35. Crawling Age – CDR (self-released)

From October:

“I think Crawling Age are one of those ‘get together for one day a year / write and record a bunch of stuff in an afternoon’ kind of deals, and indeed, they seem concerned with little beyond having a laugh, swapping instruments so that everybody gets to have a go at everything, and making a lively bunch of oven-ready less than 2 minute songs, putting seven of the best of ‘em on this CD-R, and giving a free copy to anyone who’s interested. A fine approach! A happy racket!

Live, they lengthened their set to the requisite twenty minutes with much mucking about and a great version of Jowe Head’s immortal ‘Cake Shop’, and the spirit of Swell Maps indeed hangs heavy over these recordings. Hard to put your finger on exactly *where* it hangs amid the murky din of Crawling Age, but when the certain nameless, inexplicable something that Swell Maps forever defined is present, you can never mistake it. It’s there, creeping through the cracks, coagulating amid the background shouts and between song chuckles. Introduce it to the blaring, belligerent murk these men call home in their main bands, and a good thing is born, somewhat not dissimilar to that great Human Race CD I wrote up last year.

[…]

In conclusion: I really like this CD. It’s stupidly fun, fulla random, crazy noise, inspired, off-the-cuff song ideas and goofy four-track tangents, and it asks nothing in return. I wish I was in a band like this – sounds like a blast.”

Soundcloud > (You Crossed Over To) The Other Side



34. Amen Dunes – Through Donkey Jaw (Sacred Bones)

Didn’t know what to make of this one when I first picked it up as a blind buy. First listen put me off to the extent that it was almost heading for a one-way trip to Music & Video Exchange, but repeat spins have crept up on me nicely. Damon McMahon’s bedroom psyche opuses (which make up the entirety of this hour long audio doorstop) have an irritatingly distant, unknowable air about them, his reedy vocals whining away throughout, sounding mildly tormented but forever failing to actually wrap themselves around anything that might be recognised as a human phrase or emotion, whilst the instrumentation mostly takes the form of a homogenous swathe of drifting strong textures, man-size reverb and ‘ritual’ percussion, remaining gentle and roughly harmonic, rarely feeling to the need to up the stakes with the kind of experimental gestures and big noises that usually serve to push this kinda music into the foreground. In its most fully-formed moments, it starts to revert back into more palpable indie-rock shapes, verging onto something kinda like Greg Ashley if he got really whacked on something heavy, or some fucked up ghost of Tim Buckley or something… dunno whether that sounds much like a recommendation..?

Give it some time though, and this is a real grower. The somnambulant logic of McMahon’s songs slowly starts to become clear, revealing a kind of shy, shadowy drift that can spill over into moments of burning atmospheric splendour, exulting in a kind of lysergic alienation that (for no particular reason) pulls my cultural compass straight back to the more benighted realms of late ‘60s & ‘70s Japan - to the warped un-folk desperation of The Jacks, Onna and Takashi Mizutani’s solo recordings. Either that, or some of the eerie post-Skip Spence private press type shit that I’d imagine McMahon so covets. More unhinged moments like ‘Jill’ and ‘For All’ speak more of a kinda Mutant Sounds Shadow Ring/Jim Shephard deconstructive agenda, whilst one of the best tracks here, ‘Swim Up Behind Me’, even recalls one of Arthur Russell’s perfect pop miniatures, as filtered through heavy ashram/sitar/velvet curtains type vibes.

If ‘Through Donkey Jaw’ had emerged from one of those times and places, I’d doubtless be hailing it as some kind of haunted, troubling masterpiece, and as such it seems unfair to wallop McMahon with the accusations of pretension and tedium that hang heavy over a record like this, just because he happens to be contemporary, American, and presumably self-conscious in his exploration of these kinda outsider-ish cultural backwaters. And, frustratingly vague as they might initially seem, the pieces here can really get under your skin after a while, filling your room with the kind of rich, smoky fug only found in the very best psychedelia. So light a black candle, smoke something pungent, observe the last glimmers of golden winter light creeping through the blinds, generally GET THE MOOD, and you will find much wordless melancholia, dusty floorboard scrape and translucent Evil Beatles blather here to enjoy.

