(Who, by the way, would appear to be recording and touring again.)
First, we have the longest-ever Australian federal election campaign, which comes to an end next Saturday. It has been about as enlightening and inspiring as I expected (i.e. not even). The prime minister has demonstrated that whatever he might bring to the office he presently holds (which either is not a lot, or has been kept from view until now, for reasons best known to himself), he is not much chop as an oppositionist. (Which perhaps makes him the reverse of the person he replaced, except that we all know what he was like as prime minister.) Given that this country has not been effectively governed since 2007 (with the exception of Julia Gillard's prime ministership, which, against all odds, managed to push some important and/or worthwhile things through a minority parliament, some of which have even survived), and given the turbulent international waters that we find ourselves in, it is dispiriting (to say the least) how uninspiring our leaders and aspirants have continued to be. We are not those others over there / we are better than those others over there would appear to be an end in itself. (At least the Labor Party has made some attempt at policy development, but from where I sit (on my side of the bed, the cat curled up in the sun at my feet) it isn't getting much traction, and anyway the slogan "100 Positive Policies" is about as likely to engage the electorate as John Hewson's "Incentivation" (remember that?).)
Secondly, Brexit, in which it would appear, from this distance, that what may have happened is that enough people registered a perhaps well-meaning protest vote (although against what they were all protesting against may have been neither clear nor uniform) to bring about a result that either nobody wanted or, at least, nobody had really thought through the consequences of. Am I the only person who is beginning to think that there might be such a thing as too much democracy?
Thirdly, the bizarre (and increasingly alarming) prospect of a President Trump. See previous sentence.
There are things I really ought to be
getting on with. This is not one of them.
"White Clouds (Day's Rhodes More
Travelled Edit)", by Hiroshi Fukumura. So good.
"Dreams", by Beck. A one-off
single by the Beckster. It sounds like a reaction against "Morning
Phase". A lot of Beck's records sound like a reaction against the record
before. (See also: The Go-Betweens.)
"Spiral", by XTC. If you were
seeking evidence to back up the seemingly outlandish claim that XTC had pop
songs literally dripping off the ends of their fingers, consider this song. Most
bands would commit criminal acts to be able to write a song as poptastic as
this. XTC couldn't find a way to fit it onto either of their "Apple
Venus" albums, for which it seems to have been recorded.
"Is It Her?", by Smashing Time. This
song sits somewhere on the straight line that connects The Zombies' "She's
Not There" with "Nice Day", by Persephone's Bees. Which, if you are
chasing pop perfection, is not a bad place to sit. Warning: contains a flute
player running rampant. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) This would appear not to have been released at all,
other than on the compilation whose cover adorns the YT clip.
"Mississippi Mud", by
Smithstonian. The song title, combined with the neat pun in the band's name,
tells you where you are going with this. Nowhere. Slowly. Deliciously. (Also
released under the name of Black Blood and the Chocolate Pickles, with added vocals and with the piano replaced
by a Rhodes. Now that's quality.)
"Mar de la Tranquilidad", by Azul
y Negro. I have died a thousand times listening to the ache on the guitar. Why oh why did the
eighties have to end? (Bonus: album cover of the month.)
"Hopeless", by Against All Logic.
It's always worth keeping an ear out for what Nicolas Jaar is releasing on his
Other People label. This is why. It has that same ever-so-slightly woozy loping
gait that Jaar's own work tends towards. Plus, the recurring motif that starts
off the record wouldn't sound out of place on a Four Tet record.
"Digital Arpeggios", by
Percussion. Did somebody mention Four Tet? This be he, under a sneaky
pseudonym. This track is rather gorgeous; it has the clean lines you expect from
the best Kraftwerk tunes. If it's a homage, it's a mighty impressive homage.
When the beat kicks in, at the five-minute mark, it momentarily feels like it's
in the way; but only momentarily.
"Back2TheStart", by KH.
