MUSIC | Records
ALBUM OF THE ISSUE
HIP HOP YOUNG FATHERS Tape Two (Anticon) ●●●●● FOLK/ROCK SPARROW AND THE WORKSHOP Murderopolis (Song, By Toad) ●●●●●
Tape One, Young Fathers’ breakthrough release earlier this year on intelligent hip hop label Anticon, was a vindication of the promise that the Edinburgh trio have been building up for some years now. This equally worthy follow-up less than six months later shows they can turn out good tracks rapidly too. It sounds utterly of the moment, not least the opener ‘I Know’, which grooves in on a hesitant beat and a smooth soul vocal, and soon erupts into a rush of chillwave effects and the memorable repeated crescendo, ‘Inside I’m feeling dirty’. ‘Come to Life’ is one of the most radio-friendly songs they have
at the moment – a sleek, thumping slice of electro-soul reminiscent of Kele Okereke's solo output. Meanwhile ‘Only Child’ strides in on the admission that ‘I find it hard to be an honest man’, referencing Maggie Thatcher, the nanny state and the money markets on its way. ‘Queen is Dead’ is more abstract and splenetic lyrically, a buzzing cut-up of fragmentary state of the nation rant which climaxes with an appeal for ‘money money money, cash for gold.’
The album diverts into well-wrought but largely vocal free
soundtrack territory with ‘Bones’ and ‘Freefalling’, both impressive indicators of the trio’s ability as producers, while ‘Mr Martyr’ is a downbeat hip hop jam which rings with the sense of newfound maturity which has pervaded all of their work this year. There’s an amusing touch to ‘Way Down in the Hole’ as it begins on a wrong-footing intro that’s so pop all it needs is an autotuned vocal, while the closing ‘Ebony Sky’ is a measured anthem. It’s another textured and intriguing release from a group who have come of age at last. (David Pollock)
This album starts with the words ‘when love was the greatest thing’ – and it is all you need to unravel the third long-player from a Glasgow rock-noir trio who variously conjure the Bad Seeds, the Shangri-Las, Johnny Cash and Melanie, and whose narratives are capricious and epic, just like the loves and the lives on this album – from the scorched Americana of ‘Avalanche of Lust’, to ‘Odessa’s spellbinding post-rock eulogy.
The record’s stirring salutation, ‘Valley of Death’, is a wonderful and profound vintage-pop serenade – an ode to reflection, life passing and love, and an example of singer-songwriter Jill O’Sullivan’s voice at its thrilling finest. After its killer middle-eight – ‘forget about the fight, forget about who’s wrong, forget about who’s right, forget about the rain’ – cometh the choirs, like angels of death (metal), and their shadowy hallelujahs echo across Murderopolis, then climax on the near-death blues hallucination of ‘Shock, Shock’. That song also features one of many dulcet references to water, which variously serves as a conduit for alarm (‘cold water’) and struggle (‘swimming against the tide’)’; as a carnal necessity on the psych-rock heart of the LP, ‘Flower Bombs’ (‘wash me with your rough hands’); and – on the beatific, balmy purgatory of ‘Water Won’t Fall’ – as a symbol of grief, and of time standing still.
There are other, less comforting voices too, not least on gothic aria ‘Darkness’, which is dragged toward the underworld with hellish chanting, panic-punk and allusions to Beelzebub (‘stay on your hind legs’). But come the glorious swansong, ‘Autumn to Winter’, the burnished skies have faded, the years have passed, and we’re looking back at what once was – ‘I will remember your eyes as they shone in the sun’ – and although its title hints at myriad losses and multiple deaths, Murderopolis transpires to be a harmonious, enlightening state in which light and life and love are all you need. (Nicola Meighan)
TECHNO JUAN ATKINS & MORITZ VON OSWALD Borderland (Tresor) ●●●●● DIFFICULT SIXTH ALBUM THE NATIONAL Trouble Will Find Me (4AD) ●●●●●
It’s something of an event when two of techno’s most iconic figures, Juan Atkins and Moritz Von Oswald, join forces in the studio. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by its release: apparently the pair have spent the last two decades collaborating behind the scenes and it’s not the first time the results have seen the light of day. Atkins worked with Von Oswald and Thomas Fehlmann for their early 90s’ 3MB (Three Men in Berlin) project while Von Oswald later served as engineer on a number of tracks for the Detroit producer’s Model 500 alias.
Recorded over various sessions in Berlin, Borderland consists of eight sequences and draws on the backgrounds of both artists: Von Oswald as a former member of the groundbreaking Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound, and techno originator Atkins, who last year signalled 30 genre-defining years with the release of his Model 500 single, ‘Closer’. Merging drifting, spacey synths, a steady metronomic beat, floating snatches of brass and phased, digitised insect sounds, ‘Electric Garden’ (Jazz in the Garden Mix), seems to offer more of Atkins’ trademark flourishes, while Von Oswald’s influence appears slightly stronger on the morphing bass and stripped-back, disembodied bug calls of ‘Electric Dub’. With ‘Footprints’, there are undeniable similarities to Von Oswald’s Basic Channel output as crunching, clipped beats combine with echoing, tumbling synths, highlighting the Berliner’s ongoing dub-techno craft. ‘Electric Garden’ (Original Mix), offers a more percussive,
The idea that much of the music here was written by guitarist Aaron Desner while bedevilled by bone-aching fatigue and sleepless nights following the birth of his baby daughter is a compelling one. It ties into the sense of a band shattered after the near two-year touring schedule which accompanied 2010’s breakthrough record High Violet, a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and the sense of foggy elation and prickly world-weariness here is one which both new parents and musicians who have been swept up in the tide of fame will no doubt recognise. This is a great record, but it isn’t one which parades the fact before you. ‘I
Should Live in Salt’ reintroduces us to the worn leather creak of Matt Berninger’s voice as he wearily coaxes a partner with the words ‘you should know me better than that’, resigned and sick of it all already. ‘Demons’ is more strident, with Berninger rousing himself to yearn ‘I do not think I’m going places any more / I wanna see the sun come up above me’, a crystalline evocation of physical and emotional fatigue. Musically this record finds a nexus between the expansive alternafolk of Arcade Fire and the mid-life mourning of Nick Cave’s more measured moments, from the sleek, upbeat driving rock of ‘Don’t Swallow the Cap’ to the crooned country laments ‘Heavenfaced’ and ‘This is the Last Time’.
It’s a record which seduces on its own terms; one from which it’s hard to pick highlights but which serves best in one sitting, its cumulative hopeful
rhythmic take on the track which in its earlier guise conjured up images of an intergalactic garden on some distant, undiscovered planet. ‘Treehouse’ is a swinging, jazz-techno jam, while ‘Mars Garden’ is a short, ‘Electric Garden’ offshoot. The cosmic synths and effects of ‘Digital Forest’ offers the best example of the Von Oswald-Atkins creative axis, while the beat- less, falling tones of ‘Afterlude’ draws an engaging, if slightly underwhelming release to a close. (Colin Chapman) sadness seeping into the soul. Occasionally the pace picks up, as on the New Wave rush of ‘Graceless’, but this is generally music which walks with the weight of troubled times on its shoulders, from ‘Humiliation’s delicate mantra (‘one day I lost the job / and I cried a little / got fried a little’) to the Leonard Cohen- like sense of mournful loss shooting through ‘Hard to Find’ (‘don’t know why we had to lose / ones who took so little space’). (David Pollock)
84 THE LIST 16 May–13 Jun 2013