Album Review: Fazerdaze - Morningside (2017)

Iggy Pop loves it, the NME raved about it, even the notoriously hard to please rock snobs over at Pitchfork gave it the big thumbs up. So you probably don’t need me to tell you how good the Fazerdaze full-length debut is. But I’m going to do that anyway …

Before I do, however, I should say that Morningside has been the source of some confusion for me. Mainly because when I saw Fazerdaze live and up close earlier this year, the set was played by a four-piece band. Yet, from all accounts amid the hype and hoopla surrounding the album’s release, and there’s been a lot of that, I keep reading that the album, with the exception of the odd bit of help here and there, was written, recorded, and produced in its entirety by Amelia Murray.

Which is quite something else altogether, and it really does mark Murray’s card as an exceptional talent. The whole thing is immaculately produced, pristine pop music, from start to finish. And yes, hindsight is wonderful, I now fully appreciate that it’s impossible for Murray to front these tunes in a live environment without a little helping hand. But for all intents, Fazerdaze is Murray’s project.
 
When an album is still in its post-release infancy – which Morningside surely is – there are a couple of key pointers which can help establish whether or not the work is going to stand the test of time.
 
The first is when you realise that the advance single releases – in this case ‘Little Uneasy’ and ‘Lucky Girl’ – aren’t actually any better than the rest of the material on offer. It means the quality control filter was set high enough, and it makes for a nice even no-skip listening experience.
 
The second key indicator is when it sounds better and better with each and every subsequent listen. Where you pick up little things, sounds that weren’t obvious before, when you hear something new every time you play it, and the album is able to bed into the subconscious with little or no effort at all.
 
Morningside ticks both of these boxes.

So what does it actually sound like?

Without wanting to single out specific tracks (see above), it might just about be the most highly polished thing ever released on Flying Nun. To date, at least. The attention to detail is next level, with ten tight crisp melodic power pop earworms all vying for the honour of being labelled the best thing on the album. Most of it is at the dreamy hazy shoegaze(y) end of the indie pop spectrum, but there’s also some darker fuzzy DIY moments to keep it sufficiently earthy.

But don’t take my word for it, or that of Iggy, just grab a copy and judge for yourself.

Check the clip below - 'Little Uneasy' ...

The 1970s Revisited ...

There’s been a whole lotta love for the Seventies going on over at Pitchfork in recent weeks. That website is nothing if not methodical and comprehensive in its approach to these sorts of things. In pop culture terms, on a personal level, I’ve never really embraced the Seventies in quite the same way I have say, the Eighties, or subsequent decades. I’m not sure why that is … they say your school years are supposed to be the best and most memorable, but I seem to have blanked out large chunks for one reason or another. In a lot of respects, 1980 was always very much a ground zero point for yours truly – that year being the one my awareness of music and the arts was dramatically heightened by an extended period living in the UK (at age 16), and it was also the year I left high school. I think those things were catalysts for me realising that a much bigger world than the one I'd known, really did actually exist. And while I'd always been very aware of what was going on around me prior to that – the immediate post-Beatles world, glam, disco, punk, the arrival of colour television (things were slow moving in my house), diligently and systematically tape-recording the weekly top 10 "hits" off the radio, buying comics/magazines, the death of Elvis (!) etc – I suppose I’ve always been dismissive of the decade as a whole, finding it rather cringe-worthy when compared to the way more “cool” and “happening” Eighties. Many would argue the opposite applies, and Pitchfork’s coverage presents a rather compelling case in favour of that argument. I’ve found the recent coverage fascinating, so I thought I’d share some of Pitchfork’s work here:

Pitchfork’s 200 best songs of the 1970s

Pitchfork’s 25 best music videos of the 1970s

Punk, disco, and silly love songs – Remembering 1976

Music technology of the 1970s – a timeline
   

Album Review: David Bowie - Blackstar (2016)

On the day that David Bowie released Blackstar, the album was reviewed on prolific music site Pitchfork. The review opened with the following:

“David Bowie has died many deaths yet he is still with us. He is popular music’s ultimate Lazarus: Just as that Biblical figure was beckoned by Jesus to emerge from his tomb after four days of nothingness, Bowie has put many of his selves to rest over the last half-century, only to rise again with a different guise. This is astounding to watch, but it's more treacherous to live through; following Lazarus’ return, priests plotted to kill him, fearing the power of his story. And imagine actually being such a miracle man – resurrection is a hard act to follow.”

Which, given what was about to unfold, is more than a little bit spooky. Two days later, David Bowie was dead.

It all seemed so surreal. Nobody was prepared for the devastating news of his passing. And although there had been rumours and hints about the poor state of his health around the time of the release of The Next Day back in 2013, he'd largely kept the severity of his cancer a closely guarded secret.

