Scottish four piece Django Django are not an easy band to define. They came into public reckoning last year with this eponymous Mercury-nominated album, fusing electro-indie-pop with an inherent quirkiness that tends to separate the better bands from the mundane.
They use ensemble vocals that are reminiscent of the Futureheads, while their sunny pop will strike a chord with fans of the Super Furry Animals. Lead single Default (below) is ludicrously infectious, jumping all over the place over the course of its bouncy three minutes. Wor, currently being employed by BT Sport in their advertising campaign, sounds like it belongs in a Tarantino soundtrack, while the echoing guitar riff on Hail Bop and Beach Boys-esque vocal harmonies at the culmination of Waveforms are further moments of beauty and intrigue.
It doesn’t always work, as the mildly irritating “Game Boy music on crack” of Zumm Zumm proves, but at its best this is one of the most novel and original releases of the past few years. It will certainly be interesting to see where the band go from here, but for now you should crack this one open on a nice sunny day (if we’re permitted one) and let it flow over you.
I don’t think there has been an album that has brought forward such levels of anticipation as this for an awfully long time. I mean sure they did the Tron soundtrack and the distinctly mediocre Human After All, but in reality this is the gallic duo’s first proper album since 2001. For those of you who are a little numerically challenged, that’s a dozen years ago. I myself was sitting my GCSEs.
Anyhow, they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that certainly appears to be the case with Daft Punk. Discovery was a very good album, but it was hardly groundbreaking. It was also only their second release and it didn’t even go to the top of the charts on these shores. But 12 years down the line and there appears a sort of rabid clamour for the long-awaited Random Access Memories. The world wants this album, nay the world needs this album.
Lead single, the Pharrell Williams-fronted Get Lucky, was gobbled up by a hungry public, hooked on its infectious bassline and funky guitar. It’s still number 1 in the charts at time of writing, a position it has occupied for three weeks, which means it’s hotter than Nigel Farage. RAM is out on Monday and one suspects that, were it a book about wizards or a tech product, nutjobs would be queuing round the block to buy it on Sunday night.
From the start of the album, it is obvious that Get Lucky was no curveball in terms of the band’s new direction. For the most-part you could be forgiven for thinking you were listening to Chic or Sister Sledge, which I guess is no surprise given the presence of 70’s disco king Nile Rodgers on about half the tracks. Lengthy third track Giorgio by Moroder is quite an odd song to say the least, named after and featuring spoken vocals by legendary Italian producer Giorgio Moroder, the song finally kicks in after two minutes sounding like a tribute to fellow French synth pioneer Jean-Michelle Jarre before going into a bit of jazz and so on…
Instant Crush, sung by a heavily autotuned Julian Casablancas (of the Strokes), is a personal highlight, while Lose Yourself To Dance (feat Pharrell Williams again) is so similar to Get Lucky that it might as well be the B-side to the single. Touch is decent, even if Paul Williams’ vocals sound a bit like they have been lifted from Les Miserables (and I can’t work out if that’s a good or bad thing).
There follows a continuation of the theme in a very much “we’re Daft Punk and we piss these tunes out for fun” sort of way. Until the end of the album, where there is an absolutely superb song called Contact, which actually breaks away from the whole 70’s throwback mould with one of the most awesome crescendos in the history of dance music and culminating in a wall of feedback. It’s a proper dance track, the sort that Vitalic or many of the more traditional French DJs might create, and after the trip to funkytown it is almost welcome.
I realize at this stage that I am sounding a bit scornful of the rest of the album, and it’s not really my intention. It is a very good release and is going to be bigger than Jesus, but for me it’s tapping a genre that can fall quickly into mediocrity. There’s no doubt that when it’s good, some of the songs here are among the best you’ll hear this year, but on the flipside there are a few that verge on the drawer marked “elevator music”.
This is a love letter to the 70’s and the birth of disco by two of the finest musicians around at the moment. It’s very, very good, but in my opinion contains one or two tracks that will hold it back from greatness. Justifying its own hype would have been an impossible task, but Random Access Memories has a fair crack at it.
Vampire Weekend have been loitering around the outskirts of the mainstream ever since they smashed onto the scene with their Oxford Comma-driven self-titled debut album in early 2008. The world seemed to fall for their unique blend of preppy indie and Graceland-era Paul Simon as an antidote to what had become a rather bland music scene around that time. Follow-up album, Contra, confirmed their growing popularity, going to number 1 in their native land while breaking into the top 3 this side of the pond.
Tomorrow sees the release of their latest LP, Modern Vampires of the City, and it’s a pretty impressive collection of songs. The band sought to move on from the sound of their first two efforts but fear not, the change is very much evolution rather than revolution. What is more, this might actually be their best album yet.
Equally able to create wonderful, haunting melodies or make you move your feet (regardless of whether or not you have diamonds on the soles of your shoes), they are one of the most talented bands around and a formidable live act. They seem to create the perfect melodies for a hot summer’s day, but intertwine them with that rarest of beasts in modern music: intelligent lyrics.
