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SOUL POP JANELLE MONAE O2 ABC, Glasgow, Sat 26 Feb
The immaculate pop offspring of Little Richard, Annie Lennox and David Bowie, Janelle Monáe is the most exciting figure to enjoy – and court – mainstream exposure since the entrance of a certain bad romancer. But whereas Gaga often relies on well worn tropes (hyper-sexualisation, the Europop kitty fart that was ‘Alejandro’), Monáe’s Grammy-nominated debut album The ArchAndroid is the sort of accessible high-concept pop statement that Prince used to make. Certainly The ArchAndroid matches the likes of Purple Rain for breathtaking ambition, attention to detail and unexpected stylistic turns.
Fusing elements of cabaret, classic movie scores, warped psychedelia and even English folk onto a frame of soul, funk and R&B, it delights and beguiles without sacrificing cohesion. It stars Monáe’s alter-ego Cindi Mayweather, an android on the run for the crime of
falling in love with a human. Mayweather, also the protagonist of Monáe’s 2007 debut EP Metropolis: The Chase Suite, has a brief to unshackle the androids of 2719. ‘I love speaking about the androids because they are the new “other”,’ said Monáe recently, echoing the liberatory pronouncements of afro-futurists George Clinton and Sun Ra. The influence of that pair is readily acknowledged by the broccoli-coiffed Monáe, as is that of Fritz Lang, Judy Garland and James Brown, the latter’s taut, syncopated funk immediately recognisable on the outrageously cool ‘Tightrope’. Having grown up in Kansas to a family afflicted by drug addiction, a whim took her to Atlanta. Here she co-founded The Wondaland Arts Society with producer Nate Wonder and lyrical collaborator Chuck Lightning and caught the attention Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs who described Monáe’s signing to his Bad Boy label as ‘one of the most important of my career’. If that and the aforementioned comparisons sound a little fanciful, check back post-gig; she isn’t just another girl, but Monáe’s certainly from another planet. (Nadine McBay)
Music ELECTRO POP GLASSER Captains Rest, Glasgow, Sun 20 Feb
Following in the footsteps of Fever Ray, Zola Jesus and School of Seven Bells, Cameron Mesirow continues the trend for spooky female pop that layers a cobwebby veil of sighing vocals over a tribal beat. The LA artist arrived with her creepy-pretty style of celestial gothdom on last year’s Wildbirds & Peacedrums-echoing EP ‘Apply’, followed by her debut LP, Ring. It’s a mix of weird percussion (tropical, mechanical, human), 80s power beats, and crystalline siren calls, messed up carefully by effects. Mesirow has been backed in the past by New York’s tropical danceheads Tanlines and Fever Ray producers Van Rivers and Subliminal Kid. Although she now performs with a band, the original set-up was her as a one- woman electronic orchestra.
‘My [songwriting process] is always
different,’ she says. ‘Sometimes I start with sounds that become a beat, sometimes I have a melody in my head and I need to build around it. There’s not really a formula though.’ And what about ‘Glasser’? Is it true
she came up with the name after having, ‘a midnight vision of a figure hovering over water’. Not quite, apparently. ‘The name comes from a dream I had, not an apparition or ghost, but it’s a good example of how Glasser is a visually stimulated creation, not just about music,’ she says. ‘My hope is to create a space for the listener. I do care very much about the visual aspect of Glasser, I consider it to be almost as important as the music. Aesthetics are aesthetics, whether audio or visual, and that is what I care about creating.’ (Claire Sawers)
FILM SCREENING & LIVE SHOW EFTERKLANG Oran Mor, Glasgow, Thu 24 Feb
Efterklang are back, as you’ve never seen them before. Although the delicate and atmospheric soundscapes of the Danish quartet will be familiar to Glasgow’s live concert-goers, this latest show will be enhanced by a pre-gig screening of An Island, their new live film with director Vincent Moon, famed for his Blogothèque Take- Away Shows and Mogwai’s live film Burning. ‘It’s Efterklang and Vincent Moon on an island for four
days last August, playing our songs with the local people in strange locations, trying out a few sound experiments and so on,’ says the band’s vocalist Casper Clausen.
The island in question is Als in the south of Denmark, where three members of the band grew up. Much of the
music in the film is taken from last year’s Magic Chairs album. An Island, says Clausen, is ‘part like a music film, then a documentary and also a piece of film art, because of course it’s Vincent doing it.’ As well as being shown on this tour, the film will be
available for anyone to screen in any venue free of charge. You just need to conform to the self-christened ‘private-public’ rules the band have set, stating that the performance be free, public and so on (go to www.anisland.cc for the full Efterklang-approved list). ‘It’s been overwhelming,’ says Clausen. ‘We have over 400 screenings around the world already, in Europe, North America, Japan, Russia . . . Africa is the only continent still to have a screening. It’s a perfect way to screen it, because showing it this way fits perfectly with the spirit in which the film was made.’ (David Pollock)
17 Feb–3 Mar 2011 THE LIST 61