MUSIC | Records
ALBUM OF THE ISSUE
INDIE AIDAN MOFFAT AND RM HUBBERT Here Lies the Body (Rock Action) ●●●●● There’s a sense of inevitability to this collaboration by two of the most embedded mainstays of the Glasgow music scene, both of whom have been familiar faces for the past two decades. It would be convenient to ask why it hasn’t happened before, in fact, although it has; on RM
Hubbert’s collaborative Thirteen Lost and Found album back in 2012. The pair are a compelling combination, between Aidan Moffat’s familiar, blackly humorous and painfully honest half-sung vocals, and Hubbert’s delicate, emotive Spanish acoustic guitar playing.
There are further pleasant surprises to be had, with Siobhan Wilson
– one of Scotland’s brightest and most fully realised young talents – playing cello and making regular lead and backing vocal contributions, and appearances by pianist and composer Rachel Grimes and jazz saxophonist John Burgess. Moffat, a perennial collaborator, has found perfect partners in Hubbert and Wilson. His duet with the latter on the opening ‘Cockrow’ adds a feminine balance to Moffat’s usual sense of overwhelming dismay at his own masculinity. Hubbert’s playing really opens up the sensitive heart to his lyrics on an album that ranges from the universe-pondering beauty of ‘Quantum Theory Love Song’ to the eerie, saxophone-laden ‘Wolves of the Wood’ and the languid, samba-drumming squall of ‘Party On’. Moffat, of course, is as much spoken word artist as singer and
as much storyteller as lyricist, and his words evoke a sense of character and place alongside his way with a pop hook, and this record is the perfect balance of those words with Hubbert’s evocative compositions. (David Pollock) ■ Out Fri 11 May. They play St Luke’s, Glasgow, on Thu 17 May.
EXPERIMENTAL TECHNO DANIEL AVERY Song for Alpha (Phantasy Sound) ●●●●●
Known for his skills behind the decks and on the dancefloor as much as for his studio work, Daniel Avery’s reputation as a doyen of the techno world was cemented with his highly praised 2013 debut Drone Logic. These days, Avery’s sets are defined by the kind of downtempo, clouded rhythms and hypnotic techno that extends beyond the club to more ambient spaces. It makes sense, then, his second album Song for Alpha takes these experimentations further, occupying an area that relies on brooding ethereal arrangements as much as it does on mechanical basslines and percussion.
Opener ‘First Light’ features a swirl of meditative noise that paints a monolithic picture, a perfect introduction to the angular synth and propulsive beats of ‘Stereo L’. Tracks like ‘TBW17’ and ‘Embers’ work as soporific segues, sitting assuredly next to the menacing and sinister pitches and frequencies of the extra- terrestrial ‘Diminuendo’ and driving rhythmic lines of ‘Projector’.
‘Slow Fade’, the first track to be shared from the album, is built up using slunking synth pads and pounding 808s, which float around a moody backdrop before dissolving into the dense and murky ‘Glitter’. Elsewhere, ‘Clear’ and ‘Sensation’ are cut by more jagged and spiky techno rhythms, with the latter undulating between acid rave and ambience, climaxing with the ebb and flow of a harmonious crescendo.
Song for Alpha sees Avery position himself more firmly within a realm of club music that favours soundscape over melody, and texture over singular rhythm. It highlights a change in his musical make-up, with a far greater stress on the counterbalance between woozy synths, lingering grooves and acid-infused bass. This is an album where each track is refined using a dramatic minimalism that is to be enjoyed, as Avery notes, ‘eyes closed as opposed to hands in the air’. (Arusa Qureshi) ■ Out Fri 6 Apr. Daniel Avery plays Hidden Door, Edinburgh, Sat 26 May.
HIP HOP YOUNG FATHERS Cocoa Sugar (Ninja Tune) ●●●●● ROCK MANIC STREET PREACHERS Resistance Is Futile (Columbia) ●●●●●
Occasionally – and incorrectly – pigeonholed in the same genre as the hip hop clubs of Edinburgh where they first met, Young Fathers transcend easy definition in much the same way as Massive Attack continue to. Their sound is an algorithmic playlist, as random but subtly designed as any you might be served online, blending rock, rap, soul, R&B, trip hop and industrial. ‘People get old, people get forgotten’, sings James Dean Bradfield on Resistance is Futile’s opening track, his instantly recognisable voice powering over thudding cello, moments later swimming in gorgeous violins. The passing of time is a recurring theme on the band’s 13th album, but they’re in no danger of being cast into irrelevance.
There's no one like them and that's one reason they should be
enthusiastically celebrated. This third album – arriving four years after they picked up a Mercury Prize – is the one they've been wanting to make since they were teenagers, says bandmember Graham 'G' Hastings, although it still manages to sound urgently, almost confrontationally, of its time.
'Here's the thing about progression / I didn't work this damn hard to stay where I belong,' growls the verse of 'Turn', a testament to the value of hard work and no expectation of help to get where you want to be. It's an anthem for those who are striving, but there's a surging undercurrent to be found here, one that sticks up for the underdog. Young Fathers are working class and racially mixed, and in the loaded line 'don't you turn my brown eyes blue / I'm not like you', there's a powerful implied refusal to sell out their identity for success or easy acceptance.
There are some gorgeous beats on this record, but almost nothing which can be described as upbeat. Instead, the soulful voices of Kayus Bankole and Ally Massaquoi lend it heart. It's a bittersweet listen, and their vocals leaven the
After what’s been, in relative terms, an experimental decade (with the krautrock- influenced Futurology and the stripped-back Rewind the Film), the group’s latest effort is reassuringly familiar. The spirit of ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ permeates lead single ‘International Blue’, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that Resistance Is Futile’s musical blueprint lies somewhere between the rousing, orchestral cuts from Everything Must Go and the confident strut of debut album Generation Terrorists. Considering their often highly politicised output, it’s perhaps surprising that the lyrical content doesn’t explicitly reference the torrid geo-political issues of today, instead alluding to outsider subjects like French painter Yves Klein and Chicago street photographer Vivian Maier. If there’s a theme to Resistance Is Futile, it’s the celebration of art in a frightening age. Klein is the ‘little boy who saw the truth’ in the skies of Nice, Maier’s camera is her ‘weapon of choice’, while ‘In Eternity’ celebrates the legacy of David Bowie, ‘the king and queen of style’. There are moments of melancholy too. ‘Sequels of Forgotten Wars’ is driven by
an ominous riff with lyrics about wars ‘doomed to be lost’, and ‘Broken Algorithms’
pneumatic, gospel-infused groove of 'Border Girl' and the scything rhythm of 'Holy Ghost', both of which allude to the refugee experience, and toughen the edge of jittery industrial sex groove 'Wire' and neon-streaked amphetamine rush 'Wow'.
Cocoa Sugar is the definitive sound of 2018 – and in another universe, Young Fathers might actually receive all the acclaim they deserve. (David Pollock) ■ Out now. Young Fathers play Hidden Door, Edinburgh, Sat 2 Jun.
would have slotted in perfectly on Journal for Plague Lovers. ‘Dylan and Caitlin’ (a duet with The Anchoress) documents Dylan Thomas’ tumultous marriage with grace. There are missteps (‘Hold Me Like a Heaven’ is forgettable, while ‘Liverpool Revisited’ is an earnest tribute penned for the Hillsborough victims that deserves a better tune), but Resistance Is Futile is another success from rock’s great survivors: a hook- laden collection from a band still full of life. (Craig Angus) ■ Out Fri 13 Apr.
86 THE LIST 1 Feb–31 Mar 2018 86 THE LIST 1 Apr–31 May 2018