Summer Singles, part # 1

Boy, oh boy – what a fine haul of singles I’ve accumulated recently! For the first time, a couple of the items that follow are downloads/digital singles, but the majority are still ones I’ve got on plastic.

Cheap Time – Woodland Drive b/w Penny & Jenny (In The Red)

You may recall that I ranked Cheap Time’s debut album, like, 29th or something in my run-down of 2008 albums, but it retrospect it definitely deserved to place higher. It’s been growing on me ever since – a 0 to 60 masterclass in raucous, spiked power-pop. By contrast, “ After the Ball”, this year’s solo album by band leader Jeffrey Novak, won’t be making it anywhere near my 2009 best of list, for the simple reason that it’s quite horrible – a shrieking, hectoring mess of galumphing, harpsicord-addled Brit-psych whimsy, but one entirely devoid of the charm, tunes and wit that still keep us tuned to obvious inspirations such as messrs Ayers, Wood, Davies, Stanshall, Innes etc. forty years after the fact.

So, a potentially salty character, this Mr. Novak. And in view of the above, where exactly is this new batch of Cheap Time material throwing down? Answer, unsurprisingly, is somewhere between the two known poles of the Novak temperament. The strutting punk momentum and insensible racket of the CT album is present and correct, as is that record’s brevity (both songs are, like, seventy seconds or something), but here it finds itself combined with a strutting, stop/start theatricality and a faintly unhealthy ‘nightmare nursery rhyme’ approach to melody, particularly on ‘Penny & Jenny’, which starts off sounding almost like a lost Jennifer Gentle song, but swiftly sours our initial enthusiasm, bounding heedlessly into the arena of the irritating. ‘Woodland Drive’ fares better, a pacy ol’ mod stomper. Splitting the difference, let us conclude that Cheap Time 2009 = Todd Rundgren on a budget. I think we can agree that’s some kinda result. I mean, Todd’s been doing this shit for over forty years and his latest tour poster portrayed him as an axe-wielding barbarian standing on a rocky outcrop beneath a storm-wracked sky, so… I’m not gonna argue.

http://www.myspace.com/cheaptime
http://www.intheredrecords.com/

Julie Doiron / Calm Down It’s Monday – split 7” (K)

Ah, Julie Doiron – blessed in the books of all known gods; the eternally awesome, ever-comforting earth-mother to all of our converse-wearing, bespectacled brood. One of my favourite live music memories of recent years was seeing her play at the Windmill a while back. She introduced her cover of ‘Shady Lane’ SO wonderfully earnestly, like: “hey, do you guys know this song ‘Shady Lane’, it’s so good..”, and then she danced around the stage playing all the requisite Malkmus twiddley bits, pausing to join the whole grinning room in singing along off-mic with “…and the overfriendly concierge!” A magic moment rendered from elements that would have been cringeworthy on the part of any other performer, brought about by Julie’s awsomeness – all serving to demonstrate why she remains one of the few introspective singer-songwriter types that it’s always worth finding time for. Her achingly beautiful voice helps too, and, should you need further proof, the two unaccompanied songs on her side of this humble disc close the case, quietly crushing and reshaping the heart of any attentive listener with each spin.

“Oh Heavy Snow” is a solemn lament that strongly recalls our heroine’s collaborations with Phil Elverum, letting silence itself play the third man inbetween gentle, scuttling guitar notes. “Oh heavy heart / forgive me / make me feel like it’s all ok” Julie sings, taking words some bearded slacker could toss off like a paycheque, and making them a prayer sent down on the wind from a mountain fortress. Listening to the song for maybe the tenth time, I’ve only just noticed that that silence is quietly forming itself into some drums and organ towards the end, so the song’s not so unaccompanied after-all – that’s understated backing for you, I guess. “It’s Nice to Come Home” meanwhile is simpler, warmer, happier – a song nobody human could hate, as Julie sings about her after-work routine, how she imagines it compares to her man’s after-work routine over in New Brunswick, and how much she’s looking forward to seeing the two routines merge next time they’re together again. A real life love song, free of drama, free of artifice. It almost makes me cry every time. And now it’s time to sit for a minute or two, let the silence sink in, and then reach over to put the needle back to the start again for… well, who knows how many times I’ve played this side since I bought this single. A joy forever.

