2011: My year in review

Trying to put the last 12 months into context is easier said than done. Quite simply, I have never had a year like it. In fact, even the year I spent wrenching myself away from my microscopically-sized hometown, teenage year friends and a (first) long term girlfriend to make the leap to a big city was a doddle in comparison.

The year started bad. Su was fanning the flames of a fledgling freelance career, which, in terms of success, seemed to peak and trough with rollercoaster-like frequency. We were, in every sense, miserable. We lived off less in a week than I now make in a day, couldn’t afford to put the heating on in the peak of an Auld Reekie winter and had to excuse ourselves from socialising in any shape with the outer world for the first half of the year.

We’d kid ourselves things were good. At least Su wasn’t working with dead bodies, we’d say. But were things good? Were we really staring at an incline in fortune? I didn’t think so. Not deep down at least. Work for me was going nowhere. A promotion never looked on the cards, despite some of the effort I’d put in, and my stuttering journalism career seemed to nosedive into a pit of pointlessness, saying nothing and meaning even less. Half the time I didn’t even want to read it, so fuck knows why anyone else would.

Add my rapidly dissolving emotional state to Su’s already diminished resolve and you had a couple of people who were unable to see enough light to figure out which way the tunnel led, never mind where it actually ended. It was a nadir. But then things started to pick up. My recently married mother sold my family home, lending us enough money to pay for spirit-lifting flights to Florida to see Su’s family. And then my dear wife got three job interviews and got three jobs. Our luck was up. Change was afoot.

Of course, it was never going to be that easy. One of the jobs required moving to Colchester. That was, of course, the job Su wanted. So we thought long and hard. Could we do it? Do we really want to up, what were admittedly rickety, sticks and leave a city we both love? I wasn’t sure, but things needed to change. Bold decisions aren’t always my wont, but even an idiot could see we weren’t able to go on like this. So we went for it.

What proceeded were the most mental three months of my life. Separated from my wife, someone I’ve fought tooth and nail for to be with, I spent my time wrangling between a life in Edinburgh and a hopeful new start in the south of England. I’m not sure just how many flights I took in that period, but I’ll definitely not be getting invited to any eco-friendly social functions this year. Finding a job was tough, being apart from my wife was tough, trying to feign interest at work was tough. It was, I’ll admit, a fucker of a time.

Then, by a stroke of LinkedIn induced luck, I got a job. Suddenly I was moving: packing up my flat, saying tearful farewells to my friends and moving away from a city I’d lived, breathed and loved for 11 years. That was the hardest part. Colchester is no Edinburgh and coming from the cultural epicentre of Scotland to one of England’s many vacuous commuting voids rang my head through a ringer. What the hell are you supposed to do here? I still don’t know. But I do know why there are so many trains to London.

Right now, I’m still adjusting to life down here. Thankfully, my homesickness has gone. A trip to New York and a few beers with some rekindled friends has put things into perspective. I’ve also been spending a lot of time thinking about culture and environment. I used to think that when Scots moaned aboutnot getting any airtime down south, there was an element of justification in their parochially-borne whinging. But, really, there’s not. It’s just the thought process of people who don’t have the cajones to move on to the next step. And that step, no matter what people protest, is London. A place no-one come from, and almost all need to go to.

Down here it feels like you’re living in hyperspeed; the work, the people, the bastards on bikes that nearly scythe your feet clean off every morning, even the trains (well, only when they work). It’s cliché, but this place doesn’t have time to wait. If you want to be a part of it, you need to jump on. It won’t come to you. And it’s something I’m still learning. If you need something down here, ask for it. If you don’t, then tough titties. Proactivity is the only action these people understand.

And now the end of the year is here. Somehow, I’m almost 31 and it’s the first time I’ve felt like I’m actually shaping my own life. I’m still writing, but it’s not an overarching ambition anymore. I’ve got a career to think of. A wife to think of. The next step to think of. Those Lester Bangs ambitions have finally gone; there are others out there being better and hungrier than I am capable of being (the consistently amazing John Doran is a prime example). Instead, I’ve found my niche and my focus is to take it to all the places I want to go: London is just the starting point. That, in itself, is quite exciting. It’s not the height of my ambition, merely the beginning.

If I was my old journalism lecturer, I’d mark myself down for pretending this was a ‘review’ of the last year. There’s not really enough analysis here to masquerade as a critique. So, I apologise unreservedly for my shameless naval gazing. In some sense it was probably very useful for me to reflect on the changing shape of the previous 340+ days. And given how tumultuous 2011 has been, it would seem a little masochistic to say I hope the next year is just as berserk. But, right now, that’s exactly what I want. Bring on 2012.

