REVIEW
I Break Horses
Chiaroscuro Bella Union
Te chin-stroking muso demon that sits on my shoulder says there's no better way to sound like you know absolutely fuck all about music than to vomit up the proclamation: "I love the beats!". But I don't give one, the idea of "knowing about music" makes me want to shove a fret-board down my throat and a glass of water on your MacBook Pro. So the first thing that struck me about this record is that I really love the beats. For real. Maria Lindén of I Break Horses can just sprinkle those beats all over my record collection whilst I dance tippy-toed on the layers of reverbed vox, so ethereal I'd actually be floating in mid air. Tere's the whole 80s synth bandwagon thing which is hard to make progressive and exciting, but this is more Blue Velvet than Cocktail, if you catch my drift. We're looking at layered soundscapes, cinematic in style with a touch of Robyn about them. 'Denial' has a touch of Fever Ray about it too except it's (sorry) far less interesting. 'Weigh True Words' is surely destined to be a single, it's catchy as hell - but what the hell do I know about music hey? Tis record sure is lovely though and actually I'd like to play it super loudly in adisused church or on my headphones whilst walking through the Sonoran
Desert...alone. Tis is a real album, a collection of songs painstakingly engineered to be listened to, one after the other, like a loop of slick beats. Geez, I love the beats.
Warpaint
Warpaint Rough Trade
If Warpaint were actually living by their name and daubing their faces with this, their eponymous second album, ready to charge across the battlefield, they might well find themselves shot in the arse as they bent down to tie their shoelaces. It’s not that it’s an album completely devoid of concentration or awareness, but it certainly isn’t going to win any Mel Gibson points for running bare-chested into a fight to the death. After a very well-received debut – by myself included – I SO wanted to love this album. Why so “meh”, I hear you say? Well, it’s not that the tracks don’t succeed played on their own; new single, ‘Biggy’ employs a slightly arrhythmic synth bassline and evolves into a decent beat-based track. Album track ‘Disco // very’ is a funky little bass-heavy number. However, they sleepwalk through the majority of the album, meaning listening to it in its entirety makes you feel like you’ve taken a tranque dart to the neck. Tey produced the record themselves, along with the watchful eye of Flood (PJ Harvey), and the resounding result seems to be that they’ve tried their darndest not to wake us. Te vocals aren’t as present as the first album, there’s little in the way of light and shade, and I find myself making excuses for them. Maybe I’m listening to it wrong? In the wrong place? At the wrong volume? It might fit for a lone, be-headphoned walk across untrodden snow, but I’d take a sharper weapon into battle.
Snowbird
Moon Bella Union
Snowbird is a collaboration between Stephanie Dosen and Bella Union head-honcho/ex- Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde, with backing musicians including Radiohead's Philip Selway and Ed O'Brien, Midlake's Eric Pulido and McKenzie Smith, Paul Gregory of Lanterns On Te Lake and Jonathan Wilson. I had high expectations, very high expectations. Initially, I was disappointed. Simply put, this does not match the highpoints of the participants' back catalogues. It is too safe, too mainstream, too new age, too – well – soft. But – and it is a huge, in capitals, double underlines, bold BUT - put expectations aside and this is a good album that occasionally reaches greatness. Dosen and Raymonde are clearly talented songwriters. Dosen's vocals (frequently double and triple- tracked) are gorgeous. Te instrumentation is, at times, exquisite and the songs are never less than well crafted and well played. Tere are clear hints of the Cocteaus, Dosen's solo work and Midlake. I didn't detect anything of Radiohead but there are suggestions of School of Seven Bells, Fleet Foxes, the Laurel Canyon folk pantheon and, dare I say it, Enya. Te clearest comparison is ‘Against Nurture’ by Frances McGee's post-Vaselines band, Suckle, but I suspect that will mean little. Tis is an album that is well worth a listen and one that the likes of ‘I Heard an Owl Call My Name’, ‘Charming Birds from Trees’ and the relatively driving ‘Bear On My Tail’ suggest will be a grower.
Rosie Arnold
Emma Garwood
Pavlis
28 /January 2014/
outlineonline.co.uk
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