"KH" being, as you have probably already guessed, Kieran Hebden. Does that man exist purely to make records?
"Ability To Gain Access (Pye Corner
Audio Remix)", by Not Waving. Martin Jenkins is not a recently deceased
cricket commentator. He is a musician who often goes by the name Pye Corner
Audio. He tends to work in his own darkened corners, although in more recent
times he has been brought out, blinking, into the sunlight under the tutelage
of the estimable Ghost Box label. Here, he remixes a song.
"Loud Places (John Talabot's Loud
Synths Reconstruction)", by Jamie xx. The first half of this remix /
"reconstruction" is all about those three piano chords, which the
other components exist merely to frame. Then, in the last two minutes, things
get dank, via some very tasty high- and low-end arpeggiation. Now might be an
opportunity for me to plug John Talabot's very excellent "fIN" album, from a
couple of years back. Well, 2012. Time flies.
"Here In Iowa", by Korallreven.
This month's Swedish pop goodness is brought to you by the (now defunct, it
seems) Korallreven. I suppose this would go in the box marked
"Balearic", but there is actually quite a lot of pan-globalism going
on here. (Some parts of it remind me of Junior Boys. Shout out to the
Canadians.) Possibly the best thing about this song, though, is that it is only
physically available via a single-sided flexi-disc. Kids these days. (Also:
nice video.) (STOP PRESS: listen to Peaking Lights take the original and turn it inside out.)
"Jump Out Of The Train (Road Chief
Remix by Mark McGuire)", by CFCF. CFCF has been in the periphery of my
vision for some years now. My Apple Music subscription has allowed me to rest
my gaze more directly upon his works. I'm not sure I'm convinced yet, but I
suspect there is something there I'm not getting. Mark McGuire, on the other hand, I
have been absorbing like a sponge in the desert. (Does that even work?) When he
puts on his "Road Chief" hat, that usually sends you in the direction
of a yacht rock / high eighties sound. Such is the case here. Is nice.
"Hot Music (Jazz Mix)", by Soho.
Imagine what a "jazz mix" of a song called "Hot Music" might
sound like. Yep. I dare you to sit still. What was I listening to in 1990 when
I should have been listening to this?
"Sundowner", by Zachary Cale.
This has something of the feeling of enervated drift that you get from the best
of Beach House (which I would classify as their first album, in case you were
going to ask), though it is coming from a very different place. Cale has
existed below the (or at least "my") radar for several years, but
this album was released on No Quarter, a detail which, these days, makes me sit
up and take notice.
"No Comprende", by Low.
It's curious how a song can come at you from different angles at different times. Six months ago I wrote about this very same song, at which point the opening bars were sending me off on a riff about inversions of the dub reggae template.
Today, what I am hearing when the song starts is something that sounds like a Spoon song. Okay, a slightly slower than usual Spoon song, but a Spoon song nonetheless. You can try it at home. Just pretend you don't know what you are about to hear. Then press play and wait. The starkness of the guitars and drums. The suggestion that something is about to happen. Of course, when that something does happen you know it's not Spoon. But that doesn't amount to disappointment. Far from it.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Low's "Ones and Sixes" is how a band that has been around, like, forever can conjure up something fresh and, yes, exciting, while at the same time sounding like nothing outside of themselves. But wait there just a second. You can say exactly the same thing about Spoon. What's that you say about the death of indie rock?
Sure, it's audience footage; sure, the sound quality is some distance beneath high fidelity. But hey, it's The Chills, playing "Doledrums", in 2016.
That has to be worth watching, doesn't it?
Martin tosses out a couple of very nimble guitar curlicues as only he can, of course. But check that whippersnapper on the drums. Isn't he keen! He has the air of someone living out a childhood dream. Maybe he is! (Actually, if that's Todd Knudson, he has been The Chills' drummer since at least 2004. But it's been a very long road back onto the world stage for The Chills. Take a bow, son. You've earned it.)
