MUSIC | Records
ALBUM OF THE ISSUE
INDIE ROCK ANGEL OLSEN My Woman (Jagjaguwar) ●●●●● There are many words to live by on this excellent new album from Angel Olsen. ‘Have whatever love you wanna have,’ she commands on alt-country aria ‘Heart Shaped Face’; ‘Let the light shine in’, she advises on galloping grunge chorale ‘Not Gonna Kill You’. And as for ‘Shut
Up, Kiss Me’ – well, a woman’s patience has its bounds.
Olsen’s earlier albums and previous work leaned more towards
downtime Americana and folk, but My Woman thrives on fuzz-pop, indie rock, alt-country and psychedelic soul, variously recalling St Vincent, the Pretenders, Fleetwood Mac and the Shangri-Las. The album was co-produced by Justin Raisen (Charli XCX, Sky Ferreira) and features Seth Kauffman (guitar), Emily Elhaj (bass), Joshua Jaeger (drums) and guitarist Stewart Bronaugh (more guitar).
The Missouri-raised singer-songwriter has said of My Woman that although she never strives to make explicit feminist statements in her work, related themes nonetheless make their presence felt. She suggests that one idea at the heart of this record relates to ‘the complicated mess of being a woman and wanting to stand up for yourself, while also knowing that there are things you are expected to ignore, almost, for the sake of loving a man.’
As befits such comments, Olsen’s third long-player affirms her
position as a singular, strident rock’n’roll artist, tired of putting up with shit. She questions the power balance of love, and trust, on alt-rock groove ‘Give It Up’ (‘What is it you think I need? Everything? It’s not true’) and refuses to budge on ‘Shut Up, Kiss Me’ (‘Stop pretending I’m not there’). Overlook her at your peril. (Nicola Meighan) ■ Out Fri 2 Sep.
ALTERNATIVE ROCK PIXIES Head Carrier (PIAS) ●●●●●
‘I met this real cool dude today / lookin’ like Jack Palance / he said I wanna get through to you / and help you find your talent,’ rumbles Frank Black in the opening seconds of ‘Talent’, and it’s impossible to love a cheap excuse for a rhyme more. Pixies are back, which may be to the excitement of very few after 2014’s drawn-out and meagre comeback record proper Indie Cindy. Yet this feels like the album they should have been making back then, for the most part at least deserving of a place on the shelf alongside Surfer Rosa and Doolittle. What this means in practice, we now discover, is for the Bostonian indie-rockers
to remain forever trapped in 1989, to forego maturity for cheap but loveable pop lyrics like the one quoted above, meaty guitar riffs, and Black’s undying, throatily delivered enthusiasm for both. It’s also, crucially, a record which retains Pixies’ sense of essential femininity; bassist Paz Lenchantin (A Perfect Circle, Zwan) became the second replacement for the band’s lone female co-founder Kim Deal in 2013, a few months after the latter had left to concentrate on the Breeders, and this is the record which fully integrates her as a member. Namely, that’s because the charming rawness of her vocal complements Black’s lead parts perfectly on tracks like the more reflective ‘Bel Esprit’, while she takes effective lead herself on ‘All I Think About Now’. This isn’t a record to gather armies of new Pixies fans together – it feels as
though their ways are set now, that if you don’t know what you’re expecting you’ve come to the wrong place – but it’s comfortably one which consolidates all that they already had. In its best moments, it’s pretty thrilling, from the sludgy ‘Hey Hey My My’-isms of the title track to the breezy, bittersweet anthemics of ‘Might As Well Be Gone’ and ‘Um Chagga Lagga’s spiky garage rock, a welcome testimony that Pixies are at least back, two years after their first false start. (David Pollock) ■ Out Fri 30 Sep.
