New Words, New worlds

chrisweeks1020
4 hours ago
12 min read

The Cast : Albums

The Bel Air Lip Bomb, Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe, The Clause, Gruff Rhys, Kelora, Polygonia, Le Volume Courbe

The Cast : EPs and Singles

Asgeir, Common Saints, Joe Goddard and Florious, Soft Cotton County, Sour Ops

Dream Horizons : Polygonia

Best for : PhD music students

There’s dance music and intelligent dance music (IDM). And then there’s Polygonia’s ‘Dream Horizons’ which aims for the person who wants to build up an encyclopedic understanding of what electronic music can do with rhythms, pulses and beats. This is dance music for the PhD graduation party, not the GCSE Year 11 prom.

This is 69 minutes of mind tickling sound that is probably 20-25 minutes too long for some casual listeners. It draws inspiration from the pioneers of electronic music, their exploratory improvisations and, occasionally, the structures of jazz to make abstract compositions that open up new worlds.

Experiencing these pieces is a little like wandering around a modern art gallery, admiring the colours while not quite understanding what it’s all about. You can still take pleasure from it, but you might quail at the thought of spending all day there. This is music that sounds good, very good, an album to seek out the limits and full potential of your hifi and headphones.

Is it really dance music? It’s true that it’s fairly abstract, but I think it is. If you’re looking for Chic or a burst of Northern Soul, look elsewhere. But if you were to visit the contemporary dance company Ballet Rambert you’d find it the perfect accompaniment to their movements, strengths and emotions.

There’s a run of tracks at the centre of this album that lost me a little - from ‘Metaphysical Scribbles’ to ‘Hidden Blue’. These tracks are stripped back as if they’re playing with just a single element of the music. As a result, something like ‘Metaphysical Scribbles’ feels more like a promising backing track, the shell of an empty construction, bearing the same relationship to a finished product as an architect’s plans bear to a fully built house. They lack the warmth of the opening track ‘Crystal Valley’ and the spellbinding run of tracks from ‘Mindfunk’ that brings the album to a close.

Persevere though, because ‘Mindfunk’ works its obsessive funk deep into your skull. ‘Twisted Colours’ has the spectacular freedom of effortless perpetual motion. ‘Whirlwind of Hearts’ achieves a sublime balance between Royksopp type melody and something more improvised and meandering. ‘Essential Breath’ which brings the album to a close also returns us to music as a living, breathing, human activity.

Every now and then, it’s worth stretching yourself with music. It reminds you of the vast inventiveness and scope that could be within your reach. Polygons provide the opportunity for that.

Taster Track : Whirlwind of Hearts

Sleepers : Kelora

Best for: Lovers of simple melodies filled with wonder

Kelora are an electro-acoustic duo from Glasgow. Google them and you’ll find lots of references to them as Gothic or Cyber folk. I suppose they could be, but not knowing that before I listened to ‘Sleepers’ I had a different set of first impressions.

Admittedly it’s a set of impressions that has some points in common with the Goth world. It felt like an Autumnal record, laced with the other worldly elements associated with Halloween, bonfires, mist and dark evenings away from the city.

There was also a strong sense of child-like wonder rooted in the songs. It comes from the simple melodies of songs such as ‘I Call To You’, ‘Willow Song’ and ‘In A Million Streams’. They make for lullabies with the feel of traditional folk songs admittedly with dark origins that have been softened by the passing of time. The tone reminded me of being sick as a child, lying on a settee and drifting towards half sleep as responsible adults went quietly about their business. This is music for when you feel both part of and apart from the world. It's comforting but with an edge of something not quite right and a little alien. It’s the sense of wonder that comes from believing stories of Christmas elves and Beatrix Potter animals that can act like humans.

Yes, you can call it Gothic or Cyber folk, but it also shares something in common with pretty and quiet dream pop. ‘Something Else’ for example emerges out of the background electronic waffle into something that lingers with you. The vocals are delicate, caressing you into calm surrender. Whether it’s the work of a siren luring you into fatal temptation or Pinocchio’s fairy guardian setting him on the right path, it’s what might happen next that hooks your attention.

I enjoyed this a lot, and the double edged possibilities it contains are a big part of its appeal.

Taster Track : In a Million Streams

Again - The Bel Air Lip Bombs

Best for : Fans of exciting, guitar based indie rock

First things first - what a great name for a new indie rock band! Start with a name that snags attention and conjures up images of living your best life (Bel Air), kissing (Lip) and explosive music (Bomb) and you’re already well on your way. Add in that they actually take their name from a set of 1980s skateboard wheels and you have the direct connection to all things youth that fuels this album.

The band has grown up together and it shows. It’s rare to hear a band that is so close knit, working as a single unit rather than a four piece band. The result is a record that overflows with confidence and the sheer joy of being in a band that’s making its mark.

This is fast paced rock and roll that suggests they’re having a blast. Their songs are tight, energetic and fun to hear. Pitched somewhere between Amyl and the Sniffers and Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, they’re not as angry as the former and don’t take themselves quite as seriously as the latter.

