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AMBIENT/ EXPERIMENTAL SKETCHES FOR ALBINOS fireworks and the dead city radio (mini50) ●●●●● GALLIC POP FRANÇOIS & THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS Piano Ombre (Domino) ●●●●●
Matthew Collings has become a quietly ubiquitous presence in Edinburgh’s off- piste electronische live diaspora over the last couple of years. This latest release in the composer and sound artist’s Sketches for Albinos guise was forged and recorded during snatched moments during time spent in Iceland, and comes on 12” vinyl with a photographic book. The tracks make for a curiously domestic- sounding affair, with the treated guitar and breathy, just-out-of-bed vocal of the opening ‘I Have So Many Things I’ve Always Wanted’ seemingly pulsed along by trolls playing a toy orchestra. The crudely cut-’n’-pasted drum clatter of ‘I Think We Grew Again’ comes on like a lo-fi John Barry and a frosty rather than chilled take on The Orb’s ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ Beyond the drone, snatches of conversations dip in and out of view. A woman describes herself opening the door and stepping into the sunshine. Toddlers sing some far-off nursery rhyme. A woman’s voice says how she doesn’t feel loved. Earlier, the same voice says how she’s ‘recording everything’ before putting the phone down. It’s private stuff, as though the listener is eavesdropping through the rear window on aural snapshots of things normally hidden from view.Opaque and ornate titles hint at after-hours narratives in pitch-black retreats with only the embers of something or someone for company. ‘February With The Wolves And Angels’ squints into the middle distance, even as a stern voice comes on like an Icelandic satnav. The woozily melancholy piano of ‘The Sailor in the City
François Marry, one-time touring member of Camera Obscura, and Fence Records recording artiste, has ceased his perambulations around the UK and returned to his native France to record the final part of what he sees as a trilogy of albums. With his latest release Piano Ombre, he may well have left the best to last.
Like their fellow countrymen Phoenix, Frànçois & the Atlas Mountains have waged a stealth campaign on our ears, never appearing to try too hard to seduce with the elegantly tailored synth pop that they produce. But unlike Phoenix, they write bilingually, so there is an element of je ne sais quoi about these songs, literally as much as figuratively. For example, those who don’t speak French can only presume that ‘La Fille Aux Cheveux De Soie’ (‘the girl with silky hair’) is a yearning love song. The sighing strings, airy piano refrain and soft touch of Marry’s vocals would suggest so, but a little mystery doesn’t hurt.
The truth of dinky single ‘La Verité’ is that it is an irresistibly light, trim and
catchy earworm. It’s an obvious airplay standout on an album that has a subtler charm offensive. ‘Bois’ begins as a bare chanson, delivered with precision and clarity, before fanning out into a mood piece with distinct Afro-jazz leanings. The influence of Afro pop on indie bands has proved durably vogueish in recent years but, appropriately for a band named after a North African mountain range, feels
is Buying Up Time’, the the drum skitters of ‘She Drew A Pentagon’ and the acoustic fuzz of ‘Piani Fingers’ recall the DIY primitivism of late This Heat bassist Gareth Williams’ post-band Flaming Tunes project. ‘Submerged Cathedrals’ breathes in the extended space rock drones of Windy & Carl or Randall Nieman’s recently revived Fuxa project, with every click and hiss preserved in glacial bliss. (Neil Cooper) ■ Matthew Collings plays Hidden Door, Edinburgh, Fri 28 Mar. like an integral part of ‘The Way To The Forest’ rather than a trendy way to sound exotic. The likes of ‘Summer of the Heart’ may be a cute synth line too far for some but, courtesy of their Glaswegian keyboard player Gerard Black (known round these parts as the angelic lead singer of Findo Gask), it is executed with quietly persuasive style. That’s true of the whole album. I don’t know what it means, but I like it. (Fiona Shepherd) ■ F&TAM play Stereo, Sat 29 Mar.
