Two New EPs - Matthew E White & Parquet Courts

MATTHEW E WHITE / OUTER FACE 

                        &

PARQUET COURTS / TALLY UP THE THINGS THAT YOU BROKE

These two releases fit together for several reasons. Despite being music made from different cloths, both are supporting EPs released in October, which follow on from critically successful debut albums at the start of 2013. Both albums to this day are two of the year’s best releases. What they lack in similarity they share in quality. Both are American and are rather unknown to the masses at the moment, though they should clearly be finding larger audiences in the imminent future. The EPs are another step forward and a nice stop gap to end what has been a wonderful introductory year to the world, and cause those who know of the magic on these two act’s records to await their next move with eager anticipation.

So, to the first EP... Matthew E White has seemingly come from nowhere, released a debut album that verges on ‘classic’ and become a cult figure for hairy outsiders and other oddballs everywhere. His soft tones have you leaning in, to try to get closer to the songs, and by the time you have fallen in you have been consumed by a sound so sweet and songs so well crafted, there is no return, and it would not be sought in any case.

Matthew has a tender voice, even a little too low in the mix at times, hiding how well he can or cannot sing, but it works in the context of these tracks, and it is a trick he has quickly mastered. The standard of song writing is what surprises. Before his releases this year he has worked with other musicians, on Avant-garde jazz projects and production for other acts, but his talent to build structures of songs that sound both simple and complex and fit strings and backing vocals so perfectly into these tracks again elevates them to another plateau. It's shocking how good he is at this for the most part. The way ‘Human Style’ slips beyond the defences, into the mind and seduces the listener is a thing to behold, and it isn’t far from the case with the rest of his songs, both here and on the debut LP, ‘Big Inner.’ In fact, the album and EP have been packaged together now, as one release as well, and with 12 songs in total, that is one feast for any fan of impressive new music. Many of the songs are long, they unfold, they curl around you and consume you, and you can’t shake them loose. Once inside these songs your life has changed forever.

The strings are a journey back in time, some of the female backing vocals harp back to classic Motown and there is nothing any less than tender, grandiose and majestic here. This music is soothing and sensational. A special artist has arrived.

As for Parquet Courts, there is a ramshackle quality that rather than cause a feeling they may not harness and direct their potential the band is already aware of and somehow able to get the most out of. Take ‘The More It Works,’ for example, it sounds messy and improvised at the same time as being perfectly planned and executed. The guitars swing back and forth as they do, like a maze of pendulums. It all sounds smash ‘n’ grab, the dynamic sound of youth, the thrill of the ride, the potential, and the spectacular destruction. The way the repetition of the song's title enforces the statement is staggering. By the middle of the song, the screamed words 'the more it works' soon give way only moments later to a more tired take on the same message, until by the end of the song, increasingly weary, the singer sounds like he is falling drunkenly asleep muttering those very same words.

These songs may initially sound throwaway to some, but they are guitar rock songs with a pop edge that cause a rush. It’s one of those bands that instantly hits the nail on the head. Much as the band’s debut the songs here are fun and make rock ‘n’ roll seem both young/new and old at the same time. It’s an effortless game, pulled off with some charm and the band offer the sense that they aren't a one trick pony. Time will tell. This is music to get drunk to, to have fun to, to fall in love for the first time to, or simply put a smile on the face; couldn’t ask for much more really.

Fine releases to top off splendid years for both artists, and highly recommended. 

Anna Calvi / One Breath

Anna Calvi’s sophomore release is clearly a beautiful and well crafted album from the start. She emerges from the shadows of any artists she may have been compared with in the early stages of her career, like a caterpillar that has come into daylight as a brand new butterfly. She proves she can fly and impress with a flight pattern all of her own. The music across these 11 songs shifts the listener through a wide array of feelings, from discomfort to sublime ecstasy.

