Demob Happy

Mr Blue Sky ! 8/10 My ongoing love affair with Wilco began at the time of Sky Blue Sky’s release, but not, oddly, with the album itself, which received fairly mixed opinions at the time. Sifting through those variable reviews I found myself tracking back to their earlier album ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot‘, for me their [...]

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Blood on the log-cabin floor 7/10 Vocoders: yes or no? The use of such synthesized vocals took a big dip in fashion between its Kraftwerk and ELO heyday and its minor resurgence under the auspices of so-called Chill Out acts such as Air and Bent. However, it is a sound probably most commonly associated these [...]

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“What will it take to make you listen?” 8.5/10 Some of my favourite albums of the last couple of years have come from a strand of impressionistic folk that roughly began with the release of Grizzly Bear’s ghostly ‘Yellow House‘ in 2006 and Iron & Wine’s kaleidoscopic ‘Shepherd’s Dog‘ a year later, gathering pace in [...]

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FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Keep this in mind for your Christmas stockings … 8/10 When it was released earlier this year I resisted ‘Sunday At Devil Dirt’, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan’s well-received, rather tongue-in-cheek take on Americana, their second full-length collaboration. It seemed to me too studied, too contrived somehow, [...]

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FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT French windows 4/10 In 1994 a law was introduced in France by then culture minister Jacques Toubon protecting the French language. One of the outcomes of this globalisation-resisting move was that two out of five songs on French radio must be sung in la langue maternelle . [...]

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FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Voice of The Hive 7/10 A sombre flute, the clunking toll of a bell, a solemnly plucked acoustic guitar … cue medieval clichés: misty moats, drawbridges, hooded monks, damsels in distress. But hold on, it’s not Led Zeppelin IV … a shimmering drone, Mellotron, and suddenly all [...]

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Micah Blues and Red Rivers 7/10 Micah Blue Smaldone is a former punk scenester from New England who has moved on to sparse, rootsy folk. ‘The Red River‘, his fourth solo record, is dominated by meditative, neo-traditional acoustica with an eye for theatre. While intimate in scale it much less personal than, say, Bon Iver, [...]

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FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Exile on ’25th Street’ 8.5/10 ‘NYC‘ is Kieran Hebden’s (aka Four Tet) fourth collaboration with veteran jazz drummer Steve Reid and while I won’t pretend that I have heard the other three, the word in the blogosphere is that this is the most equal of their partnerships, [...]

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Breezy brilliance from casual genius 8/10 FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Arthur Russell’s ‘Love Is Overtaking Me‘ compiles previously unreleased material from the critically regarded but somehow commercially overlooked artist’s archive. Ranging from Dylanesque folk, country and angular art pop from the 1970s through his final home recordings before death in 1991, [...]

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A World Apart 6.5/10 FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Returning from the nu-disco of Hercules and Love Affair, ‘Another World‘ finds Antony & The Johnsons revisiting the themes and cabaret moods of Mercury-winning breakthrough, ‘I Am A Bird Now‘. Having such a singular singing style is both a gift and a burden: [...]

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