlights include ‘Til The End’, ‘Illuminate’, and ‘Through The Ether’. Grab a copy:

 

Album Review: The Orb - Abolition of The Royal Familia - The Guillotine Mixes (2021)

Sometimes a remix project can wind up being a little too clever for its own good. And sometimes an album in its original naked warts-n-all form is best left that way. 

That’s exactly how I feel about The Orb’s 2020 album, Abolition of The Royal Familia. The remix follow-up, the Guillotine Mixes version, which was released earlier this year, adds very little of value, save perhaps for David Harrow’s sublime edit of album opener ‘Daze’. 

I can understand the attraction though. On one hand it was an album screaming out for a reboot, given that the original tended to slip beneath the radar of all but the most dedicated of Orb fans. On the other hand, the album was already close to perfect, and the remix edition just feels like 90-odd minutes of unnecessary lacklustre fluff. I can see the intent. It’s just that the execution doesn’t really match the ambition.

 Harrow adds plenty to ‘Daze’, for sure, converting it from a relatively sunny lightweight disco mix into a brooding, pulsing EDM creeper. Harrow also touches up ‘House of Narcotics’ (simply called ‘Narcotics’ on the Guillotine version). 

The roll call of producers is certainly impressive enough on paper; KLF conspirators Moody Boyz remix ‘Queen of Hearts’, former Orb associate Andy Falconer takes on ‘Slave Til U Die’, Youth reconfigures ‘Shape Shifting Pt.1’, and the much-travelled Kris Needs contributes to ‘Weekend’. I was very surprised that renowned dub merchant Gaudi removed so many of the dub elements from ‘Ital Orb’, thus stripping it of all the special qualities that made it one of the original album’s best tracks. 

I guess my biggest problem with it, is that after the initial promise of Harrow’s opening track, the whole thing just tends to wash over me. Nothing really grabs me. I drift off into a trance-like state, and for all of the spit and polish applied, these remixes veer irreversibly into the realm of ambient background noise. It’s all very pleasant but unlike the original work, there is nothing really challenging or thought provoking about these works. 

It might be that I’m being too picky, but I consumed the 2020 version of Abolition of The Royal Familia during peak-lockdown, early in the year, just as Covid-19 was taking hold of our planet, and it felt like a fairly weighty faux-apocalyptic piece of work. I enjoyed that facet of it. It was an album for and of the moment itself. Something that captured the sense of angst and foreboding we were living through at the time. These Guillotine mixes evoke little more than ambivalence and a resigned nonchalance.

A release for fans and completists only.

Album Review: The Chills - Scatterbrain (2021)

A few months back, when the Guardian published a list of the ten “best” Chills songs to celebrate the arrival of the band’s new album, Scatterbrain, all of the songs featured on the list were released between 1981 and 1990. And although that list did tend to capture the essence of the band’s best work, anyone unfamiliar with The Chills might be left wondering if that’s all there is, or was, to The Chills ... a band consigned to the 80s with little worth celebrating over the past 30-odd years? Fans of band are likely to see things a bit differently.

 For the record, ‘House with a Hundred Rooms’ topped the list, ahead of more obvious bangers like ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’ and ‘Pink Frost’, but there was no room for ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ or a multitude of other post-1990 gems. Fair enough, lists are merely lists after all, and that was the Guardian’s view. 

Scatterbrain is the band’s seventh studio album, the first since 2018’s well-received Snow Bound, and it finds the band’s songwriter and key protagonist Martin Phillipps in a contemplative and reflective mood. Which is perhaps understandable … anyone who has viewed the excellent recent music-documentary, ‘The Chills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Martin Phillipps’, will have been given a good insight into Phillipps’ rather tumultuous personal journey over the years. 

On Scatterbrain we find Phillipps offering up a few more thoughts about where that journey has taken him, bringing us up to date with where things are at, a little further along the path, in 2021. With a refreshing honesty and maturity. In that same warm familiar clever way he always has. As a man now confronting his own fragility, his own mortality, and that of those around him. 

