 |
Decoration | Don't Disappoint Me Now
(SL) 17th October 2005 |
 |
Great news, everybody. You might have thought that successive waves of social and musical transformation, powered by the pornographic contortions of global capital – from uber-pop hooks to floor-shaking bass, heroin-fuelled garage rock to butt-gyrating r'n'b – would have killed off forever the bad poetry and slack-wristed guitar-playing of second-rate indie-rock pretenders. But no! Decoration, labouring in the long shadow of genuine masters The Smiths and The Cure, have a new album out. Hurray.
RATING: 
|
| Top |
|
Murcof | Remembranza
(Leaf) 3rd October 2005 |
 |
The second offering from Mexican-born Fernando Corona is a deeply contradictory, but engaging album. Lush orchestration produces a series of painfully awkward silences; little really seems to be happening, yet it is all crafted with the utmost precision; and, despite seeming to occupy a sort of endless, liminal time that stands at a dead stop, it clocks in at under an hour. Weird. But very much in the mold of the Leaf label. Or possibly of a Borges short-story.
RATING:
|
| Top |
|
Marc Hellner | Marriages
(Peacefrog) 15th August 2005 |
 |
The press release for Hellner’s Marriages claims that, amongst other things, avant-garde composer Steve Reich’s minimalism has ‘impacted subtly but significantly’ on this solo debut: another way of suggesting, I guess, that this album is to be considered an experimental work. Well I don’t think so. In fact it drifts along like an interminable MOR chill-out soundscape; and the mumbled, mostly incomprehensible lyrics are no more engaging when you can catch their meaning. The musical equivalent of an air-freshener advert.
RATING:
|
| Top |
|
Kid Carpet | Ideas and Oh Dears
(Tired and Lonesome) 4th July 2005 |
 |
I wasn’t really sure what to expect of this debut Kid Carpet long-player: after catching a few of his toytastic live shows and hearing his SlowGraffiti-released EP, both excellent, I nonetheless had my doubts as to how it would all translate into an album. But what the fuck did I know? Ideas and Oh Dears is pure delight from start to finish, a Bristolian one-man-band PWEI (at their finest) with enough passion and wit to beat The Streets hands down.
RATING:
|
| Top |
|
Manami N | A Girl From Tokyo EP
Chilopod | Skin Picking
Dorfen X Baxter | My Gestalt Knows No Bounds EP
( Post Office) Spring 2005
|
 |
The vocal-led, Bjork-esque style of Manami N seems like a departure from previous POR releases. As A Girl From Tokyo progresses, however, it reveals a stark, defiantly experimental vision, which is most fully developed in the splintered intricacies of ‘Yume Wo Mita’. Chilopod’s Skin Picking, transporting us from Tokyo to the Welsh Valleys, slowly unwinds and unravels textured soundscapes, producing an eerie effect that, funnily enough, recalls The Ring’s Sadako trapped down a well. Dorfen X Baxter’s EP works with the same deceptive simplicity of Manami N: it’s both an experiment in harsh minimalism and, at the same time, a reasonably accessible approach to the dancefloor. Or at least as close as Post Office is likely to get. All of which gives the prospect of five new POR releases, later this year, a real sense of excitement. for Manami N and Chilopod,
for Dorfen X.
|
| Top |
|
Fog | 10th Avenue Freakout
(Lex) May 9th 2005 |
 |
The first Fog album (on Ninja Tune) turned heads in 2002: blending a Pavement-esque, lo-fi sensibility with edgy turntablism/electronica, it had a freshness that recalled and reinvented everything good about, say, Beck’s early output. The same description applies equally to this offering (two albums somewhere in between have passed me by) but, four years later, that’s the problem. 10th Avenue Freakout has its moments, but overall seems like a weak signal from some lost, and no longer compelling, indie world.
