Best Records of 2011: January, February and March - Part 1

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From James Blake to Cloud Nothings, The Popscener provides a handy round-up of the records released so far in 2011 that you should have heard...

James Blake - James Blake

James Blake - James Blake
Atlas/A&M (7 February)

Those who dismissed this much-anticipated debut as the death of a dubstep producer and the birth of a genuine – read: boring – singer-songwriter missed the mark. The looped samples and freeform structures may be mostly gone but, the deep bass-groove rework of ‘Limit of Your Love’ aside, Blake still deals in ideas over songs. The upshot is minimalist, throbbing wee hours murk, decorated with the treated soul of Blake’s voice, and lyrics-as-mantras, repeated to project the emotion lost in the laptop. 
Choice Cuts: The Willhelm Scream, Limit To Your Love

Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots

Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots
PIAS Recording (14 February)

More rustic, leisurely – and frankly, ‘country’ – than the careering alt-rock of its predecessor, Go Go Boots finds the the homely Southern idyll conjured by its music populated with a cast of titillating characters. In a world of small-town hoodlum treachery, Patterson Hood plays empathetic judge and jury, Shonna Tucker the spurned wife – while Mike Cooley maps out the escape route for those wanting more.  
Choice Cuts: The Fireplace Poker, Cartoon Gold

Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo

Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
Matador (7 March)

Philadelphia troubadour Kurt Vile’s fourth album, his second on US indie stalwart Matador, sees him build on the lo-fi promise of his previous output, firming up sound and structure to deliver a coherent body of brooding alt-folk and tumbling Americana numbers. Song of the year to-date ‘Jesus Fever’ is an instant classic which borrows the chiming dynamism of Wilco’s flightier moments and underpins it with Vile’s world-weary baritone and lyrics which reads like a flippant requiem. “When I’m a ghost I see no reason to run, when I’m already gone” he groans. But there’s life in him yet.
Choice Cuts: Jesus Fever, Ghost Town

Cloud Nothings - Cloud Nothings

Cloud Nothings - Cloud Nothings
Wichita (24 January)

Pop-punk or lo-fi? Always too detached and undersold to be the former, and now too carefully produced – and played – to be the latter, 18-year old Cleveland prodigy Dylan Baldi’s debut excites with speed as much as songcraft. Consequently, I prefer to brand him ‘new-thrash’, as for every galloping rhythm and unnervingly indelible melody I often wonder if Husker Du don’t lament a lighter touch.
Choice Cuts: Not Important, Nothing's Wrong



Part 2 of the Best Records of 2011: January, February and March coming up tomorrow...

Listen Up! No. 99: Architects of Grace - Reflection

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The brainchild of 30-something media professional Duncan Robert Illing - an admirably ill-hidden truth revealed by a simple Google search - and shrouded in the kind of gloomy, brooding promotional aesthetic one might associate with a Donnie Darko soundtrack, Architects of Grace should be a study in synth-pop miserablism. Me? I hear more Psychedelic Furs than Depeche Mode in the four bright, pulsating minutes of forthcoming single 'Reflection' (released 4 April). Illing's words and intonation avoid both goth-mawkishness and bitter romantic platitudes, forging through the murky flail of ringing guitars to suggest something hopeful, if not necessarily contented. Meanwhile, the industrial groove rumbles on and on. And on. Where it emerges, we'll see when debut record Moments in Time drops in mid-April.

Listen Up! No. 98: The Strokes - Gratisfaction

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The Strokes' new album, Angles, has been given variously short shrift - "tired", "lazy", "lacking ideas" - by critics who seem at least partly pre-disposed to twist the knife. Sure, the band haven't helped themselves with a series of wretched interviews veering from disinterested to repulsed. And sure, it's no masterpiece. But then neither was Is This It?, and 'lacking ideas' - beyond the metronomic garage-rock insouciance which drives their entire debut - never bothered anyone then.

Of course, when 'ideas' means Bahamas business-trip disco-reggae ('Machu Picchu') we could do without them. What The Strokes have always been best at is recognising the heart-in-mouth vibrancy of a moment in musical history, and plonking it squarely in the 21st century, often with finer hooks to boot. Aside from the twitching rapture of lead single 'Under Cover of Darkness', this trick can be heard in earnest on 'Gratisfaction', which marries chugging glam and twiddly power-pop with a wink and a smile. But probably not with a tongue in the cheek. It's a bit like the musical equivalent of going to an Alex Chilton memorial party at Tom Petty's mansion with The New York Dolls in tow. That said: I'm still undecided as to whether the house band is T-Rex or Status Quo. And Julian Casablancas is probably serving the drinks.

Listen Up! No. 97: Dum Dum Girls - He Gets Me High

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When LA female noise-pop quartet Dum Dum Girls' debut LP I Will Be surfaced last year, it felt like a missed opportunity. The had a look, built around the gutter-goth style sexual aura of frontwoman Dee Dee, which screamed alt-icons. They were well connected - East Coast pal Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs contributed guitar in the studio. Meanwhile, songs like 'Jail La La' proved a band able to deliver the bubblegum melodies required to stand out from a pre-eminent (and saturated) lo-fi scene. However, where LA contemporaries Best Coast succeeded in pinning Bethany Cosentino's simple melodies to graceful, unfussy production,  Dum Dum Girls hid behind walls of guitars and a rhythm section so jarring as to be positively painful in headphones.