AMERICANA / SCI-FI POP CHAD VANGAALEN Shrink Dust (Sub Pop) ●●●●● IMAGINARY SOUNDTRACKS AVEY TARE’S SLASHER FLICKS Enter The Slasher House (Domino) ●●●●●
Picture this. Two small, prying hands growing out of your shoulders, ripping your eyelids wide apart, provoking untold confusion and pain, and all to a groovy psych-pop beat. Welcome to the surreal province of Chad VanGaalen, where such events unfold on ‘Monster’, a track at the heart of the astral-rock artisan’s fifth long-player Shrink Dust.
Perhaps the aforesaid skewed Americana opus is a homage to VanGaalen’s bygone plans to erect a giant grinning monster head on the roof of his home in Calgary, Alberta. Or perhaps it’s an extension of that same notion, rendered in song form; an illustration of the ways in which VanGaalen’s ever-evolving, divergent art forms – films / graphics / music / physical creations – have bled through, fed off and morphed into each other for 15 years or so.
Shrink Dust was composed in part as a score to VanGaalen’s ongoing science fiction endeavour Translated Log of Inhabitants and, as such, it’s suitably fuelled by celestial wayfaring, clattering alien chorales and sci-fi dystopia (he cites Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius’ 1980s comic book series The Incal as an influence). But this is also VanGaalen’s self-proclaimed country album. It tips its hat to the Flying Burrito Brothers, and its sun-blinded arias are underpinned by pedal steel – the latest in a line of instruments he’s chosen to modify and master.
Variously navigating themes of mortality, terror, mutation and love, and orbiting the harmonious likes of Bright Eyes, Sufjan Stevens, the Flaming Lips
and The Beatles (not for nothing is his studio entitled Yoko Eno), Shrink Dust has several high points, including the brass swathes and retro country- psyche of ‘All Will Combine’, the spindly Neil Young balladry of ‘Hangman’s Son’, the spluttering, pop-fried electro-murk of ‘Frozen Paradise’, and the warm distortion of recent single ‘Where Are You’ – a glam-flecked grunge stomp that nails VanGaalen’s knack for exploratory pop; for travelling, wide-eyed, between worlds. (Nicola Meighan)
Animal Collective, as we now well know, offer a kind of phantasmagorical trip down the rabbit hole, a lysergic musical microdot that can leave the listener feeling both exhilarated and exhausted, but it’s a sensory overload that more often than not proves worth it in the end.
This project from original member Avey Tare (David Portner) is a collaboration with Dirty Projectors singer Angel Deradoorian and Ponytail / Dan Deacon drummer Jeremy Hyman, but it sounds pretty much like an Animal Collective record. There’s Portner’s vaguely manic, treated vocals straining on every song, those trademark claustrophobic layers of psych guitars and drums, the off-kilter time signature changes and that edgy delirium that makes the listener think the whole thing could tip of a cliff at any minute.
Which will please Animal Collective fans, but personally I don’t see the point in one member going off and making an album that sounds exactly like Animal Collective. And if you’re going to bring in a singer like Deradoorian, why bother keep her in the background to do barely noticeable cooing? Lead-off single ‘Little Fang’, with its very un-AC earworm groove and bright,
swaying guitars, is deceptive in that it gives an impression that the album is something it’s not. Although Enter The Slasher House feels like a bit like a missed opportunity, there are still tracks on here that could sit comfortably in Animal Collective’s impressive canon. Typically assured cartwheeling pop- psych numbers like ‘Catchy (Was Contagious)’, opener ‘A Sender’ and ‘Roses On The Window’ with its Tinariwen-on-mescaline dusty groove show why Portner is a key driving force in the band’s singular sound.
Given that Animal Collective as a unit are prone to go on hiatus, the record, however unintentionally, is a solid reminder of their heady allure. Whether really we needed that reminder is another matter. (Mark Keane)
20 Mar–17 Apr 2014 THE LIST 75