Category: Album

Spin with me: How I met Peripheral Vision

The strength of Peripheral Vision lies in the indisputable fact that it is perfect.

I dont even know why I bother to keep up with new music when:

a) it’s impossible

b) we all know I’m going to miss out on whatever’s really meaningful because:

  • it’ll be drowned in the infinite deluge of daily new releases
  • my desperate yet passive listening habits mean I’ll blank on it even if it does find its way to my headphones.

Despite the hopelessness of the situation, I do keep a tiny, irregularly updated, and frequently overlooked list of bands/tracks that have caught my attention. It’s a list written on actual paper and therefore prone to the vagaries of the physical world eg. spilled cups of milky tea, inkstains, and general wear and tear from natural forces of erosion.

One of the tracks written on this loved-but-not-consulted scrap of paper is ‘Diazepam’ by Turnover – a song I heard more than once on DKFM, duly noted/confirmed on my list each time and did not research any further for reasons I can only ascribe to the non-existence of free will (just roll with it, Sartre).

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One eternity later, still listening to DKFM, I find myself captivated by a dreamy little song that I learn is called ‘Dizzy on the Comedown.’ I see that it is by a band called Turnover that I have obviously never heard of before, because if I had I would surely, definitely, 100% have looked into them immediately.

If you think I am lying to myself, you are correct, and have been paying attention. I appreciate this, let’s be friends, but please stay where you are. I dont think either of us enjoys meeting new people.

I turn to my trusty parchment, yellowed with age and crumbling to dust, and raise my quill – but wait! what’s this? Staring back at my myopic eyes is the name Turnover, already inscribed not once but TWICE!

Ooo, you didn’t see that coming.

It turns out that not only had my past self already made a note of ‘Diazepam’, she had also had the good sense to add ‘Humming’ to the list. Yet my idiot future/present (and now also past) self needed to be struck by ‘Dizzy on the Comedown’ before making any sort of move towards further exploration. At this point, the shoegaze universe had moved way past ‘giving a sign’ and gone straight to ‘we’re going to have to hit her with the signboard.’ (it’s super effective, btw)

Coincidentally, yet unsurprisingly, all three songs are off Turnover’s iconic album Peripheral Vision. My dawdling has meant that I’m way too late to the release party but I’ve made up for that lapse by listening to it incessantly since then.

The strength of Peripheral Vision lies in the indisputable fact that it is perfect. It is a vial of nostalgia that hasn’t aged a day since 1994 – which is impressive because it was released in 2015. Though it is never overtly implied, the throwback hangs heavy in lyrics like carelessly you pass the hours, humming songs you used to sing when you were young as well as in familiar themes of anxiety and frustration. Like the 90s, it pits impossibly cheery melodies against lyrics that are nothing short of tragic or, of course, angst-ridden.

But this isn’t your garden variety existential, adolescent angst. And why should it be? It’s 2020 and we’re no longer deluded enough to believe that ‘angst’ is a phase reserved for frustrated teenagers. If anything, the angsty kids of the 90s have grown into the still-angsty adults of the 2000s. In a world that’s progressively going to pot, ‘New Scream’ is an ode to adult ennui, to the obligation and pretense that ‘everything’s ok’ when clearly, evidently, it is not:

Can I stay at home? I don’t want to go
I don’t want to wake up till the sun is hanging low
Stay up through the night, sleep away the light
Just another dream I had that’s better than my life

Adolescent dreams gave to adult screams
Paranoid that I won’t have all the things they say I need
What if I don’t want a pattern on my lawn?
All I know is something’s wrong

‘New Scream’ is a lot more subtle than ‘Diazepam’ and ‘Dizzy on the Comedown’ when it comes to talking about mental health, but the latter two hide these bleak references behind delightfully upbeat melodies. ‘Diazepam’ has guitars twinkling over it from start to finish, but it’s someone sinking into depression and worrying about how much of an emotional burden they are to their partner who they’re convinced will eventually have had enough and leave.

