Album Review: Kill For Love - Chromatics

Image source: The Mahogany BlogUnlike seemingly everyone else I have not have seen the Ryan Gosling movie Drive yet. Time and a lack-of-opportunity have seemingly kept it at bay. I have spent quite a bit of time the thinking about the eighties influenced soundtrack though, even contributing a few tracks to a mammoth Drive-inspired Spotify playlist made by a friend.

Trying to replicate the soundtrack for a movie you haven't seen seems like a bizarre concept, but I was seduced by the soft, melancholic electronic new wave and post-punk the movie (apparently) contains.

Two tracks featuring the production work Chromatic's Johnny Jewel featured on Drive - one with fellow Chromatic Nat Walker as their side project Desire and one Chromatics track, 'Tick of the Clock'. There were rumours that another side-project from Jewel and Walker, the appropriately named Symmetry - Themes for an Imaginary Film, was originally to be the main soundtrack for the movie. Whilst the rumours have been denied one thing is clear - the dark, eighties post-punk influenced Italo sound of Jewel is what people take away from that movie and the idea of driving at night crops up frequently in their music, titles and artwork as much as it features there.

The Chromatics have cultivated something of a micro-scene since their rebirth from punk band to soft electronic dream-makers and Kill For Love is the ultimate product of their effort. It is long at 92-minutes across 17 songs and much like Symmetry and fellow eighties influenced electronic producer M83's latest double-album, Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, this feels like a soundtrack for a movie that doesn't quite exist.

But the length is justified - this is an album that shifts through ballads, mood pieces and the dark frisson of guitar heavy melancholy. The result is such that the music swings from beautiful to dark to heartbreaking and back, but the combinations and phases of this album feel as much like a cohesive story as many movies manage.

Starting with the inky black piano ballad of 'Into the Black', a cover of Neil Young's 'Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)' is a master stroke. Singer Ruth Radelet's vocals form a tribute to musical heroes set against a repeated bass line that sounds like pure Joy Division, the result sounding like Fleetwood Mac covering Neil Young with Hooky on bass.

The heavily auto-tuned vocals of 'These Streets Will Never Look the Same' almost distract from the tense strut of the guitar work but they totally justify their place later on 'Running from the Sun', another piano lead track slowly collapses under it's own emotional gravity, effortlessly showing up The Weeknd in the process.

Things get better they goes on. 'Birds of Paradise', positioned two-thirds of the way through the album (the yet-to-be-mentioned long closer aside for the moment), is a strikingly fragile piece that jumps from smokey vocals and vinyl clicks and pops to a cold, haunting melody. The vocal ends with "You are the black sky, always running for the sun... You're always running from the sun" before a long instrumental close and it is seemingly directed at the protagonist on 'Running from the Sun' (positioned with just one instrumental between it and 'Birds of Paradise').

It is exactly this kind of structure and pacing that means Kill For Love never outstays its welcome, benefiting from the director's cut treatment. Closing with a fourteen-minute instrumental in 'No Escape' feels totally natural... The entire album feels like a movie soundtrack with more to say than most actual movies. It is a conclusion that feels like the fade-to-black end credits to a weird, strung-out road trip.

Kill For Love is released on 21 May, pre-order on CD from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link].

Listen to the aforementioned Drive inspired playlist:

Album Review: EFunk - Soul Clap

Image source: Mint MagazineAlong with contemporaries Wolf + Lamb, Soul Clap's singles have become somewhat notorious for their general strength but slightly off-kilter house and funk sound. Here in long play format they seem destined to either sink or swim, the added freedom either giving them room to experiment and flourish or simply enough rope to hang themselves.

In parts they suceed but this album certainly struggles in places.. The trouble with Soul Clap is that their music conveys a sophistication that the vocals and skits occasionally betray. 'The Alezby Inn', for example, constructs a contemplative electronic funk from warm waves of synths and electro style percussion. The duo go for an Arthur Baker on 'Planet Rock' feel with vocals from The Geneven Heathen rapping about a chance encounter with a girl. It's typically Soul Clap - the vocal, which ends with the couplet "In the beginning we were all created equal. What the fuck happened to her?", seems like an unnecessary and unfortunate addition. The listener is left unsure as to whether this is a joke that isn't funny or a serious track that doesn't have any guts.

Thankfully elsewhere things are less conflicted. Rowley Cezarie's turn on 'Let It Go' is much more in keeping with the music - a raw, emotionally repressed tail of break-up, distorted and hidden within electronic body funk. There are even skits and interludes that work - 'When The Soul Claps' is blissful, Lazarus Man's beat poetry riding a wave of warm soulful electronics that, at just over a minute, is all too brief but sets the tone for the rest of the album.

