Chatting with Barney at work t’other day, we got talking about funny phrases. For some reason, “Sonic Cathedrals Of Sound” got mentioned, and we discussed who invented it. As we couldn’t decide – in-joke of NME (my thought) or someone on the Steve Wright Show (his) – a quick Google was attempted.1
Which led me to the discovery, that the first site that comes up on a Google search for “Sonic Cathedrals Of Sound”, was my site. Me! My site! Blimey.
Ok, I don’t do that very often. I’m the kind of person that writes a blog in the vain hope that about 10 people read it, and one person likes what they read (aside from me)2. But the fact that, of all the sites in the world, that simple search should walk into my site gives me a lovely feeling of satisfaction. All these hours of writing, all that neurotic worry, all that fretting about my syntax and trying to write something interesting….bollocks to all that. I’ve arrived.
In honour of this momentous occasion, here’s one of the bands that started the whole Sonic Cathedrals Of Sound thing. No, not Cocteau Twins, but My Bloody Valentine, who I’ve often mentioned but never posted. Funnily enough, I’m finding I like MBV more and more as I get older; one of those bands I was a bit snooty about in my earlier days, but now rather like.
Go knock your ears off in the Sonic Cathedral Of Sound with this beauty.
1 Indeed, it was The Pretentious Music Journalist character, found from here.
2 Because if I was you wouldn’t be able to move for The Xx remixes, mashups and the like. I love The Xx, but you know….what’s wrong with the original tracks?
What with the likes of Galaxie 500 re-releasing old records, My Bloody Valentine doing sporadic live shows, and newer bands like School Of Seven Bells releasing dreamy psychedelic pop, you could say Shoegaze is making something of a revival. When I say revival, I of course mean Shoegaze has come shuffling in, mumbled something about it being too early and there’s too much light coming through the curtains, and then shuffled off again.
Along come new Bella Union act I Break Horses1 with a demo of their new track “Wired”. As a commenter on Soundcloud states, it’s certainly got a tinge of late-’80’s 4AD act Lush. No bad thing, of course. Bella Union certainly seem to be going through a purple patch at the moment, what with Department of Eagles, Wavves, Midlake, The Kissaway Trail, Beach House and loads of other great bands on their roster. Nice to see Simon Raymonde keeping himself busy, rather than spending his time looking over at Robin Guthrie thinking “I wish he’d lay off the coke”.
Those of you wondering where this lot got such an odd name from can check out this remarkably worrying song by Loft and Lost favourites Smog, here:
Cheery, eh? Written about at some length here, in case you’re interested, which you’re probably not. Anyway, I Break Horses look like a good tip for the future, don’t they?
(Note: this post is a little bit of a test of whether Soundcloud links post correctly in Hype Machine. Not even remotely interesting, unless you’re a music blogger. And it’s not even that interesting if you are, in fairness)
Mew have released another song from their long-awaited CD, “This title goes on and on and doesn’t make much sense/no matter how many times you read it/and you just can’t shorten it/and isn’t the cover horrid?”. And another stormer it is too. “Repeaterbeater” again shows off their prog-rock chops mixed with their ruthless way with a tune. Sure am looking forward to hearing the album in its entirety. “No More Stories” (the album) is out on 26th August. Bit of a wait then.
But, though “Repeaterbeater” is on the new album, it’s also on their new “No More Stories” EP, released on Tuesday 30th June on iTunes, the track list is as follows:
Mew are playing live at London’s ICA on Thursday 16th July but thanks to choosing a far too small venue, it sold out faster than you can say their new album title (about 3 days, as it turns out). Please move to a bigger venue, chaps. I’ve been telling Mrs Loftandlost for years that the show she missed due to being heavily pregnant was one of the best I’ve ever seen, and I think she’s going to take a brick to my head if I say it again.
