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When LA female noise-pop quartet Dum Dum Girls' debut LP I Will Be surfaced last year, it felt like a missed opportunity. The had a look, built around the gutter-goth style sexual aura of frontwoman Dee Dee, which screamed alt-icons. They were well connected - East Coast pal Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs contributed guitar in the studio. Meanwhile, songs like 'Jail La La' proved a band able to deliver the bubblegum melodies required to stand out from a pre-eminent (and saturated) lo-fi scene. However, where LA contemporaries Best Coast succeeded in pinning Bethany Cosentino's simple melodies to graceful, unfussy production, Dum Dum Girls hid behind walls of guitars and a rhythm section so jarring as to be positively painful in headphones.
Did this betray a crisis of confidence in the material, or a bungled attempt to breakthrough with super-compressed radio fare, courtesy of former Go-Gos producer Richard Gottehrer? Regardless, swallowed up in the thud of the mix, many of the songs fell flat. Which brings us seamlessly to 'He Gets Me High', from the band's new EP of the same name (released late last month). The thundering snare is held back a touch, while guitars are allowed to sway woozily in and out of the void left behind. Most importantly, however, is we get more Dee Dee, with harmonies we can hum and words we can hear. And take note fellas - and Bethany Cosentino - she's not singing about weed.
He Gets Me High EP is out now on Sub Pop.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Sunday, 13 March 2011
Listen Up! No. 96: Bing Ji Ling - Move On
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Bing Ji Ling is the pseudonym of New York producer/writer/multi-instrumentalist Quinn Luke. When not pursuing his day job as one sixth (at last count) of marauding post-hippie troupe the Phenomenal Handclap Band, Luke apparently likes to indulge himself in a spot of breezy, feel-good '70s soul. On latest single 'Move On' (released earlier this month), he duly treads a fine line between a forgotten cut from Hair: The Musical and the kind of music used to backdrop frolicking youths in Boots suntan lotion adverts. Thankfully, this one is more 'Aquarius' than Joss Stone. Just. The album, Shadow to Shine, drops on 21 March.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Listen Up! No. 95: Art Brut - Unprofessional Wrestling
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Art Brut records have an uncanny knack of seeming as instantly disposable as an Eddie Argos bon mot, while invariably leaving you feeling as warm and fuzzy as the red wine, cheap cigarettes and pitiful romanticism around which their world is framed. You miss them, dearly, like an old friend from school you never realised you had so much in common with.
Luckily, fans haven't had to wait too long - it's been less than two years since last record Art Brut Vs. Satan was released - and the early signs are that they've lost none of their doleful charm. This week they preface their fourth long-player, the aptly-titled Brilliant...Tragic (released 23 May on Cooking Vinyl) with free download 'Unprofessional Wrestling', another slice of buzz-saw guitars and bustling garage-rock. While Argos' self-deprecating lyrical radar may be familiar - here likening the act of physical romance to a round in the ring with an unforgiving opponent - his attempt at singing may not.
Luckily, fans haven't had to wait too long - it's been less than two years since last record Art Brut Vs. Satan was released - and the early signs are that they've lost none of their doleful charm. This week they preface their fourth long-player, the aptly-titled Brilliant...Tragic (released 23 May on Cooking Vinyl) with free download 'Unprofessional Wrestling', another slice of buzz-saw guitars and bustling garage-rock. While Argos' self-deprecating lyrical radar may be familiar - here likening the act of physical romance to a round in the ring with an unforgiving opponent - his attempt at singing may not.
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Album Review: Bardo Pond - Bardo Pond
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Noise-rock nearly men (and woman) return with first ear-splitting record for four years
Philadelphia sextet Bardo Pond don’t like change. 20 years and 8 records served, the band’s droning noise-rock and psych-folk flourishes remain comfortingly embalmed in post-alt-rock boom 1993. The songs still regularly breach the 10 minute mark – although nothing rivals the 29-minute ‘Amen’ from 1995’s magnum opus Bufo Alvarius, amen 29:15 – while alterations in chord are eschewed in favour of spectacular dynamic shifts. It’s a cacophony of sound which explains why they never became alt-rock royalty, despite stints on pre-eminent indy labels Matador and 4AD; too impenetrable, too esoteric, and too darn druggy for the casual party stoner who’d rather be learning rote lyrics from a Pavement CD inlay.
However, they’re masters of their craft. Opener ‘Just Once’ explodes with hair-raising bursts of distortion. The shimmering feedback and the off-sync murmur of singer Isobel Sollenberger on ‘Undone’ – “spun out into space” – transcend accepted boundaries of meter and time, yet fashion something strangely regimented; until the microdots are passed around, that is. Better still is ‘The Stars Behind’, where rare open spaces are saturated with Sollenberger’s elegiac howl. “Lost in the night” she repeats, like a Jennifer Herrema who gave a damn. The world won’t listen. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
8/10
Choice Cuts: The Stars Behind; Undone
Out now on Fire records
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| Bardo Pond: Transcending boundaries of meter and time |
Philadelphia sextet Bardo Pond don’t like change. 20 years and 8 records served, the band’s droning noise-rock and psych-folk flourishes remain comfortingly embalmed in post-alt-rock boom 1993. The songs still regularly breach the 10 minute mark – although nothing rivals the 29-minute ‘Amen’ from 1995’s magnum opus Bufo Alvarius, amen 29:15 – while alterations in chord are eschewed in favour of spectacular dynamic shifts. It’s a cacophony of sound which explains why they never became alt-rock royalty, despite stints on pre-eminent indy labels Matador and 4AD; too impenetrable, too esoteric, and too darn druggy for the casual party stoner who’d rather be learning rote lyrics from a Pavement CD inlay.
However, they’re masters of their craft. Opener ‘Just Once’ explodes with hair-raising bursts of distortion. The shimmering feedback and the off-sync murmur of singer Isobel Sollenberger on ‘Undone’ – “spun out into space” – transcend accepted boundaries of meter and time, yet fashion something strangely regimented; until the microdots are passed around, that is. Better still is ‘The Stars Behind’, where rare open spaces are saturated with Sollenberger’s elegiac howl. “Lost in the night” she repeats, like a Jennifer Herrema who gave a damn. The world won’t listen. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
8/10
Choice Cuts: The Stars Behind; Undone
Out now on Fire records
Monday, 7 March 2011
Interview: Liam Bailey
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When Amy Winehouse founded Lioness records at the height of her tabloid nadir in late-2009 as a medium through which to promote the precocious talents of her 15-year old goddaughter, eyebrows were raised. Dionne Bromfield’s record of soul and Motown covers duly stumbled into the charts at 33. The vultures sniggered. But they were premature. Mercurial as ever Ms Winehouse is, last year she began touting a little-known Nottingham-born singer-songwriter called Liam Bailey, and this time she was onto a winner.
Anyone who had the fortune to catch Bailey’s debut EP 2am Rough Tracks may have thought they had been sent back in time by some benevolent musical Gods, where the marriage of gospel and rhythm and blues consolidated into the blissful sound of 1960s American soul. Recorded into a laptop with just a guitar for company, the stripped-back arrangement showcased a voice of raucous beauty – soulful yet incendiary, and entirely uncharacteristic of the slew of feted modern vocalists. With another fine EP, So Down,Cold, and a soaring cameo on Chase and Status’ top-5 stadium drum ‘n’ bass anthem ‘Blind Faith’ under his belt, Bailey appears primed for a starring role in a feel-good summer 2011. He talks about cornrows, insulting X Factor also-rans, and his debut long-player Out of the Shadows.
So, the word on the wind is that you’re going to be this summer’s soul smash, à la Amy Winehouse, Plan B or, er, Duffy. What do you reckon?
[Laughing] Really? I don’t know about that. But this summer should be good. I’ve got some festivals to do with Chase and Status and I’ll be doing some on my own. Summers are all about that feeling of being about 15 and watching Glastonbury on TV and thinking “I could do that”. Imagine that, but this time you’ve got a nice shower instead of horrible portaloos. To be fair, I just can’t wait for a summer when I feel really positive, because last year was difficult…
This interview was conducted for The Line Of Best Fit. Go here to continue reading the full interview.
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| Liam Bailey: Music to savour from this years soul saviour? |
Anyone who had the fortune to catch Bailey’s debut EP 2am Rough Tracks may have thought they had been sent back in time by some benevolent musical Gods, where the marriage of gospel and rhythm and blues consolidated into the blissful sound of 1960s American soul. Recorded into a laptop with just a guitar for company, the stripped-back arrangement showcased a voice of raucous beauty – soulful yet incendiary, and entirely uncharacteristic of the slew of feted modern vocalists. With another fine EP, So Down,Cold, and a soaring cameo on Chase and Status’ top-5 stadium drum ‘n’ bass anthem ‘Blind Faith’ under his belt, Bailey appears primed for a starring role in a feel-good summer 2011. He talks about cornrows, insulting X Factor also-rans, and his debut long-player Out of the Shadows.
So, the word on the wind is that you’re going to be this summer’s soul smash, à la Amy Winehouse, Plan B or, er, Duffy. What do you reckon?
[Laughing] Really? I don’t know about that. But this summer should be good. I’ve got some festivals to do with Chase and Status and I’ll be doing some on my own. Summers are all about that feeling of being about 15 and watching Glastonbury on TV and thinking “I could do that”. Imagine that, but this time you’ve got a nice shower instead of horrible portaloos. To be fair, I just can’t wait for a summer when I feel really positive, because last year was difficult…
This interview was conducted for The Line Of Best Fit. Go here to continue reading the full interview.
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