It was always a dream just to know you
Sometimes I find I can hardly speak your name
I know one day I’ll come home and I’ll find you
It’s just a matter of time till you break from the strain

‘Diazapam’ finds a mirror in ‘Dizzy on the Comedown’ . You’d be forgiven if, even by the twentieth listen, you hear nothing on ‘Dizzy…’ but the innocent euphoria of young love. But listen a little closer and you’ll realise something’s been off from the very beginning:

Up and down like a red rubber ball,
You’re always back and forth like a clock on the wall
…
If I stay do you think you could change your routine?
I know a trick I’ve always got a few up my sleeve

And right to the chorus

Won’t you come here and spin with me?
I’ve been dying to get you dizzy.
Find a way up into your head,
So I can make you feel like new again.

But it’s still a charmer. It’s a reversal of the dynamic on ‘Diazepam’, with our protagonist doing all he can to support his partner’s moods and insecurities, and it’s only with this reading that we realise that this isn’t quite the naive infatuation initially perceived, but a sturdier, almost desperate, kind of love.

There’s a sketch in an old MAD magazine from back when it turned out quality content that pins 23 as the age when you hear of an artist on MTV and go ‘who?’. I don’t have to explain this but I will – the joke is that by the time you hit the ripe old age of 23, you’re no longer cool enough to be in on the music scene. It also (unintentionally?) implies that there comes a time what’s when you’re no longer the target audience for mainstream media houses.

It’s likely that, had the internet not shown up, us 90s kids would have nothing but our withering, overplayed CDs (and DVD-Rs burned to a crisp) to turn to for a hit of nostalgia. But the internet did show up – and conveniently enough, it did so IN the 90s. And so, while the erstwhile 90s kids aka millenials, may not be the target audience of mainstream music programming today, some of them are taking the sounds they grew up with and reinventing them for the 21st century. Some others are writing words of praise to these revivalists on Pitchfork or Aglet Eaters (an unfair comparison, as P4K comes nowhere close to the superior quality content you find on AE). And everyone else is mesmerised by our absolutely objective, unbiased and 100% correct opinion and is buying Peripheral Vision on Bandcamp.

The Radio Dept. – Running Out Of Love

You can’t listen to The Radio Dept., least of all Running Out Of Love, in the absence of political context. To the more removed among us, Sweden is the portrait of bliss – idyllic surrounds, progressive laws, good-looking humans. It’s a role model for the rest of our feuding, collapsing nations. This is a country that has its shit together, passing laws against hate speech on the internet, while the rest of us struggle to revive our economies, feed our starving masses, and keep death tolls down to an acceptable minimum.

But all seems to be not so well in Sweden. In Sweden, if you want something done, get ‘Swedish Guns’. This recent release from the album is a biting commentary on the country’s weapons industry. The Radio Dept. have never been an aggressive band. You’re not likely to hear a chest-thumping call to arms on their tracks, but you will almost always hear the echoes of faded hope and regret. ‘Just take me by the hand/We’ll make them understand…’ they promise before falling back into the same jaded chorus ‘if you want something done/get Swedish Guns.’

Thematically, ‘Swedish Guns’ plays off the next track, ‘We’ve Got Game’ – a nightmarish depiction of racism and targeted oppression which flashes images of laser beams, SWAT teams and gunshots against the band’s trademark vintage Eighties synth backdrop. If there’s anything the Radio Dept. does well, it’s getting you to dance wildly to social commentary.

‘Committed to the Cause’ embodies this perfectly. It is the diamond in a sea of rubies. Driven by an uncharacteristically dense bassline and punctuated midway by a beautiful, swirling hook, its sheer hypnotism belies the nihilism beneath. “when our pain’s over, It’s someone else’s turn/No point in staying sober, if we’re gonna burn.” Musically it’s 4 am in the Hacienda. Emotionally, it’s dawn on the last day of your life.

Release ‘Teach Me to Forget’ as a pure pop single and it’ll climb to the top of the dance charts immediately with its popularly acceptable overtones of a tragic relationship (though it’s second nature to read a dystopian political narrative into the lyrics by this point) and synths pulled from every nightclub playlist in 2014.

