ELECTROCK
KLING KLANG Esthetik of Destruction (Rock Action) 0000
It is more than ltlSI a case of simple mathematics to take the weight and depth of Black Sabbath and fuse them With the rhythmic insistency and ii‘.el()(lic crispness of Kraftwerk to create the near-perfect analogue bubble bath. Kling Klang have done this to great effect on the most successful tracks on this. then debut album.
Some of the magic here is in the familiarin as 'Autobahn'. ‘E2-E/i' or 'War Pigs' ring in Our ears but it's this comforting familiarity that allows Kling Klang inamed after Ki'aftwerk's Dtisseldorf studios in case yeti wondered) to trip out like so many Scouse Neill Armstrongs later on. This is hypnotic. otherworldly. addictive music; old in ambience. but defiantly new in content. iMark Robertson)
CHAMBER BLUES ALUMINIUM Aluminium
(XL Recordings) .0000
It is a credit to the quality of Jack White's songv-Jriting that the spare blues twangs of The White Stripes can be re-imagined as avant garde orchestral recordings. This is the challenge taken up by a clutch of the country's finest young classical mLiSicians led by Joby Talbot lnee The Diyine Comedy). and the results are breathtaking.
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66 THE LIST ll} fit) Nov 7006
There are florid splashes of Elmer Bernstein in ‘The Hardest Button to Button'. 'Aluminium' and 'Let's BLiild a Home’. creating the kind of dramatic slea/e that blew up in film soundtracks such as The Sweet Smell of Success. The ma)ority of the tracks are culled from the first two White Stripes albums and part of the JOy here is the recognition but it is also like enjoying the grime and shudder of Super8 and then experiencing it in cinemascope. Tremendous. iMark Robertson)
FOLK
BOB PEGG Keeper of the Fire (Castle Music) 000
Yorkshire—born Bob Pegg lives in the Scottish Highlands these days. and is still active in music and storytelling, but the material on this two CD set dates from the aftermath of Mr Fox. the band he co-led With his then wife. Carole. The band were one of the most idiosyncratic and Wierdly imaginative products of the late (50s folk-rock era. but split up along With the Peggs' marriage.
This anthology gathers his subsequent work for Transatlantic Records in the mid-70s. comprising the albums Bob Pegg 8. Nick Str'utt. The Shiphui/der‘. Ancrent Maps and the never released song cycle. Bones. rounded out with a smattering of alternate and broadcast VOTSlOllS. Of its time. and often intriguineg macabre. but well worth treldiscovering three decades on. iKenny Mathieson)
POP SPEKTRUM Fun at the Gymkhana Club lNonstopl .0000
London four- piece Spektrurn are back.
twisting music into brand new shapes with a demented dose of eccentric genius for their second album. Hardly Surprising. given that production Wizard Gabriel Olegawch has a famOus Russian composer's heritage in his blood. while frontwoman Lola Olafasoye exhibits the kind of sass. sexiness and style to suggest Ari Up. Grace Jones and Siouxsie Sioux in a love romp. First album Enter The Spektrurn disappOInted slightly with its strung-out grooves. but Fun At The Gymkhana Club has had all the fat removed and. riding roughshod over punk. funk. electro. rock and R&B motifs. the resulting magic is simply pop. pop. popping. (Andrew Richardson)
METAL CONVERGE No Heroes
(Epitaph) 000
- OK. so metal is generally the duh-centric domain of Beams 8. Butthead but amidst the OTT- ridiculousness of it all. there are groups who have pushed the genre past artifice into art. Boston's Converge. are such craftsmen.
In a fifteen-year career they have become a byword for idealism and experimentatioii. No Heroes is no exception. Whether it's the instrumental, 'Weight . . the SSS-second maelstrom. ‘Vengeance' or the nine-minute doom-ballad. ‘Grim Heart Black Rose' With — gasp! »- sung vocals. the tension is wrung out through convulsive
INDIE JARVIS COOKER
Jarvis (ROugh Trade) 0000
From the punchy pop of The Long Blondes to Arctic Monkeys’ seedy subject matter and dapper Showmanship of Franz Ferdinand, the influence of Jarvis Cocker is everywhere in modern music. Yet after the demise of his old band the Sheffield indie legend became a bit of an eccentric oddity - dabbling in electro side-projects, television, DJing and even a Harry Potter film - and with none of it amounting to much, you could have been forgiven for banishing him to the Britpop bin.
Thankfully Jarvis saves the speccy icon’s bacon, as it finds him on top form, producing some of his best songwriting since his Pulp heyday, and finding yet more twists on his trademark themes of sex, drugs, infidelity and general misfittery. Where in the past, Cocker tended to place himself at the forefront of his efforts, these thought-provoking tracks find him standing on the sidelines and painting vivid, compelling lyrical pictures of the unfolding action; from the soaring guitar-fuelled heartbreak of ‘Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time’ to ‘I Will Kill Again”s dark piano-tinged tale of murder and the ghostly scratchy attack of ‘Fat Children’.
The most perfect work he could have made at this stage in his career,
Jarvis is an infectious, intelligent and utterly majestic effort which reaffirms
Cocker’s place as one of this country’s most important songwriters. Our protagonist may now be an older onlooker on a scene he helped to create,
but he clearly still has plenty to say. (Camilla Pia)
rhythms. dynamics and textures.
That seven albums in. Converge are still innovators is one thing. That they can craft something as fragile as it is ferocious is an altogether greater achievement.
(Andrew BorthWickl
ROCK POP FOLK THE VElLS
Nux Vomica (Rough trade) 00..
This New Zealand band fronted by beguilineg vulnerable lead singer and songwriter Finn Andrews return With their first album proper since their cOurt battle With Blanco y Negro records and the disbandment of the original line up in 2004. It's a phenomenal
THE VElLS
return - the impassioned promise of this remarkable songwriter blossoming from the bare bone sketches he worked through on 2001 debut The Runaway Found. Musically and thematically Finn can be likened to Jeff Buckley. Neil Hannon. The Birthday Party. Patti Smith and most obViously Echo and the Bunnyman. Yet on 'AdVice to Young Mothers' and 'One Night on Earth'. he has his
own vibe going that is almost monumental. It is little wonder that when the band split after their first album. three suicides were reported in Japan. sighting this as their cause. (Paul Dale)
HIP HOP PENPUSHERS
Poltergeeks lKFMl 0..
Shadowy Scottish rap pioneers Penpushers have been skulking arOund the hip-hop
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