Soundcloud > Swim Up Behind Me



33. Fungi Girls – Some Easy Magic (HoZac)

Veterans of several singles that I very much enjoyed, Texas teenagers Fungi Girls turn in their first long player, and I’ve very much enjoyed it also. They’re still a weirdly low-key band, their appeal undeniable but at the same time kinda elusive. They still specialise in hiding brilliantly inventive gtr/bass/drums playing and mischievous energy behind somewhat hesitant, disinterested vocal delivery and a particularly morose strain of melodicism. And they still sound like boys who have listened to a lot of good records very, very closely – to the extent that they’ve managed to internalise the essence of what makes them good, rather than simply taking on an urge to copy them.

This subtle but important distinction makes it very difficult to really pin any obvious reference points to Fungi Girls for more than a bar or two before you have to grudgingly admit that actually they’re not really that much like whatever the name that just jumped out at you was - looking back on previous posts, seems I’ve ventured REM, The Feelies, The Clean, 13th Floor Elevators, Strange Boys and The Byrds at one point or another. Of that lot, the only comparison that really holds water is perhaps The Clean, particularly in regard to their early stuff – not because Fungi Girls sound like The Clean on anything like a consistent basis (they’re far more technically proficient and neatly recorded for one thing), but simply because they seem to be coming from a similar place, heading in a similar direction. Both seem wise beyond their years – like the cool, learned kids fading into the background in every photo, with the confidence to know that the path to great rock n’ roll lies not in wearing ridiculous outifts or making a fuss or putting something rude on the front of your record, and to realise that when you’ve got it cookin’ and the instruments are working together free of ego, it doesn’t take much more than a four track and some reverb machines to get you there.

Or maybe they’re not like that at all. I don’t bloody know. I’m just talking through my hat here, trying to fill space writing about some guitar-pop band who have great surfy drumming and neat guitar-playing and sound like they’d be perfectly happy if everybody went away and locked the door to their practice room and left them to it.

There’s a lot of neat stuff on this record. A lot of cool little bits of musical hoo-hah that I really appreciate. Occasionally something will venture above the parapets and knock your block off – the rollicking ‘Safe As Milk’ groove of ‘Doldrums’, the wild fuzz guitar break on ‘Velvet Days’ – but mostly it’s happy just keep it’s head down and enjoy being what it is. Which is: fun, smart, shy and good.

Soundcloud > Doldrums



32. Zombie Zombie – plays John Carpenter (Versatile Records)

Well this was always gonna be a hard one to summon up much of a word count for.

We’re in ‘does exactly what it says on the tin’ territory here really: discerning French analogue synth / drums duo explore the back catalogue of The Awesomest Guy in the World (or ‘John Carpenter’, as you might call him in your house), with instant hole in one results.

In fairness to ZZ, they do work hard here to take things in a direction we might not quite have expected whilst still delivering the synth-rocking goods. Whereas they could have just busted through a straight set of Carpenter’s most recognisable themes to the guaranteed adulation of everyone who’d conceivably buy a record like this, instead they open up with a scorching take on “Escape From New York” deep cut ‘The Bank Robbery’, before ploughing through the under-heard theme from the widely derided “Escape From LA”. Next comes the obligatory “Assault on Precinct 13”, and Zombie Zombie will no doubt have irked many purists by really doing a number on the ultra-minimalism of Carpenter’s classic, keeping the unfuckable-with central riff intact, but contaminating the brew with a syncopated live drum track, a euphoric house piano line that rises midway through and – heaven help us – a conga break. Against all the odds, it works pretty well. Next, “Halloween (main theme)” gets a bit of a disco makeover, retaining its essential menace whilst drawing a bead between Carpenter and Detroit techno, and proceedings close with a lengthy take on the Carpenter/Morricone showdown of “The Thing”s main theme, evolving here into a widescreen trance-out of glacial analogue splendour, and (I could be wrong but it sure sounds like) stately sustained tone brass drones.