Perhaps the secret to the Radio Dept.’s inimitable ambience is their science of memory. There’s not yet a band that can evoke the intangible nostalgia that the Radio Dept. do, but at least with this release we can be assured we don’t need there to be.

Originally published on Drowned in Sound

The Verve – A Storm in Heaven / A Northern Soul (2016 remastered/deluxe)

It’s been a while since I listened to The Verve.

There was a time I knew every song on every album by heart. I’d cycle between A Storm In Heaven, A Northern Soul and Urban Hymns for months on end, as a result of which I could tell which version of ‘Slide Away’ was from which live performance or which studio session within the first three seconds.

But that was ten years ago.

Since then I’ve gone from hormonal, hopeful adolescence to jaded, emotionless adulthood.

But today I play A Storm in Heaven and I feel the same heady anticipation before ‘Already There’ as I did when I was 19. The same teenage tears sting my eyeballs when ‘A Man Called Sun’ asks me ‘do you think he’ll mind?‘ And I can still see the percussion on ‘Butterfly’ throbbing perfectly from a thousand miles away.

It takes a great deal of emotional strength to sit through a single album by the Verve, mostly because of the sheer intensity of their songs’ subject matter.

The Verve don’t mope about the end of a relationship as much as they brood over the inevitability of its demise.

I’ve gotta tell you my tale
Of how I loved and how I failed
Maybe you know it’s true
Living with me’s like keeping a fool

They don’t show you the glamour of a drug-fuelled high, but the pathos of the comedown.

There you were on the floor
Cut up and all alone
I held you

They don’t talk to you about the tragedy of death but the acceptance of the interminable sorrow that follows

Could be a lifetime before I see you again, my love
See you in the next one have a good time.

And they’ll push your misanthropic self to embrace the splendour of isolation

Life seems so obscene
Until it’s over

You come in on your own
And you leave on your own
Forget the lovers you’ve know
And your friends on your own

Verve listeners seem to fall predominantly into either the A Storm In Heaven or the A Northern Soul camp. While some of us pick at cobwebs in our lesser-frequented Urban Hymns corner, we all unanimously gloss over the very existence of Forth. However, if there is one song on The Verve’s last album worth listening to, it is ‘Mover,’ probably because it was around before Forth was a twinkle in Richard Ashcroft’s eye. On the new reissue of A Northern Soul, you hear the BBC Studio version, and you can tell it carries the same polish as the rest of their second album.

Perhaps that why A Storm In Heaven always seemed to me to be the stronger of the two. While there was no denying A Northern Soul’s musical maturity and the far more elaborate spectrum of emotions it covered (daring to venture into themes of defiance and hope, even), the Verve never truly returned to the young, naïve emotional rawness that defined their debut. On A Storm in Heaven and the B-sides it spawned you hear someone struggling to stay nonchalantly afloat when in reality, they’re far out of their depth (standard youthful stupidity). Meanwhile, on A Northern Soul, you hear experience and control (which is what you can expect when you’re a grown-up for whom death and taxes are de rigeur). A Northern Soul is not as personal, and far more guarded and reflective than its predecessor which sits young, loud and reckless.

A Northern Soul and its B-sides carry a slight self-consciousness, to the point that they are almost too flawless, while A Storm in Heaven is beautiful because it is flawed.

Both albums are perfection of different kinds and in being reissued, they give us the chance to be taken in, transported and transformed all over again. You meet the ‘Mover’ you never did. You discover ‘This is Music’ was once ‘King Riff’, while ‘The Rolling People’ was, in its original avatar, called ‘Funky Jam'(!). These extensive deluxe reissues are a six hour vortex into the best the Verve have ever been and I’d gladly know nothing else in the world if I could know every note on every song on these disparate recordings.

There is one thing, though, that reminds you that they are albums by the same group. The shared conviction that there is only one thing really worth living for.

You better pray when the music stops
And you’re left alone in your mind
‘Cause I’ll be hearing music till the day I die

Jesus never saved me
He’ll never save you too, and you know…
I’ve got a little sticker on the back of my boot
This is music.