The sonic palette, from gentle almost whispered vocals surrounded by delicate guitar and instrumentation up to almost heavy rock distortion and noise, often in the space of a moment, causes the listener to never have a chance to settle, endlessly on the edge of the seat, as if following a film with the most gripping of plots. The moments in which she sweeps us away with cinematic strings and classical, in fact, operatic waves of orchestral music, both vocally and instrumentally, are tantamount to being attacked, tied up and tortured, such is the gravitas of intensity. It is a phenomenal sound, as powerful as you could expect or ever be likely to encounter. She has new ideas, she is playful, yet it is all executed with precision and grace. She has a knack of finding the sounds that are in her heart and in her head, and they are highly listenable, catchy in parts, and intoxicating.

To make a good debut album is one thing, to follow it up with a progression, an improvement of the template of one’s sound and show even more potential for your own future is certainly no easy feat. Anna Calvi has done all of this and more here, in what elevates her to one of the best songwriters and most unique talents out there. All of this, in a time of so many gifted artists, is indeed high praise. I would suggest tracking her career path and awaiting each move she makes with baited breath, as her ‘one breath’ is an astounding achievement and soundtrack of a mystical mind. 

Manic Street Preachers / Rewind the Film

The first striking thing about this record is the minimalistic and sublime artwork. In fact, it captures the attention from the first contact, as you can’t be certain at all what is contained within. To some extent the music matches the artwork well, and in other senses these songs are bigger than the simple image on the cover. Either way, the two are signals of a band at peace with itself. It is that which is most striking about this album. Here is a band that has a now rather long history, is well over 20 years into its career, and yet still maintains a passion and motivation that perhaps many would have lost by now.

Manic Street Preachers doesn’t want to or attempt to sound like anybody else and it doesn’t. It clearly has many influences, but they drive the band to create something new rather than replicate. This is three men and a ghost from Wales that has just made one hell of a record. The band is comfortable in its shell, and has written and recorded twelve lovely tracks full of life and hope and wisdom that demand further listening. They aren’t the kind of songs that leave a listener descending into boredom, there is so much here to feast on and satisfy the listener. As musicians pass the forty year old mark it often signals some decline in form and attempts are made to recreate the past or re-invention goes horribly wrong. Here, growing older gracefully, in love with music and with some respect for it as a career and lifeline sounds gorgeous and necessary. There is brass, there are strings and there are ballads and louder, grander songs. It is all the Manics though; they are totally in control, owners of the direction of their musical journey now.

For all the evidence and suggestions that youngsters are the ones who own Rock ‘n’ Roll, how often have you thought that they don’t actually know anything, or even have much experience on which to base their lyrics and musings? On this record, you can witness the sound of people with something to say, telling stories, doing it in magnificent style, delighting their listeners and fans. It isn’t even about what has come before, a task hard for fans of any given band to comprehend, just taking the material here for what it is - a diverse, well constructed and lovely set of songs. There is wisdom only life and living can give us, and the results are delicious. This is a wonderful collection of songs. It is epic, delicate, grandiose, and reassuring. Somehow it feels made for just your ears alone, at the same time as being for everyone with the sense to give it a chance. Give it a chance.

Teeth of the Sea / Master

The new album by Teeth of the Sea is a record unlike any other experienced this year. It is bold and extravagant, but mostly it is a confident band that knows exactly what it wants to say through its own dark and corrupted world. It is dense and spooky, muscular and ultimately rather challenging. It’s no stretch of the imagination to picture this music being used as the soundtrack to the darkest, creepiest moments in a horror movie or a dramatic and tense thriller. There is a sense of claustrophobia that increasingly takes hold of the listener over the course of the album.

The music here is beyond categorisation, which with new genres being constantly created is, in itself, some feat. That the otherworldly music created by this London four-piece is also of such a high standard sets it apart from many others who could only hope to successfully transform new ideas into such well executed tracks.

If you are going to go 12 rounds in the ring with one album this year then make it this one, you won’t regret it. It surely isn’t easy going, but it has a definite sense of reward if you allow it to get under the skin.