Bon travail, Zombie Zombie!

Sadly no Coupe de Villes numbers, but aside from that I couldn’t be happier.

Soundcloud > The Bank Robbery (from ‘Escape From New York’)



31. Dignan Porch – Deluded 12” (Captured Tracks)

I’ve really grown to like Dignan Porch. I mean, I liked them from the start, when I heard their superb ‘Tendrils’ LP and assumed they were some mysterioso one/two piece American band from the middle of nowhere. But now that I’ve seen them live a few times, got used to the idea that they are a five person ensemble operating out of Tooting of all places, I like them even better.

This eight song 12” is, I’m assuming, a nice holdover before their proper second LP, and represents what I guess is the first evidence of the group recording as a full band, with drums and keyboard and bass and things backing up main guy Joe Walsh (no, not that Joe Walsh)’s simple, short, revelatory songs and his brother Sam’s politely tangled psychey guitar-work.

It’s a transition that works well.

And, uh, there ya go really. ‘Tendrils’ highlight ‘Like It Was’ is reworked here as ‘Like It Was Again’, clearer lyrics and rhythm section serving to enhance the weirdly anthemic power of the original draft without sacrificing its eerie earworm fascination. ‘Stream’ and ‘Yards’ are great full band originals, nailing yet more otherworldly melodies to generous bursts of the kind of mid-fi fuzz rock exegesis that Dignan can pull off as a live band when they’re on form. ‘I’m A Saint’ meanwhile takes the plunge into full-on psyche, sounding not unlike some faux-folky oddity you might find tucked away on side 2 of a H.P. Lovecraft or Country Joe & The Fish album. ‘I Threw Myself Off Tower Bridge’ heads off in the opposite direction, a straight-up, clean-vocaled tune that would probably have given the game away back when I imagined Dignan Porch came from Indianapolis or somewhere, with a recognisable strain of self-deprecating British indie shining through.

Possessed of one of best gifts for melody currently abroad in indieish-music-world, a welcome taste for thrift and conciseness and a beautiful, home-made bedroom world of psychedelic sound, Dignan Porch are really something. They do a form of music that I really like, and they do it really well. Almost every song on the 12” is flat out brilliant, not a second is wasted, and I am greatly anticipating anything/everything they do in 2012.

Soundcloud > Yards

Labels: Amen Dunes, best of 2011, Crawling Age, Dignan Porch, Fungi Girls, Zombie Zombie

20. Vapid – Practically Dead (Nominal / Deranged)

And this year’s award for best band that sounds exactly like Bikini Kill goes to…
But seriously folks, I kid - after a disconcerting opening ten seconds that I hope I’m mishearing, Vancouver’s Vapid have an absolute ripper of a furious, depoliticised post-riot grrl punk rock album on the go here.

“The Vancouver new wave scene is tough and raunchy,” claimed a hilarious local TV announcer back in 1979, and clearly such logic applies no less today, as Vapid’s singer announces “hey cunt-hole bitch I’ve come to even the score” within her debut record’s first minute and the band proceed to kick through a set of sub-two minute cuts including “Die”, “Sex Stains”, “Bruises” and “Hate You”. In spite of all appearances though, Vapid are not hardcore – more just amped up, aggressive pop-punk really, somewhat reminiscent of the Avengers, Zeros, Dils etc, all cut through with a ‘90s guitar sound and hectoring vocal delivery that speaks of some serious quality time spent in the company of Kathleen and the girls/boy, Bratmobile, God Is My Co-Pilot and yadda yadda yadda.

Call me a wuss if you like, but whilst the comedy aggro is all good fun, I think the album really hits its stride when Vapid give in to their pop instincts on the second half, letting “So Far Gone”, “Movin’ On” and particularly “Death of Youth” stand out as some of the flat out best songs I’ve heard this year.