But while death is one of the most immediately evident themes on Scatterbrain, not least on tunes like ‘Destiny’ and ‘Caught In My Eye’, there’s also plenty of positivity to be found, and an affirmation that life is full of twists and turns. Delivered with certain pragmatism and an acceptance that all of our journeys are constantly evolving. 

‘Safe and Sound’ is one of the best low-key takes on offer, a very Dunedin take, even, where Phillipps ponders the simple pleasures of being tucked up “safe and sound” at home on the sofa in front of a crackling fire on a cold winter’s night … “let’s stay at home, we won’t go out tonight” … 

Musically it is everything you’d expect from The Chills. Subtle hooks, catchy choruses that tend to creep up on you, and clever use of instruments that wouldn’t always be the most obvious choice for a lesser composer of classic pop tunes. 

The album isn’t without its flaws, or without the odd cringe(y) moment. And it’s probably not the sort of work that will grab you instantly upon first listen, but Scatterbrain goes well beyond any expectation I had of Phillipps and The Chills in 2021, and it’s another worthy addition to the musical legacy of one of Aotearoa’s best and most durable artists.

EPs and other oddities ...

My regular reader (Hi Mum!) will know I use this blog as a way of recording my thoughts on all manner of new release albums, with album reviews - both current and “classic” - accounting for a fair portion of everythingsgonegreen content. But I don’t often get around to covering off my many EP or shorter format purchases. Of which there have been quite a few over the past 18 months or so. 

Across 2020 I did manage to record some thoughts on EP releases from Dub Empire (here), Féroces (here), and International Bad Boys Inc. (here), but there were a good number of other worthy EP additions which failed to get a mention on the blog at the time, despite my best intentions. To put that right, this blogpost will be all about some of those new-ish release EPs. That often ignored and mostly unloved stray waif of a format … the hard to nail down “mini album”. The not-quite single and the not-quite album. Usually anything from four to seven tracks in length, and usually less than 30 minutes in duration at its most generous.

I’ll start with 48 Hours at Neon Palms by The C33s, which was released as far back as 2018. The C33s were new to me when a friend sent through a link to the Manchester band’s terrific 2020 single, ‘Harpurhey Hostility’. Which prompted me to work my way back through the band’s discography - all singles, no album yet - until I found the debut EP, which consists of four surf-pop-styled post-punk tracks of the highest calibre. I now have a copy of everything the noisy three-piece have released (to date) and I can hardly wait for a full-length outing. Maybe this year? 

I’ve reviewed three relatively recent Pet Shop Boys albums on the blog, and if you’ve read those reviews, you’ll know how much I struggle with PSB. What I like, I really love. What I don’t like, I dislike intensely. With a passion, even. I just can’t seem to get a handle on my feelings about the prolific duo’s work. So, I was very surprised how much I enjoyed their well-below-the-radar 2020 EP, My Beautiful Laundrette, which I suppose is more formally recognised as a “soundtrack album”. A very belated soundtrack album recorded specifically for a - planned, possibly postponed - 2020 stage production of the Hanif Kureishi-penned 1985 cult classic (film) of the same name. The majority of its seven tracks are instrumentals, but all capture the vibe and atmosphere of the original film perfectly. I can well imagine a couple of these tracks being quite big hits had they been conceived or recorded and included in the film at the time. It takes a special sort of talent to recreate the mood of working class, multicultural, homophobic, peak-Thatcher London, some 35 years after the fact, but Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe play a blinder on My Beautiful Laundrette. If you’ve seen the film, track titles like ‘Omar’s Theme’, ‘Angelic Thug’, and ‘Johnny’s Darkside’ will resonate. If you haven’t seen the film … where the hell have you been?

Minuit Machine’s album Infrarouge was one of the very best things I heard back in 2019, so it was a no brainer for me to pick up a copy of the duo’s EP/single Don’t Run From The Fire when it was released in late 2020. Four tracks, all stunning state-of-the-art dark melodramatic synthpop at its finest. If anything, the release had a harder edge to it than much of the material found on Infrarouge, with an almost industrial feel to the still very danceable title track. I’m fast becoming a big fan of the Synth Religion label/platform it was released on, and I’ve also recently picked up a copy of the duo’s Basic Needs EP of 2021 … although at just three tracks that one might be considered more of a “single”.

