10. Yellow Fever – s/t (Wild World)

I bought this album at a Vivian Girls gig last February. I’ve been meaning to write something about it ever since, but… god, what to say? Yellow Fever are like pop music’s final checkmate against blathering critics like me. Songs reduced to such an elegant, self-explanatory simplicity that the act of describing them seems absurd.

If Yellow Fever remind me of anything, desperately scrabbling around in my big book of possible comparisons, I suppose it’s probably Young Marble Giants, or unfairly forgotten Athens, GA duo Oh Ok.

Yellow Fever’s female participants are gifted with the kind of crystal-clear voices that in a different world could be belting out the trad arr hits down Cecil Sharp House of an afternoon. Here though, they also assume the function of a great, swinging rhythm section, realising a series of brilliant, elliptical pop songs. Some of the tunes also add guitar, but that’s not very interesting. Like a strange, art school ESG, it’s the bass and drums and mechanized group vocals that carry it.

“The cutest boy / I ever saw / was drinking cider / through a straw”, they sing on ‘Cutest’. “My brother and me / went to a show / we saw every / one we know”.

“Donovan’s pretty famous / he’s got a suitcase full of songs / he dug up old Atlantis / and know everybody’s growing their hair long”, they sing on ‘Donovan’.

It’s almost as if, by stripping these songs to bare musical essentials and emotionless statements of fact, Yellow Fever are questioning the way in which songs – dumb rhyming words set to repetitious, formulaic melodies – can make us so absurdly happy. It’s as if they’re testing the formula under laboratory conditions, to see how easily they can make it work.

And they can make it work extremely well – I’ve listened to this album dozens of times. Its numerous moments of dry wit make me grin and cackle as I walk down the street; “Why won’t you recognise / how psychedelic I am / and love me?” runs the chorus to ‘Psychedelic’, in between perfectly executed verses of flowery, acid trip imagery – the perfect riposte to five decades of paisley-clad sitar-botherers.

For all the irony though, there is also a vein of sorta dark, anthromorphic cartoon-folky imagery running through these songs that I rather enjoy, perhaps reminiscent of the weird majesty of Michael Hurley’s early songs, although they’re far, far, far removed musically speaking. I like the way that the protagonist of the song ‘Donald’ seems to start off as a household pet (“you were such a happy baby / now you’ve grown up old and lazy”), but seems to transform into an untrustworthy friend/lover whom the singer repeatedly warns not to “go downtown”. Maybe it’s nothing, but that uncertainty is kinda interesting, and uneasy, a feeling that extends into the odd campfire singalong vibe of “Hellfire” and “Joe Brown”.

‘Original’ seems an odd word to use in relation to an album that pilfers its melodies from playground singalongs and hymns ‘60s pop singers, but I guess I must be perfect guinea-pig for Yellow Fever’s experiments, because this one of the most charming and unexpected records I heard all year.

Mp3> Alice


9. People of the North – Deep Tissue (Jagjaguwar/Brah)

My favourite Oneida record in years, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s not even by Oneida. The history of People of The North dates back, I believe, to some time early last decade, when the duo of Kid Millions and Fat Bobby would tour under that name when other commitments prevented Baby Jane from being present to complete the mighty O.

The project also has its origins though in the song “People of The North”, which appears in different versions on Oneida’s “Anthem of the Moon” and “Each One Teach One” albums. That song has always been one of my favourites in the band’s repertoire, a perfect synthesis of their strangely-scaled medievalist psyche-rock song structures and their yen for assaultively repetitious space-rock hypnosis. It is also a brilliantly evocative song for me, never failing to bring to mind visions of future-earth cyborg-Nordic warriors enacting fierce, pre-voyage rituals amid frost-covered standing stones, and undertaking mystic quests through never-ending vistas of barren, Arctic coastline.

Yeah, it rocks that much.

And happily, the album that has eventually emerged under the People of the North moniker sees Kid, Bobby and collaborators taking their cues directly from that by-now-venerable mother-song, spreading the ‘People of the North’ aesthetic out into forty minutes and four tracks of icy, martial cosmic journeying music.

In general, I like to make a habit of punching myself in the face every time I use the term “krautrock”, but there’s no getting round it as an easy shorthand for music like this – long-form stretches of buzzing/propulsive minimalist rock, driven on under the twin sails of KM’s legendarily energetic/imaginative rolling percussion and FB’s brutalist analogue keyboard stabs, swathes of heavily ‘verbed guitar feedback cutting in for purposes of depth and texture.

