Music From The Lost And Found

Starring

Bjear, Clayhill, Dislocation Dance, The Hidden Cameras, Ken Boothe with Jah Wobble, Memory Scale, Pye Corner Audio

Road To Happiness : Dislocation Dance

Best for : 80s carefree cool kids to dance around the house with their family and pets.

Never was an album better named. This is the sound of switching off from the news and losing yourself in a good time. It’s the sound of music that jerks you out of slouching trekkies and reclothes you in sharp threads. This is for forgetting who you became and being the person you hoped to be when you were eighteen. 

At first I was confused. Dislocation Dance are described  as post punk. If they are, it’s not because they visit dark and bleak feelings and places. There’s nothing of, say, Joy Division or Cabaret Voltaire in the mix. 

There’s a Netflix programme for pre-school children called ‘Gabby’s Playhouse’ in which Gabby moves from the real world of an untidy bedroom into the pristine, animated world of her dolls house. The dolls house is brighter, airier and sweet. It’s a place for warm escapism that feels perfect. Dislocation Dance provide the same feel in their music for grown ups.

Here, the road to happiness is paved with clean pop funk, infectious, bright and gentle. It has all the charm, and none of the twee characteristics, of early Haircut 100. It’s adjacent to the lounge pop that characterised the excellent 2007 album ‘Bee Stings’ from BMX Bandits. It’s a retro sound that owes more to the penthouse than the pavement and they stand shoulder to shoulder with Saint Etienne in their pitch perfect re-creation of a specific era of pop. It’s so refreshing to hear, they could yet become part of a vanguard for pop in the next few years.

Everything you could wish for is here. Choppy guitars, steady beats, melodic bass runs, sweet vocals that haven’t aged a day. The trumpet is a joy to behold. Lyrically they hark back to a golden age of innocent pop. 

Above all, what makes this album a winner is the evident love they have for their music and their confidence in delivering the sound.

Taster Track : Road to Happiness

Chapter 5 : Memory Scale

Best for  Discovering that, like modern art, you know what music is even if you can’t explain it to others

In my first proper job I once had to visit a West End art dealer. He showed me some of the paintings he was selling, and the artist he was promoting. I asked him what makes a painting or artist valuable, expecting him to run off a list of qualities. His answer was simpler than that. He told me that an artist or a painting was valuable because he, and the rest of the art dealer population, said it was. The environment was right for him to sell well and so was the time.

I felt that the same principle might to Memory Scale but, sadly, I don’t think his time is quite now.

Without under estimating the skills required or the techniques involved, there’s a whiff of Emperor’s New Clothes about this. First impressions may be uncertain. ‘Syntropy’ sounds improvised but noodly, meaning something to Memory Scale, but not communicating what it is to the audience. You have no bearings and can find no connection to a world that you know. In ‘Sense Data’ and elsewhere there’s a perpetual sense of waiting for something to happen that neveMemory Electronicar arrives. Ultimately it feels anonymous and brings no sense of personality to the show.

I thought : “Maybe it’s me”. So, while listening to ‘Eptcycloid’ I tried to create the a better environment, dimming the light and lying back to think of nothing much at all. Surprisingly, it helped. Whilst ‘Afternoon Echoes’ still sounded a little mechanical, and I couldn’t quite lose myself in it, ‘The Armillary Sphere We All Need’ had more structure, more solid foundations to build on. It's a pensive piece before breaking down into exploded fragments like a Haynes car manual showing you how a carburetor fits together. Fortunately it could be reassembled without too many missing pieces. It reminded me of a more reflective Andy Bell in his GLOK guise.

It’s a cliche of modern art appreciation that you’ll know what you like. This might be it, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to find you looking for something else.

Taster Track : The Armillary Sphere We All Need

BRONTO : The Hidden Cameras

Best for : Exploring Queer anxiety and disco euphoria

The Hidden Cameras have made some of the most melodic queer disco songs ever written. Try ‘The Boys of Melody’ and ‘Golden Streams’ for songs to lift your spirits and buzz around your head all day. Their songs also contain some of the most explicit lyrics about gay sex ever written, a feature I wish I’d realised before putting ‘Golden Streams’  on a compilation CD I made for my Mum. Fortunately, being my Mum, I don’t think she ever listened to it.

BRONTO is somewhat different. It’s their first album for nine years and it doesn’t sound like the old Hidden Cameras. Perhaps it’s because Canadian band leader and song writer, Joel Gibb, has relocated from the land of the moose and the lumberjack to Berlin, home of the underground, electronic Cabaret vibe. This is an album full of regret, hurt, damage and even fear.

