Monthly Archive

Perhaps it is a sign that I’m getting old, but these days the world seems to be full of people who are younger, better-looking, and more talented than me. This is particularly true in the case of Nico Muhly, and not only does he get to hang out with her Bjorkness, but to cap it all he is also probably a better blogger than me too.   I’m currently teaching my cat some (admittedly fairly advanced) principles of rocket science, and when she has stopped licking her arse and finishes building the damn thing, I’m strapping myself to it and firing myself into space. If anyone knows an easier way of ending it all, by all means tell me.

Muhly’s abundance of talent lights up the sky like fireworks from the start of his second album for the sparky Bedroom Community label. That opening “Mothertongue” suite fizzes into life with its display of classical and electronic elements swirling around a torrent of words – phone numbers, mnemonics, US states and their capitals. Everything is initially diffuse and overlapping haphazardly; gradually it begins to take a diffuse shape, and comes to resemble the results of Steve Reich collaborating with Gyorgy Ligeti on one of his gibberish opera pieces. Later Muhly weaves found sounds of jarringly mundane origin (someone showers and cooks breakfast) into this glorious tapestry.

How do you follow that opening? You would have to be pretty confident in your own ability to go for something which blends medieval English music with a poetic description of the Icelandic landscape, and to set this all amongst more verbal jabber, and some disconcertingly queasy brass; but that would be the “Wonders” suite. It gets even better with his outstanding and intense deconstruction of folk song: in the three-part “The Only Song”, labelmate Sam Amidon sings a haunting tale of a girl drowning her sibling. His ageless, unjudgmental banjo and voice are set amongst some less forgiving soundscapes: ominous electronic eruptions and icy winds which shatter and scatter the narrative. There is something almost hauntological about the sounds of ghostly breath and traces of childlike melody which flicker amongst the dark arrangement, as if the song was possessed by the spectre of its subject matter.

As accomplished as Muhly’s debut was, I wasn’t quite ready for him to unfurl the full length of his ambition in the way he does on Mothertongue. He reaches for the stars and damn near gets there; he certainly gets closer than I ever will given the current rate of progress with this rocket of mine.

Amuse yourself with “Mothertongue: I. Archive” while you camp out at Bedroom Community waiting for the release date of May 26th.

Anyone at ATP at the weekend?  Did you manage to tear yourself away from the seaside in order to box yourself up in a dark, probably unbearably-hot venue to see any of the artists?  Can’t imagine I would have seen too many, but I reckon one of the ones I would have ventured indoors for (still in my striped, all-in-one 1920s bathing costume, with water dripping from my freshly-waxed moustache) would have been the lovely Marissa Nadler, whose album from last year Songs III: Bird On The Water is a big favourite of mine. Read the rest of this entry »

I finally ventured out into this strange new town of Bullingdon-on-Thames.  To be fair to that repugnant oaf who now runs this place, he has done a bang-up job with the weather; nine straight days of Mediterranean conditions have left the inhabitants pink-hued and with a peculiar predilection for drinking Pimms on the pavement amongst traffic pong.    Read the rest of this entry »

There’s something funny about Finland.  I’ve never been in any other country where someone has buttonholed me in a pub and asked me “what are you doing here?  This country is terrible”.  He bought me something to drink – well I think I was supposed to drink it, it was actually confectionery dissolved in alcohol  - told me he was thinking about killing himself, and then put some Pearl Jam on the jukebox.  I’d hate to say that sums the place up – off the top of my head, it doesn’t mention the wonderful lake and island scenery, or their often innovative approaches to government (hey, that sort of thing impresses me). But there can be a strange mood about the place, especially when the sun isn’t shining.  Which, to be fair, is quite a lot of the year. Read the rest of this entry »

Like Portishead’s skulk back out of the shadows with Third, Massive Attack resurfacing to curate Meltdown, or (trippier if not hoppier) Dirty Den reappearing after his assassination by daffodil a decade previously, here is a comeback I didn’t foresee.  After a couple of utterly sui generis records on the Aphex Twin’s Rephlex and XL in the late ‘90s, Leila Arab has hopped back on her bike for another crack.  And she won’t let the small matter of being booed by some brain-dead Bjork fans deter her either. Read the rest of this entry »

“Hello darkness my old friend, it’s time to jerk those tears again”.  With a sly quote from Simon and Garfunkel, a bit of self-parody, and some not-inconsiderable internal restructuring (“efficiencies”, euphemistically), Tindersticks are back.  I think I must have seen their last show in their old formation (which at the time looked like it may have been their last ever), when they performed Tindersticks’ Second at the Barbican as part of the Don’t Look Back season, and now their first as a three-piece - albeit one heavily augmented by strings and brass and so on.  Once again they were performing an album in its entirety, in order. Read the rest of this entry »

Who can forget the great indie huff Alexander Tucker caused when he stepped on stage with Stephen O’Malley as part of the Maximum Black “festival”; such great umbrage was taken at their unmelodic riffing. Tucker sawed at his cello with maniacal glee, O’Malley threw metal shadows over the walls, and loads of people went boooooooooooo what time is Final Fantasy on? I loved it, obviously. Surprisingly, I’m also loving this, his new album on the festival that is also a label and an authority to proceed, ATP. Proceed. Read the rest of this entry »