Category: Reviews (Page 191 of 200)

PET SHOP BOYS Elysium

2 September 2012 /

The UK’s most consistent elder statesmen of synthpop are “back-back-BACK!”

Yes, former Smash Hits Deputy Editor Neil Tennant and “his grumpy friend” (as NEW ORDER’s Bernard Sumner once referred to Chris Lowe) have had their imperial phase with their stellar first albums ‘Please’, ‘Actually’, ‘Introspective’, ‘Behaviour’ and ‘Very’ while also heading “down the dumper” with the Britpop flavoured ‘Release’. Their most recent long player, the Xenomania produced ‘Yes’ was a return to form of sorts after the below expectations ‘Fundamental’, but struggled with repeated plays.

However, the accompanying ‘Pandemonium’ world tour was a tremendously entertaining spectacle. Indeed, PET SHOP BOYS changed perceptions of how live shows could be presented back in 1991 with the ‘Performance’ tour… costume theatricals, pre-programmed backing, no musicians on stage, backing singers doing lead vocals while Neil Tennant took a breather and Chris Lowe participating as one of the dancers! Rock purists got upset but everyone else loved it and followed suit.

With their appearance at the London Olympics 2012 Closing Ceremony, PET SHOP BOYS are now firmly part of British musical folklore, a consulate representation to the world of not only what it is to be British but particularly, to be English.

So what of the new long player ‘Elysium’? Co-produced in Los Angeles by Andrew Dawson who worked with KANYE WEST, it certainly isn’t the popfest that ‘Yes’ was. It perhaps is more closely related to the introspection of ‘Release’ or possibly ‘Behaviour’.

Opener and second single ‘Leaving’ is beautifully laid back, a classic PSB beat ballad in the vein of ‘The Samurai In Autumn’ but with a Californian sun kissed vibe. The album’s Olympic themed first single ‘Winner’ though certainly doesn’t capture the thrill one would expect from the title… it’s ‘I Get Along’ without the guitars! The album’s tempo remains steadfast and doesn’t up until a third of the way through with ‘A Face Like That’ before it all slows down again with an acoustic guitar providing the backbone to the string laden ‘Breathing Space’.

No PET SHOP BOYS album though would be complete without a touch of irony and that comes with ‘Your Early Stuff’ and ‘Ego Music’. “You’ve been around but you don’t look too rough and I still quite like some of your early stuff” announces the former, while the latter sends up the lot of the seriously up-himself musician. Tennant deadpans: “I see myself as a building, my mind is the office where the work gets done… there’s a real purity to my work, a childish innocence but I’m also smart and sophisticated”; all very amusing.

Also amusing but for perhaps the wrong reasons is ‘Hold On’ which sounds like it was written for Disney! But it all lifts again on ‘Memory Of The Future’ with its rousing anthemic chorus and old fashioned synths in the manner of ‘All Over The World’.

The soulful ‘Give It A Go’ takes its lead from the RAMSEY LEWIS instrumental ‘Wade In The Water’ but to close, there’s the brilliantly titled ‘Requiem in Denim & Leopardskin’. Adding latin percussion and LOVE UNLIMITED styled loveboat backing, it provides possibly the album’s highlight. It’s like a cross between ‘Being Boring’ and ‘Liberation’. The lyric “This is our last chance for goodbye, let the music begin…” could have a veiled message.

The advancing years may have made PET SHOP BOYS less club friendly than the past but thank god they haven’t gone dubstep or anything horrific like that. At least with the chilled down atmosphere, they’re acting their age. While ‘Elysium’ is maybe not the most exciting thing around at the moment, Messrs Tennant and Lowe have done their bit for the cultural revolution and for that, they deserve the utmost respect.

‘Elysium’ is released by EMI Records on 10th September 2012

http://www.petshopboys.co.uk/

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https://twitter.com/petshopboys

Text by Chi Ming Lai
2nd September 2012

IAMAMIWHOAMI Kin

30 August 2012 /

IAMAMIWHOAMI is the enigmatic electronic multimedia project fronted by Jonna Lee and managed by DEF, the same stable that represent THE KNIFE, ROYKSOPP, Robyn and Moby worldwide.

