The Unicorn In a field of donkeys.

Starring

Aja, Beirut, Charlie Needs Braces, The Gentle Spring, Laurie Torres, SML, Vraell

The Front Runners

A Study of Losses : Beirut

What a wonderful album of odd sounding songs and tunes that are, nevertheless, full of gorgeous emotions and beauty.

I’ve tried and failed to get into Beirut before. I’ve left him lying there with his music sounding thin, too self consciously trying to be clever and finding the rewards of that hard to come by. Not now. This is different. It’s a 57 minute album that’s not a note too long. The effect of this music is truly beguiling.

Seas and oceans are prominent on this album. Half the titles reference them explicitly. They are mirrored in the swell of the songs and lull you into relaxed submission. 

Beirut offers you a resolutely foreign sound that is not quite assimilated into conventional pop. Clashing elements sit next to each other. In ‘Forest Encyclopedia’ oriental notes nestle alongside country guitar. The combination shouldn’t work, but it does gloriously. The songs sound as if they come from a distant land, from a time whose echoes are growing ever fainter. 

The compositions are quite formal. ‘Mare Crisium’ is a good example of his brand of chamber folk, with the accent firmly on ‘chamber’. Strings are plucked on ‘Villa Sacchetti’; ‘Garbo’s Face’ is a rich blend of twitchy rhythm, straining strings, yearning melodies and church ready backing vocals. ‘Ghost Train’ somehow sounds like electronica recreated on acoustic instruments. On ‘Tuanaki Atoll’ you will feel you are being gently rocked. ‘Disappearances and Losses’ is the ideal, calm way to welcome you into your day.

There are many unanswered questions across this album but ‘Guericki’s Unicorn’ - one of the most magical songs you will ever hear - reassures you that “life will find a way”.  It’s the showcase for an album that is unconventionally gorgeous, like the best and most moving kind of church service. This is an album of wondrous melodies that are surprisingly emotional. It’s easy to imagine weeping to ‘Caspian Tiger’ when the moment is right.

It’s quite possible that I have found my Album of the Year.

Taster Track : Guericke’s Unicorn

Looking Back At The World : The Gentle Spring

Looking Back At The World’ marks the return after too long an absence of Michael Hiscock, the voice of The Field Mice. In collaboration with Emilie Guillaumot and Jeremie Orsel, he’s delivered a stunning and captivating album that has left me an emotional wreck. 

Immediately after I pressed play on this album I felt as if it were the unexpected reappearance of a former best friend you never expected to see again. You’re so delighted that you’ll be blind to any faults and flaws, desperate not to lose sight of his music again. It’s only slightly galling as a reviewer that this is made explicit in one of the later songs ‘Comments In The Streams’. 

Of course though, Hiscock skewers all the complexities of that emotion going deeper and more perceptively into it than I ever could. He articulates your most optimistic and bright eyed hope, before providing the shattered shards of broken dreams and twisting the screw into your deepest hurt or most painful regret.

This is music to bring you to the brink of bittersweet tears, to feed the lump in your throat that grows until you’re close to choking. It packs a deceptively heavy punch for something so light on the ears. The songs are overflowing with memorable sun filled melodies. They’re simple, but all you could possibly need from a song.

In his new musical partnership with Guillaumot and Orsel there’s a musical understanding that amounts to an entente cordiale. Hiscock’s voice is pleasingly familiar, and if Emilie Guillaumot’s vocals don’t quite capture the effect of Anne Mari Davies on the younger me, no one does. She comes very close though.

‘Sugartown’ is quietly enchanting, like the very best work of The Lilac Time. ‘Severed Hearts is like falling into the softest feather bed imaginable. I could list all the songs here and identify their charms and emotional colour, but you need to listen to it for yourself.

The Gentle Spring are one of those special bands that have their own kind of magic that never dims. It’s an overwhelmingly beautiful and emotional listening experience.

Taster Track : All of them, but for the purposes of the Playlist I’m going for ‘Comments In The Streams’

Once A Blue Hour : Vraell

Vraell’s debut album is an exceptionally realised and strong collection of songs, marking him out as a voice for the long term.

‘Once A Blue Hour’ is the kind of album that only comes along once in a blue moon. It’s a debut that arrives, seemingly from nowhere, and fully formed. He’s a songwriter who has been born, not made. He’s untainted by the preferences of consumer focus groups and corporate marketing teams.