Also bizarre, but this time in a good way, is the fact that Mel Blatt (yes, of All Saints fame) features on two tracks on EFunk's second half. The short 'Ecstacy' is more laid back soul and features Blatt's vocals perfectly creating a late-80s style R&B record - it's slower than most (though not all) of Soul Clap's 12" releases and it is also an impressive demonstration of their production abilities when applied to slower, pop orientated records. The second track is a cover of The Korgis' 'Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime', here re-titled 'Need Your Lovin''. It is hardly a track that needs another cover and Blatt's bluesy vocal is a little flat but still combines with a US Garage style house rhythm to make a relatively effective take on the original.

EFunk ends on a high however - whilst the album occasionally stumbles the eight-minute, two-part 'Islands In Space' is never short of magnificent. Part one consists of heavy funk drums and a ruthless back hand of sax that really just serves as an intro for the main course... A smart laidback jazz blues record featuring Greg Paulus that just happens to be made by a house production duo. EFunk has it's moments but the best of them really just show that this is the beginning - 'Islands In Space' prooves Soul Clap are certainly capable of more.

EFunk is released on 30 April on Wolf & Lamb, available to pre-order on CD and MP3 at Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links].

Album Review: Sweet Heart Sweet Light - Spiritualized

Image source: Double Six / Steve GullickThe advantage of being a one man band is that you never really split up. That means Jason Pierce's Spiritualized seem to just keep on going, continuing to push out albums of similar scale and ambition every few years whilst the world around them changes. Pretty much every other British rock band from the nineties have gon. Whilst the specific sound may shift from one release to the next - noisier here, more drone there, a bit of gospel on this one and country on that - you always know that a Spiritualized record will be a slightly schizophrenic event.

As the only member of Spiritualized to have remained consistent across the years it is clear that these songs are a window into Pierce's head. I tend to avoid reading reviews of albums I am in the process of reviewing but accidentally stumbled across the Guardian's review of Sweet Heart Sweet Light by Kitty Empire. If you take a look you will see the album doesn't fare too well, the primary criticism being something akin to ”Oh not you again, more of this?!"

I can't help but wonder if Kitty Empire just doesn't like Spiritualized, so much of her criticism being levelled at elements that describe exactly what many fans of the band will like. Obviously reviewing music is a personal thing - you can't separate personal enjoyment from professional opinion but reviewing music by bands you either love or hate is never easy.

As for me, I'm a bit mixed on Spiritualized. As with virtually everyone else I somewhat adored Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space - it is the kind of record that takes years rather than weeks to unravel. The albums that followed that one seemed to struggle though, lacking the consistency, the balls and the big ideas of Ladies and Gentlemen.

Sweet Heart Sweet Light convincingly addresses those concerns. This feels like a proper album where previous albums have felt like more of a collection of moments - there is a greater pacing and vision at work. It also has some typically majestic moments - the slight return on 'Hey Jane' is suitably insistent, climatic and dizzying, the chorus at end of 'Headin' For The Top Now' whirling the cumulative chaos around into a little present with a bow on top and the closing 'So Long You Pretty Thing' (co-written with Pierce's daughter Poppy) so charming it is hard to resist.

But for all the big moments this album feels more quietly confident than any other. With the vocals given a more prominent position and several more laid back pieces, see the ballad-like 'Too Late' and 'Freedom', this sounds like Pierce growing into himself. It is here where Kitty and I disagree - Sweet Heart Sweet Light is brilliant precisely because it is Pierce revealing more himself. Yes, it is more accessible and lacks the 'derangement' of earlier work, but that is precisely what makes it a revelation.

Preparing for Sweet Heart Sweet Light, Pierce was apparently inspired by the live performances of the entire Ladies and Gentlemen album, and you can hear that in the comfort he allows himself here. Having stopped trying so hard J Spaceman has made one of the best albums of his career.

Sweet Heart Sweet Light is out now on Double Six, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links]. The latter is just £3.99 at the time of publication. Stream now on Spotify:

Album Review: Wonky - Orbital

Image source; BlackPlastic.co.uk, rights reserved

I recently found myself at an industry event to celebrate MySpace's relaunch. Alongside Ladyhawke and a few others, the main entertainment (free booze aside) was an Orbital DJ set. I've not really listened to any Orbital for years so my expectations were fairly low, expecting them to be (whisper it) a little over the hill...