RATING:
|
| Top |
|
Prefuse 73 | Surrounded By Silence
(Warp) March 21st 2005 |
 |
To quote Prefuse 73’s sometime label-mate, Luke Vibert, THIS IS GOING TO MAKE YOU FREAK! Having put out a couple of outstanding glitch-hop albums in the last few years Prefuse 73 is back with this collaborative effort, featuring Ghostface, El-P, The Books, Aesop Rock GZA, Broadcast and many others. There really aren’t words to adequately describe the scratched, shredded beauty of these tracks; until our aesthetic vocabularies adjust, let’s just say that you should get yourself a copy. Today.
RATING:
|
| Top |
|
Various | Organ Radio 21: This Is Why I Bookmarked You
(Org) 2005 |
 |
Sixteen new tracks – including offerings from locals Midasuno and When Reason Sleeps - from scene website www.organart.com. If this selection is representative of the previous twenty compilations, they’re clearly fans of snarling distortion, muffled screams, and frenzied kick-drums. This is no bad thing, though in places it’s a bit too much Slipknot not enough At The Drive In for those of us born before 1984. That gripe aside, for Thee More Shallows’ amazing ‘2 AM’, for the rest.
|
| Top |
|
The Hacker | Reves Mecaniques
(Different / PIAS) October 18th 2004 |
 |
Functioning like a really rubbish time-machine (that only travels back to an early nineties’ techno club) the new album from The Hacker demonstrates the limited results produced by fencing electronica within the regimented confines of the dancefloor. Electroclash irony abounds, no doubt, but those 4/4 bass-hits and heavily accented vocals just don’t cut it anymore and the repetitive loops evoke an era that now sounds scarier than The Shining’s ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’.
RATING:
|
| Top |
|
| Various | Marvel Of Marvin: The Trouble Man’s Collaborations, Covers & Cookies. (Harmless) October 2004 |
 |
This curious collection of Motown legend Marvin Gaye’s songs brings together covers by such elevated company as Otis Redding, The Temptations, and The Isley Brothers. Perhaps because of this, the album is marked more by individual stand-out tracks – like Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers’ 'I Heard it Through The Grapevine' and Barbara Randolph’s 'Can I Get a Witness' – than any tangible sense of collective tribute to the original artist or recordings. All the same, it’s a truly rewarding listen.
RATING:
|
| Top |
|
Loner | Loner
(Just Music) September 6th 2004 |
 |
The status of electronic music has been transformed beyond recognition but we’re all still meant to fall down in worship when a classically-trained musician (or an indie band) tries their hand at electronica-influenced song-writing. You know, because they’re so talented and do real songs and stuff? So if you want electronically assembled songs with proper piano-playing, give the undoubtedly talented Loner a try; but expect a fair share of insipid, repetitious lyrics and pointlessly overloaded reverb effects, too.
RATING:
|
| Top |
|
The Electric Chair Presents Electric Soul II
(Pias Recordings) September 6th 2004 |
 |
Styling itself as the ultimate mix of chilled out, modern electric soul, this album does exactly what it say on the tin. So, aside from a certain predictability on this front, which isn’t really cause for criticism, I’d recommend Electric Soul II rather than a can of wood-stain any day of the week. But it’s probably best experienced at 3am on a Sunday morning, no doubt providing a pleasant post-club descent into the recesses of the sofa, rather than your soul.
RATING:
|
| Top |
|
Fupper | Walleyecandy
(Tritone) July 26th 2004 |
 |
Fupper’s glitchy post-rock workouts make for a captivating and impressive debut. There’s a resemblance to recent Tortoise, but Walleyecandy sounds looser, more spontaneous and, not to put too fine a point on it, fun. It’s not unlike the jumble of Fog’s first album in this respect, as samples distort and beats ricochet around, but when the guitars are strummed and the occasional melancholic voice appears and disappears it’s reminiscent too of Damien Jurado’s last few albums. Go and buy it.
