Filed under: album, mp3, review, video | Tags: 2009, daniel clatworthy, music, plastic ono band, yoko ono
Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band
Between My Head & The Sky •••••
Chimera Music
There’s some loud banging going on; ”It’s me / I’m alive.”
Delivered with the tiniest amount of glee fighting through, it with this statement that Yoko Ono brings her latest album, Between My Head & The Sky, to an effective close. Whether you’re 76 or 26, ‘I’m Alive’ is one of the most life-affirming recordings there is. And at twenty seconds long, it acts as succinct summary of the album as a whole. The principle message of the album seems to be, “Get out there in the world and exist. Relish it”. In the wrong hands – which would be the majority – such a campaign could sound preachy and saccharine. Thankfully, Ono is able to show fear as well as intense excitement; for example, in ‘Feel The Sand’, in which she lists the sensory pleasures gained from life, more spoken than sung, over gentle acoustic guitar and sparse, abstract strings. At times there is a sense of sadness that these things have to be mentioned at all.
Filed under: album, review, video | Tags: 2009, australia week, daniel clatworthy, kate miller-heidke, music
Read the rest of our Australia Week reviews here.
Read our interview with Kate here.
Kate Miller-Heidke
Curiouser •••½
TBC
“I execute the Moonwalk like I stepped in shit.” It’s true: Kate Miller-Heidke can’t dance. She admits it through the medium of a rocky house-track, ‘Can’t Shake It’. Welcome to Curiouser.
Miller-Heidke has attracted a lot of attention in her home country, having been dubbed “one of the most intriguing Australian musicians,” and a lot of that intrigue comes from her backstory: a lauded young opera singer who turned her back on the theatre to focus on her own musical ambitions, it was from an independently recorded and distributed EP that she first gained notoriety. Word soon spread and Curiouser is her second album, following on from her breakthrough debut Little Eve.
Filed under: album, review | Tags: claire robinson, music, 2009, daniel clatworthy, puffy amiyumi, shiina ringo, dawn smithson
In part four: J-pop japes with Puffy (aka Puffy AmiYumi) and Shiina Ringo, plus the return of Dawn Smithson.
* * *
Puffy
Bring It! ••½
Ki/oon
It’s party time with Puffy AmiYumi, the Japanese duo with their own ‘mania’ named after them. And just like an American teen movie, the soundtrack to a Puffymania party is firmly punk-rock-pop. There’s even an appearance from Avril Lavigne, who co-wrote both the opening track ‘I Don’t Wanna’ and teaser single ‘All Because Of You’ alongside Butch Walker. ‘I Don’t Wanna’ reaches out to image-conscious teenagers with lyrics like “I don’t wanna be anybody else but me! / Don’t wanna be perfect like you see in all the TV shows, magazines and the videos!”, though it’s possibly worth noting that both members of Puffy – Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura – are now in their thirties. It’s a bit twee and a bit grim, but it sounds alright: guitars, drums and some woah-woah-ing. It’s one of many like it.
Filed under: album, review, video | Tags: 2009, daniel clatworthy, florence and the machine, florence welch, music
Florence + The Machine
Lungs ••••½
Island
Lungs. There’s certainly a set here. And attached to these lungs is one Florence Welch. Florence to the Machine’s changing cast, currently standing at a four-strong band, Welch is a London-born girl with a powerful bluesy-soul voice. Thankfully though, she neither sings about the minutiae of mundane relationships nor revels in being from the capital. Quite the opposite is true: there’s a large amount of fantasy and storytelling going on here.
While the first three releases from the album – dating all the way back to the musically raucous and lyrically provocative debut ‘Kiss With A Fist’ in June 2008 – certainly left their mark on the music press, none charted within the top 40. Nevertheless, owing in part to some her notorious live performances and a reputation for being ‘kooky’, Florence + The Machine have amassed a fair portion of this year’s generous hype-allowance: they were third in the BBC’s Sound Of 2009 poll (with Little Boots at #1 and La Roux at #5) and collected the Critics’ Choice Award at February’s Brit Awards. The stirring new single ‘Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)’, whose chorus is as melodious and singable as it is haunting and epic, finally did the business for the band this weekend, landing just outside the top 10, and big things are expected of Lungs. Fortunately, the expectations set by ‘Rabbit Heart’ for drama and theatrics are more than met by the album.
Filed under: EP, album, review | Tags: 2009, abigail washburn, anja mccloskey, daniel clatworthy, electrelane, honey owens, music, ray rumours, ros murray, the shanghai restoration project, valet
Part IV – reviews of Ray Rumours, Valet and Abigail Washburn & The Shanghai Restoration Project.
* * *
Ray Rumours
Le Pont Suspendu •••
Stitch-Stitch
Ray Rumours is essentially the solo project of Electrelane bassist Ros Murray, but she is often accompanied by Gill Partington and other friends sometimes join the singalong. Le Pont Suspendu may be a retelling of events and memories from the winter of 2007 and spring of 2008 but there’s not even a tiny whiff of self-indulgence about it. The themes are abstract, the music light and uplifting, and the album drifts along, not asking too much of its listeners. Even songs called ‘Snowman’ and ‘Winter Coat’ have the sun shining out of them.
