Come On Over (Turn Me On)

The shuffle function built into most mp3 players is certainly a plus point for most. It may well irk the purists, and I can see why people would be resistant to the idea of splitting up albums into their constituent parts, but not enough is made of the serendipitous aspect of having your record collection available on random. From time to time, a track will pop up that you’d never have consciously chosen, but it seems to arrive at the right time and remind you of what a fantastic song it is.

This has happened to me twice today. Firstly it was Confetti by The Lemonheads: a wonderful slice of bittersweet power pop that led me to listening to its parent album, It’s a Shame About Ray, in its entirety only fifteen minutes later. The other was from Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan’s Sunday at Devil Dirt record: Come On Over (Turn Me On).

Often I’m a complete sucker for any song where the lyrics are completely at odds with the tone conveyed by the music. I’m a huge fan of both Belle & Sebastian and Tindersticks, two bands who specialise in beautiful tracks that have something sinister lurking beneath the core. However, Come On Over (Turn Me On) is a perfect example of when the tone of the music and the theme of the lyrics complement each other expertly.

The concept is simple; over the bassline from Nina Simone’s Feeling Good, a tale of sexual frustration is told where the protagonist is impatiently waiting for the object of their affections. Both Lanegan and Campbell sing the entire track together, so Lanegan’s yearning is conveyed through a menacing, throaty, rumbling growl, while Campbell is seemingly so overcome with desire, her voice is a barely-there, gossamer-thin whisper.

Crucially, the whole thing is incredibly sexy. Starting off brooding and slow, it slinks from line to line, with each chorus more powerful than the last. It teases too; some of the verses appear to be building up to some kind of payoff, before returning to the start of a new verse at the last possible moment. “How should I know what is right from wrong? Come on over, turn me on” they purr, as strings build, drums crash and just as you feel they’re about to let loose, we’re back where we started.

The strings are reminiscent of a James Bond theme that doesn’t actually exist, and as the song progresses, the drum fills become more robust, cymbal crashes more frequent and the guitar solos are less measured and more freeform. Just as it seems the song is about to reach its apex, it’s finished with just a sustained, bending guitar chord to keep you company.

Watch the video below and see for yourself. I’ll warn you though; you may well need a cold shower afterwards.

Oil City Confidential

Julien Temple - Oil City Confidential

released 26 July 2010 on Cadiz

Whilst watching Julien Temple’s biopic of pub-rock torchbearers Dr. Feelgood, one question keeps returning to the front of my mind: why aren’t Dr. Feelgood universally adored? At their zenith, the Feelgoods were a huge live draw on both sides of the Atlantic, scored a number one album, and were a major influence on the burgeoning punk scene. Yet they appear to have been airbrushed from history. How was this allowed to happen?

Oil City Confidential is a riveting documentary, at its most absorbing when analysing the fractious relationship between guitarist and principal songwriter (Wilko Johnson) and lead singer (Lee Brilleaux) in the glory years. Two remarkably different characters with a tempestuous inter-dependency, it’s extremely sad that the opportunity for both to tell their side of things has gone forever, with Brilleaux's passing away in 1994. It appears that the Feelgoods succumbed to the all-too-frequent tale of substance abuse - alcohol for Brilleaux and the rhythm section, harder stuff for Johnson - leading to Johnson leaving the band, the exact reason for which appears to have been lost in the mists of time.

If he weren’t already real, you couldn’t make Wilko Johnson up. He’s endlessly fascinating, speaks in a nasal, Estuary drawl, and has enough energy stored inside him to power a small village. His eyes dart as if constantly on the lookout for new points of interest, and the limited live footage of Dr. Feelgood is simply captivating: Brilleaux in his dirty white suit roaring with such ferocity you think he’s seconds away from an aneurysm, while Johnson bobs and weaves his way around the stage like a strutting rooster, his penetrating eyes focused on the middle-distance.

The story of the rise and fall of Dr. Feelgood is a spellbinding one, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be sufficient for director Julien Temple. Infuriatingly, he looks to “enhance” the interviews by splicing in scenes from old black and white films, sometimes with only the most tenuous connection to what’s being said. It occasionally threatens to spoil the film, and it’s lucky for Temple that the material he’s working with is so strong.

As well as the tales told, the music is also a revelation. Dr. Feelgood played an intoxicating brand of no-nonsense rhythm and blues; raw, gruff, sweaty and incredibly appealing. There’s no explanation for the original question posed, but, as a deserved postscript, Oil City Confidential has led to a renewed interest in Dr. Feelgood. Perhaps the world just needed a little reminder, and Oil City Confidential has provided.