RATING:
|
| Top |
|
Diskokugel | Tone Poems
(Magic Plastic Recordings) April 2004 |
 |
Like the gold double D’s discovered in a jungle to the pristine soundtrack of a Dolby Digital short, Tone Poems boasts startlingly well-crafted production. But the initial gasps of delight its shiny surface produces fade with the discovery that nothing here leads anywhere in particular. Packed full of noted highlights, this incredibly varied collection from the producers of Jarcrew nonetheless jumps genres to the extent that it sounds more like a show-reel than an album, and its significance remains elusive.
RATING:
|
| Top |
|
Subjekt | Direction Correction
(Freerange) April 13th 2004 |
 |
Apparently the creation of some behind-the-scenes super-producer, Subjekt's debut album is dominated by a luscious, stripped-down deep house ethic, with perfect, minimalist loops winding on and on to jaw-breaking infinity. It's an impressive sound, successfully fusing pounding dancefloor-friendly beats with real Detroit darkness. But if the title of the album suggests a "Direction Correction" is needed in the current scene, it's hard to see where exactly this deeply retro, back to early nineties basics sound can take us?
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Mountain Men Anonymous | KRKONOSE
(My Kung Fu) 22nd March 2004 |
 |
With an industrial/electronica tinged take on post-rock that invites comparison to Mogwai or G!YBE, MMA pitch their tent in a territory which lamentably few Cardiff bands show much desire to explore. This album no doubt suffers by such a comparison, lacking a certain lyricism and subtlety in amongst the sound and fury. But in the stumbling, broken beats of a track like 'Weep'—rather than the more recognizable approach of 'We Stole Your Rhyming Dictionaries'— KRKONOSE starts to sound essential.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Constantines | Shine a Light
(Sub Pop) 16th February 2004 |
 |
Released to widespread acclaim in North America last autumn, the Constantines second album certainly lives up to expectations. With twelve unpredictable, raucous tracks the Canadian five-piece bring a ferocious punk energy to indie-rock's current MORibund state, doing a great deal to revive it in the process. In fact, 'indie' seems a bit of a misnomer here: this is 'rock' in the very best sense of the word. File between Bruce Springsteen, PJ Harvey and Ryan Adams. Wherever the hell that is.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Various | Decade the mix - 10 years of Superstition
(Superstition) 27th October 2003 |
 |
The opening seconds of this CD seemed to be fading up on some sort of early-nineties Feed Your Head/ Goan Trance type experience – not a pleasant feeling, and, as it turned out, a completely misleading one. In fact, once it gets going this niftily computer-mixed celebration of 10 years of the Superstition label has much more of a mid-nineties 2am-grinding-my-teeth-I-never-want-to-stop-dancing feeling. By the end I was wondering what I'd do when the lights came on and they threw us all out.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Non-Prophets | Hope
(Lex) 13th October 2003 |
 |
From the first track, Sage Francis comes on like a paragon of self-made, up-from-the-streets integrity while Joe Beats provides totally classic hip-hop beats. Hope has an angry, raw side, but it never grates or seems bombastic – Francis is too difficult to pin down and the sound is too seductive for that. Lyrically, it's a slightly disturbing take on the contradictions of American culture, fuelled by sharp humour and testosterone. And tracks like 'Disasters', a rant about noisy children, are priceless.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Flunk | Treat Me Like You Do: For Sleepyheads Only Remixes
(Beatservice) October 13th |
 |
Positively, these remixes are characterised by impressively muscular beats; but this is ruined by over-reliance on moribund early trance/ambient style textures that go absolutely nowhere… really slowly. It's all a self-satisfied exercise in 'chillout' drone, overlaid with second-rate imitation Bjork vocals, without any real melodic or lyrical interest. The two 'Blue Monday' covers that supposedly crown the whole enterprise are massively disappointing and don't stand even a moment's comparison to Kylie's triumphant 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' version.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Mountaineers | Messy Century
(Mute) September 29th |
 |
