Album Review: Late Night Tales - Friendly Fires

The Late Night Tales series seem to be gradually moving out of a gently twisted and strung out run of late to something a little more approachable. First Metronomy seemed unafraid to embrace a bit of pop on their turn and now Friendly Fires leave any downer-based paranoia at the door.

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Late Night Tales - Friendly Fire

It's a change that has the potential to be a bit of a mixed blessing but it actually suits our latest comperes well. Never a band for anything less than pure effervescent passion it is fitting that the same mood exists here and that they are not weighed down with some hammy requirement to demonstrate their knowledge of Nick Cave's back catalogue or the like.

There are still tempo changes and the set moves through several fairly distinct movements. After starting with an earlier Junior Boys track ('Under The Sun') we are treated to a number of disco records. These include Dennis Parker's always fabulous 'Like An Eagle' as a highlight and the disco ultimately peaks as it ends with a beautiful transition from 'Carry On Turn Me On' by Space into Iron Galaxy's 'Attention Seeker'.

The latter is one of the more contemporary tracks on here and it probably deserves its own blog post - it is utterly brilliant. Starting with a tight house beat full of reverb and a short vocal snippet it opens up, flower-like, to become an entrancing, warm electronic masterpiece. The drums loosen up and eventually the whole track sounds like it is submerged beneath water - a lovely squiggly acid bass line drawing this track into the next one in the mix. It's an utterly perfect combination of old and new, feeling utterly timeless. To make things even better the track that follows is almost just as good - Bibio's 'Don't Summarise My Summer Eyes' is all heavy, fuzzy beats and looping, shimmering vocals.

Friendly Fires' token newbie 'Why Don't You Answer' ends an (admittedly very eclectic but) mostly electronic section - it may not be their single best song to date but the chugging bass and repeated vocal refrain create an excited upbeat counterpoint to what follows.

Things are more leftfield from here but still retain an immediacy - even the Cocteau Twins and Slowdive fit in to the arc of the album without too much of an issue in terms of inertia. Olivia Newton-John and Nils Frahm provide the final two tracks - it's a juxtaposition that feels a little joke-like but Frahm's 'Over There, It's Raining' is a beautiful conclusion to any album.

I tend to skip the audio book section that ends the Late Night Tales albums but this one, the first in a new series (they generally unfold over a few albums), is read by Benedict Cumberbatch of Sherlock and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy fame. It's rather good so worth checking out.

Late Night Tales is released on 5 November, it is available to pre-order on CD, LP and MP3 from amazon.co.uk [affiliate links].

Album Review: Lonerism - Tame Impala

​Despite managing to be pretty much universally liked and achieving significant critical acclaim across both their debut album and now this one Tame Impala still seem to be a band it is easy to take potshots at.

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​Lonerism - Tame Impala

"Vocalist Kevin Palmer sounds like John Lennon. If I wanted to listen to (insert your choice of experimental / progressive Beatles album here) then I would just listen to it. It's nothing but a prog rock revival."

The reality is that there is truth to all of this but it could as easily be levelled at a number of the last decade's great bands. Oasis peddled Beatles knock-offs for years and their takes mostly weren't even any good. Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in the whole Retromania swirl and just end up confused, tangled up in questions of legitimacy.

Tame Impala's debut album Innerspeaker was good, but Lonerism is that rare kind of confident and assured sophomore release: it does everything that the last one did, but better. It also sounds like Parker is more comfortable in his sound, and that enables him to add more too it.

There is plenty of wizardry hidden down behind these tracks. The plunging depths of 'Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could' is one example, where all the treble drops away and we are left with the voices inside Palmer's head, before blasting off into a stratospheric conclusion of clattering drum solos. Or, on the other end of the album, the locked rhythmic groove of 'Be Above It' that opens this disc.

The technical ability of the players and the production undoubtedly hold an element of the attraction here but importantly this is also a record of great songs. Palmer is clearly obsessed with alone time and it comes through in the lyrics and titles of the tracks here. His alienation provides the milieu for much of what you will hear on this album and when Tame Impala hit their groove there really isn't anything like them.