For the most part it’s full of slow, pulsing and throbbing bass lines with sparse overlays. Nevertheless it also manages to convey a cinematic feel in songs such as ‘Full Cycle’ and ‘Wie Wild’. They’re haunted and perfectly paced songs. At times it’s intensely dark, laced with dread and loneliness. Anyone who thinks that disco is merely a collection of mindless, repetitive beats and cliched lyrics should listen to this and think again.

The Hidden Cameras do both the dark and the euphoric brilliantly. Personally I’d prefer more euphoria, but there are enough highs to keep me returning to this album. ‘How Do You Love?’ is a brilliant opener that builds from a lonely bass line to full blown orchestral disco and back. It’s the match of Donna Summer’s Berlin masterpieces, a 12” extended mix heaven. You’ll find sweet Erasure melodies in ‘You Can Call Me’ and ‘Comfortably Numb’ era Scissors Sisters all over ‘Brontosaurus Law’. And elsewhere the lyric melodies lift songs like ’Wie Wild’ out of despair.

This is an album of great music that manages to be both a musical throwback and insightful. It’s a success on both counts,

Taster Track : How Do You Love?

One Day We Will Settle : Clayhill

Best for : Introducing you to a nearly lost band

Clayhill were a folk trio formed by Ted Barnes, Ali Friend and Gavin Clark. You may wonder if it’s fair to describe them in the past tense when they’ve just released a new collection of songs and performed their first gig together in fifteen years but it commemorates the tenth anniversary of singer Gavin Clark’s death. If the band are to be taken at their word, they’ve also released this collection of B sides, outtakes and demos partly to repay their record company for spending all their money!

The hope must be that it provides an introduction to the band’s excellent music through the back door, gives them some wider, long overdue recognition and, maybe, leads to an album of new songs.

If you thought Peter, Paul and Mary when you read ‘folk trio’, think again. This is folk that soundtracks a darkly lit film, regularly exploding with the blaze of out of control bonfires. It’s intense. Songs like ‘Funny How’ are not the sound of contented men. ‘93 Feet’ has the feel of being driven by demons, It’s both desperate and threatened. There’s a psychedelic flavour too, provided in the cracked ‘Gutter’ and lending a rockier feel to ‘House of Cards’. It’s exciting. If this is folk, it’s folk that rocks with the kitchen sink thrown in.

There’s a feeling of deep cuts about this collection. It’s thoughtful pop at heart, with many golden touches. In between the psychedelic outbreaks of ‘Gutter’ is a yearning and heartaching melody. The brass additions to ‘Key To This’ are a delight, echoing the work of King Creosote. I’d much rather listen to them performing a version of ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’ than listen to Morrissey’s self-pitying whine. The stand out track here is ‘One Thing I’ve Not Forgotten’. It’s sad and unforgettably gorgeous - the gateway to their earlier and more immediate work.

Another thing they’ve not forgotten over the years is how to write very good songs. Take the second chance they’re offering to delve into their past. You won’t forget it.

Taster Track : One Thing I’ve Not Forgotten

After The Rain : Bjear

Best for : Accompanying a journey of self discovery

Bjear was recommended to me as a chilled listen by a man who regularly works the night shift at a local hospital.. I’m guessing that he spends quite a bit of his working life in close contact with people a little confused, sharply aware of their own mortality and hoping to see a way through to a calmer future. This four track EP charts one short journey through bleakness to the other side.

Bjear is an Australian with a Scandinavian sensibility. He writes music tucked away in an isolated retreat, and it's spiced with religious or spiritual overtones. For the casual listener, the early signs aren’t promising. ‘Wind’ begins as a bleak dirge. It’s not so much chilled as frozen but it slowly builds to something more celebratory. It’s as if, having touched bottom, life has regained the upward trajectory of a rising thermometer. Warmer times are on the way. ‘The Storm’ creates an ambient crisis point. I love the sound of thunder and rain when I’m wrapped up in the warm. It feels strangely comforting, and it heralds a more positive second half to the EP.

‘After The Rain’ is simply lovely. It brings in a melody that reassures you that the worst has passed. It’s reminiscent of Sufjan Stevens if he had spent a lot of time listening to Sigur Ros. ‘A Journey Through Pristine Waters’ is the realisation that calm has arrived and, with it, a sense of religious thanksgiving. 

In a nutshell, this is a template for believing that the bad times can pass. Suffering will end, broken bones and spirit will heal.