I suspect Scottish band Snow Patrol is deeply unfashionable these days. That wasn’t always the case. I loved the breakthrough hit ‘Run’ all those years ago, and of course, the band’s biggest hit, ‘Chasing Cars’, was a global monster which propelled the band well beyond its original “indie pop” niche and into the mainstream stratosphere. 2020 saw Snow Patrol return with a new EP called The Fireside Sessions. Written and recorded during lockdown, it was a fairly unique little beastie in that it was made in collaboration with fans of the band. Five songs written and constructed during a series of streams on Instagram Live called The Saturday Songwriters. How very 2020. More to the point, it’s actually pretty good, with ‘On The Edge Of All This’ in particular becoming a firm favourite of mine during the second half of the year. All proceeds from the sale of the EP went to an anti-poverty charity, so kudos to Snow Patrol for that.

French melodica ace and committed Augustus Pablo disciple Art-X has received plenty of coverage on everythingsgonegreen previously. He’s been quite prolific with output over the past half dozen years or so - just check out this link to his Bandcamp page (here) for proof of that. 2020 saw yet another album release, Tales of Melodia, and while I picked up a copy of that release later in the year and enjoyed it, I was far more impressed with his earlier Polarity EP collaboration alongside The Roots Addict. Six melodica-drenched gems with a deep rootsy dub vibe, I played it loud, and I played it often.

Right at the start of 2021, or perhaps even in late December 2020, the hugely underrated Death Cab for Cutie released The Georgia EP – a five song collection of covers of tunes originally released by artists from Georgia (the US state, not the country). TLC’s ‘Waterfalls’ (yes, really, and it’s a great version even if you’re not a fan of the original), R.E.M.’s ‘Fall On Me’, and Cat Power’s ‘Metal Heart’ being the pick of a fairly decent bunch. The Cat Power cover is close to brilliant, which is as much due to the song itself as Death Cab’s treatment of it. I’m uncertain of the specifics or the precise charity involved, but I’m fairly sure this was another release which saw sale proceeds donated to a cause – in this case, I think, a pro-US Democratic Party-political cause … don’t make me research it, my eyes are already glazing over.

Last, but not least, by dint of it being the most recent EP addition to my collection, we have a mysterious self-titled debut EP from Lisbon-based darkwave devotee Floating Ashes (aka João Pinheiro). And it arrived - via Bandcamp name-your-price (here) - as a fully formed, quite dazzling piece of work, full of pulsating rhythms and glistening synths. With a requisite sense of darkness right at its core. The EP is quite short, at just three tracks across 15 minutes, but since it ticks so many of the musical boxes I hold near and dear, I’ve been giving it a real thrashing over the past month. I really don’t know much about the artist, but if this is what we can expect on future releases, it’ll be more than enough to keep me listening.

 

So that’s a wrap of all of the shorter-form releases I’ve picked up across the past 18 months. A fairly eclectic batch of music, admittedly, incorporating a number of different genres, so not all of it will appeal, but I reckon you could pick up the job lot for a combined outlay of around $50 and not regret any of it.

Album Review: Various - Ambient Maladies (2021)

Released this week on the Strange Behaviour platform, Ambient Maladies is a compilation of downbeat ambient work by a bunch of Aotearoa-based artists and producers. Clocking in at just a few minutes shy of an hour, over the course of ten tracks, it’s the sort of album that is probably best appreciated on headphones. An album to be fully absorbed without distraction, at a time when you’ve got little else to do other than to gaze off into the distance. Perhaps. Or maybe even the sort of album you’d listen to when you’re heavily under the influence of something that aids involuntary gazing off into the distance. I really wouldn’t know much about such frivolous indulgence. 

