list.co.uk/music CABIN FOLK PETER BRODERICK Colours of the Night (Bella Union) ●●●●●
ROCK RETURN FAITH NO MORE Sol Invictus (Reclamation Records) ●●●●● Records | MUSIC
Accepting obscure invitations from Europeans has tended to pay off well for Peter Broderick, not least that time when he was 20 and Danish band Efterklang invited him to move to Copenhagen and join their band. Just like that. Since then he’s ticked off Germany (Nils Frahm), the Netherlands (Machinefabriek) and Belgium (Chantal Acda) on his collaboration Grand Tour. So it follows that he took up the invitation to spend three weeks recording an album in a prominent Swiss hip hop producer’s basement in Lucerne with some local musician friends as backing.
This is the first time Broderick has not played all the instruments on one of his solo recordings, and the result is perhaps his most mainstream-sounding album to date – folky rather than experimental, and more allied with 2008’s Home than any of the neo-classical material he’s been associated with since. Its penetrative emotional resonance and Broderick’s gorgeous, fragile-but-rich vocals, though, allow it to evade ordinariness. Echoes of Bonnie Prince Billy are very distinct, both in these respects and in the soft, unobtrusive instrumentation. The opening third of the album, including the uplifting title track, feels like a warm hug, and with the knowledge that it was recorded following Broderick’s recovery from a period of stress-related illness, it’s easy to be lulled into the sense that this is going to be a wholly positive journey of redemption and finding inner peace.
When it’s been nearly two decades since your last album, when you split swearing never to reform, when your feverish fanbase latches on to every rumour of your current activity, the pressure is on. If they’re going to come back at all, Faith No More need to come back hard. And yet . . . they don’t. Every one of the studio albums that preceded this came roaring in with fire and purpose. Yet Sol Invictus’ eponymous lead track saunters in and simmers, all minor-key piano, cinematic scope and sombre rumination. Because, despite everything, there’s nothing to prove. It speaks of ease and confidence to lead with this rather than the obvious riotous second track ‘Superhero’, all boot-to temple punk-metal, maniacal roaring and thunderously psychedelic outro. Things start to get really interesting with ‘Sunny Side Up’, part lilting ballad, part punishing assault, with an unsettling, cheerfully acidic refrain. Propelled by one of Bill Gould's greatest ever basslines, ‘Separation Anxiety’ is relentless, claustrophobic and disturbing; while ’Cone of Shame’ shifts from velvety and gothic into churning, swampy noise-rock. ‘Rise of the Fall’ crafts an eccentric patchwork, combining elements of wiry ’80s FNM, jagged riffs, mellow sunshine pop, and the bouncy carnivale of early Mr Bungle.
Familiar to FNM-watchers as the first new track to appear in their comeback gigs, ‘Matador’ was large and lean on stage, but the studio version is just colossal – a multi-part epic that’s brilliantly, almost absurdly overblown. ‘Black
But then comes ‘Get On With Your Life’, a spooky track that seems to tackle head on the spectre of mental illness with both bitterness and vulnerability. It forms a moving triptych with the meditative a capella of ‘If I Sinned’ and the countryish ‘Our Best’, which builds to a glorious, heartfelt climax. There’s a blip in the shape of an off-colour doo- wop interlude (‘One Way’) before those lovely, smooth guitars, some brass and Broderick’s precise, lilting vocals carry you all the way home. (Laura Ennor)
Friday’ and closer ‘From the Dead’, a warm reflection on FNM’s return, both evoke late- ’60s Scott Walker, one of many uncharacteristic touchstones that pepper Sol Invictus. However, the beautiful paradox
at the heart of this band is that they are always at their most archetypally Faith No More when they sound nothing like archetypal Faith No More. The result is a masterclass in what they’ve always excelled at – not giving a damn about your expectations. (Matt Evans)
SYNTH POP ERRORS Lease of Life (Rock Action) ●●●●● ELECTRONIC / DANCE / EXPERIMENTAL HOLLY HERNDON Platform (4AD) ●●●●●
The point of departure between the old Errors and the new Errors came in 2012, when the Glasgow-based quartet slimmed down to a trio. The difference between both incarnations was made plain by contrasting that year’s duo of releases, the third album Have Some Faith in Magic and the mini-album New Relics. The latter was more urgent, more clubby, less afraid to truly impose itself. That ethos and aesthetic continues to this first full release from the new-model Errors, a record which delights in both its lack of fear in referencing the past and the surprising new directions it takes the listener in. It begins in resolute but unlikely style, a torpid beat and a wash of pan pipes
ushering us into ‘Colossal Estates’, a song which eventually builds up to strident marching pace alongside chopped up female vocals which convey a clear rhythm. This time out, Steev Livingstone, Simon Ward and James Hamilton have enlisted the support of backing vocalists Cecilia Stamp and Bek Oliva (Magic Eye), and their frequent contributions enhance the record
By the second song, Lease of Life should have won you over, with the title track’s looping, searching beats evoking a less macho Underworld. ‘Slow Rotor’ rings with a dreamy blend of Europop and Balearic tin drum clatter, a sound not unlike that used on Primal Scream’s ‘Higher Than the Sun’. ‘Early Nights’, by contrast, is a narcotic miasma of ambient music of the kind the Orb might have experimented with two decades ago.
In ‘Genuflection’ there are strains of chillout acid house, and in ‘Through the Knowledge of Those Who Observe Us’ a summation of all that has gone before, from Kraftwerk to Tangerine Dream to Detroit techno, all reined in and kept steady by a 20-piece choir. Whether any of it translates to the dancefloor or not is a moot point, for continued, open-minded listening is the least this fine record deserves. (David Pollock) ■ Errors play The Art School, Glasgow, Sat 11 Apr.
A few facts on the marmalade-haired electronic-whizz that is Holly Herndon. She’s currently studying as a doctoral candidate at Stanford’s Centre for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). She was born in Tennessee, but spent her formative years in Berlin’s minimal techno scene, before upping sticks and moving to San Francisco. She recently contributed a piece of sound art to a Chicago art gallery show, about using the human voice as an instrument.
All these things start making better sense on hearing this, her third album, after 2011’s Car and 2012’s Movement. The geeky love of musical gadgetry, the playful experimentation with songwriting, the throbby, machine-made beats, the voice manipulation, the hippy nods to self-help culture, it’s all in there, and things start adding up when you know where Herndon has been, and where she is now. A bit like Heatsick’s dancefloor-friendly, but cerebrally satisfying – strictly only if you want them to be – tropical-house beats (he too cites Berlin’s club and art scenes as a big influence), Herndon seems fascinated by the spaces in dance music for, well dancing, thankfully, but also exploration and discovery. According to the suitably therapy-speaky press release, ‘Platform is an
optimistic breakthrough for Herndon, an appeal for progress – a step towards new ways to love.’ In ‘Lonely at the Top’, a voice coos words of new-agey encouragement to a stressed-out receiver of a massage, blurred with sounds of laptop typing and running water. ‘New Ways to Love’ is a spacey, polyphonic experiment in song; ‘Morning Sun’ sounds like the celestial vibes of This Mortal Coil, given a glitchy, short-circuity twist and ‘Interference’ is a stuttery pop song, juddering and spasming through waves of interference.
Platform’s not one to sing along to, for sure (not without some very fancy software anyway), but it’s definitely full of new ways to love the ever-fascinating Holly Herndon. (Claire Sawers)
2 Apr–4 Jun 2015 THE LIST 93