J. Tillman - Year in the Kingdom (Album)

For about eighteen months or so it has been compulsory when writing about Josh Tillman’s solo work to make reference to the fact that he happens to be the drummer of Fleet Foxes. So let’s slay that particular elephant sitting in the corner of the room straight away, shall we? The fact of the matter is that Year in the Kingdom is his sixth album in five years which strongly suggests that, vastly contrasting commercial fortunes aside, his day job comprises of solo work, and Fleet Foxes is a mere side project.

The sort of down-at-heel folk baladeering which Tillman specialises in is a popular market to say the least, teeming with over-earnest chancers trying desperately to convince us of their authenticity. However, authenticity is something weaved so intricately into the fabric of Tillman’s compositions that he doesn’t even have to try. And perhaps that’s the secret to success.

Year in the Kingdom continues where Vacillando Territory Blues left off earlier this year, adorned with little more than Tillman’s weatherbeaten voice and sparse guitar work. In spite of it’s elemental make-up, the album rarely descends into the realms of the forgettable or samey. For the majority of its duration, it maintains a tight grip of your senses. One of Tillman’s greatest strengths is his ability to use his ingredients sparingly. This includes his use of time, as the record is short enough at thirty-four minutes not to crush you under its weariness.

Curiously, the album starts off with one of its more optimistic feeling moments, in the form of its title track. As it progresses however, the sense of bleakness builds, particularly in the lyrics. On ‘Marked in the Valley’, for example, it seems to be all Tillman can do to force out ‘I lied for my birthright and sold it on the roadside for half what it was worth’. Even when he sings ‘All is well’ on ‘Howling Light’, his tone is so heavily mired in defeat that you don’t believe him for a second.

On the odd occasion, pockets of light are able to pierce the gloom to glorious effect, like the gospel harmonies on ‘Crosswinds’, or the quiet sense of euphoria which builds up on ‘There is No Good in Me’. These tiny beacons of hopefulness showcase an ability to bend his mind away from sorrow which we don’t see too often from Tillman on this record. They give the album an extra dimension, and imbue it with a subtlety and complexity which set the really good acoustic singer-songwriter work apart from the shallow pretenders.

Year in the Kingdom may not be a feast of eclecticism, but it is a lesson in the construction of compelling, stripped-down folk. It is the ultimate accompaniment for those rainy nights where, if you were Conor Oberst, you would sit alone in a dingy room, soaking yourself in whisky and lamenting your many failings. For those of us unable to pull off such idyllic self-deconstruction, I guess we can just soak in its majesty and try to remember that the world is a decent place really.

8/10

Muse - The Resistance (Album)

I've always fancied doing one of those live reaction pieces but I've never got round to it. The new Muse record seems as good a place as any to start, given the amount of reaction flying around to it.

1 - Uprising - Well this is okay in a Not-that-Musey-but-still-pompous-as-fuck kind of way. Not keen on those high pitch 'Come on'! bits. This isn't a Corsa ad lads.

2 - Resistance - God, Bellamy's lyrics are terrible sometimes. This sounds a bit like something off the terrible last Cooper Temple Clause record. Catchy, but deep down you know it's not very good.

3 - Undisclosed Desires - What's this plinky-plonky faux-Timbaland backing going on? Maybe I'm being harsh, but this ain't going well.

4 - United States of Eurasia- Ah, here comes that Queen song. I seem to really be warming to this. Totally overblown of course, but wonderfully so. Everything that I love about Muse. What a fantastic pianist Bellamy is too.

5- Guiding Light - Lovely throbby bass. This is definitely that moment on a Muse album which I don't particularly like at first because it's a bit overbearing but grow to love in the end. See Endlessly, Showbiz and Micro Cuts for further examples.

6 - Unnatural Selection - Ooh, nice funereal organ. This could end up being good. Oh God, that guitar's a bit hyper-Kaiser Chiefs at first though. Before it becomes like the New Born solo, that is. Confusing stuff. All told, a bit throwaway in the end, a la The Small Print. It gets better towards the end with that racing guitar bit. I bet this would be a bitch to play on Guitar Hero.

7 - MK Ultra - Nice guitar line, this. The ooooh, ooooh bits are good. This is about the closest thing I've heard to anything on Absolution on here so far. Pretty good actually. This might end up being one of my favourites. There's no need to write a song about Milton Keynes though, no matter how zany you are.

8 - I Belong to You - Christ, is this the intro from a Stevie Wonder b-side? I'm not keen on this cod-funk thing they seem to have discovered. The only bit with any kind of merit in this is that mournful piano in the middle. It all just feels like it's building up to a point it never really ever gets to. A bit like the album as a whole, actually. And is that a fucking clarinet solo?! Lads, you're too geeky to be funny, so leave it at the door.

9 - Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 - I'm excited about this symphony piece. It's almost as though this is where they stop pissing about and start the album properly. This part is stunning, especially the first couple of minutes before the vocals. Really brooding and ominous.

10 - Exogenesis: Symphony Part 2 - Nice classic piano again and that melancholic, low key vocal he hasn't done nearly enough of on this album. These last couple of tracks might be saving the album. I was worried that the guitar which comes in about two minutes in would make it all a bit tacky, but it actually fits in quite nicely with those gorgeous searing strings.

11 - Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 - This piano and strings intro might be the most beautiful piece of music Muse have done yet. In fact, fuck it, it's not just the intro, it's the whole piece. It just swells and swells. I'm so conflicted. Is this really the same album as I Belong to You? What a great way to end an album.

So all told, The Resistance is a fucking strange experience. It houses some absolutely unbearable moments, mainly the attempts at eclecticism. I'm all for experimentation, but you'd think that after five albums someone as gifted as Matt (as well as Dom and Chris) would know what they can and can't get away with. The three-part symphony at the end salvages something, saving the album from being a total disaster, but it's a hard record to love.

Alberta Cross - Broken Side of Time (Album)

For a band to be able to lay authentic claim to a genre which is traditionally attached to a specific part of the world, do they necessarily need to be born and bred there? Is it enough to have spent your life immersed in that particular sound, soaking in your influences to the extent that emulating it is your only natural course? That seems logical to me, but to learn that a band making (in this instance) such flagrantly Americana-tinged rock as Alberta Cross are Anglo-Swedish is still a bit jarring.

Last year they supported Oasis on a tour of the UK’s favourite aircraft hangars, and it’s not too hard to see why they were chosen for the job. Not because they’re a bad band (although given Noel’s heroically terrible taste in support bands, it would be a fair assumption to make before hearing them), but because of the combination of loud guitars and bluesy elements they utilise and in which Oasis seemed to think they excelled in their latter years.

Perhaps Alberta Cross feel the need to prove their authenticity a bit more sharply than they might if they were from Alabama, but their debut album Broken Side of Time is positively dripping in blues and folk influences. There’s little doubt about their sincerity, regardless of humdrum issues of nationality, but execution is another matter entirely.

Over the course of the ten songs which constitute their debut, Alberta Cross flourish, and fall short in pretty equal measure. At their best, they are woozy, weather beaten, and very occasionally heartbreaking. However, on too many occasions you get the impression that they ramp up the volume to mask a shortage of ideas. When this happens, as it does most obviously on the album’s title track, they come across like a less likeable Kissaway Trail, or worse, a whiskey-soaked version of Starsailor.

Singer / guitarist Petter Ericson Stakee’s voice acts as a barometer for the album. What starts off as an arresting and distinctive mumble becomes undeniably irritating as the record unfolds. In the same way that the guitars seem to be cranked up for the sake of it, his vocals are slammed straight into top gear without warning far too often, into a wail which smothers any hope of emotional engagement.

In the end, it’s the album’s lower-key moments which save it, and give Alberta Cross their biggest successes. ‘Old Man Chicago’ for instance is a pretty slice Ryan Adams-esque country rock, while ‘Rise From the Shadows’ builds slowly with menacing bass tones and creepy harmonies into one of the album’s most interesting pieces.

The best thing Broken Side of Time has to offer is it’s closing five minutes, ‘Ghost of City Life’. This tells the tale of a country boy jaded by the pressures and falsities of big city life. Set to a simplistic, folk backing, it aches with genuine emotion, and leaves you wishing that they had played to this strength more often. It does, however, finish the album on an undoubted positive, washing away some of the annoyances that might have built up over the previous forty-odd minutes.

Broken Side of Time is far from a wash-out, but it feels like an opportunity spurned. Some real quality lies within, but it’s difficult to lose yourself entirely when you know you can’t trust it not to wander off down the wrong path. That said, as a debut album it shows great promise. Provided they can focus themselves on what they do best, album number two could be very good indeed.

6/10

The Mercury Prize - Is it still relevant?

People talking about music is one of the great success stories of the digital age. It’s opened up so many opportunities for bands to get their music to an audience, and it’s given music fans the chance to hear untold amounts of life changing new music that fifteen years ago they would never have got near. But nothing inspires tedious recurring bitching among British and Irish music fans like the Mercury Prize. In the six weeks since the announcement of the shortlist, as with so many previous years, I’ve found myself jaded by the same tired old arguments that rear their gruesome heads every twelve months:

‘It’s criminal that (band a) aren’t nominated’
‘(band z) / (rapper b) are the token jazz / hip-hop act’
‘(band x) are too big, they don’t need the award’
‘The Mercury hasn’t been relevant for years’

So I pose the question, is now the time to revamp the way the Mercury Prize works? After all, if Kasabian can be nominated for an award which famously claims to reward innovation, something must be amiss, right? Well, the Mercury’s past is hardly blameless. Let’s not forget, historic nominees include Simply Red, Dina Carroll, Take That, The Spice Girls and Mark Morrison. And then of course, we had the prize’s darkest hour in 1994 which saw M People beat Blur and Pulp to the prize.