The Wants

The Phantom Band - The Wants

released 18 October 2010 on Chemikal Underground

Employing a cornucopia of instruments on your record can be a dangerous game. There’s a danger of coming across like hyperactive children (see Architecture In Helsinki) or giving the impression of masking inferior quality songs (see Tunng). Luckily neither of those fates have befallen Glasgow’s The Phantom Band.

Following last year’s critically-acclaimed Checkmate Savage comes The Wants, recorded over a period of six months in Chemikal Underground’s South Lanarkshire studio. This record showcases how The Phantom Band combine the best of both worlds: simple yet strong writing, with an intrinsically curious invention that belies that this is only their second record. On the surface, this isn’t much to get excited about, but each of these songs are pushed to their limits, given appropriate time to build, mature, and conclude. With only nine tracks, its 48 minutes rush by with barely an ounce of spare fat on them, seldom threatening to spill over into prog-rock excess.

First track, A Glamour, opens with a sawing sound (the tuning of a baliphone, apparently) and skittering tuned percussion before breaking into a glam-rock stomp reminiscent of Super Furry Animals’ Golden Retriever. In fact, SFA are probably the group most analogous to this band, with their delightfully skewed pop and fondness for electronic flourishes.

The Phantom Band pull off a neat trick that few bands manage to execute convincingly: pulling in a barrel-load of influences whilst remaining more than the sum of their parts. Pastoral folk, stark industrial and disco funk all get an airing, and at various points throughout the record The Phantom Band sound like Roxy Music, Joy Division, Arab Strap and The Futureheads.

The Wants has a tendency to play the same card a little too often, but there is enough light and shade to stave off boredom. Vocalist Rick Anthony croons like a Caledonian Nick Cave on the tender Come Away In The Dark, while The None Of One has a genuinely thrilling change of pace halfway through. The highlight comes at the end of the record, as brutally distorted marching drums combine with Gregorian chant to provide an exhilarating climax to final track, Goodnight Arrow. It’s heartening to see a keen study of popular music alongside the confidence to try new things.

Write About Love

Belle and Sebastian - Write About Love

released 11 October 2010 on Rough Trade

A decade ago, if you’d described Belle and Sebastian as “swaggering”, you’d have been laughed out of town, and rightly so. But since the turn of the century, things have changed for the Glaswegians. Firstly, in 2002, Isobel Campbell left the group and has since made a name for herself as both a solo artist and playing “Beauty” to Mark Lanegan’s “Beast“. Secondly, they roped in Trevor Horn to produce their 2003 album, Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Horn is a former member of musical pioneers, Buggles, as well as being known for his work with some leading lights of the 1980s pop scene, including Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

Dear Catastrophe Waitress heralded a marked change in sound for Belle and Sebastian. However, though it may have seemed like an anomaly at the time, in retrospect it was simply the beginning of a new chapter of their career. Follow-up, The Life Pursuit, built on this new-found approach and the trend has continued with Write About Love. Belle and Sebastian have certainly developed since they first appeared onto the scene almost fifteen years ago: the percussion is more dynamic, the basslines are funkier and more solid, the guitars are choppier and more prominent, and the lyrics… well, they’re the same as they've always been; what were you expecting?

Belle and Sebastian trade in the music of confounding expectations and the interplay of opposites. While the casual listener may dismiss their songs as throwaway, repeated listens reveal much more at work beneath the surface. Lead singer Stuart Murdoch is one of the best character creators in music today, with his tales of boys and girls in love, being thwarted and finding it hard to fit in. The music of Belle and Sebastian is witty, dark, engrossing and - whisper it quietly - sexy.

Write About Love opens confidently with a strong drum pattern, simple piano chords and Sarah Martin gently cooing, “Make me dance, I want to surrender”. That track is I Didn’t See It Coming, and it sets the tone for the first half of the record with its synths, wandering bassline, airy feel and careful layering. The tracks begin fairly sparsely, but build into something fully immersive and represent some of the most professional and well-crafted work the group have produced. Even songs that don’t immediately jump out on first listen have plenty to recommend them, like the gorgeous chord change to introduce the chorus of the languid ballad, Calculating Bimbo.

Side One (Belle and Sebastian consciously divide their records into two halves, so it seems to make sense to do the same) concludes with Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John; a track most notable for its guest vocalist: Norah Jones. It may be the result of the meeting of two strong-willed parties, but the track doesn’t particularly sound like the work of either artist, instead falling halfway between Belle and Sebastian’s indie stylings and Jones’s easy jazz. It’s difficult to tell if the experiment works, but it does enough to justify its presence on the album and be seen as more than simply a curio.