First coming to the attention of the musical cognoscenti via a set of mysterious viral videos with alphanumeric code titles, media speculation was rife that this was a side project by THE KNIFE, Björk and even Christina Aguilera! Following another YouTube campaign, the first purchasable full length download releases which featured single letter titles and eventually formed the ‘B.O.U.N.T.Y.’ indicated that even without the visuals, behind the mystery and the perceived pretence, there was accessible avant pop. From that collection, ‘T’ was an undoubted highlight.

But the best was yet to come with two outtakes from the sessions, ‘Clump’ and ‘John’. ‘Clump’ was a synthetically charged amalgam of vintage sounds with a toy piano thrown in for good measure. Delightfully odd in that Björk-like fashion, ‘John’ continued the tradition. And now, following a track-by-track audio visual campaign, Jonna Lee with silent partner and producer Claes Björklund release their long-awaited first full length physical album ‘Kin’

The album opens superbly, ‘Sever’ is surreal and otherworldly while ‘Drops’ is more uptempo, almost trancelike but without the overbearing beats that a lot of contemporary dance music suffers from. The fits of noise and shivering textures add to the hypnotism. Although comparisons can be drawn immediately with FEVER RAY, ‘Kin’ is quite different in that musically, it is low on drones and atonal experimentation. But while still sonically leftfield, there are ice station melodies, primitive rhythm units that are strangely futuristic and windy widescreen effects that hop from channel to channel.

Indeed, ‘Kin’ is head music, probably best suited to headphones for the full drama to be appreciated. The high standard is mantained with ‘Good Worker’, while ‘Play’ offers a cacophony of KATE BUSH-like voices to an off-kilter beat before the deviantly wonderful ‘In Due Order’ takes hold. A vintage sequence drives ‘Idle Talk’ over glacial atmospheres while ‘Rascal’ takes a funereal pace with Jonna Lee’s vocal samples coming over like Arctic gospel as of snaps of synth burst in.

The frosty ‘Kill’ acts as an eerie basecamp before the final ascent into ‘Goods’. Here, the percussion and bass take on classic synthpop territory while a brilliantly freeform electronic lead line segues the verses on possibly the most immediate song on the album. It’s almost like THE KNIFE meets LITTLE BOOTS!

Jonna Lee’s piercing larynx will polarise listeners like Karin Dreijer-Andersson or Björk Guðmundsdóttir have done before her but they do provide a raw edge to accompany the wintry soundscapes. Nordic weirdness in all its glory; across its nine tracks, ‘Kin’ is dreamy and trippy, a mind expansive experience that will satisfy aural curiosity.

‘Kin’ is released internationally in CD+DVD, download and vinyl formats on 3rd September 2012 by Co-Operative Music/To Whom It May Concern

IAMAMIWHOAMI plays the UK for the first time at London South Bank Centre’s Ether Festival on 10th October 2012

http://www.youtube.com/user/iamamiwhoami

http://www.facebook.com/pages/iamamiwhoami/270417754335

http://www.iamamiwhoami.net/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
30th August 2012

GRIMES Genesis

23 August 2012 /


Montreal’s GRIMES aka Claire Boucher seems to be sending blogland and the YouTube comments page (not known for its heights of intelligencia) into a state of frenzy with her promo video for ‘Genesis’.

Directed by Boucher herself, the young Canadian could be forgiven for thinking: “Pretentious? MOI?”. But her wry smiles seem to indicate that this, like AUSTRA’s video for ‘Spellwork’, is not to be taken that seriously as Boucher and pals have rather a lot of fun in the Californian desert.

Driven by a Klingklang styled rhythm section, the song’s pentatonic scaling show GRIMES’ affinity towards South East Asian culture; indeed the striking pink haired character played by Brooke Candy could have walked straight out of an Anime series. And judging by the baseball cap Boucher wears at the beginning, she likes cats…not to be left out, the video also features snakes!

From the critically acclaimed album ‘Visionss’, ‘Genesis’ is one of several kookily inventive tunes including ‘Oblivion’, ‘Be A Body’, ‘Colour Of Moonlight (Antiochus)’ and ‘Vowels = Space & Time’ that will provide a rewarding listen to those prepared for the aural challenge of some hybrid electro influenced by K-Pop, New Age and RnB.