Compiled by Paul Berrington - who may (or may not) be better known as Wellington DJ B.Lo - it features local luminaries such as Ludus, who also mixed and mastered the release under the guise of her real name (Emma Bernard), Jet Jaguar, Stephen Gallagher, and a couple of artists who have previously featured on everythingsgonegreen, Arcology (see here), and Box of Hammers (see here). Plus there's a handful of others.

 For those who aren't big fans of the ambient “genre”, it may prove a bit of a mixed bag, but the highlights for me include the Arcology track ‘Now Exhale’, which was described by a friend as being “menacing”, which I thought was a very accurate description, Box of Hammers’ soundtrack-ready ‘Maelstrom’, and Stephen Gallagher’s excellent ‘Even A Bird Loves Its Nest’. 

Bonus point: the release is available on cassette. Grab it at the Bandcamp link below. 

Here’s the Bandcamp blurb: Welcome to Ambient Maladies, a selection of atmospheres, vignettes and expressions from Aotearoa New Zealand. Embracing the geographical isolation of the land of the long white cloud, Strange Behaviour's second release is at times dark and brooding while at others delicate, detailed and melancholy.

Album Review: New Order - Education Entertainment Recreation (Live 2018, 2021)

I’m probably going to come across like a grumpy old malcontent here. Par for the course, perhaps.

First things first – I love New Order. I’ve got almost everything they’ve ever released in one format or another, I’ve seen them perform live, at their peak, and on any purely non-scientific gut-feel basis, they’re probably the band I’ve listened to more than any other across the past 35 years. Hell, I even named my blog after one of their early minor “hits”, albeit an early minor hit that might just about be the greatest single track ever committed to vinyl. And the band’s debut album, Movement, is unquestionably my number one album of all-time.

And so, all of that said, when Ian Curtis died, and Joy Division morphed into New Order across the second half of 1980 and into early 1981, I really wish the band had taken some time to find a new vocalist who was a naturally “gifted” singer. I completely understand why that didn’t happen, obviously, and I also understand that the passage of time and an ongoing familiarity means that Bernard Sumner’s vocal is now intrinsically and irreversibly linked with the band’s sound and all of its most memorable landmark tunes. My issue is that he’s just not a particularly good singer. That is all too painfully obvious on the band’s latest live release, Education Entertainment Recreation.

(It’s probably no surprise then, that Movement, the album where Peter Hook takes care of a chunk of the vocal duties, is the one right at the top of my own pile. Despite Hooky having vocal limitations of his own, his voice gels masterfully with Movement’s more downbeat feels.)

Try as I might, as much as I don’t want it to be the case, Sumner’s vocal frailty is the biggest takeaway I have after listening to Education Entertainment Recreation. A frailty which is far less obvious - although still evident - on much of New Order’s studio-produced output.

Right. Now for the positives, because wherever you find New Order, you’ll always find a positive: Education Entertainment Recreation was recorded at London’s Alexandra Palace (the “Ally Pally”) back in November 2018 and it contains one of the most comprehensive career-spanning setlists found on any of the band’s live releases. And the music itself - beyond those vocal shortcomings - is absolutely stunning in every respect.

All of the big guns are fired – ‘Regret’, ‘Crystal’, ‘Sub-Culture’, ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, ‘Plastic’, ‘The Perfect Kiss’, ‘True Faith’, ‘Blue Monday’, ‘Temptation’, et al. Amongst many others – there’s 21 tracks in total, a double album (2x CD/3x vinyl), including a few gems from the Joy Division cannon, notably ‘Disorder’, and the three closing tracks ‘Atmosphere’, ‘Decades’, and ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. Sadly, nothing whatsoever from Movement.

There’s a bit of Sumner stage banter as he interacts with what sounds like a massive crowd, and there’s the occasional crowd singalong also in evidence at various points. There is a certain rawness to the whole deal, a sense that the band remain a tremendous live proposition, with an off-the-cuff, unscripted spontaneity, even. It is everything a decent live album should be.

Except for that one small but still very important (aforementioned) detail.