There is no doubt that with infectious songs such as Worship You, Diane Young and Unbelievers, this album is going to be one that soundtracks a thousand barbeques this year, but hidden in it’s depths are arguably finer moments of tender beauty.
The justifiable excitement in the music world about the imminent release of the new Daft Punk album is understandable. However lost amid the hype of that event, the erudite New York four-piece known as Vampire Weekend might just have written the album of the year.
Oxford’s Foals are a strange sort of band. When they broke through with the energy-filled Mathletics, they were undoubtedly a math-rock band. This is was a theme that was continued well into their debut album Antidotes, a masterpiece in the trademark staccato guitar work of that genre. However for their follow-up, Total Life Forever, they shifted their style to a more wafty, anthemic sound, exemplified by their slow-burning hit single Spanish Sahara.
Having escaped the perils of “second album syndrome” though, it was always going to be interesting to see how they approached their brand new third album, especially as their previous critical acclaim and live prowess hadn’t seemed to quite fire them into the public domain thusfar.
Holy Fire starts with a proggy four-minute instrumental, resembling a showcase of the band’s individual abilities. You half expect singer Yannis Philippakis to start saying things like “On bass, Mr Walter Gervers…” before the four-string lick starts, but it’s an instrumental… Then the fun really starts as the pizzicato guitar work of excellent lead single Inhaler (below) kicks in, joined as it in by a crescendo preceding the bombastic blast of a chorus, before we go back to the prog-funk.
And that really best sums the band up. They still have their roots in the math-rock they started with, but have sucked up influences from funk (My Number) as well as the anthemic emotional rock of their second album. This album gathers all the elements of their previous efforts and mashes them all together. It might not be perfect, but when it works it is superb.
Foals continue to be the thinking man’s Friendly Fires, the connoisseur’s Delphic and one of the UK’s most inventive bands. Long may it continue.
Math-rock was a sort of weird phenomenon that threatened to take off a few years ago. It emerged from the late 90’s and stewed for a bit in the King-Crimson-addled minds of a select few before bands such as Foals grabbed it and made a break for the mainstream. Stylistically it involves weird time signatures, lots of layers and loop pedals, with songs that are almost scientifically built (hence the name, “math rock”).
New York band Battles are probably the stereotypical math-rock band and 2007’s Atlas is their seminal track. For anyone with an interest in the genre, it’s an obvious starting point.
Coming in at just over 7 minutes in length, the track is driven from start to finish by an awesome tribal drumbeat. This then evolves, via a series of electronic noises, into what I can only describe as a mashup between Gary Glitter’s “Rock & Roll, part 2” and… erm… The Hamster Song. But somehow it is excellent.
The second half of the song builds up from almost a standstill and crescendos into an orgasm of nerdy laptop-looped music heaven. Below is both the shortened ‘single’ version of the song and a full live version from Later with Jools Holland, which is worth watching from about 3:15, if only to appreciate how wonderfully anal they are in creating the sound. Their drummer is even wearing a tank top. God bless the geeks.
You know how arty, pretentious people like to decry their former heroes as soon as they hit the big time? Suddenly it seems that they can’t admit to liking something because it is popular, and that erodes at its coolness. Well, I have similar feelings about the Kings Of Leon. However much I try to avoid the phrase “not as good as they were back in the day”, I can’t avoid it. The last few KOL albums (Only by the Night and Come Around Sundown) are complete crap compared to their early work.
Where I think I can save myself from being too wanky, though, is that their popularity (these were the two albums that really ‘hit the big time’) had little to do with my opinion of them. Sure, the omnipresence of Sex On Fire and that horrific dance cover of Use Somebody was annoying, but the fact remained that the only song on either album that was a patch on their earlier work was OBTN opening track Closer. I dislike their modern work for the simple reason that it is distinctly average. But enough about them…
Anglo-Swedish-American band Alberta Cross are often compared to the Kings Of Leon’s formative albums, in addition to the likes of My Morning Jacket and Neil Young. They fit snugly into the category of folk-rock that saw the Followill brothers catapault themselves onto our radar all those years ago. Interestingly, as the Kings of Leon commercialised their sound, Alberta Cross started releasing material, and very impressive it was too. Debut LP (following two decent EPs) Broken Side of Time is a wonderful album. Varied, exciting and infectious, it is the perfect listen for those of us who hark back to the days of Youth and Young Manhood.
From the crunching slide-guitar rock of ATX (below) to the chilling crescendo blues of Rise From The Shadows, it’s a superb album and one that hopefully bodes well for the future of the band. A great live draw too, you should catch them if you can.
Heavy Metal is a slightly outdated phrase, it throws up images of leather-clad, long haired bikers headbanging in sweaty bars. It seemed to be a genre that was killed off by irony and self-parody. Some of its lurking dinosaurs went the way of The Darkness and embraced the absurdity, others profiteered from teen angst and ended up torturously screaming over a backdrop of chugging guitars and spotty adolescence. The rest were probably killed off by Fred Durst. Anyhow, the demise of the genre from the mainstream was a sad end for a scene that produced beasts like Metallica and Guns N Roses. There’s no doubt that, when done right, Heavy Metal was very, very good.
