Never assume, it makes an ass out of Jew and me.
Stuff of 2011 (albums ‘n’ shit)
An interesting year for music I think, with some incredible stuff on the fringes and weaker albums from some of the more established acts - Radiohead and Friendly Fires being notable disappointments and The Strokes proving themselves a sadly spent force. But here, in reverse order and with a few extracts from reviews I wrote, are my top ten albums of last year.
Eleanor Friedberger – Platform Cafe Terrace, Hackney, 29/09/11
Originally published on God Is In The TV zine.
The beautifully quirky and quirkily beautiful Eleanor Friedberger – one half of odd-pop duo Fiery Furnaces – found the perfect setting at Hackney’s Platform Cafe on Thursday for a stripped back and satisfyingly intimate one-off show in support of new album Last Summer. Soon to embark on her first UK tour in support of the record, tonight provided a small audience the opportunity to recline across sofas, amid potted plants and retro lampshades, and see Friedberger in rarefied form.
You couldn’t say she was nervous per se – the abstract nature of many Fiery Furnaces songs is, in the live setting, a dexterous feat as impressive as the songwriting itself – but here, the delicacy of her songs, free from the schizophrenia of Furnaces material, was clear; hushing a lucky few for an hour.
Songs such as album opener ‘My Mistakes’ highlights her unquestionable pop sensibility. Walking the line between upbeat and melancholy, the hooks and simple songwriting are gently counterpointed by her peculiar nature – she can’t help but go into a stream-of-consciousness final verse; an everyday tale that jumps with the scatty poetics of a Virginia Woolf novel.
Amid overbright stage lighting, so it proved: it was her articulate, offbeat wordplay that this stripped-down setting illuminated best. ‘Inn Of The Seventh Ray’ was disquieting, dark, and brooding, while ‘I Won’t Fall Apart On You Tonight’ proves reminiscent of the kind of eccentric fragility that makes Mirah a similarly captivating songwriter. Though some of the production tweaks, psychedelic moments and fuller arrangements from her album couldn’t really be reproduced here – Friedberger herself admitting early on that ‘I guess not all the songs from my album would work up here’ – her genius is clear.
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Martyn - Masks/Viper (Brainfeeder)
Originally published on God Is In The TV zine.
Although ‘IDM’ was a much-maligned term, it was - is - a widely appreciated, if still largely underground, genre of electronica. Its impact is substantial, too - in the uber-minimal approach of James Blake, or the masked moniker of SBTRKT, to the electronic wierdness of middle-career Radiohead; the gloomy, dark and experimental attitude from 90s computer-music can be traced to the godfathers of the movement, Aphex Twin, Autechre, and even before them, right back to Kraftwerk.
Where Blake et al. have found their sound, their niche, and are taking it mainstream, Martyn takes on another trait from the experimental electronica pioneers - that is: never to decide upon, or really actually know, what your ‘sound’ is, will or should be. On 2009s debut Great Lengths, he was among many of the up-and-coming experimental bass artists on the scene, but new single Masks, and the B-side Viper, both taken from upcoming album Ghost People, move the sound to far more expansive terrain.
Masks drops a four-to-the-floor, quasi-techno beat, accompanied by a willingly dub bassline, while dark, jittery textures fill out the remaining space. Viper is more progressive still - essentially beatless, driven by interacting synth lines and a techy, mechanised bassline like those heavy ones Distance loves to drop. A real experience in progressive, experimental, techy dub. Ghost People should be good.
Release: 1st August [Digital] (Out now) / 19th September [Physical]
