Summer 2000
GO TO: Appliance GO TO: Badly Drawn Boy
GO TO: Bentley Rhythmn Ace GO TO: Bis GO TO: The Bluetones
GO TO: Billy Bragg & Wilco GO TO: Buffalo Tom
GO TO: Clinic GO TO: Coldplay
GO TO: Dandy Warhols
GO TO: The Drum GO TO: David Gray
GO TO: Lee
GriffithsGO TO: Lauren
Hoffman GO TO: King Prawn
GO TO: me1 GO TO: Queen Adreena
GO TO: The
Servant GO TO: Sonique GO TO: Vel-Tone
And with regards to the
scoring system – the more Gizmos a band
are awarded the better, the
more Gremlins, the more …bobbins.
Up to a maximum of five each.
Okay?
APPLIANCE – ‘SIX MODULAR PIECES’ ( Mute
Records )
Essentially,
it does exactly what it says on the tin. Appliance make little use of the human
body ( there are minimal vocals on here ), except as a means to create sound
from other articles. And the songs on this mini-album are all modular
pieces, sleepy lil soundscapes which ping and resonate around you. As smooth as
a street-hustler and as insistent as C3P0, if only every appliance could be as
pleasing as these…
BADLY DRAWN BOY – ‘THE HOUR OF BEWILDERBEAST’
(Twisted Nerve /
XL Recordings)
He
could easily have played Woodstock, you know. The first time around. Some of these
shyly languid songs, and their very essence would have both fitted perfectly.
Poignant and accomplished, Damon Gough comes across at times like a new
Babybird – you get the feeling that beneath his stripey tea-cosy hat there are
hundreds more playful cherry-ripe songs waiting to fly out and nest in our
subconsciousnesses. In a time when acts seem ever more mediocre – and ever more
content in that – it’s both charming and hope-inspiring to find someone who can
rise above reasonable. And who seems determined to push himself ever higher.
Top notch, boyo.
BENTLEY RHYTHM
ACE – ‘FOR YOUR EARS ONLY’
( Parlophone Records )
Ah, but I’m useless
at reviewing big-beat records. Or dance records. Or any of the like. My basis
of comparison is so small it almost seems pointless to try to describe them at
all. So I can’t tell you here about a new direction Bentleys are swing-balling
themselves into, or about any musical nods contained within this album. All I
know is that I like it. That you can dance to it. That you can’t help but dance
to it. And that it’s not simply inane – as it so easily could be – and instead
manages to pack in both intelligence and an astonishing array of bad puns.
‘Barry Normal Eyes’ made me laugh for a ridiculous amount of time, but it also
toes a tapping, and that, one supposes, is a double-whammy of a point.
BIS – ‘MUSIC FOR A STRANGER WORLD’ ( Wiija )
Another mini-album, this time from Bis, who you may remember
from their shouty-shouty electronica of the late-90s. Since then, they seem
to’ve matured a little. ( Or at least been able to afford better production. )
And regressed further back into a mess of hand-claps and 80s synthesisers. All
of which means that these tracks are both inane and irritatingly perky, as we
would expect, but also slightly classy. Bis, it seems, are rapidly becoming
fully fledged pop-tarts – give it a little bit, and I’m sure they’ll be wiping
the likes of B*witched offa their stomping boots…
THE BLUETONES – ‘SCIENCE & NATURE’
( Superior Quality Recordings )
Ah. A
new Bluetones album. The thought fills me with cheery glee, though I know
others less than elated. More fool them. I can’t help but be bewitched by the
huggy vocals and judicious use of accordion. And that it still has a Bluetoney
feel to it can only be a good thing. After the tequila-razzled country stomp
feel of the last album, this one is little finer, and a little older. Shimmying
class and infectious snippets of razzamatazz abound, to astonishingly cheery
effect. Smashing…
BILLY BRAGG & WILCO – ‘MERMAID AVENUE – Vol. II’
(Electra)
Woody Guthrie, when he died, left behind over 2000
sets of song lyrics. Some fifty years later, Billy Bragg ( for the vituperative
‘people’s singer’ side to Guthrie ) and Wilco ( for the U.S. bluesy element )
got together to set them to music. Last year’s ‘Mermaid Avenue’ was one of my
favourite albums – particularly for the Ingrid Bergman / volcano love-song. And
Vol. II looks set to be one of my favourites of this.
BUFFALO TOM ‘ASIDES FROM BUFFALO TOM: 1988-1999’ (Beggars Banquet)
The
band of choice for the like, emotionally alienated teenagers of ‘My So Called Life’,
and still going strong after eleven years, Buffalo Tom have finally got around
to a Best Of album. Containing little interview snippets in the sleeve, and all
their remastered greatest hits. Though what seemed deep and incisive when you
were fifteen might now just irritate, no matter the sound quality. Never quite
rising above reasonable, the tone of the album is no way raised by the
inclusion of the band’s contribution to last year’s tribute collection of Jam
covers. Their shocking (-ly turgid) version of ‘Going Undergound’ is a ‘radical
reworking’ showing the world exactly what the classic’d sound like if played
underwater to a coma victim. Which is, as I am sure you will agree, EXACTLY
what the world needs. Oh and I don’t want to ride my little Pinto in the
ray-yain. Thankyou. Even if I had one, I probably wouldn’t.
I don’t think this ramshackle assortment is
going to turn out to be what people want to remember the band by.
CLINIC – ‘INTERNAL WRANGLER’ ( Domino )
Well
Evil Bill’s back, some of the songs sound like they were recorded in a shed,
and by the time you get around to reading this I reckon John Peel’ll have
played every single one to his eager listeners. With this their second
‘long-player’, Clinic seem to’ve found their formula – clattering rock laid
over a hip-wiggling beat and some cracking backing ‘whoos’ – and gleefully
stick with it through-out. But it does seem a leetle bit like
Clinic-by-numbers. And while it’s churlish for me to expect a ‘radical new
re-interpretation of their sound’ – or some other pseudo-muso malarkey – after
only one other album, some of the tracks on here do seem like re-hashes of
older material. But then, while we resent Britney and Oasis alike putting new
words to their old tunes and claiming them new material, in Clinic’s hands the
practice doesn’t seem so heinous. I only wish more people’d seek to follow suit
and borrow from the band’s back-catalogue – the music industry would be a far
more excitable dance-along place…
COLDPLAY – ‘PARACHUTES’ ( EMI Records )
Yes,
they’re every bit as good as people say they are. Yes, this album thoroughly
deserves its salivating applause. And yes, after their ever-gushingly positive
press, there’s not a lot that I can write that you haven’t already heard about
‘em. Coldplay’s debut album is gloriously swooning, effortlessly endearing,
contentedly beautiful. But then, most of you will know that, as you’ll have
already got a copy by now. If ya know what’s good (for ya) that is…
THE DANDY WARHOLS – ‘THIRTEEN TALES FROM URBAN BOHEMIA’ ( Capitol
)
When
the new single came out, I was worried they’d gone Country. And when a
house-mate walked in on me listening to this album, she thought I was playing a
Rolf Harris record. ( Hee-hee. ) The Dandy Warhols are no longer as boldly
poptastic as once they were, but they definitely haven’t lost It. Oh no. This
is still delightfully sleazy rock. Just
maybe with a cowboy hat on now. And ooooh my, it is gooooooood.
THE DRUM – ‘DISKIN’ ( Mantra Recordings )
‘Take your dead skin with you’ yell the band who
like elephants, over a VERY LOUD bracket of guitar. So they don’t like dust.
They do like distortion, songs that explode on impact, and just generally
thrashing about with all the glee of kids who’ve just discovered saucepans. The
harder end of the dance/rock cross-over genre, and fairly uncategorisable
because of it, though I know for sure it doesn’t belong in an Indie Schmindie
section. Potent ‘n’ powerful, it pulls no punches, and if you give it a chance,
you too might find it to be surprisingly worthy of attention…
DAVID GRAY – ‘WHITE LADDER’ ( Iht Records )
Not
easy, but effortless listening, this. (Despite constant house-mate insinuations
that he ‘sounds like a busker’.) Thoughtful white-boy soul, perfect for
paddling and pottering. And this is by no means his first release, either, but
this is the album that MTV’s picked up on. David was in that Kathy Burke band
from ‘This Year’s Love’ (for which the produced the soundtrack), ya know. But
it’s only now that we release want to notice. Heartsweet and bitterfelt, and
all round lovely.
LEE GRIFFITHS – ‘NORTHERN SONGS’
( ZTT RECORDS )
Woefully
earnest sloganeering acoustic ballads, from a Jay Kay soundalike, whose themes tend
towards those suitable for school assemblies or quietly patronising late-night
film-shorts.