Northern Ireland’s Therapy? were a band who did Heavy Metal the right way and their 1994 UK top 5 album Troublegum was as good as they got. Released in the halcyon rock months preceding Kurt Cobain’s suicide, the album produced a handful of top-20 singles, with flag-bearing track Screamager even being performed on Top Of The Pops. The band were a more commercial version of Metallica, creating an accessible blend of heavy riffs and growly vocals but with shorter, catchier songs (Lunacy Booth, with it’s sparring chorus, being a personal favourite).
It’s a shame that the boys from Belfast never really kicked on from this release. Despite it being shortlisted for the (then fairly embryonic) Mercury Music Prize, fame and fortune failed to arrive. It is still however a cracking album, one that has stood the test of time well and one that perfectly soundtracks the controlled anger of commuting on the Underground. Plus it contains no screaming. Highly recommended.
It’s rare that illness can be credited for anything even vaguely positive or constructive, but on Monday my ordeal at the hands of “that cold that everyone’s had” led to an important discovery. As I lay in bed, the adverts between Bond films (my god the Sky Movies 007 channel is amazing) were all for the sort of ambulance-chasing lawyers and injury specialists that you expect at a time of day when the core audience are all unemployed or injured. Then on came the Direct Line advert; more generic “we’re here to help” guff, but this time backed by a neat little bit of pizzicato music. I quickly grabbed Shazam and ascertained the name of this song. It may well be the best pop song of the year.
“Disparate Youth” from American singer Santigold’s latest album is one of those songs that seem to prove that less is more. The main body of the song is a simple three chord progression that is built on layer-by-layer from the advert-endorsed intro to the sweeping chorus. Absolutely nothing about it couldn’t have been recorded by a 12 year old. Bass and offbeat drums are dispersed by line-end snaps of electric guitar (very Yeah Yeah Yeahs, so no surprise that their guitarist Nick Zinner co-wrote it), before being backed by flowing synth and reggae piano. As Santi’s disengaged vocals waft over it, everything’s so simple and yet utterly mesmerising. Indeed it sounds like what Rihanna could be like if she stopped titillating teenage boys and decided to actually write a good song.
I can strongly advise listening to it (below), even if you won’t be able to shake it from your head for weeks. It is an astonishingly good track.
Also, while looking for it on YouTube, I found this extraordinary mashup a cappella version (bottom video) involving one man called Mike Tompkins, his voicebox, some Apple equipment and (I’d imagine) an awful lot of time. It’s pretty impressive.
From the school of 80s nostalgia comes this sexy tune from the increasingly successful Citizens! That’s not my exclamation mark, by the way, there’s nothing particularly exclamatory about the last sentence. It sounds like I find it amusing that they are increasingly successful. Anyway, the band insists on it. What is it with bands doing strange things with punctuation and symbols these days? Thinking of the band known simply as ∆ (Alt J), and the artist formerly known as Prince, formerly known as a symbol, now known as Prince again. They just like making it difficult for us.
I digress, ‘(I’m in love with your) Girlfriend’ is the most catchy song from Citizens! debut album, ‘Here We Are’. You’d expect them to go onto bigger things but for the moment you catch them live for the small band price of just a tenner on 20th November in Shoreditch’s XOYO.
It was just a few weeks ago and the city was awash with excitement. I was in a flat with some friends about to watch the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. The opening scene of Danny Boyle’s masterpiece was a camera flying down the Thames, but… Wait… What was that in the background? “Oh my god, it’s Fuck Buttons!” I yelped. No one was interested. But they should have been.
Fair enough, it might not have been exciting as the five weeks that followed. However now the athletes have all gone home, I think the time is right to celebrate the inclusion of this quirky Bristol pair’s music in the greatest show this country has seen. Mr Boyle, particularly in light of their offensive name, this was a bold move and I salute you.
Anyhow, the song that was played at the start of the Olympic countdown was Tarot Sport’s opener Surf Soler, and what a fine track it is too. Starting with a basic staccato electronic sequence, the track builds lusciously, layer-by-layer into a full-blown epic. That, as you find out from later tracks on the album, would appear to be the Fuck Buttons style. Begin with a basic theme, be-it drum, bass or weird beeps, and then expand it by adding layers. It’s a simple blueprint, but one that is surprisingly effective. No tempo changes, no lyrics, no funny business or catchy gimmicks, this is almost industrially created music and in the right frame of mind, it is almost flawless. The Lisbon Maru is my personal favourite and blends seamlessly into Olympians (which was, rather more logically, also used in the opening ceremony).
It’s not an album that will change the world, nor is it one that will inescapably burrow into your brain, but it is one that provides the perfect soundtrack to everyday life. Tarot Sport is the score for a film that hasn’t been made, yet everyone has experienced. It is “Daily Grind OST”, and you should let it into yours… You won’t be disappointed.