Then again, it is perhaps a little churlish to ever expect a perfect live album.

I did warn you.

Album Review: Celt Islam - Acidanarchist (2021)

Sometimes when you follow an artist’s work closely for a decade or so, there is often a tendency to notice a subtle - or not so subtle - softening of that artist’s original sound. It might be due to compromises made on account of some sort of commercial breakthrough (often termed “selling out”), adapting to more recent musical trends, a change of environment, or simply a natural mellowing that comes with the irreversible passage of time. 

On Celt Islam’s latest release, Acidanarchist, the opposite applies. If anything, the UK-based electro dub maestro keeps ramping things up a notch (or seven) on each and every release – and there’s been a few releases. Celt Islam’s vibe just seems to get heavier and more hardcore each time out.

The Baghdad release (here) of some ten years ago was the album that first drew me into Celt Islam’s artistic vision. It was the perfect fusion of east meets west, an album which connected so many diverse global musical strands, and it appealed as a borderless, meditative blueprint for a better world. A couple of years later, as the Analogue Fakir, he released an IDM-geared album called Worlds We Know (here), which I absolutely loved, but with the benefit of hindsight, I can now view these early works through a slightly different lens … he was just getting started, still at the simmering stage, and slowly but steadily, over the course of the past decade, as world events descend into an almost farcical state, a cesspit of fakery, false information, and twisted narratives, Celt Islam has reached boiling point. Which is where we find him on Acidanarchist. 

As a Sufi Muslim based in Northern England, as a political activist and social justice campaigner, it is impossible for Celt Islam to separate his art from the environment or political climate in which it is made. That goes without saying. When forwarding the pre-release copy he noted … “this is a manifestation of our times, and where dance music needs to be, instead of the same carbon copy of everything boring, no depth, no meaning, void of any form of spirituality or real consciousness” … 

Or, anger is an energy, as someone else once claimed. Etc. And so we get drenched in a relentless high-bpm form of electronic punk (minimal vocal, often buried deeper in the mix), with track titles like ‘Vendetta’, ‘System Reset’, and ‘Resurgence’, progressively building in tempo to a reach a distinct DnB-style climax on closing tracks ‘Dominator’, and the majestic ‘Hikam’. 

And yet, for all of that forward pulsating electro momentum, my own favourite cut (of 13) is perhaps the most mellow of all, without being mellow at all … the Mark Iration collab, ‘Born As An African’ (“sufferer”), which for some reason taps into my love of On-U Sound/dub, and its bouncy swaggering skank would be absolutely begging for an Adrian Sherwood makeover if it wasn’t already near perfect in its current form. 

Other collaborators on Acidanarchist include Shahin Badar, who, amongst other things, is well known for her vocal work with The Prodigy (‘Smack’), Aki Nawaz (Fun-Da-Mental), and of course, regular and longtime Celt Islam collaborator Inder Goldfinger (percussionist extraordinaire, producer, TransGlobal Underground, far too many others to list). 

Acidanarchist will be released on 24 May, and can be found on the Earth City Recordz Bandcamp page (here).

Album Review: Bab L’Bluz - Nayda! (2020)

Craig Stephen takes a Real World trip and traverses a few continents for us:

Nayda! has been crafted by a trans-metropolitan act which mines the sounds of the Maghreb while holding the other ear to the west, in other words a magical mish-mash of influences and cultures.

The title refers to the transition from autocracy to a more liberal society at the turn of the century. It is a youth movement incorporating rappers, rockers, and jazzers and expanding to the nation’s minorities, such as the Berbers and the Gnawa. And while nayda can mean to party, it is also a reference to an intellectual awakening.

Singer and multi-instrumentalist Yousra Mansour is steeped in the Gnawa tradition, but grew up listening to Led Zeppelin and Michael Jackson. The band’s name means "gateway to the blues”, but the reference is to African blues rather than its more modern American version. Mansour’s role in the band is in a way pioneering as Gnawa music is traditionally a male-dominated domain.