The opening track ‘Again and Again’ borrows a title from Status Quo but that’s where the resemblance ends. They’re a lot more sophisticated. However if they were able to capture just a couple of Quo’s obvious melodies and rousing choruses they’d be absolutely perfect.

Their background is in noise pop, but they’re evolving through that into something that allows you to appreciate their skills properly. Now, there’s a little UK New Wave in the mix, blended with 00’s alternative rock. ‘Don’t Let Them Tell You (It’s Not Fair)’ typifies the choppy tsunami of sound that make this album such a welcome delight.The guitar work on ‘Hey You’ dazzles. Maisie Everett’s vocals recall the swaggering girl next door sounds of Louise Wener (Sleeper) and Justine Frischman (Elastica). ‘Burning Up’ is the slow one, the one that will get them heard on mainstream radio.

Every now and then a band arrives that provides a fresh injection of energy into the guitar rock scene. The Bel Air Lip Bombs are currently that band.

Taster Track : Hey You

Luminal : Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe

Best for : Anyone who wants to know what their dreams sound like

And following on from the above, doesn’t that mean this is a dream pop album? No. Dream pop is dreamy, like David Cassidy to a certain age and mindset. Luminal is a more serious affair. It feels more akin to Freud’s work with dreams, interpretative and recalled from the depths of sleep.

It’s not surprising really. Brian Eno, fresh from shuffling his pack of Oblique Strategy cards is hardly likely to opt for something generic. Beatie Wolfe is an Anglo-American conceptual artist and composer described by Vice.com as a "musical weirdo and visionary". Less sensationally, but more importantly, Wolfe is also the co-founder of a research project looking at the Power of Music for people living with dementia. Together they’re the foundations for something special and substantial.

This is beautiful music, intriguing and different. It sounds and feels like the dreams of deep sleep, vivid but fragmentary and darting off in different directions at the same time. It’s steady and slow. If you don’t get it, you may feel it plods along. For me, it’s the musical equivalent of walking on the moon or swimming through gel. Your expectations have to be different, but the experience is effortless. Vocals come to you as if you’re fighting off sleep to hear them.

Simple melodies are set against a multitude of textures. The sounds below the vocals contain a world of delights. ‘Hopelessly At Ease’ contains music that seems to come from a different galaxy and something like dimly recalled fairground music amongst much more. ‘My Lovely Days’ triggered a sense of ambient line dance. ‘Suddenly’ is just one of the tracks with mysterious choirs and abrupt fades. ‘What We Are’ brings us to folk traditions and recovered memories of a communal approach to singing. It’s here that you can feel most clearly how music might help those with dementia.

‘Luminal’ is an accessible and lovely record, and one that might ease mental suffering a little along the way.

Taster Track : Hopelessly At Ease

Dim Probs : Gruff Rhys

Best for : Anyone who loves Wales and excellent pop

With Super Furry Animals, Gruff Rhys once sang that the man don’t give a fuck. That’s not an accusation to level at him with this record. This is different. It’s tender and content, gentle and sincere, warm and welcoming.

This is an album sung entirely in Welsh. I have some slight connections with Wales, having studied in Cardiff. I met my wife there and we have friends and family scattered around the country. My knowledge of the language is confined to road signs and the university sign warning against smoking in the lecture theatre. I love this record, and I love that it’s a form of home grown exotica. Its lyrics are incomprehensible. If that’s a problem for you, perhaps you should revel in the sound of pop music at its very best.

We have people like Gruff Rhys, Gwenno and Carwyn Ellis to thank for keeping the Welsh language alive, and also for writing wonderful pop songs such as ‘Pan Ddaw’r Haul I Fore’. If you don’t fall in love with a song as perfect as ‘Taro #1 + #2’ you’ve got to question if spontaneous, smile inducing pop is actually your bag. These are gentle songs that lap warmly around you. For a country where the perception can be that it always rains, they are full of sunshine.’Chwyn Chwyldroadol’ trips off the tongue like a tongue twister. ‘Adar Gwyn’ is full of delighted anticipation, and the slightly darker, in confidence tone of ‘Cyflafan’ is just enough to prevent the sweet highs elsewhere becoming too much.

Musically these songs are completely unflashy and beautifully played by craftsmen who know how to feed their love of what they do into every note. ‘Slaw’, as an instrumental, highlights just how good the playing is on this album.

Nothing is overdone. Influences are absorbed into the whole to add seasoning without overwhelming the flavour. I was surprised to find a mild affinity with South America in ‘Acw’. In terms of note perfect pop that overflows with love for the songwriting craft, Edwyn Collins’ last album ‘Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation’ is a close peer.

This album left me feeling happy. It’s a privilege to share these songs.

Taster Track : ‘Taro #1 + #2’

Planet Ping Pong : Le Volume Courbe

Best for : Lovers of quirky French pop from backstage at the Moulin Rouge

La Volume Courbe (aka Charlotte Marionneau) is nothing if not a distinctive performer. You may have seen her, as she was one of Noel Gallagher’s backing singers on his last solo tour. She was the one playing the scissors.

Here she brings us a highly stylised form of French art pop. She generally sings in English with an adorable, strong French accent. Her songs are performances, perhaps the songs that a sad, face painted pierrot backstage at the Moulin Rouge would call their own. It’s coloured by a scary innocence. If you break her heart she might stalk you, lingering in dark alleyways while you pass by.