And as the title says, I don’t have any Sufjan Stevens news. I’m just posting “Come On! Feel The Illinoise!” because it’s such a damned fine song. The second half, with its refrain of “Even in his heart the Devil has to know the water level\Are you writing from the heart?\Are you writing from the heart?”, is heartmeltingly fine. At his best, no-one can touch Sufjan for the sheer audacity of the music and the stunning gorgeousness of his lyrics. Let’s hope that when he does finally get round to releasing something that’s not Christmas songs, that it touches the heights of this song. I must say, I listened to this last night and the tears welled up in my eyes. I’m such a softy.
Sometimes, I buy a CD that I’ve never heard a track off of, usually thanks to a recommendation or a good review. Sometimes, it’s bloody awful. Sometimes, however, it’s like Mew’s “Frengers”, their 2003 album, which was, quite frankly, amazing. It starts off with the classic “Am I Wry? No”:
Now if you’ve not heard it before, you can’t help but be thrilled with Jonas Bjerre’s stunning falsetto (up there with Jeff Buckley’s), and those clean power chords, making you do embarrassing air guitar and singing that sounds like a dog that’s had its tail stepped on. The rest of the album wasn’t half bad either.
So I’m really rather excited to hear that they’ve a new album out in August, which they promise to be happier than their last one (which wasn’t exactly Joy Division-esque maudlin drone-rock).
But the best is the title.
It’s a poem.
Yes, a poem.
No more stories
Are told today
I’m sorry
They washed away
No more stories
The world is grey
I’m tired
Let’s wash away
Ah, these crazy Danes!
And the cover, following on from “….And The Glass Handed Kites” quite repulsive effort, is this:
What In God's Name Is That???
A tour of Europe with Nine Inch Nails is already sorted, and hopefully some headline shows soon. This is a band you must see live, as they are truly magnificent.
On another note, I’ve been listening to the new Apostle of Hustle CD, “Eats Darkness”. Pretty decent so far, and the track “Xerses” is getting rather a lot of plays. It’s a fine tune and no mistake. I do love that Broken Social Scene groove.
First off, a little birdie tells me that Grizzly Bear will be appearing on BBC2’s Later on Tuesday night, with the full programme on Friday night. When I say, a little birdie, I do mean my TV’s EPG. Not a birdie. Anyway, I suspect I’ll be missing it as I’ll be busy watching Arsenal beat Man U 3-1 in the Champion’s League Semi-Final at Ashburton Grove. I tell you now, Arsenal will be leading 2-0 until the 87th minute, when Ryan Giggs will annoyingly score, with Walcott scoring a heroic goal after running the length of the pitch in the 94th minute. You heard it here first.
Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, Grizzly Bear. On TV. Playing stuff from Veckitawoowoo. Tuesday night. Don’t miss it (like me).
Edit: Just reading an interesting article in the New Yorker about our Grizzly friends.
After listening to the next installment of the Pitchfork 500, I needed to cleanse my head of a particularly egregious example of hideous MOR, and what better than the lovely Cocteau Twins? Here’s Donimo. No, I don’t know either; I suspect it’s their famous sense of humour again.
And what a lovely song it is too – it’s got that quiet-loud dynamic of their classic period, with the slight Hispanic inflections later explored more fully on “Echoes In A Shallow Bay”. Funnily enough, whilst listening to this, I opened up a Sunday Times Culture section from a few weeks ago, and there was a photo of Liz Fraser, in an article about how Shoegazing Is Back!. Not a bad read for a Sunday afternoon.
So here’s Donimo, and what a fine, fine song it is too.
First of all, I’ve been suffering from tonsilitis the last few days so I’ve been quiet.
The gradual release of decent-quality MP3’s from Grizzly Bear’s Veckitisawhatsitagain? continues, with “Cheerleader”, previously heard live, making its way out onto the big wide Interwebz. The live version, as you would expect, was rough and lacking their expert use of the studio, but certainly sounded promising.
Now, bizarrely, I got hold of this last week and thought it was fab. And thought I’d uploaded it here. But I hadn’t. Doh!