Filed under: EP, album, review | Tags: 2009, daniel clatworthy, holly miranda, martyn clayton, music, noisettes, plastiscines, raissa, shingai shoniwa, the jealous girlfriends, the mummers
Part III – reviews of Holly Miranda, The Mummers, Noisettes and Plastiscines.
* * *
Holly Miranda
Sleep On Fire EP •••
Self-released
As a solo artist and as part of the Jealous Girlfriends, Holly Miranda certainly knows her way around the interior of a recording studio – so it is with full intent that Sleep On Fire, her debut solo effort, oozes home-recorded charm: the click of the off switch at the end of opener ‘Joints’ has been left in, while the start of ‘Singular Acceptaince’ seems to be the sound of a drum machine alone in a room. Miranda mostly keeps her voice low, sounding a bit fearful to raise it too much lest she wake the neighbours, and succeeds in creating a tense and fragile atmosphere that might at any moment crumble in on itself.
Filed under: album, review, video | Tags: 2009, daniel clatworthy, little boots, music, victoria hesketh
Little Boots
Hands •••½
679 / Atlantic
This debut solo album from former Dead Disco frontwoman Victoria Hesketh has been a long time coming. From the excited mutterings over ‘Stuck On Repeat’ 18 months ago to topping the BBC Sound of 2009 poll and beyond, she has been all over the music press with relatively little new material provided to support the quickly amassing hype. With the eventual release of first ‘proper’ single ‘New In Town’ a couple of weeks ago, it seemed that interest in Little Boots may have waned somewhat as the song landed disappointingly outside of the top 10.
Filed under: album, review, video | Tags: 2009, daniel clatworthy, jenny owen youngs, music
Jenny Owen Youngs
Transmitter Failure ••••
Nettwerk
A bit frustrated by performing to a still crowd at her gigs, Jenny Owen Youngs approached the writing of her second album, Transmitter Failure, with the intention to get people dancing – if only just a little. The 40-second banjo ditty opener ‘First Person’ might get some handclaps but the results from recent single ‘Led To The Sea’ are sure to be greater. It kicks in sounding like The Killers, with an eager-to-please energy, solid structure and a massive hook. Lyrically it’s not quite as uplifting: less sandcastles, more drowning love. ‘Dissolve’ continues the indie-rock sound, with tension-filled bridges leading to a rousing chorus.
The opening lines from ‘Here Is A Heart’ shows Owen Youngs’s quotable, dry sense of humour: “Here is a heart / I made it for you / so take it / battered and braised / grilled and sauteed / just how you like it”. Musically, it pulls things back a bit: the vocals are over layered piano, strings and percussion, with subtle production. It’s one of the most beautifully twisted imaginings of giving yourself to someone. ’Clean Break’ takes Transmitter Failure’s sound into different area. Seemingly taking its musical cues from spaghetti western themes, the simple strumming and crying-out-for-audience-participation chorus of this ode to sex is sure to fulfill Owen Youngs’s desire to get the people active.
Filed under: album, review, video | Tags: 2009, daniel clatworthy, music, polly scattergood
Polly Scattergood
Polly Scattergood •••½
Mute
When it comes to naming your debut album – a collection of songs that have accompanied you on the years schlepping from venue to venue across the country – what better name to give it than your own? Eponymous albums present themselves as a self-portrait rather than an untitled work, and the portrait Polly Scattergood presents of herself here is unsettling but beguiling. Drowning in insecurities, uncertain of men and uncertain of people in general, her energy comes from a slowly stewed anger that surfaces through some pretty blunt lyrics.
Filed under: album, review, video | Tags: 2009, amy studt, daniel clatworthy, music
Amy Studt
My Paper Made Men ••½
19 Recordings
In her first outing, with her porcelain skin, ruby-red lips and eyes smoky with kohl, Amy Studt was received as an English rose manifestation of Avril Lavigne. She was the débutante who’d turn up to the ball in a ‘customised’ version of the gown her parents had bought her. She stamped her feet and demanded to be taken seriously with ‘Just A Little Girl’. In ‘Misfit’ she offered a modest glimmer of hope to other school-age odd ducks. And there was an audience for her. She wasn’t commercially unsuccessful – three top 20 singles and 200,000 copies of the album sold – but after a reissuing of the album with an ill-advised ‘bonus’ cover of Sheryl Crow’s ‘All I Wanna Do’ failed to push sales up, she was dropped. Studt’s Myspace bio says she then contemplated a move to Cornwall to work in a coffee shop and abandon music forever. So, My Paper Made Men is an album that might never have been – definitely overselling its significance to us – but following this phase of self-doubt, how does Studt play it this time?