On the other side, Calm Down It’s Monday (featuring Julie on drums I think, and her drummer on guitar/vocals) do the kind of music you’d rather expect from some guys who called their band “calm down, it’s Monday”. Lethargic, faintly belligerent North-West indie-rock, like Love As Laughter on an off-day, Some Velvet Sidewalk in a bad mood. Not to worry though, Julie’s songs would be cheap at twice the price.

http://www.myspace.com/juliedoiron
http://www.myspace.com/calmdownitsmonday
http://www.krecs.com/

Golau Glau – Soft Silver Young b/w Heartland Half Seizure (Oddbox)

Interesting stuff from this somewhat hermetic Welsh outfit, with a homemade sound anchored somewhere between the eerie border country electronica of prime Ochre records output and the dalek torch songs of Broadcast. Although ostensibly still pop, and song-based, there’s something deeply spooked about Golau Glau. They sound like they’re broadcasting from some soul-dead, suburban seaside town, laptop and vintage mics hidden in the basement beneath a pebble-dashed bungalow where they sit in the dark, thinking about the cliffs down the road. Voodoo drums and Wurlitzer organ, together at last. Soothing sounds for weirdo.

Listen more closely though, and Golau Glau’s initially pretty, chanting space-songs are scarcely very reassuring, quietly addressing themselves to subject matter that would likely appeal to Luke Haines at his most ghoulish. “All our songs are about real events or things that interest us generally”, they say in the accompanying blurb, “not love songs or songs about how miserable we are or how to do a funny dance or anything, and the words can sometimes be abstract but always have meaning as well as sounding musical”. As such, ‘Soft Silver Young’ commemorates a couple who jumped off Beachyhead together with their dead baby in a rucksack, whilst ‘Heartland Half-Seizure’ concerns itself with “..Oswald Mosley, Jeffrey Hamm and the anti-fascist riot in Tonypandy in 1936”. Are you fascinated yet, or running for the exits? If the former, this single is still available as a free download from Oddbox here.

http://golauglau.wordpress.com/
http://oddboxrecords.com

Local Girls – EP (sourpuss)

This nifty little number (price: 99p!) includes six whole songs, a double-sided, fold-out photocopied sleeve with a picture on the back of the band with animal heads photoshopped over their own faces, a hand-stamped, multi-coloured inner sleeve, a download code, a locked groove at the end of side # 1, and a vinyl sticker featuring a picture of some fat, naked women (um, I'll pass on that one I think). Top marks for DIY gusto and value for money, but I’m afraid Local Girls don’t grab me overmuch. In the noble brit-pop tradition, they seem to be a bloke band with a girl singer who (probably) stands at the front in all the photos, and conveniently they also seem to make vaguely dancey, choppy indie-rock that is also very much in the brit-pop tradition. It’s none too bad. It’s got sludgier distortion than you’d have gotten for yr pound in ’97, at least. Lyrics take the default position of cynical bitching (song titles: ‘Eartha Shit’, ‘Nick and Ben are Cunts’), but none of it’s as sharp as it thinks it is. If your soul sighs for a band who sound a bit like Lovelife-era Lush, Powder and second album Elastica, you’ll dig the hell out of this one. I like that stuff just fine too and I love Elastica forever, but man… I lived through the mid/late ‘90s once already, and we have proper girl bands now, and the internet and stuff, so please, can I turn this off now? Local Girls sound like they’re trying to drag me back to that dark era, and that gives me the fear, like seeing the Witchfinder General striding down the high street. Make it stop!

http://www.myspace.com/localgirlsband

Labels: Cheap Time, Golau Glau, Julie Doiron, Local Girls, singles reviews