list.co.uk/music Records | MUSIC
FOLK / FLAMENCO GUITAR RM HUBBERT Breaks & Bone (Chemikal Underground) ●●●●● PSYCH / DRONE / JAZZ LAND OF KUSH The Big Mango (Constellation) ●●●●●
On Thirteen Lost & Found, RM Hubbert was assisted by some big names in Scottish music – Emma Pollock, Aidan Moffat and Alex Kapranos among them. Breaks & Bone finds Hubby working alone again, revisiting and pushing forward the stripped-down sound of his debut, the less than presciently titled First & Last. The difference now is that, after winning this year’s SAY Award, Hubby is now a pretty big name in his own right. Expectations are therefore dauntingly high for his third album, but they’re easily met – and possibly surpassed. There’s a clear pattern to the running order, as instrumentals alternate with almost uncomfortably intimate confessional songs in which Hubby delivers deeply personal lyrics in a disarmingly puppy-soft burr. Combining elements of flamenco and British folk with more adventurous avant and mathy touches, his compositions are emotionally rooted rather than needlessly ostentatious. ‘Son of Princess, Brother of Rambo’ is a great example, gloriously expressive but bold in its restraint.
Although primarily acoustic, Breaks & Bone also subtly integrates electronics and background sounds – the chorus-of-bees synth bass that unexpectedly enhances ‘Bolt’, or the eerie, distant dead-factory atmosphere of ‘Tongue Tied & Tone Deaf’. The latter also contains one of the album’s most devastating lines: ‘The trick’s not being happy, just content.’ The heartbreaking closing track ‘Slights’ is even more affecting – listeners who get through this song in
Sam Shalabi’s third album with Land of Kush is a portrait of Cairo (the titular large succulent fruit in question). His canvas is an assembled big band of Montreal musicians, who manifest aspects of spiritual jazz, Arabian modes, rock and tropicália. It’s an oddly paced record, the first ten minutes consisting of two very different atmospheric pieces that echo Shalabi’s conflicting perspectives. ‘Faint Praise’ is optimistic and tranquil, a shuffling, heat-haze of gently burbling jazz, while ‘Second Skin’s elegiac solo piano gives way to a looming organ drone and churning, desperate baritone sax.
Things kick in with the two-part cycle ‘The Pit’ – warm and approachable, if
not exactly incendiary psychedelic rock – led by saz-style guitar and the honey- drenched vocals of Ariel Engle. ‘Sharm el Bango’ and ‘St Stefano’ both nod to vintage cosmic / spiritual jazz: the former, a somewhat muted tangle of fluttering flutes and effervescing synths; the latter consists of a heavy bass groove and fruity horns that seem destined for a joyous but predictable charivari, but which instead neatly elide into sombre bowed double bass. In the midst of all this, ‘Mobil Nil’ is an awkward indie-rock anomaly, its faintly
climactic Godspeed-lite plod of strings and war drums preceded by a stifling blend of mannered English folk-rock and 1970s MOR. But the final two tracks form a juicy climax. ‘Drift Beguine’ is a sensual, almost gothic Mid-East stomp given
one piece are clearly silicon- based simulacra and not to be trusted.
As compelling as Hubby’s lyrical songs are, it’s the instrumentals that are the most poignant. His fingers are far more expressive than most human voices, his strings more eloquent than any poet. Equal parts mournful and hopeful, in turmoil and at peace, there’s vast emotional complexity to these contemplative pieces. This is a work of exceptional beauty and cavernous depth from a unique talent. (Matt Evans)
beautiful, yearning, dramatic voice by Elizabeth Anka Vajagic, while the title track brings a delirious combination of fuzzy motorik guitars, urgent Arabesque rhythms and stately vocals.
Like the city it portrays, The Big Mango is a sprawling cultural patchwork. Yet at times it feels cautious and restrained, threatening ecstasies only to offer laments. While that reflects its conceptual duality, it makes for an experience that’s occasionally as frustrating as it is thrilling. (Matt Evans)
POP/ 90S ROCK HAIM Days Are Gone (Polydor) ●●●●● POP / GARAGE ROCK CRYSTAL STILTS Nature Noir (Sacred Bones Records) ●●●●●
It feels like Haim have been around a while: following a build-up of hype late last year, they topped the BBC’s Sound Of 2013 poll. But that notoriously non-prescient accolade (The Bravery, anyone?) marked a new chapter in an already long musical history, as San Fernando Valley sisters Este, Danielle and Alana Haim had been performing both separately and together for the best part of ten years. That experience shows on the long-awaited album, as do the primping
powers of the best producers the aforementioned hype can buy. These are the kind of pop songs that sound like you’ve heard them a hundred times on first listen, and whose melodies get stuck firmly in your brain for days.
And, by the way, forget anything you’ve read about Haim being a ‘rock’ band: the only way to explain this tag is the fact that they play their own guitars. This is R&B-tinged West-coast pop with its heart firmly in so many 90s rom-coms, the perfect accompaniment to the recent resurgence of that decade’s dubious fashions. ‘If I Could Change Your Mind’, in particular, is a bona fide 90s nostalgia trip, complete with chiming synths and dodgy fadeout. It’s a shame this album missed its planned earlier release, as it’s definitely the soundtrack to someone’s summer.
It’s best not to scratch too far below the surface, though, because what Haim have in style and melodiousness, they lack in lyrical prowess .
The dark, mysterious, outsidery cousins of jangly indie-pop, Crystal Stilts seem to thrive on awkwardness. Their live shows have come on from the shambolic early days circa 2009’s Alight of Night when now-solo-artist Frankie Rose moonlighted unconvincingly as drummer, but they still retain a klutzy charm. Guitarist JB Townsend will often play with his back to the audience. String- bean, invariably black-shades-sporting vocalist Brad Hargett – his reverb- doused baritone voice buried so low in the mix he could be singing from beneath a pile of coats – may be the most reluctant frontman in music.
Which would all seem unforgivably fainthearted and pretentious, were near every lick of music these Brooklynites make not so strikingly rich in quality and identity. Following 2011’s deliriously good In Love with Oblivion – ‘Through the Floor’ was one of the best songs of that year – Nature Noir continues to grow this band’s murky appeal, a mixture of narcotic reverie and black-eyed meanness that belies the shy sensitivity of the five men making it.
The Doors may not be the most fashionable of influences, but Crystal Stilts threaten to change that. Sprinting into view spraying bursts of pinched blues-rock guitar, Hargett mumbling about getting ‘back to the garden’ where ‘original sin is pardoned’, the tightly-wound ‘Future Folklore’ is the kind of song Jim Morrison and Lou Reed might have penned together were they not mortal enemies. After a jittery first half, ‘Darken the Door’ cuts to a waltz-
At an average of four minutes each, some of the 11 songs on Days Are Gone manage to feel overlong, repeating those catchy choruses just a few too many times for credibility. That aside, Haim are playing to their strengths here: namely verve, hooks, and middle sister Danielle’s voice (yes, it does stand up to those comparisons with Stevie Nicks) and so far, it’s a strategy that seems to be working for them. (Laura Ennor)
time psychedelic freak-out led spinning into the K-hole with a Ray Manzarek-esque flourish by Kyle Forester’s fairground-ride organ. The title track which, over
skeletal guitar-lines, finds Hargett characterising mother nature as the reluctant ‘aggressor’ in a desperate fight to the death with humanity is an unusually conscious, lucid and above all audible observation which makes you wonder why he doesn’t sing out more. (Malcolm Jack)
19 Sep–17 Oct 2013 THE LIST 75