There’s a thread of special magic that connects these songs. Vraell is what one of the great singer songwriters of the 60s and 70s might have sounded like with the benefits of 21st century technology. He has the songwriting skills of Nick Mulvey, the musical empathy of Bon Iver and the accessibility of a top, independent singles artist. I’ve refrained from giving a name in comparison because it could only weaken your expectations. 

These are songs that are thoughtful, delicate and precise. You’ll want to allow his voice to enter your soul, but without distracting you from his lovely guitar work. Each track replaces the previous one as your new favourite. I love that his confidence and skill allows him to express his feelings through music as much as through his words. His instrumentals will move you with their beauty and chamber charm.

If there’s a problem, it’s an unusual one. You sense that he has attained perfection with his debut. Where can he go from here? The concern is that his record company will press him to replicate and therefore dilute what makes him so special.

Vraell, pronounced like ‘frail’, but shorthand for exquisite songs and music.

Taster Track : Fever Call 

The Chasing Pack

Ajasphere Vol ll : Aja

Aja’s take on ambient drone electronica takes a little while to get going but in the end reveals itself as a relaxed and mindful listening experience.

In her Spotify bio she sets out her intention to discover the perfect sound, to make sounds that tell a story or set the context for one. She provides the music for a new canvas, almost blank with just a few parameters in place. Don’t look here for the new ‘Slow Horses’ though. This is music for meditative stories of personal growth, short stories that look for the hidden details of life. She’s inviting us to share her magical world and it would be rude not to respect her hospitality.

It’s a slow, not entirely enticing beginning. On the opening track ‘OEucarina’, there’s something suspiciously like pan pipes. ‘Ondeambule’ is slow moving and beatless, pretty but not yet memorable. This is a soothing ambience that’s wandering close to New Age music. There’s a sense that these pieces are structured more like classical music than pop, overtures to a main event that never quite arrives. At this stage it’s undeniably lovely but I’m not sure what it leaves us with or where we are at the end.

The magic kicks in during ‘Foreve’. It contains a trilling synth that suddenly opens  a vista that tells of shepherdesses waiting for their prince to come while the sun alights on an Alpine field undisturbed by Julie Andrews frolicking through it. That may not be the story Aja had in mind when she composed the piece but, suddenly, I’m engaged.

Drones play across every track sounding, on ‘Sceaurore’ like the thrumming of the earth itself. This is music for life’s details. It’s like watching a flower unfurl its petals in real time - rather wonderful and also a luxury. I loved the tinkling of ‘Thetame’ and the way it falls in line with your breathing.  My personal preference is still for the pieces such as ‘Foreve’ or ‘Flocontemple’ that float closest to a tune but the impact of all the tunes on my state of mind and being is undeniable. It’s good.

It may have been Sister Sledge who sang about being lost in music, but it’s Aja who’s living that philosophy so that you can too.

Taster Track : Foreve

Saltwater People : Charlie Needs Braces

Here’s an album that celebrates the Aboriginal culture, while sharing their story with surprising European danceability.

It turns out that you can make more than music with a voice, drums, a trumpet and the didgeridoo. You can also make a statement. ‘Pride’ sets out the experiences of aboriginal children simply and directly. These songs draw from a deep well of history. In ‘Bunya Interlude’ you can feel it in the air. Even if you decide not to care, you can’t claim ignorance after hearing this song. Everything else on this album stems from that experience and the desire to communicate it.

It’s much more than a history lesson in song though. There’s nothing dry in the music. Above all, it’s celebratory. It’s a little bit African, and a little bit near Techno at times. There’s a carnival atmosphere to a song like ‘Daryul’ that you can’t ignore. Yelps and whoops abound like night time animal noises from the wild. It hits you in the heart from a long way back and gives an almighty shove to get your feet moving. Trumpets blaring, pounding beats, forceful rhythms and clattering drums that are begging to be played in massive numbers -  this is music that takes over and that you can’t ignore. It’s full of incitement and wears a broad grin.

There’s a risk that, without a feeling for European danceability, this album would be filed under some out of the way World Music section as just so much National Geographic conservation. It’s not a million miles though from the 80s indie spirit of a less aggressive Pigbag. ‘Big Bully’ even strays out of the aboriginal community to reveal itself as a close cousin of the rap MC.