Predictably it turns out I was wrong, for there, surrounded by several hundred advertising executives, we had quite the party, mostly due to the closing track on new album, Wonky. It turns out Orbital still know how to rock a synth and create a lot of noise.

And that is in some ways the main lesson to learn from Wonky. It's been nearly eight years since their last LP, the Blue Album, and in that time dance music has continued to change. Orbital are seemingly oblivious to that passing of time and you can't help but feel they are probably all the better for that fact. Which means at times Wonky feels downright old.

Sometimes the sense of nostalgia works and sometimes it doesn't, but this is an album that gets far more right than it does wrong. 'Beelzedub' may be heavy handed in it's use of heavy breaks and vicious bass in a way that just isn't as dark as it would like whilst struggling to achieve relevance in a world that has seen dubstep and grime but that is one of only a couple of duff moments. Opener 'One Big Moment' captures the joyous shared spirit of rave perfectly, proof that sounding almost like it could have been made in the same session as 'Chime' doesn't hurt it a jot.

Both guest turns on the album also come off well. Zola Jesus features on 'New France', an album highlight that takes its cue from Hooky's bass playing. And whilst current single 'Wonky', featuring Lady Leshurr, shouldn't really work it somehow does, the barreling drums and blood pressure raising melodies somehow making up for a potentially over-the-top vocal - though even the vocal shines at the bridge.

Wonky is best when it feels most like the boys aren't even trying though. 'Stringy Acid' throws a euphoric acid climax in at the album's mid-point that sounds fresh simply because you won't have heard anything peaking so blatantly for so long. The best is saved for last though - closing things out is 'Where Is It Going?' and it feels like a response to questions over where the the Hartnolls can go from here. The answer would appear to be back to what they do best - massively uplifting, end of the night anthems that make advertising execs dance like loons in front of their colleagues. Who wants to grow old gracefully anyway?

Wonky is out now on ACP, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, Digipack CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links]. Stream now on Spotify:

Album Review: LateNightTales volume Two - Belle and Sebastian

Image source: The Music Slut

Embarrassing fact or not (I'm really not sure) - I've never really listened to much Belle and Sebastian. 'The Boy With The Arab Strap' is excellent but beyond that I draw a bit of a blank. The LateNightTales albums are generally worth a listen though and so when a copy popped through the letter box I stuck it on regardless of relatively modest excitement levels.

And I'm very glad I did because it is probably the best LateNightTales I've heard. It's far more eclectic than I would have expected and there are not just one or two but a number of tracks by artists I've not heard of that I will certainly check out more of.

Things start off relatively psychedelic with Broadcast's 'Ominous Cloud' instantly plunging us into a swirling world of slightly trippy sixties pop. It feels like being stuck between the celluloid of The Wicker Man and Performance. Nothing on this album stays as it is for long though and soon you are enveloped in Milton Nascimento & Lô Borges' Latin Jazz and things feel much warmer than you would ever have expected on such an album.

Bonnie Dobson's 'Bird of Space' is back in bonkers psychedelia territory but it is also strangely beautiful, Dobson's shrill vocals dancing around sitars and sweeping strings to create a disconcertingly epic sound. In amongst all this weirdness Gold Panda's 'Quitters Raga' fits like hand slipping into glove, highlighting Belle and Sebastian's selection skills and Gold Panda's utter brilliance.

After the Pop Group, whom are probably the sole bum-note, their avant-garde post-punk still leaving me cold, things get even more sublime. All too brief, the Stan Tracey Quartet's 'Starless and Bible Black' provides a brief one-minute stellar jazz interlude that feels like free-wheeling through space, see the Earth vanish from view and barely caring. The Lovin' Spoonful's 'Darlin' Be Home Soon' is a perfect contrast, filled with the same dull ache but wrapped up in earnest pop melodies and beautiful production. Belle & Sebastian's cover version of the Primitives 'Crash' is good, but mainly serves to highlight how brilliant a lot of the other material here is.

I could go on, but you should probably just listen to the album... There is just so much worth hearing. A dub of Pete Shelley's solo record 'Homosapien' almost steals the show but it is Remember Remember's heartbreaking 'Scottish Widows' that does. A haunting, perfect piece of music - call it new-classical, call it post-rock, I call it fantastic.

In summary then? You'd be foolish not to.

Belle and Sebastian's Late Night Tales Volume 2 is out now, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3 [affiliate links]; stream now on Spotify.