The word on the street is that it’s actually one of the weaker tunes from Veckatiswheresmyspellchecker. If that’s the case, then we’ve got rather a lot to look forward to when the album is released on May 26th. (Don’t you go and download the leaked version, as it’s pretty poor quality and you’ll miss out on all the detail. When I get the CD it’ll be ripped at about 14,000kbs, you know, and will take up half my iPod. And I’ve got a biiiig iPod)
“Cheerleader” is certainly a bit more relaxed and less ominous than tracks from Yellow House, it fair floats along in a rather dreamy way, with guitars cutting through Ed Droste’s beautiful singing, and yes, a children’s choir. A five minute slice of loveliness and I think, yes, I’ve got to mark it with my famed1 Sonic Cathedrals of Sound tag.
An album that passed me by last year, thanks to a continually changing UK release date that baffled the lovely folk at Rough Trade as much as me, was Brendan Canning’s “solo” album with Broken Social Scene. The founder of Broken Social Scene who’s not Kevin Drew, he’s the chap who looks a bit like a physics teacher who someone has put a bass on him and told him to be funky2. Lovely fella, having had all of a thirty second conversation with him and Kevin after their Shepherd’s Bush show last year. Anyway, I stumbled across their video for “Churches Under The Stairs” the other day, and rather fine it is too:
The band, who at their smallest number about 16 (ok, 8), do a Soundclash-style face off, Drew vs Canning. The song itself is almost Type-A BSS, with that wonderful motorik/New Order groove and great little drum rolls, fills and pauses that make your heart stop for an instant before suddenly throwing you forward again. Great interplay between Canning and Drew as well, as you’d expect.
Is it just me that prays every night to an uncaring God, to get all the top people in BSS together – you know, Feist, Amy Millan, Jason Collett, Emily Haines 3 – to make another album as good as “You Forgot It In People”? Yeah, I know, it’ll never happen.
1 Round here, at least.
2 The bassline of “Stars and Sons” was his work, and quite frankly is possibly the funkiest bassline in indie music since “Barbarism Begins At Home”:
Do you ever walk down the road and get the sudden desire to listen to a song that you’ve not heard for years? Happened to me yesterday, it did, and that song was “Orange Appled” by Cocteau Twins.
If you were going to play a song by Cocteau Twins to someone who’d never heard them before, what would you do? One of the classic singles, like “Iceblink Luck” or “Carolyn’s Fingers”? A great album track, like “Cico Buff” or “Lorelei”? Or would you choose a song that was first released on a free 7″, by NME, and then only later added to the CD release of a reasonably obscure EP?
Because Orange Appled is that song. Strangely neglected by the band when first recorded, it’s one of their absolutely finest songs. Less than three minutes long, it’s about as conventional as Cocteau Twins songs get – you know, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight/solo, chorus, end. It’s got the signature mid-80’s Cocteau sound, with drum machines, about three layers of vocals, fluid basslines, and some seriously messed up guitar sounds¹. But it just works so beautifully, and it gels together into one short lump of absolute gorgeousness.
Admittedly, the EP was released at an odd time for the band. They’d already recorded “Victorialand”, without Simon Raymonde, and “The Moon And The Melodies” with Simon and Harold Budd that year. The former was disappointing, the latter really quite good, and still worth a listen now. So, releasing a proper Cocteau Twins EP at the end of 1986 rather than writing the rest of the material for a 1987 release was decided to be the best route (“Blue Bell Knoll” was the next release, in 1988).
So, EP it was, and “Orange Appled”, for some strange reason, almost got lost. Still, the band loved it enough to have it recorded live and broadcast on the fantastic Snub TV, four years later!:
Which leads me onto another digression². Cocteau Twins, despite being a huge studio band, were also a fantastic live band. There’s an additional urgency and passion to their music live that they never really captured in the studio. Of course, later in their career this was because Robin Guthrie was off his nuts the entire time, and Liz Fraser was doing her best to avoid him (what with them being married, and all), leaving poor Simon stuck in the middle. But even in the late-80’s, when all was (fairly) well, they were still a great live act. I was lucky enough to catch them live in Sheffield on the “Heaven Or Las Vegas” tour and still consider it to be one of the best gigs I’ve been to, nearly 20 years and about 300 bands later.