The brass set off against an electronic and heavy background uneasily forcing its way into the foreground on ‘Siren Spectre’ as it all builds up is a thing of strange beauty. The distortion erupts; a fragile calmness seeps back into the track, and gives way to the next one.

The sound that is ‘All Human Is Error’ would seem to be a colossal statement, both as an indication of the band’s abilities and as a sonic portrayal of the fallibility that we all possess. The final piece of music here is epic. The listener's patience is rewarded and it is the peak of the crescendo, before leaving the listener wondering what has just happened.

It’s an almost barbaric record, in so many stunning and thought provoking ways. Without a shadow of a doubt, everybody should at least hear this album.

Here Comes Courtney Barnett

A young Australian lady is making waves. She has a guitar and a quick wit, and she wants to sing to us. She addresses the mundane, the every day events of our lives, and the things we can all relate to. She does so in a unique way, spinning us tales more like episodes of a soap opera. She has a lackadaisical approach, sounding almost stoned at times, but this is a veil to how much she loves what she does. Yes, in parts she has a lazy delivery, but it's mixed with some beautiful singing and an obvious sense of humour that could become sharpened by the song, as she shows great potential for future years. Her talent is clear from this starting point, the release of her double EP - consisting of an EP from 2012 and one from this year, packaged as an early indicator of her song writing - shows all that is necessary to know a special artist is born.

She turns the normal events of life into some television circus. You can see it happening, as she carves pictures with her words. That in itself most songwriters are far from capable of, but she goes even further, as one of the very few who seem to have an unusual voice and way of twisting words and melodies into catchy and gripping stories.

There are elements of a little girl in the songs, of a teenager, and of a grown woman. It’s a fascinating proposition for a music fan and someone who has spent many years enjoying a wide range of music, but has a soft spot for the singer-songwriter concept. It's endlessly playful, as if we are witnessing a young woman searching for and finding herself. This is a lady who is capable of much in her songs. The sound of thrashing guitars in parts displays her thrilling rock leanings, as she states growing up listening to Nirvana, and it shows. So it is much more than the singer-songwriter blueprint. She has cool videos that don’t copy anyone, in which she has fun and plays with her own ideas. She is smart, has intelligent words, seems in charge of her own destiny, and all with that dry delivery, soaked with humour and a love of song-writing. Writing songs is a magnificent way to ‘say something.’ There are times when it feels as though so few actually do this, and when it really comes along, it hits you for six.

So, Courtney Barnett, just twelve songs into her career has a long road ahead. She has started beautifully, maintaining a sense of what she is all about. I hope she stays true to that template, which is beautiful, as an artist and woman, and who could possibly expect any more.

The Beauty and Enduring Value of the Vinyl Record

Do you remember how you used to listen to music, how you used to explore the Arts? Do you remember the first piece of music you ever bought or even listened to? We live in an age in which the way we do things is ever changing, inspired by the comfort and ease at which the internet and computers give us access to the whole world, at the simple push of a button. But has it all become too easy, and what has happened to the music we all love and how it enters our lives now? It shapes our lives, as ever it did, but it has taken a completely different route and its value would seem to be rather different than it used to be. Only as individuals can we decide how we prefer it, but regardless of age, we should all question the way we consume things, or we are simply robotic where we should perhaps be more human.

Vinyl, Beautiful Vinyl

The vinyl record isn't just a way of listening to music, it is a way of living it, of breathing it, and of becoming a part of the songs that we love, the ones that soundtrack our lives, take us back in time, and reignite emotions and sensations that had long been dormant. It isn't just an experiment in nostalgia either, as its popularity, once on the wane, is growing again, perhaps as a reaction to the current method of buying and listening to music. That brings us to the internet and the downloading of music. What has become the easiest form of experiencing music, surely in its history, is also destroying the soul of it, leaving some pining for the days of yore, when you had to make a concerted effort to enable yourself to be able to listen to the new music by your favourite band or songwriter. Before, and at times it feels like an age ago already, people used to go and queue for the new release by their top band. They woke up early, walked down to the nearest record shop or got a bus into town and it created excitement, sometimes even fervour. On the rare occasion, the biggest record stores would open at midnight to start selling the release of some of the top acts. Once the music had been purchased fans hurried home to play it as quickly as they could. Music on vinyl records was listened to on a record player, glaring out through speakers attached to the sound system, not through some laptop computer on which a person runs the rest of their life - from work to games, and internet browsing to watching DVD's and much more.

