MUSIC | Records
ALBUM OF THE ISSUE
SYNTH-POP CHVRCHES The Bones of What You Believe (Virgin) ●●●●●
Oh, you could talk at length about how the artwork of Chvrches’ debut album resembles both a star (an accurate prediction of what’s to come for the synth-pop trio) and a feminist, sci-fi take on Vitruvian man – in which Leonardo da Vinci’s depiction of human proportions (from which he argued ‘man is the model of the world’) is redrawn with ‘V’ symbols: as used by Leonardo to represent women; as chosen by Chvrches to represent ‘U’. And oh, you could go on about how the Glasgow band’s calling card is barbed with a thrilling riot grrrl ethos – not least in its oft-menacing lyrics delivered in vocalist Lauren Mayberry’s glorious, guileless vocals.
Then of course there is the band’s stellar indie pedigree, which sees former Blue Sky Archive Mayberry joined by the Twilight Sad’s Martin Doherty and Aereogramme / The Unwinding Hours’ Iain Cook, and which provides the latest chapter in a fascinating tale about Scotland’s increasing presence as a hotbed for electronic music.
But all of that falls by the wayside when you play the album,
which blindsides with such hyper-melodic electro-verve it’s almost ludicrous. The Bones of What You Believe is loaded with the rapturous vintage synth-anthems we’ve come to know and love from the band – ‘Lies’, ‘Gun’ and ‘Recover’ among them. But there is plenty else to uncover too – from future-hits like euphoric techno-aria ‘We Sink’, gorgeous echo-pop ballad ‘Tether’ and iridescent R&B groove ‘Lungs’, to the album’s stunning penultimate track, ‘By The Throat’, which finds the band at their most Prince-like. The heavens are theirs for the taking. (Nicola Meighan)
EXPERIMENTAL / SPOKEN WORD THE GRAND GESTURES Second (Chute) ●●●●●
‘A love story, a hobby, a happening, a need, a collaboration, a must,’ is how Spare Snare man Jan Burnett sums up the Grand Gestures. It’s not so much a band, then, as a broad lo-fi alliance, which he helms as core composer and curator. Their second album, the creatively titled Second, again finds Burnett inviting friends and friends-of-friends from across the Scottish musical (and non-musical) spectrum to lay their lyrics and guest vocals – all recorded in his bathroom in exchange for a curry – atop arrangements of loops, vintage synth drones and found sounds.
With an emphasis on ‘the dark and poignant’, don’t come looking for hummable melodies and throwaway thrills. There’s a search on here for something deeper, stranger, more resonant. ‘My biggest regret is that I’ve rarely regretted,’ grumbles RM Hubbert on ‘Regret Is a Dish Best Served Cold’, in a porridgey thick drawl over what sounds like the Human League playing a funeral dirge. Enjoyable as they may have been to make, it’s hard to place exactly what Burnett means when he says these collaborations are about, ‘fun with a lower- case f’. With the greatest respect for Second having been created with heaps of passion and no budget, goodness it’s glum.
Emma Pollock’s fluttering vocal on ‘Running with Scissors’ has its wings clipped by glacial synth chords resistant to any obvious ideas of development or dynamic. Sparrow and the Workshop frontwoman Jill O’Sullivan’s luxurious
voice is stymied by a similar sense of melodic austerity, throughout the mechanical clang of opener ‘Daybreak’. The album’s best moment, ‘The Spree of Brian May’, finds comedian Sanjeev Kohli delivering a spoken-word vignette in rhythmic rhyming couplets over weird whirs and pings like the sound of a dying submarine, all about a junior news reporter who accidentally sparks Brian May into a violent rage. Amusing stuff in its own jet-black manner but, like I say, not exactly fun. (Malcolm Jack)
ELECTRONIC/ AMBIENT/ EXPERIMENTAL KONX-OM-PAX Selective Recall (Display Copy) ●●●●● PUNK ROCK THE JULIE RUIN Run Fast (TJR / Dischord) ●●●●●
There’s a line in this album’s press release that reads: ‘Scholefield devotes most of his creative energies to directing music videos and designing cover artwork for labels.’ The Scholefield in question is Tom, the man behind Konx- om-Pax, his electronic / ambient / outer limits alter ego. A talented and in- demand video director and graphic artist, Scholefield has worked with labels Warp, UR and Hyperdub, and artists such as Hudson Mohawke and Mogwai. But going by his PR, this new album is not what really takes precedence when it comes to divvying up his ‘creative energies’. So is this the project of a skilled polymath who can happily flit between the twin totems of music and art, or simply the dabblings of a well-connected moonlighter? Well, typically, it’s a bit of both. Selective Recall (on his own label, Display Copy) might be pockmarked with
bright moments of invention but is inconsistent and lacks a clarity of vision. That said, it doesn’t claim to be anything else, stating pretty openly that it’s a collection of unreleased work made during Scholefield’s final year of study at Glasgow School of Art. It’s the nascent explorations of a musician foraging in a vast sonic landscape, often unearthing something unique, other times not. It feels like an unfinished journey, lacking a real permanence to truly captivate the listener. There is noise, glitchy electronica, some structured beats, floaty ambience, conceptual clatter and the occasional throbbing groove.
Riot grrrl icon Kathleen Hanna first introduced us to her semi-autobiographical alter ego, Julie Ruin, back in 1997. Her swaggering, legendary femme-punk posse Bikini Kill were on hiatus at the time (having spearheaded the riot grrrl movement and released three LPs between 1990 and 97), and she had yet to form electro-rock dissidents Le Tigre (who issued three terrific albums between 1998 and 2006). Hanna’s first incarnation of Julie Ruin heralded a lo-fi, fairly low-key,
discordant pop solo album that inspired the likes of Mykki Blanco and bagged plaudits from Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon. She always intended to build a full band around Julie Ruin, but was forced to take a temporary break from music due to illness (as documented in forthcoming film, The Punk Singer, which documents her diagnosis of lyme disease).
In 2010, she began to amass the charge of personnel present on its overdue follow-up, Run Fast. If its players represent a roll-call of Hanna’s musical interests to date – Bikini Kill’s Kathi Wilcox on bass, long-term inspiration Kenny ‘Kiki and Herb’ Mellman on keyboards, tech overlord Carmine Covelli on drums, and fellow Rock Camp for Girls mentor Sara Landeau on guitar – then so too does the album’s music combine the feminist punk diatribes of Bikini Kill with Le Tigre’s upbeat, angry electro-pop.
Recent scuzz-punk single ‘Oh Come On’ and the brassy hollered manifestos
An unfussy and charming lack of pretence dominates the whole collection; even if Scholefield was influenced by sonic vanguardists John Cage and Yasunao Tone in this voyage of discovery, there is little here with the weight of such lofty forebears.
Following up last year’s delicate and understated debut album Regional Surrealism, he displays a scattergun talent for composition, dipping backwards into his career, away from a future that will no doubt yield serious rewards. (Mark Keane)
of silvery disco-dirge ‘Girls Like Us’ (‘girls like us invented jazz / girls like us have no foundations, creation myths are so passé / girls like us carry out passports just in case, you know, we have to go’) are reminiscent of bluesy Bikini Kill calls-to-arms like ‘Rebel Girl’. Meanwhile the spiralling synths of ‘Ha Ha Ha’ and the singalong electro-clash of ‘Cookie Road’ sound a bit like Le Tigre, and a lot like one of rock music’s most critical voices having some well-earned fun. (Nicola Meighan)
74 THE LIST 19 Sep–17 Oct 2013