Bab L’Bluz is made by Brice Bottin (guitar, guembri and percussions), Jérôme Bartolome (percussion, flute), and percussionist Hafid Zouaoui who met up at a music festival in Marrakesh. Mansour also plays guembri, awisha and percussion on the album. While the music and songs come from Morocco (and nearby Mauritania), the recording took place in Lyon, southern France.

As mentioned, Nayda! the album (which has been released by Real World) has an ear to the west and early rock, but to the untrained ear it is a beguiling listen: the vocal range and the unusual instruments – such as the guembri and the awisha – combine to riveting yet confusing effect.

An introduction to Nayda! is made simpler by a brief introduction to the songs and a translation of the Arabic lyrics into English in the booklet that accompanies it. ‘Ila Mata’ was inspired by the Tunisian poet Anis Shoshan, and is a call to search for what can unite us instead of going towards everything that divides us. “Until when will ignorance rule?/ How will the injustice last? Until when are we forced to remain silent?/ Until when will violence will be glorified,” asks Mansour pertinently.

‘Africa Manayo’ laments the centuries-old plundering of the continent’s resources by the West, leading to exploited workers, a depleted soil, and mass poverty. “They’re watching our children dying/ While our tears are watering the floor.” Contrarily, ‘El Watane’ celebrates the richness of Africa while holding out hope that poverty and slavery might be eradicated.

There are also a number of songs that focus on love, life and African people, such as ‘Yemma’, a tribute to all mothers, and the love song ‘Oudelali’.

There’s a solid ground of influences on here, and no more so than on songs such as the anti-corruption anthem ‘Gwana Beat’ (“Who tells the story of the citizens’ pain/ And the story of the crooks who destroyed this country?”), which is the kind of song Robert Plant has been striving to write for decades. Or there’s ‘El Gamra’, played at full-throttle throughout which is deceptive as it’s a song about the moon and is a festive song praising her restorative powers.

(Oi! … you can’t say that about Robert Plant - Hippy Ed)

Album Review: Sounds Like Winter – Fight the Stairs (2021)

Fight the Stairs is full-length album number three for Sydney-based four piece Sounds Like Winter, following on from Initiate (2016), and Sticks and Stones (2017). There was also a collaborative three-way split release with Melbourne’s Ikon, and Wellington-based post-punkers Disjecta Membra a few years back, which coincided with a short local tour. A release that got a fair bit of ear time at the everythingsgonegreen manor.

And despite having read a few profiles or features on Sounds Like Winter in the past which reference the likes of Joy Division and compatriots the Birthday Party as obvious markers for the band’s sound, I’d like to throw a couple more of my own into the mix … Sounds Like Winter sound a lot like Magazine, or perhaps even an early incarnation of Psychedelic Furs (less so).

I think I hear a little more Howard Devoto or Richard Butler in Ant Banister’s lead vocal than I do Ian Curtis, but there’s no question those Joy Division comparisons are valid when it comes to the rest of the band’s formula. This is post-punk of a distinctly 80s bent, and while it does sit at the darker end of that spectrum, it’s not so dark that it doesn’t contain the odd shaft of light peeking through the gloom. Not unlike Sydney in winter.

There’s no singular theme behind the lyrics found on Fight the Stairs, other than perhaps post-punk perennials like “the human condition and all of its many flaws” or “contempt for much of what modern life throws at us”, the song writing is strong across all ten tracks and there’s a nice pace through the album when listening to it in one sitting from start to finish. There’s a balance of fast and slower tracks, carefully arranged so as to never become too weighty or overwhelming - which is something I often struggle with when it comes to albums within this genre.

Musically, it’s an unrepentantly retro affair; compact, tight, and polished, but not to the point that there’s no 21^st century grit left in the mix. There’s no obvious filler over the course of its 45 minute runtime, with highlights including ‘The Monsters’, ‘No Interest’, and ‘He Was Gone’. 

Bandcamp link here.