I dunno how long these girls and guys have been in the game, but it’s notable I think that many of the best numbers here seem to betray a certain wistful, ‘best is behind us’ vibe that hits pretty hard in combination with propulsive, pogo-worthy tunes. Here’s hoping it’s an approach they’ll find the energy to expand on in future, moreso than settling scores with cunthole bitches. Although that would be fine too.

But seriously guys, “Death of Youth” is something else – one of my picks of the year, for sure.

Mp3> Death of Youth


19. Dignan Porch – Tendrils (Captured Tracks)

Um, another one that’s gonna be hard to write about here, I fear. ‘Dignan Porch’ is a terrible name for a group, but I was drawn to their record because I like the cover so much. I’ve never managed to catch them live, but they are some people, apparently based in London. “Tendrils” sounds like a bunch of beautiful little song-writing demos, the kind that it’s easy to imagine some shit band in the ‘90s would have felt the need to blow up into airless, overproduced four minute full band arrangements, then gone around earnestly trying to convince everyone that they’ve recorded the best album in the world, as the gentle promise of the original demos fades away unheard.

Thankfully though, Dignan Porch are not a shit band from the ‘90s, so, in the free n’ easy world of 2010, we can relax and enjoy the demos. These are primarily realised through the means of a strummed acoustic guitar, over which somebody else plays terrific Barry Melton/J. Mascis-styled decorative electric lead. A fairly agreeable male vocalist sings simple, quiet songs through some nice, woozy Leslie speaker type effects.

I realise this sounds pretty awful, but don’t bail yet.

All of these songs are short – none of them outstay their welcome. A verse, a chorus or two, and they’re out. How refreshing is that from some guys who evidently play acoustic guitars in public places? Furthermore, all of these songs really strong melodies, frequently crossing the line into teen-movie-soundtrack hooks so relentlessly big and shameless that by the half-way point they start to sound almost manipulative.

Such uninhibited pop/rock bullseyeing, in combination with the woozy, Skip Spence / Elevators campfire psych dilated pupil fecklessness of the whole venture, is a combination that works extremely well for me. Sometimes they sound a bit like the shorter, weirder songs from Bee Thousand-era GBV. Sometimes they sound like Alasatair Galbraith’s group, The Rip. Sometimes they remind me of “Naked If We Want To” off the first Moby Grape album. Sometimes they even sound a little bit like Carl Simmons. Mostly though, they sound a bit like an acoustic(ish) Dinosaur Jr, getting high and trying to sound all witchy.

I dunno what any of these songs are s’posed to be about, and I don’t much care. They sound fantastic, and they have a real nice, human feeling to them, and this is a great record.

I wish I hadn’t started throwing that phrase ‘campfire psych’ around all the time. It sounds stupid I know, but it’s just this category I seem to have developed in my head, and I’m at a loss as to how else to file bands like this one, y’know? Suggestions for a better sub-sub-genre label welcomed at the usual address.

Mp3> As You Were


18. The Mantles – Pink Information EP (Mexican Summer)

From November this year:

“This year’s follow-up EP, ‘Pink Information’ on Mexican Summer, sees The Mantles reversing the natural trajectory taken by a lot of groups, stepping back from the ‘dark, sweeping drama’ approach of their LP in favour of a scrappier, more elemental pop angle, somewhat reminiscent of The Clean’s early material – a pretty encouraging turn of events, I’m sure you’d agree.

Happily, the EP also finds the band’s songwriting hitting a whole new level. I mean, what can I tell you – “Cascades” and “Situations” and just some of the most compulsively listenable songs I’ve heard this year, twisting and chugging, dead-pan and sweet and cool and… well, just perfect, really. Perfect in a way you never realised was ‘perfect’ until you heard it. There's a wildness here that there wasn't quite enough of on the LP; that bit just before the end of "Situations", where he exclaims "in the laboratory, the midnight hour..." before aborting the verse and ploughing straight back in a final chorus just blows my mind.