Anyway, Orange Appled rocks. Which got me onto the rest of the EP. As it was written at the height of wibbly-wibbly-trees-flowers-ethereal-woo nonsense lyric time, there really isn’t much sense in dissecting what Liz was on about. Some remarkably brave people have posted lyrics; I’m not 100% convinced they are correct, or even close, but what you can see is that they don’t make much sense3. Liz famously strung together proper words in nonsense sentences, to form another instrument, and expression emotion in the way she sang, rather than what she was singing. However, she did state in an interview back in late 1986 that “Well, I do sing about life. Life with Robin; coping with him. They’re all words that I sing. There’s none of it that’s just nonsense. You can’t just go out there and sing noises all day because you’d end up making the same noises all the time”. Still, whatever she’s singing, it sounds gorgeous, as you’d expect.
“Love’s Easy Tears” opens the EP and is probably one of the loudest songs they ever did. Ok, we’re hardly talking about Swans loud, but still, it fairly explodes at the chorus, thumping drum machine taking no prisoners. Whilst it’s rare to pick up external influences to their music, you can certainly hear the Spector Wall Of Sound in this one. And as far as their music goes, it was one of the simpler numbers, but hugely effective. Ah, those chiming guitars!
“Those Eyes, That Mouth” is a bit quieter, thumping drum machine not withstanding, and after what could fairly be described as a humdrum verse, suddenly bursts into life in the chorus, with Liz doing some amazing vocal gymnastics. The last minute sees her singing against herself in the most stunning way. Continuing the slightly Spanish sound of Tiny Dynamine/Echoes In A Shallow Bay, it has that otherworldly feel that marks the finest Cocteau Twins songs and makes them damn hard to copy.
Then comes “Sigh’s Smell of Farewell”, calming things down somewhat. Much gentler, Liz’s vocals float gorgeously over Robin and Simon’s guitar and bass, guitar cheerfully chiming away until a belated chorus, again with Liz’s voice singing multiple harmonies to wonderful effect. Sonic cathedrals of sound, indeed.
Finally it’s “Orange Appled”, which I’ve already gone on about. Just one more thing to say, though. Robin Guthrie often said that he used so many guitar effects to hide his bad playing, but listen to the solo on this; it dances round like the best of Tom Verlaine. Personally I think he’s hugely underrated; he showed what could be done with a Fender Jazzmaster, loads of effects, and more coke than you could shake a rolled up £10 note at.
You might be able to buy the EP as a CD cheap off Ebay, but you’re much better off buying the huge compilation “Lullabies To Violaine”, of which you can buy Volume 1 here. Volume 2 isn’t as good, frankly, and the original 4CD set now sells for around £80. Eek!
So, if you don’t have any Cocteau Twins stuff, or you’ve been curious as to why they are so highly regarded by pretty much anyone with any sense, have a listen to these two songs, then go out an buy “Lullabies To Violaine Volume 1”. You won’t regret it.
¹ If you know how to replicate it on a Line 6 Pod XT, please feel free to let me know!
² Anyone who knows me IRL will know I do this rather a lot. Sorry.
3 From “Heaven Or Las Vegas” onward, lots of the lyrics do make sense. Check out the link, and also Leesa Beale’s site.
After my last post, the epic Post Punk Part 2, it’s a much shorter one this time. Partly because there’s only five songs, and also because I don’t know too much about four of them, so I’m not going to talk much about them. Except for Kate Bush, obviously.
Now, you’ll know Candido’s “Jingo” even if you don’t recognise the name. It’s a classic slab of Salsoul from late ’70’s New York and mixes disco thump with jazz-inflected keyboards and funk guitar. And you’ll know that “HUNH!” from being sampled by everyone.