Album Review: Kill Shelter & Antipole - A Haunted Place (2021)

A Haunted Place is a new collaborative album made by Edinburgh-based Pete Burns (Kill Shelter) and Trondheim-based Karl Morten Dahl (Antipole). It’s a partnership that feels like the most natural thing in the world. It’s also not an entirely new development, with Dahl having contributed to the Kill Shelter debut (Damage) of a few years back, and Burns having previously added deft remixing touches to Antipole’s past work. I think I’m also correct in saying that the pair were former labelmates on the Unknown Pleasures platform. But A Haunted Place, released on the Manic Depression label, is the first occasion that Burns and Dahl have put their names to the same full-length album.

It’s a blending of dark post-punk talent that complements each man’s skills perfectly. Burns really does have a terrific “goth” voice, the sort that immediately conjures up recall of some of the genre’s finest exponents of yester-year … the likes of Murphy, and Eldritch, to name only the most obvious of touchstones. The sort of vocal that undoubtedly adds an extra layer of drama and heft to proceedings. That’s without even starting on his abilities as a multi-instrumentalist, his generally excellent word-smithery, and crystalline production skills.

Dahl’s powers have been well documented on this site in the past. Antipole’s work will need no introduction to any regular everythingsgonegreen reader. If there is such a thing. I’ve fanboy-ed so often on this blog it almost feels embarrassing to wax any further about his melodic, always evocative, and frequently mesmerising guitar work. Suffice to say his instantly identifiable use of space remains a stand-out feature on A Haunted Place, and the manner in which his own fretwork blends so beautifully with that of Burns is key to making the collaboration so effective.

So it is an album that fair drips with a dark dense atmosphere, from the banging club-geared opener ‘Raise The Skies’, right through to the more mild paced album closer, ‘Every Waking Hour’, it’s a journey into a deep fog of nocturnal wanderings (and back). The sort of trip that might be traversed through the chilly or misty narrow cobblestoned lanes of old Edinburgh town in the middle of a winter’s night. With an all-consuming sense of drama. A prevailing angst proving impossible to shake due to the uncertainty of what might be lurking under that streetlamp off in the murky distance. A picturesque dream that hasn’t quite yet morphed into a fully-fledged nightmare.

Your blogger may have even experienced such, in a past life. I know that exact spot in Auld Reekie. Devastatingly beautiful by day, unnerving and foreboding by night. Sadly, I have no personal experience of Trondheim, but I imagine it wouldn’t be too dissimilar to Edinburgh … and maybe, just maybe, that is exactly where and how this album was born? Different cities, but shared experiences, past lives, and haunted places.

P.S. Don’t look behind you.

Bandcamp link here.

EP Review: Antipole - Marble (2021)

I’ve been a bit quiet over the festive new-year period, but with it being a relatively Covid-free summer down here at the bottom of the world, I decided I needed to get out and about more, and spend a little less time slaving over a hot keyboard writing obscure blogposts.

So anyway, I’m just checking in to give a shout out to longtime blog favourites Antipole, and to note that the Anglo-Norwegian collective have released a new EP called Marble. It consists of four tracks, with the title track being a brand new foray into very familiar territory … that of guitar-led dark and dreamy melodic post-punk. 

Well, it is, and it isn’t. ‘Marble’ (the track) is all of that, sure, and yet another fine example of the fastidious attention to detail offered by Karl Morten Dahl, Eirene, and Paris Alexander when releasing work under the Antipole moniker. But I really couldn’t have anticipated just how well that same track would translate into a banging dance number under the guise of the Molchat Doma remix. (Molchat Doma being a Belarusian post-punk outfit). If the original is a retro-flavoured nod to the 80s, then the roots of the remix are firmly planted in the techno-drenched 90s. 

The remaining two tracks on the EP, ‘Narcissus’ and ‘Someday 45’ will already be familiar to Antipole fans, as both appeared - in different form - on Antipole’s stunning full-length debut Northern Flux back in 2017. ‘Narcissus’ gets the edit treatment, while the latter benefits from an extended mix. 

Have a listen and grab a download at Antipole's Bandcamp page: