list.co.uk/music PSYCHEDELIC / ELECTRONIC DANCE CARIBOU Our Love (City Slang) ●●●●●
TROPICAL POP INSECT HEROES Apocalypso (Lost Map) ●●●●● Records | MUSIC
Dan Snaith’s long journey from master of neo-psychedelic pop eclecticism into a full-blown, wee-small-hours, floor-filling electronic dance artist is complete with his fourth album as Caribou. 2010’s inspired Swim backstroked strongly in that direction, while still retaining an organic thread from 2008’s Polaris Prize-winning Andorra. 2012’s heavily samples-based Jiaolong, released under the moniker Daphni, saw the Canadian display all the dancefloor sensibilities you’d expect of a guy who has become renowned in recent years for his epic extracurricular DJ sets. Our Love is the first Caribou album to likewise feel more apt for a late-night club setting than necessarily a concert venue.
While that exploratory feel that characterises so much of Caribou’s best music remains strong, there is a sense of Snaith reaching the edge of the map here, and possibly needing to retrace his steps. He variously does acid house, chillwave, drum & bass and comedown psychedelia every bit as entrancingly as you’d expect. But that spectacular, alchemic coaction he can achieve between sometimes contrasting styles and sounds has been better evidenced on previous Caribou records.
The BPM shifts high and low, as Our Love wobbles back and forth somewhere
between hands-in-the-air and arms-around-the-toilet-bowl. Where the beatific head-rush of opener ‘I Can’t Do Without You’ and the trippy title track are up-tempo bangers, ‘Dive’ slows things down to zonked half-speed with its
Mountains have long been a source of inspiration to songwriters and often those songs are visceral, ambitious and as improbably majestic as the subject matter. This is the case with Insect Heroes’ debut Apocalypso, an album that tries to throw everything into the mix and largely succeeds in pulling it off. Hill-loving brothers George and Evan Thomas (born and raised in the Peak District and now living in Scotland) call their sound ‘tropical pop’.
Recorded to 16-track analogue tape, Apocalypso is a sonic kaleidoscope of ethereal, slightly chilling vocals drifting in a soup of modular synths, banjo, drums and percussion (Robin Ashton, Adam Campbell and Laurie Pitt complete the lineup) that nods politely in a trippy fashion to influences including Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Super Furry Animals and Joe Meek. Then there are moments when the tempo changes and the mood turns, such as ‘King Fabulous’, as if early Flaming Lips or T-Rex have just crashed the party. It probably helps that they style themselves as ‘British eccentrics and oddballs’, as there is a delightfully shambolic element to their sound that, to quote from one of the tracks, ‘don’t make no sense at all’. Fortunately, it’s also an extremely accessible album with big, memorable songs such as ‘Strobe Lights’, with its layered, ominous harmonies playing off George’s slightly manic falsetto vocal. Meanwhile, the gloriously swirling 1960s pop hook of ‘Beautiful World’ builds into an infectious chorus of ‘I’m so happy, I could die’.
queasy-sounding portamento bass line. ‘Mars’ sees Snaith find his flute to create a fluttering counterpoint to a rushing tribal beat. The filmic ‘Back Home’ builds gradually towards a spine- tingling drop that’s maybe the record’s standout moment. All are impressive compositions, adding up to an album that strongly demands repeat listening. But how Our Love would benefit from just one song as sure and determined of direction as Swim’s addictive centrepiece ‘Leave House’. (Malcolm Jack) The stand-out tracks are ‘These Days’ and ‘Wooden Heart’, which sound like 1960s psych-garage pop and best encapsulate the ‘dark core’ that underpins Insect Heroes’ songwriting style. There’s no question that this band can write a great tune and have cultivated an intriguing sound: it’s all just a question of where they go next. (Rachel Devine) Watch a video for 'King Fabulous' at goldflakepaint.co.uk. Album launch, The Old Hairdresser's, Glasgow, Fri 17 Oct, with Monoganon & David MacGregor.