Dinosaur was a band put together by cellist Arthur Russell and DJ Nicky Siano, and featured the likes of David Byrne on guitar. Russell was classically trained, and played cello alongside writing disco tunes and pop songs; he was also unable to ever finish what he was doing. At his tragically early death (in 1992), he left behind 1000 tapes of music, including 40 tapes full of different mixes of a single song. In this song, “Kiss Me Again”, he brings a certain organic, live feel to disco. One can only wonder what he could have become if he could have concentrated on just one style, and focused on it. (Oh, and Dinosaur Jr were originally called “Dinosaur” until the legal folks stepped in)
When I first heard Monster’s “There But For The Grace Of God Go I” I thought “This sounds a bit like Kid Creole and The Coconuts”, and then went “Doh!” when I realised it was indeed written by Kid Creole himself, August Darnell. It’s a good little cut of what he does best – funky, tropical beats with a great singalong chorus. Shoddily remixed by Heller and Farley a few years ago, too. Perfectly nice tune, but can’t say it’s my cup of tea. But don’t forget kids, “Too much love is worse than none at all”.
Kate Bush appeared out of nowhere in January 1978 and made us all look at her video on Top Of The Pops and go “What the bloody hell?”. Well, I didn’t quite say that, I was only six, but the thought was definitely there. It’s an incredible song, and she looks absolutely possessed by her character. Funny thing is, Word Magazine recently did a set of articles about her, mainly by journalists who had met her over the years, and they all to a man (for they were all men) said she was totally normal and down to earth, a little shy and reluctant to discuss her private life, but utterly lovely. She’s one of those rare cases of a fantastic, hugely successful musician who doesn’t combine it with being a total show-off. Oh yes, the video:
See? Obviously bonkers. Totally, utterly, uniquely bonkers song, and even more amazing that it was written by an 18-year old, who had to fight with her record label to release it was her first single (they wanted it to be a B-side, but she eventually won. The single hit Number 1 in the UK). This says a lot for how the music industry used to be run. Singles weren’t checked by loads of focus groups and the marketeers, and PR’d to within an inch of their life. It was just up to a few people to make the decision, and occasionally something deeply odd like this would be released, and become a massive hit.
As I said in the first part of the Pitchfork 500 review, much of the early tracks on the list are mainstream songs, but just as odd (if not odder) as the last tracks on the list, who wouldn’t be recognised by the man on the street. So, these days, it’s probably easier to be unusual – with the Internet, blogging, MySpace etc you’ll hopefully find like-minded people, but you won’t get a major label deal and you certainly won’t appear on The X Factor or Amerikkka’s Got Talent. Can you imagine a 19-year old Kate Bush in front of Simon Cowell et al? She’d have been laughed out of the audition room (if she had even got that far). But the major labels, for all their massive faults, did sometimes tell us about truly remarkable talents, and give them the chance to develop how they wanted.
We won’t ever see the likes of Kate Bush become national treasures again.
And so, what more can I say about the song? Based on the last 10 minutes of Emily Bronte’s book (you don’t need me to tell you it’s called Wuthering Heights do you?), it features Catherine Earnshaw’s words. Bush’s vocal gymnastics are challenging and brave, the music is delightful, segueing gently from the minor verse into the major key chorus of “Heathcliff, it’s me, Cathy, come home\I’m so cold, let me into your window”. Now, frankly, it’s not a song to ever try at karaoke. Even the Bryan May-esque guitar solo at the end is nicely understated.
Goblin. Aaargh! Prog Rock! Worse, Italian Prog Rock! But it’s actually a pretty decent tune and, being the theme tune for the horror flick “Suspiria”, is also creepy. Full of squelchy synths, bells, ominous tom-toms, and what sounds to me like a gamelan. The song has also aged remarkably well. Reminds me a bit of the Halloween theme tune, which is an odd coincidence given that the next tune on the list featured in that film. ‘Till next time.
In my typical fashion, I heard some great new music the other day, only to discover that they had been around for ages. That’s what you get round here, year old news. Ah well.