Originally published on Drowned in Sound

Night School – Blush

Turn on Night School‘s debut full-length, Blush, and you’ll immediately recognise Lexy Morte’s voice from her days with Whirr.

That’s not all that’s familiar. Brace yourself for wave after crashing wave of nostalgia: from the light charm of ’60s girl group harmonies, to the echoes of innocent adolescent romance, down to the scent of wholesome, sunlit, Americana.

Where, with Whirr, the melancholy of words and music served as the perfect foil to Morte’s angelic vocals, on Blush, the melange of happy notes and summer distortion only serve to amplify their sweetness. Added to this are lyrics that swirl around hopeful spring romance and teenage heartbreak – perhaps most profoundly evident on the aptly titled ‘Teen Feelings’ whose every verse, every chorus is blindingly dappled by the California sun. Summertime – school’s out forever […] Hope it’s just you and me forever.

Album opener, ‘These Times’ is a delightfully chipper track, swaying under the weight of its own optimism in the light of (possibly) devastating circumstances. The hopelessly dreamy words to ‘City Kiss’ (do you remember/the time we kissed at midnight/in the city lights/you are the one) are no different, but themes of youth helplessness are ubiquitous. Don’t be fooled by the exuberance radiating across this album. On ‘Casanova’, we mourn poor decisions (maybe I shouldn’t like you so much/you’re heavy and I’m a breaking crutch), while the cheery chords on ‘Lost’ are offset by lyrics as upbeat as lost my best friend/now I’m crying on my bed.

You’d be forgiven for believing, on your first listen, that Blush is the same track repeated ten times over. You’d be wrong. It’s only the first nine songs on the album that follow the happy harmonies template. The final track, ‘Pink,’ is a refreshingly mellow, reverb-free piano-led instrumental which, at just a minute and a half, is easily lost within the cheerful jangle that makes up the rest of the album. When you notice it – which you may not at first – you might find yourself wondering why it couldn’t have been just a little bit longer. Or perhaps why it couldn’t have had a friend nestled elsewhere on the record.

‘Pink’ aside, Blush is not a sad album. There’s no sign of cynicism, defeat or anger. Even at its lowest, the album remains eternally optimistic and, while the words may never articulate it, assures its listener that hope springs eternal.

Not recommended for realists.

Originally published on Drowned in Sound

Nothing – Tired of Tomorrow

There’s no romance in a Nothing track. There’s no glamour, triumph or tragedy, even though each of their albums is born out of the third. Nothing never bemoan their lot. Their days, like ours, are made of bad decisions and bad luck. Their lives, like ours, a series of unfortunate events. And while we can live in the hope that tomorrow may be a better day, it probably won’t be.

There’s no sadness in this revelation; just a quiet acceptance of an unchangeable reality. There’s no anger, except towards impossible optimism thrust our way. ‘Vertigo Flowers’, the first track we heard off Tired of Tomorrow back in early March, is possibly the most overtly hostile song on the album, opening with an unembellished: “I hate everything you’re saying”. It’s a sonic powerhouse that manages to legitimise rather than stigmatise feelings of anxiety and paranoia with a simple “watch out for those who dare to say/that everything will be okay”.

Album opener, ‘Fever Queen’, is an explicit admission of mistakes made and repeated. It launches the album with a beautiful burst of exasperated noise. “I should know now / that I shouldn’t push you away”, Dominico Palermo stretches each syllable to its limits as if there can be no other way to drive the message home. We hear no promise of resolution – the damage is irreversible.

A little later, we meet another beautiful noise jam intro. ‘A.C.D (Abcessive Compulsive Disorder)’ is a glorious, self-loathing dissection of the end of a relationship, setting casually brutal imagery against compositions that serve as more than a passing nod to Nirvana. ‘Eaten by Worms’ may be an even more blatant homage to mid-Nineties alt-rock, with its jagged guitars, fierce percussion and soft-loud dynamics.

‘Nineteen-Ninety Heaven,’ on the other hand, falls directly into shoegaze territory, with references to Ride evident in the percussion. The composition here is nearly hymnal, and Dominico’s somnolent tone easy to misinterpret as tranquil, until you hear “I’m living in a dream world / life’s a nightmare.”