Did this betray a crisis of confidence in the material, or a bungled attempt to breakthrough with super-compressed radio fare, courtesy of former Go-Gos producer Richard Gottehrer? Regardless, swallowed up in the thud of the mix, many of the songs fell flat. Which brings us seamlessly to 'He Gets Me High', from the band's new EP of the same name (released late last month). The thundering snare is held back a touch, while guitars are allowed to sway woozily in and out of the void left behind. Most importantly, however, is we get more Dee Dee, with harmonies we can hum and words we can hear. And take note fellas - and Bethany Cosentino - she's not singing about weed.



He Gets Me High EP is out now on Sub Pop.

Listen Up! No. 96: Bing Ji Ling - Move On

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Bing Ji Ling is the pseudonym of New York producer/writer/multi-instrumentalist Quinn Luke. When not pursuing his day job as one sixth (at last count) of marauding post-hippie troupe the Phenomenal Handclap Band, Luke apparently likes to indulge himself in a spot of breezy, feel-good '70s soul. On latest single 'Move On' (released earlier this month), he duly treads a fine line between a forgotten cut from Hair: The Musical and the kind of music used to backdrop frolicking youths in Boots suntan lotion adverts. Thankfully, this one is more 'Aquarius' than Joss Stone. Just. The album, Shadow to Shine, drops on 21 March.

Listen Up! No. 95: Art Brut - Unprofessional Wrestling

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Art Brut records have an uncanny knack of seeming as instantly disposable as an Eddie Argos bon mot, while invariably leaving you feeling as warm and fuzzy as the red wine, cheap cigarettes and pitiful romanticism around which their world is framed. You miss them, dearly, like an old friend from school you never realised you had so much in common with.

Luckily, fans haven't had to wait too long - it's been less than two years since last record Art Brut Vs. Satan was released - and the early signs are that they've lost none of their doleful charm. This week they preface their fourth long-player, the aptly-titled Brilliant...Tragic (released 23 May on Cooking Vinyl) with free download 'Unprofessional Wrestling', another slice of buzz-saw guitars and bustling garage-rock. While Argos' self-deprecating lyrical radar may be familiar - here likening the act of physical romance to a round in the ring with an unforgiving opponent - his attempt at singing may not.

Album Review: Bardo Pond - Bardo Pond

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Bardo Pond: Transcending boundaries of meter and time

Noise-rock nearly men (and woman) return with first ear-splitting record for four years 

Philadelphia sextet Bardo Pond don’t like change. 20 years and 8 records served, the band’s droning noise-rock and psych-folk flourishes remain comfortingly embalmed in post-alt-rock boom 1993. The songs still regularly breach the 10 minute mark – although nothing rivals the 29-minute ‘Amen’ from 1995’s magnum opus Bufo Alvarius, amen 29:15 – while alterations in chord are eschewed in favour of spectacular dynamic shifts. It’s a cacophony of sound which explains why they never became alt-rock royalty, despite stints on pre-eminent indy labels Matador and 4AD; too impenetrable, too esoteric, and too darn druggy for the casual party stoner who’d rather be learning rote lyrics from a Pavement CD inlay.

However, they’re masters of their craft. Opener ‘Just Once’ explodes with hair-raising bursts of distortion. The shimmering feedback and the off-sync murmur of singer Isobel Sollenberger on ‘Undone’ – “spun out into space” – transcend accepted boundaries of meter and time, yet fashion something strangely regimented; until the microdots are passed around, that is. Better still is ‘The Stars Behind’, where rare open spaces are saturated with Sollenberger’s elegiac howl. “Lost in the night” she repeats, like a Jennifer Herrema who gave a damn. The world won’t listen. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. 

8/10

Choice Cuts: The Stars Behind; Undone 

Out now on Fire records

Interview: Liam Bailey

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Liam Bailey: Music to savour from this years soul saviour?

When Amy Winehouse founded Lioness records at the height of her tabloid nadir in late-2009 as a medium through which to promote the precocious talents of her 15-year old goddaughter, eyebrows were raised. Dionne Bromfield’s record of soul and Motown covers duly stumbled into the charts at 33. The vultures sniggered. But they were premature. Mercurial as ever Ms Winehouse is, last year she began touting a little-known Nottingham-born singer-songwriter called Liam Bailey, and this time she was onto a winner.

Anyone who had the fortune to catch Bailey’s debut EP 2am Rough Tracks may have thought they had been sent back in time by some benevolent musical Gods, where the marriage of gospel and rhythm and blues consolidated into the blissful sound of 1960s American soul. Recorded into a laptop with just a guitar for company, the stripped-back arrangement showcased a voice of raucous beauty – soulful yet incendiary, and entirely uncharacteristic of the slew of feted modern vocalists. With another fine EP, So Down,Cold, and a soaring cameo on Chase and Status’ top-5 stadium drum ‘n’ bass anthem ‘Blind Faith’ under his belt, Bailey appears primed for a starring role in a feel-good summer 2011. He talks about cornrows, insulting X Factor also-rans, and his debut long-player Out of the Shadows. 

So, the word on the wind is that you’re going to be this summer’s soul smash, à la Amy Winehouse, Plan B or, er, Duffy. What do you reckon? 

[Laughing] Really? I don’t know about that. But this summer should be good. I’ve got some festivals to do with Chase and Status and I’ll be doing some on my own. Summers are all about that feeling of being about 15 and watching Glastonbury on TV and thinking “I could do that”. Imagine that, but this time you’ve got a nice shower instead of horrible portaloos. To be fair, I just can’t wait for a summer when I feel really positive, because last year was difficult… 

This interview was conducted for The Line Of Best Fit. Go here to continue reading the full interview.