A few years ago, there was a form of music temporarily in vogue called Toytronica. It featured songs performed using non musical instruments such as toys. It seems to have left us now, but Le Volume Courbe’s music has the same feeling of playfulness and creativity. It’s the same joyful excitement that would accompany the discovery of a Left Bank attic filled with a virtual museum of antiquated instruments in perfect working order.

‘Fourteen Years’ is quirky, with lines such as “I’ve used up all my kisses” to snatch your attention. ‘The Moon Song’, with its simple melody line and obsessively repeated lyric is the sound of someone at the limits of hopeless emotion. She makes brave musical choices and they work. ‘Two-Love’ shows her playing with words and their sounds simply because its fun to do so. Hear the relish with which she enunciates words such as “Ping pong”. “Plink, plonk and the everyday “miaow”. ‘Duffy and Mr Seagull’ features a child's piano piece, and a conversation between a man and a seagull. The cover of The Teddybears ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’ is a) perfect and b) everything you need to know about Le Volume Courbe in one song.

Le Volume Courbe is unlike anything else and you need it in a dusty corner of your life.

Taster Track : The Moon Song

Victim of a Casual Thing : The Clause

Best for : Those who want to see out Winter with a set of storming Festival songs setting the indie disco on fire.

The Clause may well be touted as the next big thing. Three of them at least have dreamed of this moment since they met as twelve year olds at school. Their songs are exactly the kind of thing that a school boy would dream of making if he were to become a pop star..

They seem to have strong record company backing. The only fly in the ointment is that the marketing men also want to get in on the act. The record sounds super produced and very clean. If you’re so inclined you can buy this debut on black vinyl, gold vinyl or whiteout vinyl - I think they mean white - or in a gatefold sleeve. They’ve even given the album ‘Prologue’ to hype up the crowd before the album launches into something completely different.

Would any of that be worth the extra expense? Well, it’s certainly not bad. They punch out their songs with youthful energy, they deliver their riffs in songs like ‘Nothing’s As It Seems’ and ‘Weekend Millionaire’ with swagger and confidence. Their choruses are perfect for an excited festival crowd to sing along with. Lyrically they capture the things that are important to youth. This is the music of your school friendship groups and the days you’ll look back on from middle age as the best of your life. That’s worth the price of the single sleeve, black vinyl edition alone!

The retro appeal is everything and it's nicely done. You can hear echoes of Razorlight, Ocean Colour Scene and even The Stone Roses. The Clause have also toured with The Lottery Winners - a marketing man’s match made in Heaven.

This is accessible but not overly original. It’s fun. It’s retro. It’s music to keep memories alive. And there are albums out there that achieve a lot less than that.

Taster Track : Nothing’s As It Seems

EPs, Singles and Songs

Great songs used to have great B Sides. As a teenager building their first obsession with pop it was a point of principle to always listen to the B Side that you’d paid for. It was their B sides that told you Sweet were a heavy rock band at heart. It was another B side, Mott The Hoople’s ‘Ballad of Mott’, that taught me there was more to ‘proper’ bands than might be revealed in the catchy ‘All The Way To Memphis’. When it came to punk and album tracks such as The Stones’ ‘Star Star’ I already knew to be careful how loudly I played them when my parents were in the house, because of ‘The Bitch Is Back’, the B Side to Elton John’s ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’. Double A sides smacked on indecisiveness and we’ve now reached the disappointing but understandable position of a single now being literally a single song.

Asgeir captures both sides of the Nordic personality in his songs. On his new single, ‘Smoke’ captures the sense of reaching the absolute end of the line. His voice melts into emotion. It’s heartfelt, tremulous and moving, putting him on a par with Bon Iver and Jacob Alon. ‘Ferris Wheel’ is more hopeful and optimistic, turning to a settled future away from the trials of 21st century stresses. This is grown up singer songwriting at its best.

If you haven’t yet discovered Soft Cotton County for yourself, ‘Remember’ may be your gateway to some of the most gorgeous and dreamy music around. It’s haunting and less dependent on achingly beautiful melodies for its impact but it’s beautifully composed , a song to savour and revisit. It may have less of the ‘aah’ of pleasurable recognition but it also has more of the ‘ooh’ of something unexpected but very good. There’s also a bonus synth mix of the song to get your teeth into.

The sound of immediate and radio friendly classic power pop is encapsulated in Sour Ops’ new single, ‘All That Matters Now’. It offers a timeless escape into music that carries you away from the world into a daydream of your youth.

The new single from Common Saints, feels like treading water but that doesn’t make it a bad song. ‘Illusions’ doesn’t quite catch fire. It has a restrained melody that promises more, but its soulful pop vocals and electronic backing make for an attractive listen.

‘Hypnosis’ from Joe Goddard and Florious presumably stems from his ‘Harmonics’ sessions and it would feel perfectly at home on that excellent album. It’s a worthy addition to the sad euphoria contained there. Florious’ vocals ache desperately and Goddards dance electronica builds beautifully.