MUSIC | Records
ALBUM OF THE ISSUE
ELECTRONIC COMEBACK THE KNIFE Shaking the Habitual (Rabid) ●●●●●
Dear god, where to start? How about with congratulations, not just for taking their time to get it right and unleash a 98-minute monster seven years after Silent Shout’s breakthrough success, but for creating something truly dazzling and most likely utterly incomprehensible to those fans who dragged The Knife onto the dancefloor way back when.
To describe Shaking the Habitual as an experimental record is to grossly underplay it. There’s no sense of blind exploration or jammed-out half-ideas: this is a piece of work entirely in possession of its form and method. It ghosts into life with ‘A Tooth For An Eye’, an upbeat clatter of steel drum and twinkling Chicago house, the voice of singer Karin Dreijer Andersson (aka Fever Ray) used as an instrument in its own right, the meaning of her words slipping away amid those familiar stretched and heavily accented vowels.
On it ploughs into the lead release ‘Full of Fire’, its Tresor techno pound waylaid by a ferocious experiment in glitch hip-hop; then the stunning 20-minute slowbuild of eerie sound effects that is ‘Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized’; or breakneck, warehouse party pace of ‘Networking’, while ‘Fracking Fluid Injection’ is the most resonant example of Andersson and her brother Olof Dreijer’s obvious joy in placing strange noises together.
It’s a mighty piece of work, albeit one which might turn existing
fans off as it reaches for a sublime – far beyond the remit of all contemporary musicians of their stature. But The Knife are pioneers, and the thing about pioneers is, it takes a while for everyone else to catch up. (David Pollock)
NOISE ROCK BLACK PUS All My Relations (Thrill Jockey) ●●●●●
A big chunk of the appeal of Rhode Island’s two-man wrecking crew Lightning Bolt lies in the grotesquely overdriven and pitched Hades-ward tone of bassist Brian Gibson. You’d be forgiven, then, for being concerned that the solo project of Lightning Bolt’s other Brian, drum-fiend Chippendale, may be a bit lacking in sub-woofer bait. But fear not, for Black Pus’s oscillator-driven low-end abuse is just as treacly and fetid as the name implies. And, of course, the other key component in the aforementioned duo, the anaerobically superhuman blunderbuss percussion, is here in frenzied abundance.
‘Marauder’ hurls hard bass plummet at junkyard clatter while Chippendale
howls unintelligible nonsense through a semi-melted Bakelite telephone. Towards the end, his multi-tracked vocals stretch for angelic beauty, but manifest as an unsettling, wordless psychedelic chant.
The dour intoning of ‘Fly on the Wall’ has shades of Joy Division if you squint your ears hard enough, but the reckless eight-on-the-floor electro-bass pulse takes things to a much more disturbing place – namely, the last disco before the global annihilation. A chorus of electronic urchins perform a bizarre, helium- sodden approximation of a Chinese folk melody appear on ‘Hear No Evil’.
Given the extremely limited instrumentation and a very distinctive aesthetic,
there’s little variety in Black Pus’s hypercharged oscillator-core. It’s a simple but feisty formula: punishing bass squelch, manic drums, a man hollering down a length of drainpipe, repeat until bleeding profusely. As enjoyably visceral as all this is, the homogenous pummel begins to get wearing after a while. However, Chippendale provides a satisfying conclusion by easing off on the velocity – if not the volume – for closing track ‘A Better Man’, a doggedly steady grind that starts out unreasonably heavy and then accretes mass over its ten-minute duration. (Matt Evans)
STONER FOLK-ROCK KURT VILE Wakin On A Pretty Daze (Matador) ●●●●● INDIE ROCK MARNIE STERN The Chronicles of Marnia (Kill Rock Stars) ●●●●●
Strangely enough for an album unconcerned with immediacy, the strengths and weaknesses of Wakin On A Pretty Daze are encapsulated in its opener, ‘Wakin On A Pretty Day’. A lazy, bucolic, summer haze-conceived strum punctuated by a knotty acoustic guitar motif, its first half is full of beauty and promise, but the rest is mired in senseless repetition and indulgent Crazy Horse guitar-soloing. After an exasperatingly casual nine-and-a-half minutes, you’re wondering how Vile – bestowed by his parents with a name that didn’t leave him much choice but to become a long-haired stoner-rock dude when he grew up – manages to maintain his own interest, let alone expect anyone else's. If the Philadelphian felt compelled to capitalise on the profile boost earned by
his last album Smoke Ring For My Halo – with it conclusively tying-off the first phase of his career, which was spent churning out CD-Rs of lo-fi self-recordings – then it doesn’t show much here. In the itchy-fingered MP3 shuffle age, there is much to be said for an artist who challenges withering attention spans. But it’s only an exceptional singer-songwriter (even Neil Young could be a much more ruthless self-editor) that can do strung-out, chorus-fearing cosmic jams and not risk boring listeners senseless.
‘Was All Talk’ starts strongly with a Krautrocky loping beat, water-drop
atmospherics and Vile drawling about nothing too particular, then spends eight minutes going nowhere. ‘Too Hard’ floats in a sighing, slide-guitar rippled, two- chord ocean, with nary a wishful cry of ‘chorus ho!’ from the crow’s nest. ‘Shame Chamber’ – one of just three songs less than five minutes long – is the best thing here: a purposefully twanging bluesy number with an earworm hook and soul-bearing lyric about the torment of guilt, ending in a repeated echoey yelp – part pain, part relief. But too much else finds Vile dispassionately promoting form over content and the general over the specific. Enjoy the vast scenery, just don’t expect many landmarks. (Malcolm Jack)
78 THE LIST 21 Mar–18 Apr 2013
Marnie Stern’s 2007 debut In Advance of the Broken Arm was the best thing to happen to indie rock in yonks. In a milieu that all too often venerated dour beardedness and/or half-arsed underachievement, here was someone well- versed in the righteous fretboard-fu of Van Halen, bringing unbridled positivity and wild energy to the table. Her tunes were smart, super-catchy balls of multi-tracked guitar lightning, a
blend of tech-metal without anger, bubblegum without dumbness and math-rock without ego. If anything, the follow-up (its ludicrously long title would shatter my word count) went one better, one brighter, one faster. The eponymous third collection, though strong, marked a shift in mood – darker, more contemplative, less self-assured. Here, producer Nicholas Vernhes has stripped back Stern’s sound – her interlocking fractal guitar approach minimised, her voice foregrounded, exposed. By anyone else’s standards, Chronicles is pretty full- on, but for the maximalist Stern it’s an exercise in restraint. New drummer Kid Millions, is a more measured player than Stern’s previous foil Zach Hill, and thus perfect for this less splattershot approach.
Opener ‘Year of the Glad’ is a neat encapsulation – skeletal sound, lithe but pummelling riffs and sweet, painfully brittle vocal melodies. Though sometimes audibly uncertain, Stern’s vocals are playful throughout the album – monkey chatter, train-whistle whoop, a gorgeous multi-tracked chorus on ‘Still Moving’
and even, bizarrely, a Nottingham accent on the intro to ‘Immortals’. But her guitar’s still the star, whether bringing frenetic tapping, spidery power pop, delicate intro- spection or big-rock breakdowns.
Chronicles has sombre moments, but with ten tracks in 30 minutes, there’s little time to wallow. Ultimately, it ends on a positive – or positively giddy – note or 16, in a flurry of incandescent guitars and inspirational exhortations. Still the best thing to happen to indie rock in yonks. (Matt Evans)