“Lily Never Married” is even better, sounding like one of those songs about unhappy family members and cloudy days that Ray Davies used to stick in the middle of mid-‘60s Kinks albums like morbid cries for help, catapulted back to our attention via a flawless Velvets groove and unbearably simple/poignant chord progression – a sad, humane song, using a few chords, a rhythm, a handful of repeated lyrics, to carry the quiet sorrow of an ordinary, wasted life into a place of real transcendence. “Now she's old / what can you say? / People just don't do / that anymore...”. Fitting those magic notes and words together, like Ray or Lou Reed used to be able to do every now and again. Five minutes passes in the space of, ooh, two and a half, easy. It’s really, really great.

I don’t like the song “Summer Read” quite so much as I used to, since I clocked the title and realised the opening line isn’t “TREAT ME LIKE A SUBMARINE”, but it’s still pretty good.

After some reflection, I think The Mantles are one of the only American “indie-rock” bands – in the sense of being unaffiliated with the conventions and fandom of garage or pop or punk or noise or psych or whatever else – whose output I really care for at present.”

Mp3> Lily Never Married


17. The Specific Heats – Cursed! (Fun With Absetos / Saganism)

Back in August, I wrote this about seein’ The Specific Heats play live:

“Boy, The Specific Heats are an amazing band! I was pretty blown away when I caught them on their visit to the UK last summer, and this time, if anything, I like them even better. They’ve survived a couple of line-up changes since then, and the presence Eric on bass rather undermines my previous assumption that Matt Patalano had deliberately built himself an ultimate rock n’ roll band of pretty ladies to help him bring his songs to the world, but that aside the new recruits fit in seamlessly. The whole deal is still essentially Matt’s baby after all, and he’s on exuberant form here, leaping around like a kid at a birthday party, wringing lunatic stuntman solos from his groovy Ventures guitar. Keira Flynn-Carson still gives the impression of being the happiest drummer on the planet, and the band’s high spirits are pretty contagious as they rip through a good dozen of their more upbeat numbers without a bummer to be seen.

Pulling influences from all over the shelf marked “the last 50 years of pop-infused rock n’ roll”, the ‘Heats combination of ‘60s pop-sike baroque, breathless Sloan/Weezer-style power-pop, surf-rock dynamics and good-natured Nuggets goofery is an exultant expression of high wire walking musical synthesis, and their new LP “Cursed!” is a veritable belter. And if “Baby I’m An Existentialist” ends up sounding almost exactly like “Down & Out” by Camper Van Beethoven, and “All I Want” is The Modern Lovers’ “Someone I Care About” rewritten via The Seeds’ “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine”… well how can this possibly be anything other than a good thing? Originality is overrated.

The term ‘psychedelic pop’ gets thrown around so often these days it’s almost become offputting, [so] it’s fucking great to hear such a strong, funny, talented band stepping up to the plate and just plain OWNING that once noble descriptor. See ‘em, hear ‘em, however you’re able.”

Most of that applies nicely to their long-awaited (in certain quarters) second LP too. This is a really GREAT sounding psyche-pop album, full of delightfully dusty analogue reverbs, slapback echoes, strange drifty mysteries and weird Joe Meek squelches – the sonic equivalent of the paisley that bedecks the cover art. The songs are great and lively, and Matt’s heart-on-sleeve lyrics are funny and goofy and affecting. Anyone out there still looking for ‘that Elephant 6 sound’, but not wishing to suffocate themselves with insufferable beardy boredom: The Specific Heat are waiting.

Mp3> Baby, I’m an Existentialist


16. Wyatt / Atzmon / Stephen - For The Ghosts Within (Domino)


To be honest with you, I’m a small-minded, rock n’ roll-fixated jerk, and as such it is extremely unlikely that I would be found checking out the work of Palestinian saxophonist Gilad Atzmon or composer/string arranger Ros Stephen were it not for the unmistakable presence brought to this collaborative album by Robert Wyatt.