LAUREN HOFFMAN – ‘FROM THE BLUE HOUSE’
( Free Union
Records )
Lauren
Hoffman has done a lot, for someone still under twenty-five. Records created and
labels started, and on top of this, the girl can really sing. And she can
really play. But I’m saved from wide-eyed jealousy by her cloying lyrical
content – ‘From The Blue House’ is shiny and accomplished, and but for the
occasional ( trailer-trash-esque ) banjo-picking, only marred by its author’s
youth. The songs’ subjects – death, anorexia, cigarettes – seem to be circumnavigated with adolescent clichés, and
become trite for it. ‘This is a song / For a boy / Who I thought was a God /
But he’s dead / So I guess he’s not immortal’, she sings on ‘Song For A Boy’,
and the world holds its breath for that little bit longer on the making of a
new Tori Amos…
KING PRAWN – ‘SURRENDER TO
THE BLENDER’
( Spitfire Records )
You might not think that what the world needs now is
a punk-ska outfit named after a take-away delicacy who never seem to’ve gotten
over the boot-waving glories that made up Madness. And the majority of the
record-buying public probably won’t think so either. But they could do so much
worse than venture towards this energetic trombone-tinged debut. Even if King
Prawn are inordinately cruel to jelly babies…
me1
– ‘AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED’
( Universal
Island Records )
This, I
am assured, is the new sound of hip-hop soul. Smooth, self-assured and ever so
slick, it’ll induce unconscious toe-tapping and head-nodding in even the most
hardened reviewer. Competently proving itself as deep shoulder-shimmying songs
for the summer-time.
QUEEN ADREENA – ‘TAXIDERMY’ ( Warner )
You should see how many times I’ve tried to
start this review, and given up because I don’t think I can do it justice with
words. I considered just telling you it was ‘Sooooo goooooooood……’ and leaving
it there. But then that, although right, isn’t particularly helpful as to the
album’s content. So then I wondered about telling you to imagine the most
exquisitely beautiful thing you’d ever heard or seen, and then realise this
album betters it. But then that is a birrofa wanky-drama student thing to do,
and I don’t wanna taint your opinion of ‘Taxidermy’ with my inability to
describe it like a sentient being. Even meshing together a soundalike history
for the band – ‘they’re (literally) like Daisy Chainsaw meets Dizzy Q Viper’ –
seemed unworthily lazy.
So. All I am left with is to enthuse that
this album is exactly right – tender, terrifying, all-encompassing in
one whispered scream. And hoping that you will discover its rock ‘n’ roll
majesty for yourself.
( Splinter
Recordings )
Six
tracks. Quality. Happily accomplished. Distortion. Boggling lyrics. Thoughtful.
Blink-inducing. Expectant. The anti-indie-schmindie. Recommended.
SONIQUE – ‘HEAR MY CRY’ ( Serious Records )
Yeah
yeah yeah, we’ve heard it all. Top female DJ, scooping the prized no. 1 slot
with her banging club choon that happily doubles as a day-time croon-along,
doing it her way and finding herself immensely popular for it. Well. ‘Hear My
Cry’ follows in the vein of ‘It Feels So Good’ – though the strings are more
sparingly distributed around the place – and though she may not have the
awe-inspiring talent of the woman, Sonique certainly seems to have the balls of
Madonna. And we all love a sassy popstrel. Even one who covers ‘I Put A Spell
On You’, in a dance-stylee. But then… in a world filled with the likes of
Victoria Beckham fondly imagining they can ‘do dance’, it’s nice to find a
woman who knows what she’s doing when it comes to making records of worth. Sonique
has worked in the industry for long enough to know what makes it tick and what
the people are after, and while the public might want what the public gets,
after this I would think they’ll be hungry for more o’ the same. Spot on,
woman.
VEL-TONE ‘UNDERNEATH BEAUTIFUL SKIN’
( Do-Little
Records )
Power-chording
their way into your subconscious, Vel-tone might not look it, but they sound
like serious contenders for the fillers of the post-Marion/Strangelove void. (Particularly
given the similarities between Stephen Evans’ vocal style and that of lil Jaime
Harding.) Everyone loves a well-crafted stridently-building pop song they can
try and belt out in the shower. Even more so if it’s about the perils of love
or drugs or both. Vel-Tone should be storming the hearts of the kohl-liner
crowd even as I type. Oh yes they should.
GO TO: Appliance GO TO: Badly Drawn Boy
GO TO: Bentley Rhythmn Ace GO TO: Bis GO TO: The Bluetones
GO TO: Billy Bragg & Wilco GO TO: Buffalo Tom
GO TO: Clinic GO TO: Coldplay
GO TO: Dandy Warhols
GO TO: The DrumGO
TO: David Gray
GO TO: Lee
GriffithsGO TO: Lauren
Hoffman GO TO: King Prawn
GO TO: me1GO
TO: Queen Adreena
GO TO: The
Servant GO TO: Sonique GO TO: Vel-Tone
Last revised: 27/07/01