So, it turns out that rhythm isn’t just a dancer but a gateway to discovering more about the world and its history. Dance and celebrate along with it.

Taster Track : Daryung

(Definitely worth watching before you listen to thealbum)

Apres Coup : Laurie Torres

Chilled ambient jazz on a quest for something new - in its own quiet way it’s successful.

Torres manges to achieve a special kind of intimacy with this record. Without ever sounding as if she’s made a live performance, she makes the listener part of the show. Several of the tracks have odd background noises that have the effect of placing the music in our world. They are deliberately accidental, as if overlooked during the recording. ‘Feux Fuyants’ sounds as if the window of the studio was left open, allowing the sounds of a bush fire on a windswept heath to be trapped in the recording. ‘Lisiere’ sounds as if someone in the background is rustling paper to fuel a wood fire.That promise of warmth comes through in the music.

It seems that we are being immersed in the process of making the record. Her exasperated sigh that heralds the percussion on ‘Interieurs’ is one small sign; her absent minded humming along to ‘Carnets’ is another. On ‘Clessidra’, she takes it further. It’s as if you’ve been allowed to wander out of the studio and down the corridor as she plays. It’s a strange and accepting intimacy, but an attractive one.

This is a highly listenable album that gives sounds directly to ideas, and those ideas are not permitted to outstay their welcome. It’s piano led, but there are little touches that work well and give body to the pieces. Synths drone quietly in the background, a burst of percussion breaks the surface on ‘’Interieurs and there’s some appealing woodwind on ‘Correspondances’. The playing is sensitive throughout, sometimes mournful, like the soundtrack to a piece of art cinema by an auteur French filmmaker.

Welcome to her sonic world. It’s not a bad place to be.

Taster Track : Lisiere

Small Medium Large : SML

Put five American jazz musicians in a room for four days, to improvise and experiment. Take the results, chop them up and re-assemble them. This is what comes out. 

People have always wanted to try things out, to see if they work. A few have persevered despite all the evidence that they have not backed a winner. Clive Sinclair and his C5 come to mind. Some ideas, like the electric car, simply need 40 years for their followers to catch up. 

SML are in that last bracket. Their immediate problem, seven lines into this review, is that I don’t understand what they are trying to do. That’s me, not them. This is music deep from the world of what some people might regard as ‘proper jazz’ with no concessions to the casual listener. At its best it’s an interesting listen, all changes of pace and rhythm with sudden clangs and beeps and it makes for an unsettling experience. 

This is jazz that I need explained to me. It’s jazz for aficionados and I can’t even spell the word. This could be avant garde, experimental or just plain noodly but I’m throwing my arms up in despair before I can work it out. And I have a genuine question. If something is truly improvised, how can it be remembered? It’s of the moment, and only of the moment.

I know that jazz may not need to be something you understand. It can be something that you simply feel. This makes me feel like an outsider dabbling in music that takes them out of their depth without a lifeguard in sight. I’m feeling less excited, more apprehensive. I’m experiencing less chilled enjoyment, more “Could you turn that down please?” Finding ‘Greg’s Melody’ is like hunting for your car keys when you’re late for an urgent appointment, and that’s never a good feeling.

‘Rubber Tree Dance’ is the kind of fluid, break of day jazz that is gentler than anything that follows. Even on first listening it has the feel of a warm up tuning piece. ‘Industry’ is more bustling, jerky and parping. It’s painting a picture I think I can understand, but one that is blurring into the mess of colours that characterises all that follows. Any tunes are buried deep in this mix. When you grab a snippet it keeps you on your toes. You don’t want to lose it. It has something in common with the anxious stakes of watching an indispensable screw for a DIY project fall to the ground and bounce away. ‘Window Sill’ manages to be as unobtrusive as true ambience but noisy within it. ‘Chasing Brain’ talks but not in ways that I want to hear.

‘Three Over Steel’ manages a more consistent rhythm to cling to. It’s one of the longer tracks, so maybe this album just needs more time. And that’s part of the problem. As the album progresses you do begin to feel, if not part of this world, at least that no one is going to ask you to leave. You sense that the more you come to it, the easier you will feel. But there’s so much more music to listen to out there that sometimes you just have to cut your losses.

I know this is about me, not about the efforts of the band.  Pitchfork gave the album a very decent score of 7.8, so for their alternative view read this. Pitchfork SML Review.

Taster Track : Three Over Steel.

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