The American version of the Mercury, The Shortlist Music Prize restricts entry to albums which have not attained Gold status. Perhaps it’s time the Mercury adopted a similar approach. Of this year’s twelve Mercury-nominated artists, five (Florence and the Machine, La Roux, Glasvegas, Kasabian, and Bat For Lashes) have sold in excess of the British Gold record threshold of 100,000, and would therefore have been precluded from entering if this rule were adopted. Would the shortlist really have been poorer without these artists? Arguments can be made in favour of all of them (with the exception of Kasabian, obviously), but none of them really need the leg-up in terms of sales and increase profile that victory would have provided. Each are strong bets for Brit award nominations, something which is arguably a lot more appropriate for musicians with that level of exposure.

This year’s winning album, Speech Debelle’s debut Speech Therapy is the lowest-selling winner of the prize ever, having shifted 3,000 copies up to its victory. Given her desire to record which was fuelled by a love of music (that classic, if painfully clichéd image of kids in their bedrooms trying to emulate their heroes), and her affiliation with Ninja Tune, a hard-working London independent which has been around almost as long as the Mercury, it’s difficult to begrudge her victory, even if you aren’t a particular fan of her music. Sweet Billy Pilgrim are a similar story. Having slogged away for years, paying the bills with day jobs and session muso gigs, their lovely second album Twice Born Men was also nominated having previously slipped under the radar of the vast majority of music fans. Surely these are worthier candidates for a £20,000 prize which wouldn’t even keep La Roux in hairspray for a month?

The judges of the prize face a pretty unenviable task. Semi-legendary tales persist of heated arguments carrying on right through the bands’ performances on the night until a dishevelled spokesperson has to run down to the stage to breathlessly announce the winner before the papers go to press. To be fair though, this gives the Mercury a bit of ramshackle charm in keeping with it‘s ‘alternative’ reputation. After all, what’s would be an adequate substitute for a group of industry types arguing in a room? An online vote? You can just imagine the carnage and vote-rigging which would ensue. The Mercury might be severely flawed in some ways, but one thing we have to remember is that it aims to pick the single best British and Irish album of the year, and as such will always be massively divisive.

So all things considered, the Mercury Prize has its plus points and negatives. It has failed spectacularly in its aims in the past, and needs to refocus its purpose, in particular putting more thought into its nominees. However, Speech Debelle’s victory this week has stirred up enough interesting debate aside from the usual banalities to prove that the prize still has at least some kind of relevance.

Matthew Friedberger - Winter Women / Holy Ghost Language School (Album)

Winter Women / Holy Ghost Language School was originally recorded and released back in 2006 by Matthew Friedberger. However, due to all manner of troublesome distribution issues, a mere trickle of copies found their way to these shores. So, three years later, it gets a full release complete with shiny new packaging and four new bonus tracks.

Throughout his time working with his sister Eleanor as The Fiery Furnaces, one of the most wonderfully batshit bands we have, Friedberger has never shied away from musical excess. Therefore, nobody could honestly claim to be surprised to learn that his debut solo effort is a sprawling 33 track double album, which can be broken down into two (slightly) more bite-size individual records Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language School.

Winter Women bounces along merrily on chirpy piano and bubbly drums as Friedberger embraces his pop sensibilities more fully than he ever really has before. The blissful feeling of a carefree summer’s afternoon hangs around the record, particularly in the wide-eyed simplicity of ‘Theme From Never Going Home Again’. It’s the sound of a man comfortable in his own skin, issuing a timely reminder that he still knows his way around a melody.

Winter Women might be a treasure chest packed with pop gems, but that’s not all there is to the record though. Let’s not forget Friedberger’s previous form which includes silent records, story time with Granny, and multi-layered prog behemoths. Amid all the hooks, he indulges his experimental urges with stylish electro flourishes and warped, glitchy percussion. Just look at ‘Motorman’, with it’s whispered backwards vocals and sinister undertones. It’s like an overbearing dark cloud threatening to dampen the sunny atmosphere.

The combination of the electro experimentalism and the cheery pop creates something at once accessible and nourishing. Winter Women would more than suffice as a release, but this is but half of the story. Second disc Holy Ghost Language School is less a sister album, more a deranged cousin; an intriguing stab at the much maligned concept of a rock-opera, something which the Friedberger family have had a date with from the very beginning.

The result is undoubtedly up there with the most wilfully bonkers Fiery Furnaces work, featuring a chap called Scot Dombrowski as the hero of the tale, as he tries to set up a business language school in Japan, only to find himself confused as to whether or not the whole thing really happened, or whether it was all a dream. Got that? Nope, us neither.

In spite of it’s dense headfuckery, though, it’s excellent fun. Try and keep up with the narrative and you’re likely to go mad. Instead, enjoy the twists and turns of Friedberger’s musicianship which convey a story which is (if only slightly) less migraine-inducing than the main plot. Where Winter Women sugars the frequent slices of experimentalism with melody, Holy Ghost Language School twists them in the opposite direction, substituting pop hooks for irregular and unpredictable bursts of piano and synths and running all over the place with them.

Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language School undoubtedly need to be treated as entirely separate albums. It would take a brave man to tackle any two Fiery Furnaces records in one sitting, and in spite of these records bearing a different moniker, it’s exactly the same case here, such is the sheer weight of the content. This is a release which Fiery Furnaces die-hards will cherish, but it won’t convert any naysayers. Long may the Friedbergers’ lunacy endure.