MUSIC | Records
ALBUM OF THE ISSUE
LIVE WEBSITE EXPERIENCE BILL BAIRD Summer is Gone (Talkshow Records) ●●●●● The description ‘unique’ is frequently used and abused in promoting artistic work, but Summer is Gone really is a unique listening experience, providing 58 minutes of original music, which is individually sequenced at the precise time you visit the summerisgone.live website
and therefore subtly different at every listen, and for every listener.
In order to pull off such a particular project, experimental composer Bill Baird has created 250 mixes of ten ambient tracks, creating enough potential configurations to supply a possible (quick arithmetical calculation) 1.35 billion years of blissful listening.
Baird declares this ‘the only way to make music that’s not stale the second it gets released’. His deeper purpose is to remind that life is short and each moment should be savoured, but he also plays with the notion every listener hears something different in the music they encounter. Close listening is encouraged, as the webpage flashes up ‘this moment will not exist again’ and counts down the minutes.
My bespoke moment began with the gently rippling and chiming
percussive sounds of the title track and introduces Baird’s fragile voice before falling away abruptly. There was much ambient drifting over the next 50 minutes, embellished with gently keening guitar on the brief instrumental ‘Rain on the Window’, gamelan chimes on the gently hypnotic ‘Slip into Shadow’ and channel-surfing samples on the wafting, world-weary freak folktronica of ‘Life’s a TV Show’.
For all the soothing sonics, the experience was more defined by the keen, even urgent, awareness of the passing seconds than by the music. But that might just have been me. (Fiona Shepherd) ■ Listen to Summer is Gone at summerisgone.live
EXPERIMENTAL POP JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN AND BENJAMIN LAZAR DAVIS Let It Be You (Reveal) ●●●●●
On her 2006 debut album, Real Life, Joan As Police Woman – alias Joan Wasser – dueted with Antony Hegarty (now known as ANOHNI) on a groove-pop ballad called ‘I Defy’. ‘How could it be different?’ Wasser sang, and it feels like she’s explored that question through her music ever since. She’s done so by skewing her experimental, soulful aesthetic with other voices,
vantage points and collaborations: with Hegarty on her calling card; with Rufus Wainwright on her second album (2008’s To Survive); and with Chris Dowd of hardcore-funk trailblazers Fishbone, who proclaimed her to be ‘one soulful muthafucka’ (he’s not wrong) – not to mention Wasser’s role as producer on Lau’s outstanding 2015 album, The Bell That Never Rang. That latter credit underscores another way that Wasser has upended the status
quo in her work. She’s long challenged the prevailing male-led rock narrative, wherein blokes are behind the mixing desk, and history sings to the tune of dudes with guitars (she allies herself with Feist and Martha Wainwright and had a nascent love for Diana Ross).
Even traditional themes defy convention on the excellent Let It Be You, her
album in cahoots with fellow Brooklynite Benjamin Lazar Davis. Despite its name, ‘Motorway’ is not a kraut-rock or drive-pop anthem, but a celestial, tech-orchestral lullaby, and ‘Station’ is a study in stillness: a chiming guitar lament that’s resilient
enough to weather the dark night and bare its tears – and a celebration of strength and vulnerability that’s echoed in the sublime, industrial electro of ‘Broke Me in Two’.
Environmental machine-pop dirge ‘Overloaded’, meanwhile, chimes with the latest protest songs from Wasser’s former sonic sparring partner ANOHNI, and is a reminder that over ten years since they first worked together, they remain among pop’s most singular voices. (Nicola Meighan) ■ Out now.
INDIE ROCK EL HOMBRE TRAJEADO Fast Diagonal (Chemikal Underground) ●●●●● ACOUSTIC ROCK PETER DOHERTY Hamburg Demonstrations (BMG / Clouds Hill Recordings) ●●●●●
Like a kind of Scots supergroup in reverse, Glasgow’s El Hombre Trajeado (it means ‘The Man in the Suit’ in Spanish) have become more well-known since they split in 2005, and are probably more familiar for their individual projects these days; while Stef Sinclair and Ben Jones stepped away from music, Stevie Jones played with Arab Strap and later originated his own Sound of Yell project with Chemikal Underground, while guitarist RM Hubbert is a mainstay of the Scottish scene with a Scottish Album of the Year Award and a prolific second career as Glasgow’s ‘flamenco punk’ special guest guitarist of choice in the bag. Fast Diagonal is the band’s fourth album (after 1999’s Skipafone, 2001’s Saccade and 2004’s Shlap), and their first on both Hubbert and Jones’ parent label Chemikal Underground, having reformed for a one-off gig in 2014 as part of the imprint’s East End Social festival. It’s a record which feeds into the heart of Glasgow’s underground with a number of guest appearances; Ela Orleans’ backing vocals provide soft and tuneful enhancement on ‘Darkest Sea’ and ‘Above & Below’; Life Without Buildings’ Sue Tompkins spits a spiky, Ari Up-style indie-punk holler on ‘Do It Puritan!’; James Orr Complex’s Chris Mack lends his voice to the careening drone of ‘Hearing Those Ears’ and the shuffling indie shanty ‘Bare Bone Scree’.
It’s a record which feels at once of the band’s former time, foregoing the familiar flamenco style of Hubbert’s playing for the spiky, angular understatement of post-rock era Glasgow. Yet these are clearly players whose skills complement and enhance each other, so much so that they can get away with dropping in a few instrumentals like ‘Drumlin’, ‘Half Cab’ and the closing ‘Nettles’, whose style might most accurately be described as a jazz-influenced form of grunge. It might be picky to suggest that a few more guest vocals may have taken the proggy edge off these instrumentals, but the singular El Hombre sound is one it’s very welcome to hear once more. (David Pollock) ■ Out Fri 2 Dec.
104 THE LIST 3 Nov 2016–31 Jan 2017
As years go, 2016’s had the sort of news cycle that makes otherwise rational people reach for the Yellow Pages and start looking for the nearest fallout shelter. But sometimes a song from an unexpected quarter comes along and makes some sense out of our messy world. Peter ‘Pete’ Doherty’s latest album – his first in seven years – contains one of those crystallising moments. If it weren’t for the track ‘Hell to Pay at the Gates of Heaven’, the Hamburg Demonstrations would probably only be of interest to Libertines superfans – but that one song is worth the cover price of the whole album by itself. Amid a bittersweet re-recording of Amy Winehouse tribute ‘Flags from the
Old Regime’ and melancholy lead single ‘I Don’t Love Anyone (But You’re Not Just Anyone)’, it’s a surprisingly sharp take on a story that has seemed to defy all but the most sober artistic interpretations.
Written in the wake of last year’s Paris terror attacks, it finds Doherty unnervingly upbeat while exploring the appeal of terror groups like ISIS to kids who, 20 years previous, might have taken up guitars in the name of John Lennon or Sid Vicious rather than arms in the name of religion. It’s a reminder to anyone intimidated by youth in revolt, that as teenage rebellions go, punk rock and fierce haircuts are considerably preferable to black flags and a one- way ticket to Raqqa.
Doherty’s acoustic meanderings and fondness for vintage equipment seem a bit quaint in comparison with viral millenarian propaganda, but I challenge you to find a song that manages to tackle the subject with as much dexterity as he exhibits here. It’s laconic chorus lines like ‘Come on boys, choose your weapons / J45 or AK47?’ (the Gibson J45 was Lennon’s favourite acoustic guitar) that serve as a reminder that Doherty – once hailed as the next great talent in British music – is still a bloody good writer. (Sam Bradley) ■ Out Fri 2 Dec.