“The Vastest Island” is particularly great, beginning with a mysterioso echoed vocal lament set against shimmering synth-strings and electronic noise, building up into a lethargic jungle march through unknown zones – a stirring track, reminiscent of such landmark O jams as “Antibiotics” and, well, “People of the North”.

It’s hard to really explain why I enjoyed this album so much, when last year’s “Rated O” still lurks in my CD pile like a triple disc mountain of smog-blackened, perilous terror. “Deep Tissue” certainly does little to assuage my worries that Oneida have abandoned their fine song-writing instincts, shifting more toward a morose, heads-down power electronics jam band kinda vibe. I think it probably comes down more to an overall feeling. “Rated O” and “Pre-Teen Weaponry” both hit me as very anxious, bilious records – claustrophobic and urban and kinda punishing. “Deep Tissue” on the other hand sounds clear and wide-open, like a Viking sunrise, as the longboat powers STRAIGHT AHEAD. I dig that.

Mp3>The Vastest Island


8. The Extra Lens – Undercard (Merge)

Another year, and, with no new Mountain Goats LP immediately forthcoming (don’t worry, he’s got the next one out in a few months), another dubious extra-curricular release from John Darnielle was definitely on the cards. This one is based around his long-standing writing/recording partnership with Nothing Painted Blue frontman Franklin Bruno, the two having previously billed themselves as ‘The Extra Glens’ (no, me neither).

What we have here is not quite an equal partnership I fear, with Darnielle taking lead vocals on all songs, and with recognisable Mountain Goats themes and song structures predominating throughout. Much as I love John D, I’m sure he’d appreciate my instinctive support for the underdog in wanting to hear Franklin stick his oar in a bit more, but well… pure conjecture on my part here, but I feel Bruno’s contribution to this record’s success is just as great as Darnielle’s, but perhaps more… subtle. I mean, like, I think he’s bringing some serious quality control to the table – perhaps helping to highlight the moments in JD’s song-writing that tend to get a bit over-familiar or undercooked when he’s left 100% in charge, and maybe tweaking them into something a bit more vital or unexpected.

Anyway, whether there’s any truth in that suspicion or not, the fact is this is probably the strongest sets of songs Darnielle has ever turned in outside of his primary Mountain Goats albums, all the more so for the fact that these songs’ various characters and situations seem comparatively, well… easy-going, compared to the weighty, heart-on-sleeve themes explored on the last few Mountain Goats records. If not exactly frivolous, songs here are refreshingly concise and to-the-point, each one making use of Darnielle and Bruno’s mighty skills in the field of narrative song-writing to create a whole world for itself, a cross-section of a whole feature length presentation compressed into two or three minutes of perfectly measured wordplay and melody.

‘Cruiserweight’ for example investigates the inner-life of a struggling boxer, doggedly pursuing his dreams against the uninspiring background of Cleveland Ohio, 1985. Even when deep into the realm of story-telling, it is rare to find a songwriter who can deliver a line like “take two shots straight to the liver / and remember what the food was like in prison” with a quiet authority that bypasses Springsteenian bluster.

Sticking with the noble theme of fruitless struggles in the 1980s, ‘Only Existing Footage’ takes a straight-forward look at the pitfalls of low-budget international filmmaking (“red-eye back to Belgrade with the footage that we’ve saved / end up with one can because / the baggage claim’s an unmarked grave”), whilst the more oblique ‘Communicating Doors’ injects anxious horror movie imagery into the dreams of a worn out political candidate trying to catch some sleep mid-campaign (“I know people who dig up graves / just to label the bones”).

For whatever reason, some of best songs here seem to a)deal with adultery, and b)cheerfully recall old Mountain Goats song-writing strategies we’d assumed were a thing of the past. Electric guitar and pro production aside, the frenzied “Adultery” could easily double for one of the atom-bombed male ego classics from 1994’s ‘Zopilote Machine’, whilst the wryly titled “How I Left the Ministry” refits the sexy car-wreck thrills of ‘The Sunset Tree’s ‘Dilaudid’ to present the ninety second history of a civil servant, his neighbour’s wife and a sticky end for everybody.