‘Visions’ is released by 4AD Records in the UK

GRIMES plays London Heaven on 5th September 2012

http://www.grimesmusic.com

https://www.facebook.com/Grimes

Text by Chi Ming Lai
23rd August 2012

The Very Best Of BLANCMANGE

16 July 2012 /

Back in 2008, reissue label Edsel licensed BLANCMANGE’s three albums ‘Happy Families’, ‘Mange Tout’ and ‘Believe You Me’ from Warners.

Although it was great to have these long players available on CD for the first time since their original release with turned up sound and bonus tracks, they were notable for their errors and omissions plus some unsympathetic liner notes by Alan Robinson.

For example, ‘Happy Families’ was missing the original album version of ‘Waves’ along with the notable B-sides ‘I Would’ and ‘Running Thin’ due to contractual issues with the BBC! Meanwhile ‘Mange Tout’ was missing the album cut of ABBA cover ‘The Day Before You Came’. There was also the much discussed absence of the 12 inch version of ‘What’s Your Problem?’ from the extra tracks on ‘Believe You Me’.

However, BLANCMANGE got off lightly compared with Edsel’s ALTERED IMAGES reissues which featured mixes of songs duplicated across their three albums despite being labelled otherwise, tracks mastered off flexi-discs, more muted sleeve notes from the same writer (who clearly disliked Claire Grogan & Co) and in the sad case of ‘Bite’, half of the album consisting of entirely the wrong versions! Thankfully, some of those missing tracks by The Maiden Aunts of Techno have surfaced on ‘The Very Best Of BLANCMANGE’, a timely new 2CD collection compiled by Music Club Deluxe with input from Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe themselves.

Music Club Deluxe, an arm of Edsel’s parent group Demon, have made a concerted effort to work with Warners to source masters and negotiate around any contractual issues with the BBC to plug the essential gaps in BLANCMANGE’s digital catalogue.

While all the singles like ‘God’s Kitchen’, ‘Feel Me’ ‘Living On The Ceiling’, ‘Blind Vision’, ‘Don’t Tell Me’ and ‘That’s Love That it Is’ are included, it is the rarities and selected album highlights (including most of ‘Happy Families’ and songs such as ‘Murder’ and ‘All Things Are Nice’) which make this collection.

The original version of ‘Sad Day’ from the ‘Some Bizzare Album’ is all present and correct. In 1981, this futurist showcase launched the careers of DEPECHE MODE, SOFT CELL, THE THE and B-MOVIE as well as that of BLANCMANGE. Here, Neil Arthur’s twangy guitar is augmented by a Minipops rhythm box and Stephen Luscombe’s Wasp synth bass reminiscent of ENO’s ‘The Fat Lady Of Limbourg’. Very different from the more familiar Oldfield-ish album version, ‘Sad Day’ was the start that eventually led to prestigious support slots with DEPECHE MODE, GRACE JONES and JAPAN as well as a deal with London Records.

Also from those fledgling years are the superb Peel Session tracks ‘Running Thin’ and ‘I Would’ which later cropped up on the flip of ‘Living On The Ceiling’. Both are stark and almost minimal but ‘I Would’ with its clattering rhythms is menacing while ‘Running Thin’ is more resigned in tone. Interestingly in retrospect, they hint at 2011’s ‘Blanc Burn’ album more than anything that featured on the original London LPs.

And as if to make the link, new track ‘Making Aeroplanes’, an outtake from the ‘Blanc Burn’ sessions follows this vintage pair on CD1. One notable inclusion on CD2 of ‘The Very Best Of BLANCMANGE’ is the album version of ‘Waves’. Without the strings, it is like SCOTT WALKER fronting OMD with the sombre detuned brass line allowed to breathe at the song’s conclusion. For those that want it, the single mix with the orchestra is there but this earlier version IS much better and strangely more emotive. Sometimes, less can mean more.

But best of all as far as the rarities go is ‘Hello Darling’ by Stephen Luscombe side-project BLUE WORLD which first appeared as a BLANCMANGE credited track in 1986 on Record Mirror’s free cassette ‘Spools Gold’. Available on CD for the first time, it is an early mash-up where Bollywood meets Giorgio Moroder.