The way vinyl looks, with the discernible grooves running around the 12-inch circular disc, the way it feels and you need two hands to handle it, like it were some precious object (which it is), and the way it sounds, from the first crackling notes, before the actual music on side A finally commences, it was entirely magical. Yes, the needle hits the groove and we are on a journey.

How much can you love something if you don't have to make any effort to get it? Even with CD you had to venture out to buy it in the shops, the experience of purchasing was the same, and now even that has diminished into an almost bygone part of the whole musical journey, a landscape shared between artist and fan.

Romanticism surrounds vinyl, the best shops where historically such releases could be purchased and the entire experience attached to the consumption of music in this way. It has a history and was a profound way of experiencing music that still lingers on, gaining popularity as it does again, in a time when it would seem to contradict what is normal. Those shops have vanished. The high street looks completely different. Gone are the second hand record stores (almost completely) that once brought character to the streets of city centres, that had a wide range of music buying fans browsing and departing shops with bags containing music, or a vinyl in its lovely sleeve under the arm. 

The giant companies have swooped down and taken over the entire industry. The small shops and companies were swallowed whole and the face of music has changed forever. Of course, as with everything in this life, evolution is natural and cannot be denied, but the changes are considered on a substantial scale to depict the soul of music having been sucked into a vacuum, from which it will never return. It isn't that there are other options; it is that this becomes the only option, leaving everything that came before it for dust. 

The Cassette Tape

The cassette tape, to a lesser extent is also considered special and missed by some. In fact, the more time that passes since the inevitable decline and death of this format of music, the more it seems to become some iconic symbol of cool much as the vinyl now is, it is one of the 'faces' of the soul of music. Memories attached to mix tapes and vinyl sleeves must surely come flooding back to those upward of their mid-twenties. Turning over the cassette tape, as with the vinyl, pulls you into the world of the music yet further. It is an experience that is gone from the way we buy music now, which has simply become too easy. The fun has been lost along the way. With the tape you felt like you were important, as if you were a part of it, you were intertwined with the music and the universe it created around you. You would never reach the second half of the album without intervening and taking some small part in the whole process. The tape sometimes got caught in a walkman or player and the actual magnetic tape inside would become unravelled and tangled and sometimes even destroyed. But this was a minor fault that also made it feel real and human. The mechanical world has us on a leash now, rather than us defining the world around and how we want to consume things. We still have choices, but it's more necessary than ever to resist the juggernaut of commercial sway, and in that contemplate what is easiest and what has genuine warmth and pleasure, such as both cassette and vinyl.

Compact Disc

The compact disc was the halfway house between the days of vinyl and downloading. It still involved the whole experience attached to purchasing music and had the attractive package, just in a smaller format than vinyl, but it held all the music on one side, shifting the way we heard the contents into a new age. It replaced vinyl really, though CD format is now suffering at the hands of downloading, while somehow vinyl seems as important as it has in a long time.

The Digital Age (downloading)

At the push of a button now, or if you have pre-ordered an album it even occurs in your sleep (as albums are released at midnight), downloading takes place. It’s easy, it’s time and space efficient, and of course, I thoroughly enjoy the music I purchase, as ever I did, I just no longer find satisfaction in the way I experience attaining it. The endless trips to buy music were a part of it; they were what gave it such additional euphoria. The lyrics and images on the large inner sleeve that contained the vinyl record were amazing, sometimes even leaving a fan spellbound as the music emerged from the speakers for the very first time. Even cassette and CD had this tangible booklet accompanying the music. Now though, any content supporting the music in booklet form comes as a PDF or downloadable computer file. It’s the same information, the same music; it just feels so completely different. Many things are easier these days than they have ever been before, but it leads me to ask what is really best, what has the most value as a consumer, as a fan, and as someone observing social and technological evolution.