Lonerism like its predecessor is an album that handles repeated listening with ease - there is so much to take in that it is hard not to reach for the rewind button before songs even reach their end. 'Why Won't They Talk To Me' is a wistful helter skelter ride of a track, the explosive synthesisers whirling around like Catherine wheels whilst 'Feels Like We Only Go Backwards' captures the lack of inertia it describes, thick and heavy. Both demonstrate a high-point for the band and it's difficult not to be excited for what comes next.

If you want to remain fixated on poking at the audible inspiration here or pick out all the reference points in an attempt to unravel the whole blanket feel free. Hip-hop records these days ride free of such comparisons - The Grey Album sampled the same songs as inspire here are held up high. Lonerism is one of the tightest, most enjoyable records you will hear this year, and maybe that should be enough.

Lonerism is out now, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].​

Album Review: Until The Quiet Comes - Flying Lotus

Flying Lotus belongs to that group of artists from whom a new album marks a real event moment. As with artists like Radiohead, the Flaming Lips, Björk, Sufjan Stevens and even Kanye West a new album from Flying Lotus, real name Steven Ellison, tends to be a fascinating first listen regardless of whether you like him - you never quite know what to expect.

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​Until The Quiet Comes - Flying Lotus

Cosmogramma was my favourite album of 2010 (review here). Whilst Flying Lotus' previous albums demonstrated his production ability and creativity his third album was the one the blew everything out into widescreen, like some musical big bang moment. There were vocals from Thom Yorke, songs made of ping-pong matches, the jazz influences and that crazy bass playing from Thunderclap. Yet for all it's exploration it also hung together, a bohemian statement of everything-ness - consistent in that nothing was left out and no concept dwelled for too long.

In comparison Until The Quiet Comes feels strangely focused. It still takes in a lot of sounds and ideas but it doesn't reel from the same explosive sense that Cosmogramma did. Opening with the kind of J Dilla referencing sparkly instrumental hip-hop that he has been making for years, 'All In' is much less of a confrontational start than 'Clock Catcher' was on Cosmogramma. Where that album gradually bottomed out into increasingly jazzy, free form pieces, Until The Quiet Comes starts in a relatively welcoming fashion and then hits you with some of the least accessible moments Ellison has released on an album.

So after that clutch of jazzy tracks 'Tiny Tortures' starts a run of heavy-bassed, beat-lead pieces. These capture the Flying Lotus experimental production style and individually are no harder to penetrate than the most eccentric moments of Cosmogramma but here, all at once, it is a little too much, too soon. The yin to the opening four tracks' yang.

From there though we get the album we want. Erykah Badu's collaboration on the rhythmic 'See Thru To U' is arresting, her vocals providing almost the only melodic accompaniment to a cacophany of live rhythms, as she ad libs along with the bass line. Her vocals then open the title track that follows and it is Fying Lotus at his best - rhythms shifting in and out of phase, rapid samples and god knows what else.

Things go all cosmic jazz on shimmering 'The Nightcaller', only to have it all drop away and evolve into a low slung west coast hip-hop piece for the latter third. How Ellison figures out what defines a specific track is anyone's guess, because there are moments here where two sound like one and one could be three or more.

Flying Lotus also continues to do guest spots like no other. Thom Yorke is back once again and 'Electric Candyman' weaves juddering beats and ghostly spectral organ noises around the vocals in a way few would have the nerve to do. Laura Darlington is given the spotlight for 'Phantasm', it being one of the few moments where the music is sympathetic to any vocals, it seemingly floating around the singer whilst quivering, building the strength to step in. Darlington sings fittingly of being "lost in the machine".

That moment feels rather like the point of Until The Quiet Comes. This is an album that feels like a battle between the creator and the created - Ellison needing to get the music out as much as anything. Cosmogramma evolves fractal-like, naturally pushing out into new territories. Here the vision is narrowed in places and compartmentalised - still astonishing, but less other-worldly nonetheless.

Until The Quiet Comes is out now, available on CD, LP and MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links].​

Album Review: Word of Mouth - Matt Tolfrey

Tolfrey's debut release was partially constructed using his mouth. Rather than create melodies using keyboards, synthesisers or a computer the very starting point was a hum. Using software Tolfrey would then convert this initial earworm into midi notes, to be turned into music back on his computer. Hence the album's title.