Anyway, the two bands I was listening to were Monarch and Wye Oak. Both deal in that dreamy late-80’s, early-90’s British vibe, as perfected by My Bloody Valentine, Lush etc. And sounded oddly similar. Including having the same album title and a couple of tracks the same. So, with a bit more research, and finding a bunch of bands called “Monarch”, I managed to discover from here that Monarch had had the same problem, so renamed themselves to Wye Oak.
And what a lovely name it is, too, being the state tree of Maryland. I love that US thing of having state trees, state animals, and state moods (New Jersey: Angry, Idaho: Gloomy, California: Smug). You could never do that in the UK. The state tree of most of the north would be a “That shrubby bush that some kids have tried to set fire to”.
Anyway, Wye Oak. They are a couple from Baltimore, who sound about as far from the city of The Wire than you could imagine. A bit dreamy, a bit noisy, and really quite good.
In other news, I’ve heard that Veckatimoomoo by Grizzly Bear has been leaked. I am not going to post it as I’ve already had my ass busted once, thank you, and it just doesn’t seem the right thing to do to such a lovely band. Please pre-order it. Though if the band do release any more songs from the record I shall be sure to post it here, hopefully within a month or two. Cough.
Do you ever hear a song for the first time, and when it’s done just sit there in astonishment at the beauty people can create? No One Speaks by Geneva was one of those. Driving home from work one night listening to Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley (yea, verily, it was the mid-90’s, and that was what was done in those days), and Jo announced the first single from a Scottish band just signed to Nude, Suede’s label. So there I was thinking the worst – a Scottish Suede, aaargh – and the first few bars of slightly jangly, rather melancholy guitar made me think, oh sweet Jebus, another Smiths/Suede ripoff.
And then the singer sang. And when the song finished I had parked my car outside my house and sat there for a couple of minutes with my mouth open. Really, I’m not making this up.
Look, I really don’t want to start going on about sonic cathedrals of sound, voice of an angel, blah blah blah, like everyone did once they heard Andrew Montgomery’s singing, so if you haven’t heard it yet, click on the link below and have a listen. He is truly, truly astonishing. Yes, he sounds like a choirboy crossed with Lisa Gerrard. Yes, he’s got a near 4-octave range. His voice has a timbre that is simply astonishing. And what’s more, he understands better than most other great singers that the key to putting emotion in your singing is to be restrained, so that when you do finally let go, it sounds all the more heartbreaking. Go on, listen then come back.
There was a story I once heard that his mates had never heard him sing, and on a drunken night out he suddenly jumped up onto a table and started belting out tunes, much to everyone’s astonishment. His friends then told him, frankly, to form a band and do something with that voice of his. Not sure if it’s true, but hey, it’s a nice image.
Anyway, he formed Sunfish with Steven Dora and some other fellas, then renamed themselves to Geneva. No One Speaks was there first single, followed up by this album Further. And you can tell that this lot weren’t the chirpiest buggers around (and not just because they’re from Aberdeen). The first song, Temporary Wings, is about suicide. The second’s about being a bit pissed off. Closely followed by more songs about despair, loneliness, depression, paranoia, and other such cheery subjects. But aside from Worry Beads, it doesn’t really feel like an unhappy album, thanks to the marvellously dextrous guitar playing and Andrew’s vocals, which continue to amaze me even now, thirteen years after I first heard him. It must be said that some of the songs haven’t aged particularly well, but No One Speaks and another song, The God Of Sleep, stand up well.
The God Of Sleep possibly shows off Andrew’s voice at it’s finest. It’s a lullaby, of sorts, starting off with the old “Now I lay me down to sleep/pray the lord my soul to keep”.
Of course, it all went wrong – difficult second album, hopeless record label, breakup.
Andrew is now recording under the moniker St Famous. Check it out.
And there’s a rather nice archive where you can listen to lots of lovely Geneva goodness here.
Loft And Lost 