Like its predecessor, Nothing choose to close this album with the title track. The song ‘Tired of Tomorrow’ is little like the bulk of the album – or indeed anything Nothing have ever done before – exuding both vulnerability and defeatism- qualities heightened exquisitely with the support of a cello and violin. We’d met the same helplessness before when Guilty of Everything left us with the lines “I’ve given up / But you shoot anyway / I’m guilty of everything” ‘Tired of Tomorrow’ is less introspective and speaks to us directly, as sorrowful friends and comrades who are all “stranded in today”. “Rejoice if we are allied”, it says, “our everything Is empty on the inside”.

There’s no romance on this album. Nothing shine a stark white light on reality. As they always have.

Originally published on Drowned in Sound

The Veldt – The Shocking Fuzz of Your Electric Fur: The Drake Equation

Twin brothers Daniel and Danny Chavez of The Veldt have been making music without a break since they were in junior high school in the early Eighties. A penchant for whirlpool melodies and joyously meandering guitars left them with a confused audience (‘this isn’t reggae!’) and displeased labels (‘What do you mean you like the Cocteau Twins?’).

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that The Veldt have put as much energy into breaking out of the moulds they’ve been forced to squeeze into as they have into making the music they want to. On the behest of their label, they briefly changed their name to Apollo Heights because – so it was said – ‘The Veldt’ just wasn’t cutting it with the audience. They cheekily titled the only Apollo Heights album ever made White Music for Black People before switching back to their original moniker.

Ironically, despite enjoying the patronage of none other than Robin Guthrie, the Veldt remained relatively anonymous for most of their career. They’ve toured with The Jesus and Mary Chain and played support for Lush and Babes in Toyland without ever receiving the same degree of attention and adulation as their peers. Daniel recalls their time in the UK in the early Nineties – a period spent in the casual company of Blur, Aztec Camera and Echo and the Bunnymen It was then, at the Portobello Hotel, that the Clash’s Mick Jones greeted the band with a cheery ‘you’re Robin’s boys!’ while the twins were preparing to record their first album with Guthrie.

It was while they were recording this never-released album that shoegaze legends A.R. Kane (among others), stopped by the studio. Today, they’re pulling a cameo on ‘And It’s You’ – the final track on The Shocking Fuzz of Your Electric Fur.

It’s difficult to call this EP a comeback for The Veldt considering how the brothers didn’t ever stop making music, but there’s no doubt the A.R. Kane influence, the familiarly swirling guitars, and Daniel’s trademark falsetto make the EP taste particularly nostalgic.

The Guthrie may be strong with the opening track, but ‘Sanctified’ serves more as an ‘up yours!’ than anything else. You can easily imagine this track, with its choral overtones and closing ‘Hallelujah’s, as the sort of thing the Veldt’s initial audience and major labels would have been sold on. ‘This,’ they would say ‘is what a couple of black kids SHOULD sound like!’

Their exultation would have been short-lived as ‘In A Quiet Room’ sees the Veldt bringing in glorious swirling riffs to accompany the dreamiest verses and sweetest refrain to emerge from the 2010s. ‘A Token’ is another charmer, underlining delicate vocals with a characteristically ‘Souvlaki Space Station’ drone, ebbing and flowing gently through the entirety of the track’s five minutes.

Jim Reid was among those to come up to the Veldt when they were in the UK to say ‘I really like your vinyls.’ It took two more decades and an article in the Guardian for the rest of the world to catch up. Today Danny and Daniel find themselves preparing to go on tour supporting The Brian Jonestown Massacre ahead of the launch of the former’s full-length album (to be released later this year).

‘We’ve been called ‘difficult’ to work with,’ Daniel warned Anton, before sealing the deal. ‘Newcombe’s reply surprises no one: ‘I like difficult.’

Welcome home, The Veldt.