DARK SYNTHPOP HAUSFRAU Night Tides (Unknown Pleasures) ●●●●● HEAVY METAL MELVINS Hold It In (Ipecac) ●●●●●
Hausfrau is the alter ego of Glasgow-based artist Claudia Nova, who brings us an absorbing debut in the form of Night Tides. Released on aptly named label Unknown Pleasures (there is at least a thematic connection, if not exactly a direct similarity to Joy Division), Night Tides intends to explore the core ideas of darkness and light in music as well as via its aesthetic. Through eight electronic, synth-driven pieces, it creeps and creaks and often envelops, with a hypnotic tidal rhythm. The collection here compiles five original songs with three reinterpretations. It
opens with a stark, sparse version of a traditional folk song with unknown origin, ‘Black is the Colour of My True Love’s Hair’, which sets the throbbing tone with an embedded nod to Donovan’s ‘Colours’ – an artist whom Nova later covers in his own right with a haunting take on ‘Season of the Witch’. Original piece ‘Running’ sees Nova stand in her own light as it bobs and lilts with snaking guitars and soft pulses. The rest of the album takes healthy cues from 80s cinematic and dark pop influences, cemented by the inclusion of a collaboration from Altered Images’ Jim McKinven, as well as the performance of a pivotal piece from David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, ‘Mysteries of Love’. It all culminates in a chilling and brooding piece of work that is as much a headphone experience as it is an entrancing live prospect.
Admittedly, Nova’s voice sometimes struggles to strike as powerfully as her music, which can sometimes stem the flow. But it feels like something she’ll surely grow to fit, as the scope is here for her to expand into a lot of interesting territory. Overall, any curious lovers of pulsing electronica with a cinematic scope will enjoy what is altogether a promising and intelligent debut – one that will hopefully set Nova in good stead to further explore her dark side. (Ryan Drever) Listen to / buy Night Tides from hivmusic1.bandcamp.com/album/ night-tides-cd
Now in their fourth decade, change remains the only constant in Casa de las Melvins. Most recent bassist Jared Warren and second drummer Coady Willis are out, at least temporarily, while Jeff Pinkus and Paul Leary (both of the Butthole Surfers) are press-ganged into service on bass and second guitar, respectively. In the grand tradition of portmanteau partnerships, à la Jedward and Brangelina, this iteration shall be known as Buttvins. Or possibly Melholes.
Generally speaking, Melvins’ albums fall into two categories: obsessively cohesive tomes and disparate genre-jumping patchworks that sound like a dozen alternate universe versions of Buzz Osborne & co colliding in an inter- dimensional wormhole. Hold It In is one of the latter. Of course, there are the malevolent juggernauts of caustic bile traditionally associated with this band. But there’s also ‘You Can Make Me Wait’s bubble-soft, melancholy indie-pop or the sleazy glam-punk of ‘Eyes On You’, an addictively fizzy and boisterous lost classic of turquoise eyeshadow and bovver boots. And there’s rollicking rockabilly, a muscular Kiss homage, woozy abstract confusion, and brazen power-pop laced with straightforward-sounding but almost impossibly knotty transitions. It peaks with ‘The Bunk Up’ – twitchy, wild-eyed prog-metal that glides through a surprisingly mellifluous midsection into a vast ritual of riff. Despite the pleasingly wayward diversity on offer, there is a coherent thread running through this album – and it’s Paul Leary. His disorienting psychedelic
washes and idiosyncratically wobbly filth are smeared everywhere, bringing a debauched narcotic fluidity to a band that excels at caustic precision. In its breadth and playfulness, Hold It In is a spiritual cousin to Stag, Nude with Boots and even Houdini. Where it ranks in their discography is another matter – suffice to say, it’s an invigorating and surprising regeneration of a band that, even 24 studio albums in (or thereabouts), wasn’t even close to needing it. (Matt Evans)
18 Sep–16 Oct 2014 THE LIST 69