A few of the songs on “Undercard” – like ‘Some Other Way’, with its goofy conceit of a guy testing out various forms of suicide only to decide that none of them will quite get the right message across to his ex - may betray this album’s songwriting workshop roots, but the bottom line is that even the least impressive of the songs Darnielle and Bruno knock out together are the ones that every other middle-aged dude with an acoustic WISHES he could have come up with first. An A+ from song school right here, and an easy, no-obligation reminder of how great these guys are when they’re on form.

Mp3> How I Left the Ministry


7. Zola Jesus – Stridulum EP / Valusia EP (Sacred Bones)


From November 2010:

“I was thinking up shit like that in my brain before the metronomic drum loop started thudding, and our man and his brother-in-keyboards start pounding out the ominous, elegiac sustained chords that begin “Night” (although it could just as easily be any of the dozen or so inexplicably gigantic, overwhelming monster-songs Zola Jesus has recorded over the past eighteen months). As when I listen to the recorded version, something clicks to ‘OFF’, and by the time Nika / Zola J herself appears, my mind is pure and empty and defenceless.

[…]

Why do I like this music so much, anyway? It’s not like any of the stuff I usually listen to. I don’t feel any emotional connection to any of these songs, I have no cultural baggage tied in with them. All this pomp and darkness and this art studenty girl yakking in interviews about avant garde opera and ‘transgressive’ noise acts – not really my sorta thing, is it?

But, as per The Boss, clearly I like it because I’ve not been given a choice in the matter. I mean, you didn’t think this new world of grand, Wagnerian girl group synth-angst would be a democracy, did you? This is music that saps you on the back of the head and drags you into its cave. The monumentally simple, direct songs Nika Danilova has hammered out since she embraced ‘clean’ production and verse/chorus pop structures last year do not ask questions or seek advice. They’re like alien laser-stares or speeding trains – get out of their way if you must, but if you hold your ground, resistance is futile.

Every one of these songs is the kind of breathtaking fucking awesome, overblown song that plays when people run out of a burning building in slow motion or dissolve into the neon rain in a (yes) ‘80s movie. If you’ve ever spent time pausing the bleary song credits at the end of the video, trying to figure out who the hell that one incredible song was by and decided it was probably by some act with a completely lame/unpronounceable name who subsequently turn up a blank on allmusic – don’t worry. It turns out they were lying to you. All those songs are actually by Zola Jesus.”

Mp3> Night


6. Teenage Fanclub – Shadows (PeMa)

From July 2010:

“I may have skipped over their past few records, perhaps unfairly, but the songs from “Shadows” that have been creeping into my head via BBC6’s playlist as I do the washing up have stood out as wondrous compositions, full of warm, happy sounds; a veritable embarrassment of sweet, guitary riches.

From Norman Blake’s blinding, Rolling Stones and Go-Betweens referencin’ stadium rocker “When I Still Have Thee”, to “Baby Lee”, like a Big Star acoustic number all grown up without the angst, to the grand slow-burn of Raymond McGinley’s “The Fall” (for the first few minutes you’ll think it’s shit, but if you’re still not digging it by the post-guitar solo choruses, you’re probably a bad person), the whole record has the air of a triumphant, late-period classic from a band a lot of people would have preferred to see condemned to the arena of fading boring-ness years ago.

Naysayers would have it that Teenage Fanclub are doomed to never rise above the level of mere ‘niceness’. ‘Niceness’ of course being the ultimate anathema to all you intense artist cats out there who thrive on the howling furies of humanity pushed to new, blood-curdling extremes, or failing that, The XX.

But c’mon, fuck that. I’m nice. My flat is nice. Friends are nice. The weather in the spring is nice. Breakfast in nice. And as they roll on through contented middle age, Teenage Fanclub have become INTENSELY NICE, so powerfully nice it’s almost frightening. They may have called their album “Shadows”, but I’m not sure why, as I find few dark patches within the words and music of these thoroughly contented fellows.

I know I often put forward the notion that good music always has to be fighting against something, but… I dunno, somehow Teenage Fanclub seem to get a free pass from me on that one. Somehow the exultant spirit with which they seem to be welcoming us into their happy place in these songs overcomes all. Theirs is a fiery niceness that sits far distant from any notion of mediocrity, and only a chump would confuse the two.”

Mp3> When I Still Have Thee

Labels: best of 2010, Oneida, People of the North, Teenage Fanclub, The Extra Lens, The Mountain Goats, Yellow Fever, Zola Jesus