Richard Youngs-Autumn Response
JAGJAGUWAR
Umpteenth album from prolific bedroom recording doyen and sometime landek bassist.
A cult figure once dubbed 'King of the Progressive Minimalists', Glasgow-via Harpenden's Richard Youngs' many albums have arrived in a bewildering panoply of styles; from prog revival to no-fi indie-folk and arid electronica. Autumn Response finds him in relatively accessible mode, armed with just an acoustic guitar and some opaque, introverted lyrics. Vocally, the album takes the form of a palimpsest, each song featuring two overlapping lead lines by Youngs that sometimes synchronise but more often meander independently over extemporised folk guitar backings. It makes for a disconcerting, somewhat schizoid listen. I Need The Light is a fine Richard Thompson-like essay - wilfully, aggravatingly blurred - while I Am The Weather sounds like Nick Drake dubbed into submission by Lee 'Scratch' Perry. On Low Bay Of Sky the vocal lines finally coalesce, revealing Youngs' crisp, mellifluous falsetto - the obdurate avantgardiste finally unmasked.
David Sheppard
Monday, January 7, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Black Lips-Good Bad Not Evil
Black Lips-Good Bad Not Evil
VICE
Raucous, wreckless, acidfried garage rock from Atlanta braves.
Pulling back slightly from the grime-smeared lo-fi love letter to late-'60s weirdness that was 2005's Let It Bloom, the fourth album from these prolific and terrifyingly young Atlanta garage rockers draws their clatter of clanging riffs and sleepy-eyed pop melodies into tight-but-loose focus. Black Lips describe their sound as "flower-punk", encompassing ramshackle shanties (Katrina), limber and lairy rave-ups referencing everyone from The Standells to The Stooges, and ersatz country ache (How Do You Tell A Child That Someone Has Died). Indeed, the eerie evocation of bygone eras would leave Black Lips open to accusations of pastiche, if their lusty attack didn't stomp such reservations into the dust. Howling and hopped-up on some unnamed stimulants, Black Lips conjure not only the riffs of the early garage squallers, but their very spirit.
Stevie Chick
VICE
Raucous, wreckless, acidfried garage rock from Atlanta braves.
Pulling back slightly from the grime-smeared lo-fi love letter to late-'60s weirdness that was 2005's Let It Bloom, the fourth album from these prolific and terrifyingly young Atlanta garage rockers draws their clatter of clanging riffs and sleepy-eyed pop melodies into tight-but-loose focus. Black Lips describe their sound as "flower-punk", encompassing ramshackle shanties (Katrina), limber and lairy rave-ups referencing everyone from The Standells to The Stooges, and ersatz country ache (How Do You Tell A Child That Someone Has Died). Indeed, the eerie evocation of bygone eras would leave Black Lips open to accusations of pastiche, if their lusty attack didn't stomp such reservations into the dust. Howling and hopped-up on some unnamed stimulants, Black Lips conjure not only the riffs of the early garage squallers, but their very spirit.
Stevie Chick
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Wyclef Jean-The Carnival Volume II (Memoirs Of An Immigrant)
Wyclef Jean-The Carnival Volume II (Memoirs Of An Immigrant)
SONY
Former Fugee hitmaker now creating hip hop without frontiers.
Given Wyclef Jean's Haitian roots, it's no surprise that the sunshine-soaked sound of the Caribbean has been an omnipresent feature of the former Fugee's solo albums. This sixth opus is no exception, as the vibrant dancehall syncopations of Carnival Jam and edgy dub inflections of King & Queen illustrate. But reggae is just one of a multitude of styles thrown into the blender on this refreshingly eclectic album that fuses hip hop with muscular rock (Trouble Again), ruminative acoustic pop (the lovely Any Other Day, featuring Norah Jones), R&B (What About The Baby, with its cameo from Mary J. Blige) and Middle Eastern music (Immigration). Jean's sonic scope is breathtaking, complemented by imaginative lyrics whose themes range from family break ups, prostitution and drive-by shootings to the US occupation of Iraq. A heady polyglot infusion.
Charles Waring
SONY
Former Fugee hitmaker now creating hip hop without frontiers.
Given Wyclef Jean's Haitian roots, it's no surprise that the sunshine-soaked sound of the Caribbean has been an omnipresent feature of the former Fugee's solo albums. This sixth opus is no exception, as the vibrant dancehall syncopations of Carnival Jam and edgy dub inflections of King & Queen illustrate. But reggae is just one of a multitude of styles thrown into the blender on this refreshingly eclectic album that fuses hip hop with muscular rock (Trouble Again), ruminative acoustic pop (the lovely Any Other Day, featuring Norah Jones), R&B (What About The Baby, with its cameo from Mary J. Blige) and Middle Eastern music (Immigration). Jean's sonic scope is breathtaking, complemented by imaginative lyrics whose themes range from family break ups, prostitution and drive-by shootings to the US occupation of Iraq. A heady polyglot infusion.
Charles Waring
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Ramones-It's Alive 1974-1996
Ramones-It's Alive 1974-1996
One band, two discs, 123 songs...1-2-3=4!
2004's shocking yet compelling End Of The Century told the Ramones' story, rock-doc-style, as one of failure, despondency and lovetriangle bitterness. It's Alive... serves up а happier narrative: five straight hours of chronologically ordered, unremittingly асе live footage. Debuting at CBGB in September '74, they're nohopers, with Joey mincing around in leathers like а codDoll, and ultimately falling off the stage. By June '77, they're blowing the same place apart, and pretty much everywhere else they visit, including London's Rainbow (14 cuts from New Year's Eve '77 - the It's Alive double-album show).
It's testament to their ability to generate electricity that the sparks fly highest in а German N studio (11 tunes from Musikladen). Performances from the mid-'80s onwards are stony-faced, but, internal friction notwithstanding, given а partisan crowd, as at Argentina's River Plate Stadium in '96, they remain unstoppably powerful. The tragedy sinks in only after you've switched off: had heroin and cancer not intervened, the Ramones would've ruled supreme in these reunion-friendly days.
Andrew Perry
One band, two discs, 123 songs...1-2-3=4!
2004's shocking yet compelling End Of The Century told the Ramones' story, rock-doc-style, as one of failure, despondency and lovetriangle bitterness. It's Alive... serves up а happier narrative: five straight hours of chronologically ordered, unremittingly асе live footage. Debuting at CBGB in September '74, they're nohopers, with Joey mincing around in leathers like а codDoll, and ultimately falling off the stage. By June '77, they're blowing the same place apart, and pretty much everywhere else they visit, including London's Rainbow (14 cuts from New Year's Eve '77 - the It's Alive double-album show).
It's testament to their ability to generate electricity that the sparks fly highest in а German N studio (11 tunes from Musikladen). Performances from the mid-'80s onwards are stony-faced, but, internal friction notwithstanding, given а partisan crowd, as at Argentina's River Plate Stadium in '96, they remain unstoppably powerful. The tragedy sinks in only after you've switched off: had heroin and cancer not intervened, the Ramones would've ruled supreme in these reunion-friendly days.
Andrew Perry
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