The recent electronica-meets-folk trend, so unpromising in principle, continues to bear fruit with this whimsical and engaging album. The tunes are mostly built around acoustic guitar and heartfelt vocals, but the beats and samples are much more than just window-dressing: they take the sound somewhere authentically different. The result is pretty strange and atmospheric. 'It's Solid' has a wistful and winning Beck-like quality, while tracks like 'Gruppen' come on more like a John Carpenter soundtrack. Altogether, it's a compelling formula.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
The Weakerthans | Reconstruction Site
(Burning Heart) September 8th |
 |
The first track, 'Manifest' is full of promise – a lush guitar sound, evocative lyrics, tightly-contained alt.rock energy – all vaguely suggestive of Document-era REM (the title track sounds like Suzanne Vega's 'Marlene On the Wall'). But what follows disappoints because everything is too tight and it never… rocks. Lyrically, imagine Wheatus-style punks taking themselves too seriously. It does have some good moments, especially 'A New Name for Everything', but mostly this is an album that needs to learn to lose control.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Yeah Yeah Yeahs | Fever to Tell
2003 |
 |
A record that you're not meant to like, but listen to 'Maps' or 'Pin' and I dare you not to. As part of the totally over-hyped NYC scene, the YYYs may be being sold as the next The Strokes, but Fever to Tell (like The Stokes Is This It?) is on all counts simply a great album: a spurt of Richard Hell punk tempered by post-Sonic Youth discipline; a relentless, passionate frenzy. A cynical exercise in 'retro-cool'? Maybe. But who cares?
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Madonna | American Life
2003 |
 |
She might have dressed up like Che Guerva on the album cover but there's no revolution here. The crystalline dancefloor brilliance of Ray of Light is sadly lacking, and even the risible Music starts to sound better after a listen to American Life: the last Madonna record I will give any attention. The embarrassingly awful lyrics overshadow the vaguely interesting reliance on electronica, but even that only rehashes ideas from Music. The best song, 'Hollywood', is nonetheless a feeble offering.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy | Master and Everyone
(Domino) 2003 |
 |
At last, a Will Oldham record I can play my friends. In his third album under his BPB persona, Oldham seems to have completed a breathtaking migration into melodic and lyrical warmth. These beautiful, enveloping songs are a long way from the morose I See a Darkness or even the back-porch-at-dusk reveries of Ease Down the Road. The probing lyrics still offer disturbing insights and food for thought, but everything is bathed in light. Celestial, yet completely honest and unsentimental.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Neutral Milk Hotel | In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
(Domino) 1998 |
 |
Currently still languishing in obscurity, this joyous US album will one day become the underground lo-fi classic it surely deserves to be. With infectious four-chord indie-rock charms aplenty and frankly insane lyrics ('semen stains the mountain tops...') this is one crucial 1998 album that's probably missing from your record collection. Its manic energy and brutal pop simplicity is quite unparalleled in recent years; next to this, Coldplay, Travis, The Polyphonic Spree, and even Radiohead sound like exhausted, self-indulgent pretenders.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
| |
|
Jamie Lidell | Mulitply
(Warp) 3rd October 2005 |
 |
When the press sheet for a Warp release boasts that Elton-fucking-John's a fan, it's hard not to have second thoughts about the label's new direction. Like Maximo Park's output, this straight-up Motown number is very saleable; but, musically, it's a complete waste of your time.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Soft-Hearted Scientists | Midnight Mutinies EP
(My Kung Fu) June 27th 2005 |
 |
It's 1967. You take a drag from your filterless cigarette, sneer, then saunter down the cobbled Italian street in a Mafiosa-style suit. Acoustic guitars play hauntingly in the distance, mopeds probably glisten in the Mediterranean evening air, you are overcome with existential ennui. But you know, in Cardiff. Smart.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Outkast | Prototype/Ghetto Musick
(BMG) October 11th 2004 |
 |
