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].​

EP Review: Wonder & Amazement - Grand Corporation

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​Wonder & Amazement - Grand Corporation

It has been a while since I've last checked out anything on Classic but this new EP from Grand Corporation grabbed me almost instantly.

Grand Corporation is a collaboration between Stevie Kotey of Bearfunk and Andy Meecham of both Chicken Lips and Emperor Machine. 'Wonder & Amazement' is one of those records that treads a really fine line between classic (lower-c) and contemporary. And you can clearly hear Meecham's hands all over this.

The vocal, from Jeremy Glen, feels like that of the kind of quintessential house  you don't hear all too often these days - soulful, uplifting but not over-done. The music slots itself in amongst the vocal-work without drowning it out too much and the result has some vintage house elements - much of the percussion has a distinctly old skool vibe, big rim-shots and rolling drums together with classic 808 sounding beats. The warm melody, devoid of any treble, feels very contemporary however and yet it still fits the track perfectly. The result is sophisticated without being pretentious.

There are a number of mixes across the physical twelve and the digital release. Deetron gives the original a pretty big boost, throwing in a tweaked version of the melody that builds in layers, adding a gnarly acid kick. The vocal still gets plenty of room in the main version of the mix though and it is a pretty faultless revision (there is a dub on the vinyl release).

Crooked Man is a pseudonym of Sheffield's DJ Parrot, of The All Seeing Eye fame, and he delivers a couple more mixes. Both are considerably deeper than the original and there are similarities between the two but it is the percussive 'Crooked Sky Mix' on the digital release that is the more essential.

The digital release also gets a cymbal heavy mix by Japan's Yosa and whilst it is pretty far abstracted from the original it isn't without charm, a warm, analogue sounding techno joint.

Given the break down of the mixes the digital version is definitely the better value here - whilst none of the mixes are without merit the digital release gets every one of the essential ones. It is like thought that this is one record that would sound beautiful on vinyl.

Wonder & Amazement is released through Classic next week on 12" and digital release, available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on MP3 [affiliate link].​

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].​

EP Review: Flash Of Light - Luca C & Brigante feat. Róisín Murphy

​It is hard not to have a big wobbly soft-spot for Róisín Murphy. She has been responsible for a number of great records over the years, both as part of Moloko and on her own, particularly excellent solo album Overpowered. A collaboration with Luca C & Brigante then was always going to be at least worth a listen, particularly on the back of the duo's recent run of EPs, a run which includes the brilliant Ali Love featuring 'Different Morals'.

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​Flash Of Light - Luca C & Brigante feat. Róisín Murphy

Murphy was apparently drawn to a collaboration after hearing Luca C & Brigante's production work, noting it's apocalyptic feeling, stating it was "as if I was listening to the sound of a party at the end of world". And it is that theme - of dancing through to the end, having one last chance to say goodbye - that this collaboration is based on.

The fact that the lyrics were inspired by the feeling Murphy took from hearing Luca C & Brigante's other productions shows. The atmosphere of this track, with its gentle, attentively programmed bass and fragile melody perfectly compliment the vocal. This is a record with heart and feeling running through its seam - it is typical of Róisín and she highlights the capabilities of her collaborators.

Diynamic label boss Solomun nudges things in a slightly deeper direction, layering some synth work and vocal edits to create a tasteful alternative version. Tale Of Us & Mind Against team up to make a harsher, tech-heavy version but it is unfortunately unsuccessful, lacking the sophistication of the original. The final remix comes courtesy of Blond:ish and is similarly tech-influenced and ultimately similarly unnecessary. Still, stick to the original and Solomun's versions and this is a package well worth grabbing.

​Flash Of Light is released through Southern Fried on 22 October, available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on 12" and MP3 [affiliate links].

Check out a preview of the Solomun mix below: