POTS #5 - February 2007
By: Thomas Hannan
YOUSIF NUR:
I recently bought the special edition 2-disc version of Pavement's timeless classic 'Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain'. It's so good. So good that I've yet to listen to the second CD yet! I can't quite get over tracks like 'Cut Your Hair', 'Gold Soundz', 'Heaven Is A Truck'.... I could go on and on. I enjoyed this so much I promptly sent my regards to Laurence Bell of Domino like the enthusiast that I am.
'English Settlement' by XTC is another album that won't leave my CD player, the 12 stringed arrangements involved in the texture and structure of most of the tracks on the album are ones that have not been bettered to this day. I could honestly listen to this band all day, as all their albums differ significantly. In fact I'm listening to them now ('No Thugs In Our House' if you're wondering).
Still going down the nostalgia route, with the debut album by Bad Brains. Not so much a noise, as a sonic BLAST. All over before you know it too. Let's hope for a hardcore re-surgence for 2007. 'Blank Generation' by Richard Hell and Blur's 'The Great Escape' have also been given a re-visit, but as for contemporary delights, just wait till everyone hears the new NeatPeople single, 'Carry You Upward', which is out in April. Best song XTC never wrote. Seriously.
February 2007 has seen many a mighty thing, besides my 20th birthday that is, namely the return of one of my favourite bands in the form of 'Love', the long awaited deliverance of The Beatles promised re-worked masterpiece. Although it came out at the tail end of last year I only grasped my hands on a copy this month and not an hour has gone by where one of the brilliant tracks hasn't been played since. A breathtaking look at some of their best loved tracks including 'Strawberry Fields', 'I Am The Walrus', 'Here Comes The Sun' and an almost Franz Ferdinand remix of 'Eleanor Rigby' mashed into the most vital hour and a half of music in this rockfeedbackers life. I can't stress enough the majesty of this album and its importance in showing how and why The Beatles always have been and always will be the greatest band in history. The inclusion of songs like 'For The Benefit Of Mr Kite' and 'Octopuses Garden' melted into greats like 'A Day In The Life' shouldn't work, but with a new modern mix by Martin and Martin Jr it all somehow does, and for that this spectacle is worth anybodies money... and I mean anybodies.
As a respectable indie lovin' kid I have of course indulged in all the usual musical advances that recent times have brought including some Klaxons, Kate Nash (..."Caroline's A Victim"), Maccabees as always (..."it's just what all young lovers do", after all!) and naturally some new Bright Eyes material, but being a struck member of the feedback family I feel compelled to express some of the more, shall we say, lesser known hits of the h'yar and now. Something that's been relentlessly spinning on my decks this month has been The LP, a new fangled electro band with some catchy and raw sentiments to express. Their demo EP is nothing short of gritty and spellbinding and although having a distinct Performance / Stellastarr* vibe hides nicely behind its own identity. More to come from this band shortly I'm sure.
The Rebellion Threat Kills and The Taste have been getting another fair suck on the sauce bottle lately with 'No One Makes Fun Of You' and 'Everybody But You' reminding me how great the Leeds (or Leeds via Germany) music scene still is and how much Jon M (Duels, bass) is a valued member of that community. Duels themselves have been getting a second hearing and as the impact of their initial outward stride becomes a fair and bitter memory I find myself taken in by new 'Little Monster' tracks including a rather pleasing Talking Heads cover, 'Heaven', and what I'm quickly referring to as the best Duels track yet, 'A Pretty Good Year'. When I first heard Duels a hundred years ago (oh, has it been so long), or rather their predecessors Sammy USA, I fell under the spell of 'Potential Futures' and 'Pressure On You', but as they've matured I wonder if maybe they're not the Kaiser Chiefs second coming but something much bigger entirely, a kind of Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins or Radiohead... one of those bands that continue to push music forward by not always being the most commercially successful, but by being among the best, original and curiously fulfilling... and if this is true, expect the next 'Debaser' or 'The Bends' any day now. Puts goosebumps up your neck don't it.
Lastly, something all together more sombre in the immortal shape of Kean's latest single... ha ha... just kidding, I'm actually talking about Regina Spektor who has become something of a telly star lately cropping up on the likes of T4 and the much adored Culture Show while playing some pretty fecking great live shows across the country. 'Samson' has been brutally played to death by myself yet still sounds amazing and although some of her newer stuff is a little more conventional pop, her voice still carries above all that and beyond. She's probably the best female vocalist around today and there's nothing I like more than flicking her on when I'm heading back from work and falling head over heals in love with this girls voice... lush, beautiful and solemn. Yum.
CHRIS HELSEN:
So far this year I have found it incredibly difficult to stop listening to Jamie T's 'Panic Prevention'. Rarely does an album come along that when it ends I just automatically start it again. And again. And this has been going on for nearly 2 months now. Maybe it's just a mid-20s crisis (I recently queued up for his free show at Camden Fopp and seemed to be the oldest person there by about 8 years) but. The other recent releases that have been burning a hole in my brand new stereo are The Loves' 'Technicolour' and 'Wincing The Night' Away by The Shins. Along with Camera Obscura, I love the entirely authentic 60s sound The Loves have got on their album and like many people I'd been looking forward to The Shins album for a good while now. I certainly wasn't disappointed.
Aside from that I have been revisiting a couple of 70s albums that number among my favourites. I recently experienced the curious happening of going to clubs on consecutive nights and hearing Johnny Thunders' cover of 'Do You Love Me?' both times, which made me spend some quality time reacquainting myself with the Heartbreakers unbelievably good album L.A.M.F. from 1977. 'Born To Lose', 'Chinese Rocks' and 'All By Myself' are just some of the great tracks on one of the best punk albums ever. The other one is Big Star's #1 Record/Radio City. I reckon Alex Chilton's band are probably the most underrated of all time, invented 'power pop' and were hugely influential. They created some of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard and this double album is worth the money for 'The Ballad Of El Goodo', 'Thirteen' and 'September Gurls' alone.
When my music collection shrank to the size of my iPod while in India for 3 weeks, it revealed two things. The pressing need to identify who put Jack 'I'm a surfer and smug; that's it' Johnson on it and secondly actually how brilliant Robbie Williams' Rudebox is:
Ironically, as Robbie's abandoned soft-rock, lights aloft soft rock anthems are picked up by Take That, he brings out a madcap pop album. It's Stoke-on-Beats, Bongo Bong with Lilly Allen backing vocals and a fabulously gently bilingual segue into /Je Ne T'aime Plus), Pet Shop Boys' pop finesse of 'She's Madonna' and a cover of previously overlooked soulful dance gem of 'Lovelight'. With Robbie's Bobby Davro rapping there's so much not to like, but it all works, bar the odd track (a pointlessly faithful cover of Human League's Louise and new sparring partner's Stephen Duffy's Kiss Me). Highlights are both tracks 'The 80's' and 'The 90's', which demonstrate Robbie's oft-surprising and admirable handle on the joyful pop chorus. Both are blisteringly personal, posing the question of what the hell he can sing about next, hopefully nothing, many will argue, but 'The 80's' is genuinely touching with its 'Things are better when they start' signature. If this is his Swansong he can bow out with a rare thing, an under-rated pop classic.
[Tom, consider this an official warning - Ed.x ;-) ]
Otherwise it's been Philly soul all the way, The Persuaders, Sister Sledge (before the glitter and top-shelf guitar filth) and Vivian Reed. In particular Clyde Brown's You Call Me Back, with a backbeat so drenched with soul you could get change from the devil himself; as ever, the kind of thing to make your heart dance, and dare you to dream that perhaps music might just save the day.
Oh, and Ben Watt's mix of Silver Ponds by Danish band The Figurines: deep, lush electonica with a sweeping chorus so restorative that you fear you'll never hear it again. I'm not even sure when it's released, but last week would have been too late.
An evening spent at Charlie Potter's 'Weird Film Night' prompted a desire to buy everything The Residents have ever done, and 'Animal Lover' is the start of that quest. It starts with the line 'On the way to Oklahoma I turned into a cat' and doesn't get any more comprehensible from there on in. Constructed in part out of the sounds of animals mating and relating tales of our four legged friends and their relationship towards human beings, it's a fascinating, horrifying and (oddly) desperately sad record. What's more, you seem to be able to pick it up for about four quid everywhere at the minute.
Tom Waits' 'Orphans' is one of the most important records I own and I'll listen to it until the day I die. I'll then insist that all three discs of it are played at my funeral, and request that every mourner is given a copy to rub against their faces to experience how nice the hard back book feels.
There's something great about hearing a really talented band just f**king around, and that's exactly what Sonic Youth - Ciccone Youth, sorry - did on 'The Whitey Album'. It's a complete mess of hip hop experiments, noise soundscapes, demos and cover versions (Kim tackles Robert Palmer's 'Addicted To Love', Thurston duets with Madonna on 'Get In To The Groove(y)'), but this is Sonic Youth the Minutemen's Mike Watt on bass and Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis on guitar, and listening to that bunch of people play anything will always be time well spent. Plus, hearing something this devoid of structure is actually quite liberating.
Anyone else think 'Low Happening' by The Howling Bells sounds exactly like 'Biology' by Girls Aloud?