Compared to the charms of songs like Stankonia’s ‘Ms Jackson’ and the recent ‘Hey Ya’, this double A-side offering is below par (and personally I can’t imagine anyone would be too flattered to be called ‘the prototype’?). Still, it’s unimaginably better than anything evil label-mates Kasabian will ever manage.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster | Rise Of The Eagles
(No Death / Island) October 4th 2004 |
 |
This band’s clearly talents extend further than the conception of a mischievously overlong name: in fact, they continue to manifest throughout the extremely brief, taut-rock fury of this demented single. If this snarling, growling effort is typical, I’d advise that you don’t miss their forthcoming second album, The Royal Society.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Scissor Sisters | Mary
(Polydor) October 11th 2004 |
 |
New to the Scissor Sisters, I had no particular preconceptions about how their new single might sound, but nothing prepared me for this ghastly Pop Idol rendition in the style of Elton John. Which was foolish of me: I suppose that’s exactly what I should have expected of this future-number-one-hit.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
The Phoenix Foundation | We Need To Make Some Changes
(Newest Indüstry) July 26th 2004 |
 |
Okay, so melodic Finnish punk rock is not something I can lay claim to any special knowledge about but, like everything I’ve heard so far on the Newest Indüstry label, this EP is pure quality. Six infectious, guitar-driven tracks offer up strangely melancholic meditations centred around time’s corrosive effects on friendship.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Xploding Plastix | The Rebop by Proxy Ep
(Palm Beats) March 29th 2004 |
|
This 10" vinyl-only EP by the critically acclaimed Norwegian duo Xploding Plastix fuses melodic, jazzy electronica with a cinematic, heavily sample-based sensibility. It's funky, upbeat, and flawlessly produced stuff, but seems content to put its feet up in well-trodden territory, its apparent intricacies fading all-too-quickly into 'chill-out' wallpaper nothingness.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Black Cougar Shock Unit
(Newest Indüstry) 7th March 2004 |
 |
Another fine release from Cardiff's own Newest Indüstry records in the form of a debut mini-album from Black Cougar Shock Unit. A great guitar sound and powerful vocals don't stop the first couple of tracks seem a little rigid but as the CD unfolds everything falls into place with exhilarating results. And the closing track, 'Let the Cowgirls Ride', is pretty damn astounding.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Kasabian | Reason is Treason
(BMG) 23rd February 2004 |
 |
Not what I expected a band tipped for success in 2004 by the NME and Radio 1. Why not? Because it's totally crap. And horribly dated. The stencilled brown paper bag wrapper is just a feeble ploy by BMG to seduce the kids and destroy rock forever. Resist!
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
Goldfrapp | Black Cherry
(Mute) 23rd February 2004 |
 |
The title track from Goldfrapp's best-selling-Brits nominated album offers four uber-retro minutes of synth-drenched 70s good feeling in the vein of Air's Moon Safari. Except it's not as good. A certain lazy, languid charm aside, there's nothing very compelling about 'Black Cherry' or the exclusive B-side 'Gone to Earth'.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
The Enablers | Sweet Fuck All
(Newest Industry) 6th October 2003 |
 |
While I wasn't expecting tuneless screaming, to me this six track mini-album still sounds more alt.country rock than punk rock – but faster. In any case, these songs ooze fine musicianship and a bar-room brawl authenticity, the singer's hoarse tones effortlessly achieving the sound Ryan Adams is always hunting after.
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
British Sea Power | Remember Me
(Rough Trade) 6th October 2003 |
 |
The limited 7" with hand-written cover is a try-hard gesture of 'Englishness' that says it all about BSP, but you're best off getting hold of it rather than either of the two different CD-singles. Not for the 'concept' but because, of all six tracks, the exclusive Pixies-esque B-side rocks most!
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
The Datsuns | MF From Hell
(V2) August 25th |
 |
Falling somewhere pretty obvious between Iron Maiden, Motörhead, and early Guns N' Roses, this rather regimented 'hard rock' single will please those who like no surprises. At all. For me, The Datsuns' appeal remains a total mystery. Maybe I have just never really felt enough 'like a motherfucker from hell'?
RATING:
|
| Top |
| |
|