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RECORDS Music
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NIGHT MUSIC ANTHOLOGY WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT Various Artists (Biphonic) ●●●●●
‘The night’s getting colder,’ sings Withered Hand on opening brass-folk serenade ‘A New Case’, and his words reflect the moonlit backdrop of this terrific pop anthology. Its exclusive songs explore Scotland at 4am, as part of Cora Bissett, Swimmer One and David Greig’s multimedia endeavour, Whatever Gets You Through The Night. The album’s evocative titles include Ricky Ross’s psalm ‘The North Star’,
Eugene Kelly’s post-party anthem ‘Chips and Cheese’, Emma Pollock’s swoon-inducing ‘Dark Skies’, RM Hubbert’s heartening ‘Hanging Pointers’, Meursault’s gorgeous hymn, ‘A New Cure’, and Rachel Sermanni’s ‘Lonely Taxi, 2am’. It’s not all homeward-bound introspection, however – see Wounded Knee and Bigg Taj’s a cappella beat-box rave on ‘Live at the Bongo Club’, Errors’ all-night dancefloor vibes on euphoric electro wig-out, the brilliant ‘Embassy Approach’ and Conquering Animal Sound’s ‘Ultimate Heat Death of the Universe’ – equally stunning machine-pop.
The loneliness of the longest hour brightens on closing lullaby, ‘Saint Elmo.’ ‘By the glorious morning, we were seeing the dawn in and when I say we, I mean I, myself and me,’ sings Withered Hand: if we have music, we’re not alone. That’s what gets us through the night. (Nicola Meighan) ■ Listen at throughthenight.bandcamp.com;tmns.bandcamp.com
INSTRUMENTAL POST-ROCK IGLOMAT Super Complication (KFM) ●●●●● Super Complication is putting it lightly: based in Austin, Edinburgh and LA, Iglomat bounced tracks 6000 miles and back over the internet for over a year. Judging its quality seems almost unfair after all that, but glad- ly it’s easy to find plenty of merit in their second album, even if it’s hardly the most original thing you’ll hear. Early-period Mogwai-isms pervade, but then it’s impossible to do instrumental post-rock and not sound Mogwai-esque, and Iglomat do Mogwai-esque better than most – from ‘Generalife’s thudding drums to the speedy Krautrock of ‘New Fast Clockwork’. The trans- continental dynamic lends an almost spookily dehumanised feel, conjuring the eerie image of instru- ments playing themselves in a deserted studio. (Malcolm Jack)
SCI-FI MATH-ROCK WE ARE THE PHYSICS Your Friend, The Atom (This Is Fake DIY) ●●●●●
We commonly laugh out loud at bands – hello Muse – but why aren’t more of them intentionally funny? Like Devo funny? Or Jonathan Richman, or Jeffrey Lewis funny? Welcome, album two by Glasgow ‘mutant science punk rock’ outfit WATP. Their scoring a cameo in Stuart Murdoch’s forthcoming God Help The Girl film sounds unlikely, but Murdoch’s shrewd to recognise that a band this stupidly enter- taining live – all jerky, stop-start dancing and geeky specs – belong onscreen, momentarily at least.
These 14 frantic tunes lose their fizz with time, but the first spins are funny with a capital fun. ‘All My Friends Are JPEGS’ delightfully satirises the social media age. Another is called ‘Dildonics’. Enough said. (Malcolm Jack)
ELECTRONIC/PSYCH TAME IMPALA Lonerism (Modular) ●●●●●
As far as retro copyists go, Tame Impala – aka Australian multi- instrumentalist Kevin Parker – is talented enough to convince some that he’s doing something courageous, inspired and important with the source materials. Scrub a little harder though and you’ll find the same schmaltzy, saccharine- voiced modern take on the harmonies and bonged-out fuzz of countless 60s and 70s psych regularly spewed onto Pitchfork’s digital pages. Listening to his second album, Lonerism is like looking into that busted up family mirror in the hall- way one last time before sticking it out for special uplift, playing out like a synth-heavy Nuggets but sanded down of its edges. We’ve mined the past long enough; let’s move on already. (Ryan Drever)
CONCEPT FILM SOUNDTRACK MATTHEW FRIEDBERGER Matricidal Sons of Bitches (Thrill Jockey) ●●●●● Matthew Friedberger’s (half of brother/sister duo the Fiery Furnaces) latest album – following a gargantuan eight-record run last year – is an equally epic body of work; but more down to its size than its content. With an accompanying explanation detailing the elaborate, almost infuriatingly pretentious premise of composing music for a soundtrack to a horror movie that doesn’t exist, Matricidal Sons . . . is a 45-piece, four act collection of musical sketches. It cobbles together glitchy homages to classic film score atmospherics, while experimenting with orchestral arrangements, but will likely offer little entertainment to anyone resid- ing outside of Friedberger’s own skull. (Ryan Drever)
DANCE/EXPERIMENTAL ITAL Dream On (Planet Mu) ●●●●●
Brooklyn artist Daniel Martin- McCormick, aka Ital (and one half of Mi Ami) is having a rather busy year with this his second album on Planet Mu in less than a year, plus endless global touring to boot. Dream On attempts to cluster a lot of variation onto seven humble tracks, with the freakish two-step claps found on ‘Boi’ and beautifully twisted warmth of ‘Housecapella’. It has fiercer production than his previous releases on 100% Silk and the excellent Hive Mind full length, which lends itself entirely in the live scenario but lacks some of the nuances and studio depth required outside of the club. It’s a fun trip, but a somewhat unenlight- ening one for the sum of its parts – a little too discordant at times due to the overtly hybrid nature of the jams. (Nick Herd)
FOLK/POP ROZI PLAIN Joined Sometimes Unjoined (Fence) ●●●●● Like many of her Fence Collective labelmates, singer-songwriter Rozi Plain has a penchant for subtle yet obscure arrangements, slightly left of centre of the ethereal melodies that populate this latest offering. The fractured tinkering of her gentle vocal style provides the perfect backdrop for a soundscape often augmented by ambient lo-fi production, coupled with a weighty percussion element that adds a solid dynamic to the otherwise hushed tones of her distinctive mutterings. Juxtaposed with her fluid guitar fingerpicking – Plain comes across like a young Joanna Newsom shaking off her little girl lost persona, while adopting a ballsy yet ambitious take on Syd Barrett’s introverted musings on the finer things in life. (Jack Taylor)
18 Oct–15 Nov 2012 THE LIST 87