The track is based around a sample of Indian comedian Kishore Kumar from a film called ‘Darling Darling’ which Luscombe saw as a teenager growing up in Southall. It ended up as part of the soundtrack for a BBC documentary ‘The Legend of Leigh Bowery’ about the fashion icon who designed the costumes for BLANCMANGE’s 1984 tour and despite being recorded nearly 30 years ago, it sounds amazingly contemporary.

Although the 12 inch version of ‘What’s Your Problem?’ and single mix of ‘I Can See It’ are still missing, thanks to the masters being lost within Warner Music’s vaults, ‘The Very Best Of BLANCMANGE’ is an essential artefact for the duo’s many fans. A lot of the important material tracing the quirky duo’s history is now thankfully restored, albeit not quite in its rightful place. But thanks to the efforts of Music Club Deluxe, Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe, this collection is an informed start to at least softening past mistakes made by others.

As for Music Club Deluxe’s colleagues in the next office at Edsel… do a bit of research and ask! Attention to detail doesn’t hurt! There are plenty of people out there who are willing to give their time for the music they love, simply because they care!

‘The Very Best Of BLANCMANGE’ is released by Music Club on 23rd July 2012

http://www.blancmange.co.uk

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https://twitter.com/_blancmange_

Text by Chi Ming Lai
16th July 2012

MARSHEAUX The E-Bay Queen Is Dead

9 July 2012 /

‘The E-bay Queen Is Dead’ is a fantastic collection of rarities, covers and unreleased tracks from the MARSHEAUX archives.

Although the artwork pays tribute to THE SMITHS’ ‘The Queen Is Dead’, content wise, the album probably has more in common with the Manchester foursome’s ‘Hatful Of Hollow’. Housed in two different vinyl replica gatefold sleeves featuring Marianthi and Sophie in that iconic pose made famous by Alain Delon, these CDs are worth the purchase price for that alone…but what about the content?

As can be expected from the Athens synth maidens, the quality is top notch. ‘Do You Feel?’ and ‘Inside’ aka ‘Thirteen/True’, which were recorded during the sessions for their upcoming new album ‘Inhale’, are a fine indicator of what could be expected from this highly anticipated fourth long player. Previewed online earlier this year, they reveal the high standards of MARSHEAUX’s output even though this pair will not be included on the final tracklisting.

The ‘Breakthrough’ B-side ‘How Does It Feel?’ is a suitably strange mechanised addition to the tradition with its wobbly effects and chopped up breathy samples. ‘Sadly’ is another fine tune originally recorded for their second album while there is also the brilliant FRONT 242 influenced ‘Bizzare Love Duo’ which was previously a vinyl only release coupled with ‘Ghost’.

Meanwhile, ‘Ghost’ itself makes an appearance in the form of a great Smash Up with FOTONOVELA’s ‘Hammer’, turning the song into a more dance laden cocktail. And despite being a slightly more throwaway offering, the ironically titled ‘Fischerprice’ is good fun although unlikely to win any songwriters awards.

MARSHEAUX are known for their charmingly delightful synthpop covers and THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s ‘Empire State Human’, Billy Idol’s ‘Eyes Without A Face’ and a solo interpretation of OMD’s ‘She’s Leaving’ are all present and correct. However, their version of DEPECHE MODE’s ‘New Life’ from Undo’s ‘A Greek Tribute To Depeche Mode’ CD is absent and would have been preferable to the shortened stripped down alternate strings mix of NEW ORDER’s ‘Regret’ from ‘Peek ABoo’.

Of the little heard archive recordings included, the electroboppy instrumental ‘Now & Never’ is a very promising demo that would make Vince Clarke proud while the two short variations of a theme entitled ‘Fly Away’ and ‘Cosmogirl’ indicate the potential for a magnificent full length composition. ‘The E-bay Queen Is Dead’, despite the disparate sources of the tracks, delivers a mostly cohesive listening experience and will become a highly collectable artefact. So don’t hesitate… if you see it, buy one. Or two if you fancy owing the set!

‘The E-bay Queen Is Dead’ is released by Undo Records and will be available as a CD and download

For the girls’ liner notes on the tracks, please view their blog entry at: http://marsheaux.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/e-bay-queen-is-dead-but-sophie-says-she-isnt/

http://www.marsheaux.com

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Text by Chi Ming Lai
9th July 2012

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