Sway – Whirr

Les critiques de Sway le déclarent une abomination. Pitchfork l’a qualifié d’album « paralysé » dans sa critique incompréhensible et lui a donné 6,9 sur 10 (bien sûr, Pitchfork est lui-même un site web abominable – mais quand même…). Un autre site lui a donné 4 sur 10, disant, je cite, que « Les voix ressemblent plutôt à une murmure et on n’arrive pas à les comprendre. Sans ces voix, cet album transmettrait le même message. »

Evidemment, M. Smith n’a jamais écouté une note de shoegaze.

Moi, je n’ai eu besoin que de 30 secondes de ‘Press’ pour arriver à cette conclusion: nous n’avons pas eu – depuis Guilty of Everything par Nothing – une sortie si belle, si émouvante et si authentique. Comme son prédécesseur, Around, Sway reste fidèle à ses racines – un hommage respectueux aux origines du shoegaze. En même temps – comme dans toutes leurs créations – Whirr apporte son sens de l’actualité – le groupe ne vit pas dans le passé, mais l’amène avec lui, en l’intégrant dans une esthétique contemporaine.

Fidélité – Whirr est une manifestation du genre – de la ‘discorde’. C’est ça l’essence du shoegaze. Je suis sûre que les membres du groupe ne seraient pas d’accord avec moi, mais selon moi la contradiction est le cœur de ce type de musique. Les voix éthérées flottent au-dessus d’un bruit intolérable. Un groupe abrasif crée des chansons d’anges. Les journalistes/bloggeurs – ils n’arrivent pas à réconcilier les deux idées. Nous préférons une vie simple – composée de noir et de blanc. Le genre nous oblige à faire face à la réalité incongrue. Whirr – ils font la même chose.

C’est subjectif, la perception de la musique. Je l’accepte. Sauf que – non, il n’y a aucune doute que Whirr a sorti un album magnifique. Ce qui est ‘subjectif’ est l’interprétation de leurs bouffonneries sur Facebook. Le groupe – M. Basset, en particulier – ne respecte pas le ‘tact,’ et moi, je suis avec lui. Ça lui est égal. Pour Whirr, les fans ne servent à rien, et moi je suis ravie de cette vision. Je ne peux pas exprimer suffisamment mon respect pour des artistes qui créent l’art pour l’art et pas pour les gens. Et Whirr – Ils sont têtus, ils sont orgueilleux, et ils sont arrogants. Mais ils sont honnêtes et rien n’est important pour eux sinon la musique.

C’est ça – l’authenticité.

SULK – Graceless

Things I love about SULK:

  1. Their name, my constant state of being
  2. Their hair – moptop (who needs a field of vision, anyway), sideswept (left), sideswept (right), long (enough), rufflable (c’mere, you)
  3. Their sound – brazen and unafraid.

Every review of Graceless out so far can be summarised thus: SULK sound like the Stone Roses.

It’s possibly an oversimplification, but not a lie. In addition to the smoky monkey man vox, Graceless is a firm devotee of the Britpop sound, flaunting crisp guitars, hair-flippable drums, and such flowery song titles as ‘Diamonds and Ashes’, ‘Back in Bloom’ and, well, ‘Flowers’.

The question – in sounding like our Madchester/Britpop/Acid House/C86 heroes – are SULK any good?

The answer – surprisingly – yes.

For eras as revered as these, it’s a wonder their derivatives have never come anywhere close to the original sound. Books and movies and journal articles have all striven to capture the essence of what made Madchester/baggy, acid house, and Britpop the sensations they were. Still, the Britpop offspring, never really captured the sound and were, despite the technicalities of their success, unbearably insipid.

Britpop itself – a style, a scene that based its success on sounding like everything that had come before it – was unselfconscious enough not to suffer from banality. Half of Elastica (the album) may not even have been composed by Elastica (the band), but we still listen to ‘Waking Up’ every morning (‘make a cup of tea/put a record on’). We still sing along to ‘Champagne Supernova’ with the same conviction that Liam instills into Noel’s ‘slowly walking down the hall/faster than a cannonball‘.

That’s the ‘swagger’ everyone talks about – the obnoxious self-confidence with which the blatantly inane and/or unethical are not only forgiven, but celebrated.