I suppose that one of the things that has most defined Wyatt’s career over the years has been the conflict between musical avant-gardism and old fashioned sentimentality – a conflict which has resolved itself in his best work not through compromise but through a beautiful kind of synthesis – music that strives for universal relevance, basic human connection, through new, open-ended means. And if the chasm between comfort and innovation on “For The Ghosts Within” is at times a little more uncomfortable than it was on Wyatt’s masterful “ComicOpera”, well it is a no less intriguing and enjoyable work for it, and it is certainly nice to hear Wyatt letting his metaphorical hair down, using the collaborative setting to indulge some of his more… well if I say ‘comfortable’, ‘sentimental’ urges, those sound like fairly negative distinctions within the parlance of modern music-scribble, but I certainly don’t mean them at such.

At the risk of making undue generalisations, both Atzmon and Stephen would seem to be quite backward-looking artists, though again, I don’t mean that in a negative sense. The former, as showcased here, sounds like a dedicated disciple of (oxymoron alert) classic-era modern jazz, his highly lyrical playing recalling the weighty tone and incandescent emotion of early ‘60s Miles, or Coltrane on his slower numbers. Stephen’s string arrangements meanwhile, though never corny or overblown, can’t help but recall the rich, sweeping scores of a ‘quality’ 1950s film, zeroing in on, say, the kind of aching theme one might expect to accompany a lady being quietly heartbroken, exiting a Paris café against a beautifully photographed black & white sky.

Appropriate to this inviting old world atmosphere, Wyatt finally grasps the nettle and gives in to his perhaps long-standing desire to full scale Chet Baker, bringing his own characteristically idiosyncratic interpretation to a variety of ‘classic’ tunes. Of course, Wyatt is the kind of man who could sing the phonebook and invest it with a unique pathos (in fact he probably has done at some point in his career), so to hear him apply his himself to such old warhorses as Raskin/Mercer’s “Laura” or Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life”, accompanied by Atzmon & Stephen’s cooked-to-perfection backing, is a plainly beautiful experience. Cutting through decades of accumulated schmaltz like the proverbial knife through butter, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find any genuine lover of 20th century song who is not touched by hearing Wyatt’s voice wrapped around these storied words, whilst even his extra-vocal contributions to instrumental standards “Round Midnight” and “In A Sentimental Mood” manage to help raise their original potent spirit above the parapets of dinner-jazz monotony. In an achievement perhaps only equalled in recent history by Joey Ramone himself, Wyatt and co. actually manage to close the album by delivering “What A Wonderful World” straight-faced, and getting away with it… just about.

This being essentially a Wyatt record though, some more challenging, personal content is clearly needed/expected, and indeed the album’s overall highlight is probably “Lullaby For Lena”, a beautiful new song that sees Wyatt singing a set of simple, almost subliminal lyrics composed by his wife Alfie – “I was there for you / long before the day that I was born” . It is heart-stoppingly beautiful, standing alongside the very best moments from Wyatt’s solo albums.

Our man’s unflagging dedication to both experimentalism and political consciousness meanwhile is borne out in both the album’s thematic dedication to displaced peoples the world over, and the lengthy and somewhat confounding title track, which sees its cool, desert supper-club atmospherics and strident guest vocal from Tali Atzmon rudely interrupted when it segues into the next cut, where a volley of weird dixieland flourishes and faux-gramophone atmospherics from Atzmon is cut short by the break-beatin’ arrival of a pair of Palestinian rappers. Whilst the whole suite stands firm as a solid-as-fuck statement of political intent, it sadly must be said that these guys ain’t exactly the Wu-Tang Clan, and that their unexpected presence only really succeeds in standing out like a sore thumb amid this album’s polished musical world. One to chalk up as a ‘noble failure’ perhaps, but it has succeeded on numerous occasions in jerking me out of the wine-sipping late night reverie inspired by the familiar, upholstered surfaces of the rest of the album – and isn’t it exactly this kind of odd clash of moods, style, genre, nationalities, expectations, this search for a wholly borderless, universal new music, that has helped to define Robert Wyatt as one of the most consistently inspired musicians of his generation or any other?

Mp3> Laura

Labels: best of 2010, Dignan Porch, Robert Wyatt, The Mantles, The Specific Heats, Vapid