Almost as a response to the cautious, uncertain ending of Side One, Side Two really gets off to a flying start. Current single, Write About Love, is an irresistible slice of sunshine pop featuring vocals from BAFTA-winning actress, Carey Mulligan. In typical Belle and Sebastian style, everything is not quite as it first seems, and the track centres around a girl trapped in a dull office job who writes as a means to escape her dreary existence. This theme is further explored on next track and album highlight, I’m Not Living In The Real World. Over an abundance of drum fills and keyboards that sound like steel drums, Stevie Jackson sings of a boy who grows up on the periphery, never accepted by his peers and never really participating fully in everyday life. It may not seem the chirpiest subject matter for a song, but Belle and Sebastian pack so much joie de vivre into its three minutes, social alienation’s never sounded so fun. The track also features a brilliantly wrong-footing key change, and a repeated “ooh” melody so catchy you’ll need to be vaccinated to resist it.

Write About Love may not be a great leap forward for Belle and Sebastian, but it’s such an enjoyable record it’s difficult to hold it against them. Plus, there are signs they’re honing their craft and growing into the band they’ve always been capable of being. Trevor Horn may have produced perhaps the definitive pop record of the 1980s with ABC’s The Lexicon of Love, but on Write About Love, Belle and Sebastian display more than enough to suggest that one day they’ll be able to eclipse their former colleague, and they’ll do so with a swagger.

The Trip

Laetitia Sadier - The Trip

released 4 October 2010 on Drag City

If your career shows no sign of progression over time, is that necessarily a bad thing? If you’re in full-time employment, your boss will answer with a definite, “yes”, and haul you in for a review before you can say, “rhetorical question”. But in music, it’s not quite that black and white. For example, Status Quo have been writing the same song since 1967 and are regularly scoffed at by critics, but it’s apparently completely fine for AC/DC to have had the exact same shtick since they appeared on the scene.

Which brings us to Stereolab, the cult act who are praised by journalists and adored by hardcore fans. They’ve only got one trick too, but perhaps they’re immune to biting criticism because it’s a damn good trick, and one that no-one else seems capable of replicating. Between 1990 and 2009, Stereolab combined lounge pop, Krautrock, analogue electronica and avant-garde to create a sound quite unlike that of any other band. Like the best artists, they existed on the periphery in their own private world, penetrable only to those prepared to invest the necessary time. Their songs lasted anything from one minute to ten, were often built up carefully layer by layer, and their albums had brilliantly bonkers titles like Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements and, career-highlight, Emperor Tomato Ketchup.

Throughout much of Stereolab’s life, singer Laetitia Sadier has been part of side-project group, Monade, whose most recent album, Monstre Cosmic, was a superb exercise in lilting, restrained pop. Sadier has broken free from the shadow of both groups in releasing The Trip, her first solo album.

For someone so associated with formulaic music and repetition, The Trip was never going to be surprising, but it’s still hard not to see it as a let down. Say what you like about Stereolab, but there was always a playfulness and European glamour to their music which is sadly lacking here. What Sadier has left us with, is effectively an inferior version of a Monade record.

The Trip opens with the emotionally distant and hollow One Million Year Trip: a song built around a simple, grating bassline, and an odd selection to begin any record. The opening track is so important for any album, and The Trip immediately gets off on the wrong foot. It’s true the album vastly improves after the dull and metallic One Million Year Trip, but it’s difficult not to feel like the bulk of the damage has already been done.

Perhaps it’s ok to re-hash the same ideas when there’s some wit, panache or passion behind it, but Sadier seems genuinely disinterested throughout most of the record. Her vocals have always sailed dangerously close to the line that separates Gallic insouciance and boredom, but here she plants herself firmly the wrong side of that line. Dream-pop is often difficult to get excited about, but The Trip is ultimately unmemorable, bereft of any fills or flourishes as a respite.

There are glimmers of hope, however. Sadier’s cover of By The Sea is probably the only thing on show here to hold a candle to the glory days of The ‘Lab with its urgency, purpose and motorik beat. Statues Can Bend and Another Monster are all well and good, but sound passive, unfinished and in desperate need of another couple of elements to get going.

If you want to hear this sort of thing done properly, you’ll find happiness in the more sedate moments of the peerless Saint Etienne, but there’s little to recommend The Trip. It’s not much more than a Christmas bauble: shiny and polished on the surface, but with little of substance on the inside. The Trip finishes with a woeful cover of Gershwin’s Summertime, the unpalatable icing on the inedible cake that is this particularly disappointing record.