The first record you ever bought or were given normally stands out, as being symbolic of an individual’s beginning as a music fan (and buyer). It is the start of a journey. How many people will so well remember a first download? Perhaps they will, but I feel sure I am not the only one who feels that something tangible, an object in the hands, feels far more real than anything else. I do not deny the convenience and the digital age even fits in with my own current lifestyle, but if I really had a choice I wouldn’t pick it over past formats even once.

In the end, and depending on your age, having seen several different formats and styles of presentation of music it is difficult not to question the changes and how we both benefit and suffer as a consequence. In life changes are inevitable and often they are made to make life easier and of course, unfortunately, for people to make mass quantities of money. Music is something that should be created without boundaries, and when it is a natural process I do not doubt this to be the case. To believe that it is then released in a manner and via a format that befits its contained hard work, creativity and talent would be possibly a stretch too far to imagine, but nevertheless we can dream. It isn’t just music, the world we live in has changed, but the way vinyl doesn't quite slip into the pantheon of past formats of music shows that not everyone is satisfied with and accepting of what we are told to consume. The vinyl is as beautiful an invention in the history of music as perhaps anything else, and it deserves to be heard, both as a viable and much-loved way of buying music and as a quality object through which to hear our favourite artists.

by Dominic James Stevenson              (October 5^th, 2013)

The Julie Ruin / Run Fast (Album Review)

The Julie Ruin's debut album 'Run Fast' is the closest to the punk pop euphoria of Yeah Yeah Yeahs' debut album a decade ago that I've heard since. That was an album I adore to this day, and this similarly bursts and bristles with energy, and boy, Kathleen Hanna, for a woman in her mid-forties proves how age isn't a factor as she screams and howls and sings into the wind, teaching a whole younger generation just how it should be done. Hanna has been around in one incarnation or another for over two decades, but the version that arrives here would seem to know exactly what she wants from life, from music, and how to say what she has inside. It's compelling to witness on this record. 

It's a lot of fun. It sounds like the artist is both youthful and experienced all at once, there is an exuberance that pours out of the speakers from song after song here. Its rough edges are deliberate, it explores other vibes and sounds within its punky pop songs. There is a multitude of ideas on display, all executed to near faultlessness. From the artwork to the supporting musicians it's an attractive package. There are lyrics that well depict the times and I'm not one for picking individual songs where albums are concerned as they fail to give an overview of what is on offer. If an artist has created an album, then my hope would be that it's because that is how it should be heard - as a complete set of songs held together. More often than not singles are taken from an album before and after its release, but they are only indicators of an act at that period and an album is the whole picture.

Hanna's voice has something to say, and deserves to be heard. It isn't forced into screaming, the weight is sublime, she knows when to explode and quiet down again. Her voice takes a natural course in reaching the yelping heights it does so well, and it's an inescapable conclusion and a weapon used to devastating effect. Her gentler tones are more profound as a nice counter to the fiercer moments. The voice fits excellently with the crisp and acute band, and genuinely seems to represent the woman, her thoughts and feelings. In short, it is a voice wielded shockingly well. It isn't about how technically good a voice is, but how it can be used to paint a picture on a blank canvas, along with the other instruments.

The noise here is from start to finish soulful, beautiful, well-crafted, inspirational and as much as anything thrilling. It's a little like a rollercoaster ride to those who love them, the rush is surely addictive and must be repeated. Being unsure as I am just how long it took to make, I can only suggest that it took exactly the amount required. Here is a gorgeous and delightful cacophony of an album, that shows age is no boundary when the heart and the head combine in the making of music.

Get on board, in a year full of strong releases I'd say this is up towards the top end, without a doubt.

'Run Fast' by The Julie Ruin is out now.