Blackstar was the cross-generational superstar's 25th studio album, released to coincide with his 69th birthday. The day it was released, the same day as the Pitchfork review was published, a good friend – quite possibly the biggest Bowie fan I know – had shared with me some of her thoughts on the album. I invited her to put those words into some semblance of order so I could use them for a (guest post) album review.

But then, in the immediate wake of Bowie's death it just didn't seem appropriate, or make any sense, to be offering a critique of his final work. An album co-producer Tony Visconti later called a “parting gift to fans” ... I decided to wait until the dust settled and I had my own copy of the album.

By that stage, Blackstar was at the top of the New Zealand album charts, and Bowie had another ten albums inside the Top 40. What I thought of the great man's swan song hardly mattered in the slightest; the album's commercial relevance was already assured, and a whole bunch of earlier work suddenly had fresh chart momentum. As is so often the way of things when the Grim Reaper comes calling.

Blackstar opens with the sprawling title track, which – at something close to ten minutes in duration – feels like several recurring ideas and themes (death, certainly) rolled into one. At the very least it's something of a musical throwback to the experimental, arty, prog-rock excesses of the early Seventies glam period which informed so much of Bowie's best work.

The fragility of his voice is immediately apparent on the opener – as it was throughout The Next Day – and it's something that stands out across the remaining thirty or so minutes of Blackstar. Rather than disguise this, or even attempt to, Bowie uses it as a tool to portray varying degrees of emotion, and an unapologetic sense of vulnerability. It seems the alien may have been human after all.

A couple of these tunes have had previous outings. ‘Sue (or in a season of crime)’ was released as a single in 2014, and appeared on that year's three-disc compilation set Nothing Has Changed, while the less ambiguous ‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore’ saw the light of day as that single's B-side. I note that the saxophone part (on ‘Whore’) enjoyed a makeover for the album version. Sax being one of the more prominent instrumental features on Blackstar.

And certainly, regardless of any additional poignancy it now offers, current single and album centrepiece ‘Lazarus’ is an undoubted highlight here. It appeals as the most straightforward “pop song” on an album which veers strongly away from all traditional forms of that description.

Whatever else David Bowie was, he was an artist who favoured innovation and experimentation above all else, and there’s plenty of that on Blackstar.

And yes, of course, there’s all that slightly unnerving stuff about death. Who else but David Bowie could get away with such an outrageous parting shot?

And so he’s gone. But not really. His music lives on, his discography is something quite phenomenal, and Blackstar is a worthy, if very late addition to that wonderful legacy.

 

 

 

 

Bowie Boxed

After months of hype and no little amount of anticipation, the new David Bowie box-set has finally arrived (click here). Released on 25 September, it covers all of Bowie’s output between 1969 and 1973, which was arguably his best period. Apparently we can expect a few more of these (Bowie boxes) in the months ahead.

I think this very comprehensive review over at Pitchfork (click here) offers a great overview of everything on offer, and it also works as something of an early career synopsis.

The Box includes:

A 10 album set featuring 6 original studio albums & 2 live albums on CD & 180g audiophile vinyl.

Plus, exclusive to the Box Sets:

The Rise and Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (2003 Ken Scott mix)

Re:Call 1: a new 2-disc compilation of non-album singles & b-sides including previously unreleased mono single edit of 'All The Madmen' and the highly sought after 'Holy Holy' original single unavailable since release in 1971.

The CD & Vinyl box sets come with a companion book featuring memorabilia, rare and previously unseen photos, hand written lyrics, original album press reviews and essays from the original album producers.

Pitchfork, the Eighties, and Me ...

It’s pretty widely accepted in my house that I spend copious amounts of time “living in the past” and generally indulging in nostalgia. I can’t deny that, and everythingsgonegreen itself offers ample evidence for the prosecution … this blog is nothing if not very Eighties-centric at times. Obviously I also like to keep things relatively fresh and relevant occasionally, but on the whole, my comfort zone is the decade that taste forgot, and one or two years either side of it. It’s often said that you should “write about what you know”, and I like to think I know the “pop culture” side of the Eighties as well as any other 40 or 50-something-plus out there. Another thing I’m often accused of – by those in the know – is being a compulsive list writer. This is also true, although that fact is not reflected so much on the blog.

So, you can probably imagine my excitement earlier this week when I noticed a brand new “Staff List” over at the prolific Pitchfork website titled “The 200 Best Songs of the 1980s” (as rated by the many contributors to that site) … which represents a veritable orgy of Eighties-related nostalgia. Obviously every last one of us would have our own ideas and preferences about what should and what shouldn’t make that list, but I think Pitchfork pretty much nails it here (aside from an unfathomable top two). Take a look, click on the link below.

Pitchfork's 200 Best Songs of the 1980s