GracelessSULK are the first group I’ve come across to have it. While I can’t quite catch any plagiarism on Graceless (apart from the passing similarity between the opening of ‘Marian Shrine’ and German group Selig‘s ‘Ist Es Wichtig’, which I can’t imagine is intentional), and the lyrics seem innocuous enough,  SULK radiate poise and self-assurance. They wind 1989-1994 around their fingertips as if the years were their own creation (no pun intended).

It’s not plagiarism, it’s inspiration – or so I react to ‘Marian Shrine’ (aka ‘Manchild’, for those of you not keeping your eyes on the tracklist) the most Roses-y of the lot. A track that prances around a sticky chorus you’re sure you’ve heard before (“maaaaaan-chiiiiiild!”), completely oblivious to the decade it’s in.

Wait, no, it’s clearly ‘Sleeping Beauty’ that’s the most Roses-y. It’s funny how all of us review types are throwing around the word ‘Madchester’ as if there’s some sort of revival going on, when really SULK only sound (exactly) like one of the three bands that defined the sound. Not a sign of the shameless grooves that made the Mondays or the broody mantras of the Carpets. Again, we’ve got a song that sounds so familiar it hurts – but just try to place it… it can’t be done.

Have mercy – from this whirling opener we’re thrown into the breathless ‘Flowers’ whose endless chorus overflows with all the jingle-jangle and ba-ba-ba’s in the world, ensuring you’ll spin around and around till your head flies off. A little later, a song made up of the ocean – ‘Back in Bloom’ (if your eye’s not on tracklist, you’re hearing this as ‘Black and Blue’). Waves of reverb, waves of ricocheting space-vox, and waves of a chorus that spirals in and out of focus (‘she’ll be back in bloom’).

I didn’t ever expect an album like Graceless to come my way, or even to exist. Nostalgia aside, it’s worth admiring the album for the quality of its production (Ed Buller worked on albums by Suede, Pulp and White Lies – SURPRISE!). It’s also worth noting that, despite their FANTASTIC hair, I am praising SULK on the worth of their music. Graceless must be good.

Screen Vinyl Image – 51:21

Deceptive.

Something about Screen Vinyl Image is unambiguously vintage.

It could be the name – its resemblance to the authentically ancient Ultra Vivid Scene.

But more likely its the sound. Born out of the far ‘nu’-er Alcian Blue, SVI are unashamedly not so. Ignore any/all reviews/bios calling SVI ‘futuristic’ or ‘contemporary’ or any synonym thereof. Look – they’ve got Bernard Sumner to do vox on ‘Stay Asleep’ – the second track of their latest release*, 51:21, presumably named for the duration of the album (which, fyi, is 51:59)

51:21 opens with the immensely likeable ‘Too Much Speed’ – released as a single a couple of years ago if you were paying attention. A pleasantly noisy pop-tart with a tambourine and a hook, dancing with each other against a backdrop of fuzzy-coarse guitar noise that remains politely out of the way.

Not quite so approachable is the aforementioned ‘Stay Asleep’ which features Gary Chadwick**. There is not a shred of doubt that this track was recorded around the time I was born (probably earlier).

BUT WAIT WHAT’S THIS.

Cross the four minute mark and it’s the scene from Alien – an entirely new creature bursting out of a familiar character. Relentless (analogue) synths push their way out of the placid electropop and drill their way mercilessly into your subconscious. You’ll hear the echoes in your dreams, your veins will throb to the percussion and your ears will tingle with what may be white noise or may be tinnitus.

Barring the closer, we’ve met the rest of these songs before, on The Midnight Sun EP, but they’re worth revisiting. These are the tracks you can see played live while you listen – lights swaying and melting into each other, voices soaked up by carpet and bouncing off concrete, heads bobbing or swaying, eyelids closing, bodies staying rigid.

I’m especially fond of ‘Passing Through Mirrors’ – atypical, no doubt, it lacks the blackness of its comrades, its guitar is very nearly acoustic, it’s got ‘shimmer’ and ‘sparkle’ (are those chimes?), it whistles and it coos, and before it can hypnotise us completely, it curls up into itself and slinks away, leaving us with the unforgiving intro of ’16mm Shrine’ to jolt us back into the dark.