Taster Track : After The Rain

Lake Deep Memory : Pye Corner Audio

Best for : Exploring the heart of ambient electronica

It’s rare that an album comes along that benefits from instructions for use, but the depth and delights of Pye Corner Audio’s music may be enhanced for ambient virgins with a little bit of well intentioned guidance. 

If you can truly immerse yourself in the sounds and textures of this album, you’ll be surprised by a sense of calm, and the discovery of beauty in its unexpected touches. Commit to it and be prepared to listen attentively, preferably through headphones. Free yourself from distractions - no sudden trips to the kitchen for coffee, no listening while small children are in the house, so sudden urges to explore cute pet videos on social media. 

This album lasts for an hour. The good news is that whilst the album works and accumulates magic and power as it progresses, you can sample its qualities one track at a time. After all, art lovers visit La Louvre to gaze at the Mona Lisa. They don’t need to see the museum’s entire collection at once. Start at the end, with ‘Volcano Rock’s  accessible ambience based around a memorable, recurring motif.

This is big music but its power is in the details. To give just one example - nearly eight minutes into ‘Infinite Symphony’ there are two surges of synth quietly in the background. They haven’t been heard before and they’re not heard again, but they’re almost overwhelming in the surge of bittersweet happiness that they trigger. It’s moving.

‘Lake Deep Memory’ sets the template, drawing in texture from the sound of water, drones and slowly shifting electronic patterns. It’s music that gets inside your head. Like food that looks like one flavour but tastes of another it has an affinity with the sound of a church organ in a cavernous space. ‘Pyroclastic Flow’ is rumbling and ominous, sharpening your senses to ward off unseen threats. The gentle sway of ‘Infinite Symphony’ shows Pye Corner Audio to be a master craftsman. It’s stately and serene, but also exciting. ‘Fumarole’ provides a heady rush of emotion and feeling; ‘Memoria del Agua’ brings stillness and clarity of thought. And ‘Beneath The Noise Floor Part Two’ demonstrates that pure silence is a sound in itself.

If I’ve described this in a way that sounds like it is a form of mindfulness, it’s not. It’s a gentle, restorative gift that reveals the possibilities of electronic music.

Taster Track : Volcano Rock

Old Fashioned Ways : Ken Boothe with Jah Wobble

Best for: Reggae lovers and those who want to hear age and experience reflected in their songs.

Reggae, like jazz and the blues, allows its artists to grow old. 

Jah Wobble is now 67. Forty years ago, he was working for London Underground as his music career crumbled under the weight of his addictions. He once used the Tower Hill Underground Station public address system to regale commuters with the deadpan announcement, "I used to be somebody. I repeat, I used to be somebody." So did Ken Boothe. He’s now 77 and, if you’re not a reggae fan, you probably consigned him to a lingering musical treadmill on countless Golden Oldie radio shows shortly after his 1974 chart topping cover of ‘Everything I Own’ started to slide down the charts.

Together, Boothe and Wobble, have curated a covers album of songs that reflect a lifetime of working out who they are, all washed in a bass heavy reggae treatment. It could have been awful, but it’s not. It avoids the sell out accusation by being a selection of songs that feels personal to them. 

Think of reggae, and it’s a small step to thinking of the dub effects that can overwhelm a song. Wobble has used his fair share of those but here he avoids anything too trippy. Instead his bass is nicely done, anchoring the songs with meaning and allowing Boothe voice and identity to take centre stage. His vocals are no longer as silky smooth as they were. They yearn. They’re deeper and a little cracked like a nearly dry chamois leather but they add an emotional punch to the songs.

‘Is It Because I’m Black’ is full of the bitterness, anger and pain that takes a lifetime to accumulate. ‘You Left The Water Running’ connects reggae, folk and the blues. ‘Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)’ is served particularly well, light and floaty as if calling through the decades.  You can forgive the lapse into overt showmanship on ‘Crying Over You’, and you can’t blame him for including a couple of crowd pleasers at the end - ‘My Girl’ and ‘Reggae Christmas.’

Boothe and Wobble - not a firm of wellmeaning solicitors, but a collaboration of two older performers for whom music has remained a constant way of communicating through life.

Taster Track : A Song For You

As ever this week's Taster Track playlists can be accessed at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/42qDXrw3nLMlCSg45kCnRy?si=4499207642034207 or via the Spotify link on the Home Page.

The link to the Youtube playlist is https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwV-OogHy7EjHZr5_M3m0Zn5LEu_F3fMm&si=OhQF-ZPaBjUn4VMT