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Word of Mouth - Matt Tolfrey​

It explains much of Word of Mouth's sound - groove based, with baselines you can easily imagine being hummed whilst dreaming rapturous dance floors on the bus. Which sadly isn't to say everything here is infectiously memorable, but there is a certain immediacy to the bass.

Tolfrey is label boss for Leftroom Records and has also released through Crosstown Rebels, Rekids and Culprit amongst others... All labels known much more for their 12" single and EP releases than long-players, a fact that is clearly in evidence here. In response to the age-old question of how to handle the dance album Tolfrey goes for the slightly predictable "change nothing about the music, just add a few vocals" option.

Some of those vocals stand up. Marshall Jefferson would sound pretty cool reading out his shopping list, so his tribute to house (complete with plenty of name-checking) is a highlight, riding the very locked groove the vocal references. It feels a little resigned though, Marshall championing the likes of Jamie Principle on what is ultimately little more than a DJ tool. It is certainly not a patch on his own fantastically surreal 'Mushrooms', which musically treads a similar path of warm tech-house.

And Kid K's breathless vocal on the snappy 'Turn You Out' is funky and distinct enough to transcend its surroundings whilst album closer 'Not So Little', featuring Kevin Knapp, is slinky and refined. Knapp's vocals flip-flop between spoken and whispered, creating an honest timelessness to Tolfrey's production that is lacking elsewhere.

Accompanying these highlights are a clutch of unnecessary fillers. Jem Cooke appears on two tracks but makes an impact on neither and there are a few other similar efforts. Worse still, 'Darkside of the Discoball' highlights the fallacy of all the vocals, creating something far more interesting without needing any.

For the ups and downs Word of Mouth never really transcends the 12" format that inspired it - only 'Not So Little' really justifies the album format, a song that actually feels like it has something to say.

Word of Mouth is released through Leftroom Records on 22 October, you can pre-order it on CD from Amazon.co.uk here [affiliate link].​ Preview the album below via Soundcloud:

Album Review: Lune - Kjofol

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​Lune - Kjofol

There is something happening in the world where minimal, techno and IDM meet: it seems to be embracing jazz music. There were elements of its instrumentation and structure in both Nicolas Jaar's and Acid Pauli's debut solo albums and last year Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer teamed up to produce Re:ECM, an album of tracks based on material from the jazz and classical label ECM Records.

Lune is the debut release from French-born Berlin resident Fabien Vilain and it is similarly influenced by free jazz, applying the structure and styles to minimal electronic music. There is a significant variety of styles here but the drive to experiment is consistent throughout.

The opening track is filled with ambient noise, snatches of violins, spoken word, gentle but rapid background percussion and slowly moving organs. It is a three-minute taster of the sounds to come that seems to be assembling itself before the listener, like an orchestra warming up.

Title track 'Lune' is where Vilain hits his stride, a synthesis of loose jazz drumming and bumping electronic beats - brushed drums, snatches of high-hat and a stop-start four-four. Rather than end the track gently and touchingly seems to run out of forward momentum. Not everything is as delicate though, 'Note For Sale' is a bouncy Latin-jazz number, sharply cut and seemingly made for cocktails in the sunshine.

As it nears its conclusion Lune becomes increasingly experimental. The final two tracks bar one, 'Le Jour Aime Le Nuit' and 'While Others Go And Come', are almost 12- and 14-minutes long respectively. The former is shot through with ghostly ambient notes, broken drum beats and spoken vocals, though my reliance on English leaves their meaning opaque here. Both are just the sort of mad-hatter music you expect of Villalobos, and Vilain delivers it convincingly.

Of course Lune isn't an easy listen, but this sort of thing never is. It is best consumed in clutches - a few songs at a time, whilst your concentration remains high. It is undoubtedly beautifully constructed and convincingly put together.

The artwork also deserves a special mention - the digital review copy features a series of distorted and destroyed ink and watercolours, with different artwork for each track. These compliment the music perfectly.

Lune is released through Apparel Music physically on 8 October and digitally on 29 October.​