Thinkpiece? Jam session? Composition? Who knows what ’51:21′ was meant to be but its 32 minutes are what take up the 51:21 (51:59?) it’s named after. Live and unedited, it’s whirlpool synths, marching beats, metallic echos, a racing pulse, and even some 8 bit ideas. Our alien friend from ‘Stay Asleep’ also makes an appearance around the 25 minute mark, this time with a classic reverby ‘gaze guitar serving as its foil.

If I had been more timely, I’d have been able to lead you to their bandcamp page so you could pick up 51:21 in Ye Olde Cassette Formatte. Now, however, you’re left with no choice but to direct venomous curses at me as you grudgingly download the digital album.

[*they haven’t]

[**it doesn’t]

Nightmare Air – High In The Lasers

So I just wrote this review, right, where I bemoaned the fact that my elitist status was at stake since the music I listened to (throbby droney noisy pneumatic drilly) was more accessible than I had anticipated. Nobody wants the music they like to be universally appealing – if everyone digs what you’re into, how can you be all snobby about it, and if you can’t be snobby about music, then what’s the point of living.

Turns out, I can’t expect elitism with High In The Lasers either. Nightmare Air, feat. Dave Dupuis of Film School (you remember them – they had that superb album, Hideout) is a trio led by a duo (hey man, I’m just reading the onesheet here), and if you thought Film School were easy on the ears, prepare for a whole new level of almost-pop with Nightmare Air.

Don’t immediately distance yourself from this album because I used the P-word. Their video for ‘Icy Daggers’ has Brian Aubert cameo-ing, which should be all you need to understand what kind of ‘pop’ we’re talking about here.

Cameos aside, High in the Lasers is all kinds of ridiculous in the repeat-factor stakes – at least up until the fourth track. ‘Escape’, the opener, makes it abundantly clear that it’s an album all about the production. On last.fm they’re proudly tagged ‘under 2000 listeners’ (542 at last count) (this is a TAG?), but the sound on this album is no small-label-local-band production – it’s sonic crystal.

One again, I turn to the onesheet:

“Mixed by Dave Schiffman (Nine Inch Nails, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Mars Volta, Dead Meadow) with mastering by Howie Weinberg (Nirvana, Sonic Youth, The White Stripes),”

Go figure.

‘Escape’ and ‘Icy Daggers’, already given a massive boost on account of the stellar mixing, ensure their own moreishness by using that clever device – contrast. Floaty female coos interrupted and aided by crude male yelps (not as unappetising as that sounds). Noise-soaked walls etched with perfectly defined riffs and percussion. And your standard loud-soft: delicate intros, outros and verses offset by crumpled, chaotic instrumentation in the chorus.

From the first track to the fourth, High in the Lasers rises steadily, peaking at ‘Sweet Messy Riff’, a track which , in addition to all the above, possesses the most frustrating of qualities – a slippery hook. Unable to hum it back to yourself to satiate a craving, you find yourself putting the track – just the track – on repeat till your neurons are satisfied/self-destruct.

What happens after track 4? No one knows why, but the curve that had already hit its peak and plateaued right at the outset starts to turn downwards. ‘Sun Behind The Rocks’ is peppered with a completely unnecessary 8-bitty buzz through the track which climaxes in an incomprehensible two minutes of beeps, vibrations and thumps. ‘Eyes’, which follows, is a redeemer, as anything would be, but it’s not nearly of the same calibre as the first four tracks. I’m also going to tactfully avoid saying anything about ‘Wolf in the Wood’, apart from ‘Where have the producers/mixers gone?’.

So don’t be alarmed if you start losing focus midway. Go back a couple of tracks, get your momentum back and plough on. Alternatively, take a break, let the phantoms of what you just heard melt away, and start over from ‘Brightest Diamond’.

And hey, since I already brought it up, Hideout is as yummy today as it was the first time you heard it. Pay it a visit again, if you can spare the time.