CHAMBER POP MODERN STUDIES Swell To Great (Song, By Toad) ●●●●● PUNK ROCK DANNY & THE DARLEANS Bug Out (In the Red) ●●●●●
They’re officially a four-piece, but there are five protagonists in chamber-pop cartographers Modern Studies. Emily Scott, Rob St John, Pete Harvey and Joe Smillie craft exquisite hymns and shanties on analogue synths, double bass, cello, drums, guitars and wine-glasses – but the character at the heart of this Glasgow-via-Yorkshire alliance is an old Victorian pedal harmonium, whose creaks and wheezes, puffs and drones, breathe history and life into these melancholy landscape psalms. Swell to Great’s elemental meditations on memory, nature and bodies of water (oceans, rivers, tears, ourselves) are calming and evocative, with a colour palette of bright moons, black streets, hidden depths and bottle greens, all shot through with unspoken blues – from the gorgeous, undulating folk-rock of ‘Dive Bombing’, through the nocturnal reverie of ‘Black Street’, to longing songs awash in salt like ‘Bold Fisherman’, ‘Ten White Horses’ and ‘Swimming’.
St John has long excavated nature and environment in his work – from debut
album Weald through environmental art explorations like Water of Life and Concrete Antenna. His aesthetic and warm Lancastrian burr chimes beautifully with Scott’s gorgeous voice and rich, poetic song-craft, as gently embellished by Smillie (also boss of Glasgow’s splendid Glad Café) and Harvey (The Leg, King Creosote). The latter’s typically spacious, sublime arrangements are understated and mesmerising. And the old harmonium speaks volumes, conjuring a sense of yearning and
times past, as love letters to memories and the faraway slowly unfold. Lilting, orchestral opener ‘Supercool’ yearns across distance (‘Oh the summer, long ago’ . . . ‘Oh the water, so far out’), ‘Father Is A Craftsman’ is a stunning folk-pop ode to tradition, kinship and lineage, and ‘Bottle Green’ marvels at (and perhaps also mourns) ‘The Ocean, deep as hell, flat as stone’. This is a treasure trove of songs that embrace, and transcend, place and time. (Nicola Meighan) ■ Out Mon 12 Sep.
70 THE LIST 1 Sep–3 Nov 2016
If Bug Out was a flatmate, they’d be the worst. Nocturnal, allergic to the leccy bill and a repeat fridge raider, they’d make you look like a total killjoy by establishing themselves as the life and soul of every party. Danny Kroha, acclaimed graduate of the Gories and the Demolition Doll Rods, has returned as the frontman of messy punk rockers Danny & the Darleans. Consisting of Kroha on vocals and guitar, tornado drummer Richie Wohlfeil and bassist Colleen Burke, they’re a light-hearted, fun rock act. On their second album, they’re not wasting time – only two of the record’s 11 tracks are over three minutes long, and all but one maintain a frenetic tempo. Of course, just because it’s a party album doesn’t mean it won’t make you think. Hidden behind Kroha’s wolfish vocals, leatherback guitar riffs and slack- jawed rock’n’roll vocabulary is a rich seam of songwriting dealing with anxiety, science fiction-inspired dread, and on woozy dirge ‘Dr. Finger’, prescription drug addiction. It’s an interesting combination, but doesn’t leave a lot of room to manoeuvre heavy subjects – a problem demonstrated on ‘Leaving Here’. An album highlight featuring guitar riffs that railroad through your headphones, it blends politics with fast-paced rock, throwing proto-feminist statements (‘Hey there have you heard the news / The women in this town have been misused!’) about with wild abandon. Kroha appear to enjoy toying with the vulgarity of hairy, unkempt garage rock, and it seems to work – if they were more refined, they’d probably just sound like Jet. It poses a tough question to listeners though – can you write a decent feminist rock song and still chuck about epithets like ‘chicks’?
Maybe, just as with a crappy flatmate’s past crimes against kitchen etiquette, it’s best not to dwell on whether a band who describe themselves as ‘apocalyptic party rockers’ can deliver liberation in a two-minute rock song. Maybe it’s best to just focus on the guitar solos. (Sam Bradley) ■ Out Fri 7 Oct.