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RECORDS Music
INDIE THE VIEW Cheeky For a Reason (Cooking Vinyl) ●●●●●
Despite singer Kyle Falconer’s enthusiastic description of his band’s fourth album as ‘Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours as done by The Clash’, it’s more the case that anyone listening to it will know exactly what they’re getting. That’s not a bad thing, mind you, unless you particularly dislike their laddish schtick and obvious reverence for the fag end of the Britpop era and Pete Doherty. ‘How Long’ is a modish, racing
punk-pop single with an unasham- edly Caledonian lilt to its vocals, ‘Hold On Now’ is a cheerful, shouty glam stomp and ‘Anfield Row’ echoes The La’s in its hollered indie-folk delivery, amid many other variations on the theme. By the end, you can almost smell the rain on your T in the Park poncho. (David Pollock)
POP JOHN MAUS A Collection of Rarities and Previ- ously Unreleased Material (Ribbon Music) ●●●●●
Remastered rarities, demos and unreleased tracks are generally the preserve of the socially ostracised. Don’t own a stained raincoat and a couple of Can bootlegs? Don’t care. We make an exception for cult hero and part time-Ariel Pink and Animal Collective keys-man John Maus though, and this 11 year-spanning compilation captures Bobby Conn’s brother from a Philip Oakey-loving mother perfectly. At times he croons as if stumbling blind around a broken synth-strewn cave (‘Angel Of The Night’), and his piano, drums and guitar-bashing oc- casionally sounds like a particularly traumatic bout of musical therapy. But every so often he’ll make off- kilter disco so gorgeous that it’s worth weathering the anxiety-induc- ing anti-melody. (Camilla Pia)
FOLK LUCKY LUKE Travelling for a Living (Chaffinch Records) ●●●●● Before Mumford and their Barbour- clad ilk hijacked folk for their insidious Tory-chic lifestyle brand, bands like Glasgow’s Lucky Luke were taking the legacy of Fairport and Incredible String Band in a more idiosyncratic and radical direction. Lucy Sweet offers feminist takes on the ballad tradition, celebrating female sexuality and lambasting the ‘wicked handsome princes’ and ‘arrogant fools’ who would deny her protagonists their independence. Simon Shaw, of Trembling Bells, sets his evocative sea-sprayed odys- sies to lo-fi folk-rock suggestive of a moonlit hoedown between Gorkys and the Silver Jews, while Morag Wilson’s delicate voice recalls Vashti Bunyan. Lucky Luke may be no more but this ‘lost’ second album is a welcome reminder of their barren, grainy beauty. (Stewart Smith)
FOLK-ROCK MEURSAULT Something For The Weakened (Song, by Toad) ●●●●●
You would break your heart – or part with it – for that album title alone, would you not. And that’s before we speak of
‘Hole’, the greatest desolate / optimistic ballad since Smog’s ‘Rock Bottom Riser’. ‘Hole’ slowly burns at the centre of this, the third LP from Edinburgh alt-rock and chamber-folk conquerors Meursault, and is devas- tating. Many of SFTW’s bruised arias are familiar from gigs – the Shangri- Las rock of ‘Flittin’’, the caustic up- surge of ‘Settling’ – but the album’s philharmonic arrangements revitalise Meursault: its strings and pianos are exquisite. Singer-songwriter Neil Pennycook is customarily arresting, from the fired-up pop of ‘Dull Spark’ to the cracked-falsetto of ‘Mamie’, and it all makes for their most cohe- sive, gorgeous and forceful album yet. (Nicola Meighan)
HOUSE/TECHNO SLAM Collecting Data (Soma) ●●●●● ELECTRO-DUB/CHILLWAVE PEAKING LIGHTS Lucifer (Weird World) ●●●●●
LO-FI POP ADVANCE BASE A Shut In’s Prayer (Tomlab) ●●●●●
Bookending a prolific four years for Glasgow techno icons Slam, Collect- ing Data gathers a comprehensive selection of the duo’s remixes and their own material from the period over two CDs. The first highlights more house-fla- voured output; deep, stripped-back versions of Sasha and Radio Slave, rhythm-focussed takes on Spencer Parker and Josh Wink, and more minimal re-rubs of Paul Ritch, and The Black Dog are interspersed with a handful of their own tracks, neatly befitting the selection.
Bar remixes of Pan Pot, Secret
Cinema and Alex Under, the second features the rumbling, intense techno workouts that Stuart and Orde are best known for, on an album which although an effective artist showcase, would definitely work better in mixed form. (Colin Chapman)
Where Wisconsin electro-dub/ chillwave husband-wife duo Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis’ acclaimed second album, 936, released last November, was the soundtrack to an imaginary summer, its prompt follow-up appropriately arrives just in time for your actual warm season. It’s inspired by ‘unconditional love’ and the birth of their son and ‘guiding light muse’ Mikko, with song titles drawn from ‘dreams, daydreams and epiphanies’. You can practically smell the hemp. But bonged-out whimsy is only part of Lucifer’s charm. Spirit- ualised-style beatifi c blues (‘Beautiful Son’), deep-sea dub (‘Cosmic Tides’) and hypnotic house (‘Dream Beat’) all fl oat in drowsy, cosmic equilibrium across a decidedly spacious and spaced-out set. One for lovers of the comedown side of Screamadelica. (Malcolm Jack)
Still singing in his trademark low- energy, just-woken-up vocal, one listen to this new record and Owen Ashworth’s cover will be blown immediately when heard by fans of his now-retired project, the cult heartbreak-pop of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone. Despite the new alias – Advance Base – and a more layered produc- tion than CFTPA’s mechanic Casio beats, all the hallmarks are still there. The bruised longing, the nostalgia, the domestic details and romanti- cism (‘I still believe I can love the best’). He’s grown up since starting CFTPA in his twenties (he’s 35 now) but still sounds like a soft-centred teenager, in no hurry to rush any emotional or musical ‘advancing’. But still, it’s very good news if you just want more of the same from him. (Claire Sawers)
JAZZ DAVID S WARE/PLAN- ETARY UNKNOWN Live at Jazzfestival Saalfelden 2011 (Aum Fidelity) ●●●●● ‘Out, push it all out into the unknown! Unknown is best’. How apt that Edwin Morgan’s poem ‘At Eighty’ comesto mind on hearing this extraordinary set from David S Ware’s new quartet. Their group playing is testament to the power of improvised music. Pianist Cooper- Moore is a brilliant foil to Ware, laying prickly thickets of pointillist harmony under the saxophonist’s ecstatic flights of lyricism. When drum- mer Muhammad Ali briefly settles into a funk groove, Cooper-Moore juxtaposes it with an eerie Wu-Tang like figure. This is free jazz with a strong connection to folk and gospel roots; witness the gorgeous blues Ware blows over William Parker’s theremin-like bowed bass. Unknown is best indeed. (Stewart Smith)
21 Jun–19 Jul 2012 THE LIST 91