Album Review: Fionn Regan - 100 Acres of Sycamore

For those not up to speed with the latest happenings in reality TV, a show called The Voice is set to expunge across UK plasma screens and tabloid newspapers very soon. As you’d expect for a mindless Saturday night extravaganza, the show’s format is standard fare: a panel of judges passes comment on auditioning singers who are subsequently appraised by the watching square-eyed masses, with the winner taking home a neat, but ultimately unrewarding, record contract.

So what?

Well, The Voice sells itself with an added twist. Instead of focusing on the entire ‘package’ on offer, the judges hone in on one attribute: the voice. Before seeing the goods, the panel – which in the States contains the rapidly decomposing Christina Aguilera – chooses those who make it into the business end of the competition based only on the strength of their vocal-chord busting prowess. Oh, the authenticity of it all.

As anodyne as it seems, the show does form an intriguing basis for debate. Who in today’s current musical climes would cut the muster in a blind audition? Would Beyonce manage to holler her way to public approval without the taut jiggle of her derriere? Could Justin Timberlake brace himself for an audition knowing his artillery of robotic-jiving and A-list collaborators was as redundant as his acting acumen? And what about Cheryl Cole? Could she succeed if… actually, let’s leave that one alone.

One man who’d surely have no problem progressing past the blindfolded preliminaries is Fionn Regan. In full flight, the Irish-born songsmith’s pipes coax a remarkable sound. Soaring and swooping with eagle-like effect, Regan’s spine-tickling intonation is the auto-focus of his work, rising beyond the arrangements that form the backbone of his work. If The Voice is looking for a surefire bet, Regan is all they need.

But this strength can work its way into a flaw. Too often Regan’s records are vocally imposing, yet musically lacking; too frequently his towering cries capture attention, only to be released by a lack of musical clout. Somewhere along the way he seems to miss the vital connection between his natural and creative abilities. Sadly, new record 100 Acres of Sycamore does little to redress the detachment.

Laid to tape in just seven days, 100 Acres… was recorded live in a quest to stay true to the integrity of Regan’s songwriting. And, to an extent, it’s an aim well struck; the confessional narratives and layers of instrument bleed a sincerity that bypassed last year’s folk-rock throbber The Shadow of an Empire. But while Regan produces an undoubted cosiness of sound, there’s a lack of bite to the record and a distinct hum of sterile predictability percolating through its spine.

On their own, these candle-burning canticles float with poignancy and poise. 'Lake District’s ivory key balladry is an opulent tearjerker, wailing out a symphony of string and gentile guitar plucks. More positivist in rhythm, 'For Nightingale' finds Regan tingling out scales like Rufus Wainright without the drama school histrionics, crowing “You’re a star” as though it’s the climax to some love-sloshing Disney animation.

When he gets it right, it’s an instrumentally rich affair; strings, piano and acoustic guitar are woven into a fine tapestry of contemplative melody. The quivering title track is testament to Regan’s ability to fine tune. His gorgeous, tear-soaked strain coils around the weeping violin and officious percussion, lilting and wilting its way through a soundscape so sparse and atmospheric it could rival Cave at his balladeering best.

Yet, as a whole, the record has one obvious flaw: it’s dreary. Too much of 100 Acres... passes over without need for recognition. The melancholic tint of 'North Star Love' is indeterminable from 'Dogwood Blossom’'s equally emotive plodding. Likewise, the bleak, mournful narrative and minor-key weep of 'Vodka Sorrow' swills along at the same painful pace as '1st Day of May', so much so it’s barely noticed that a distance of two tracks segregates the pair.

Ultimately, 100 Acres of Sycamore biggest failing is its own consistency. A banal collection of candle-lighting acoustic numbers, it’s little more than a mild-mannered soundtrack to a bourgeois dinner party in suburbia. He may well have the voice, but Fionn Regan needs something more powerful to convince the record buying judges he’s worth their vote.

Album Review: Memory Tapes - Player Piano

Dayve Hawk is not a man who seems particularly comfortable in the limelight. In fact, so attuned to the shadows does the brainchild behind Memory Tapes appear, you suspect one moment in the neon glare of fame would render below him a sweaty pool of anxiety as he gnaws and gnarls his way, rat-like, back into the sanctity of anonymity – a place where all good bedroom-bound producers prefer to reside in these prevailing times.

Given this predisposition to invisibility, the follow up to Hawk’s blog-wooing 2009 debut, Seek Magic, throws a surprising curveball: his voice. For all its homespun beauty, Player Piano’s most noteworthy trait is the omnipresence of Hawk’s airy tone. Sure, it was there on Seek Magic, but it was a backseat companion to the record’s glowing soundscapes. Here, its hands are firmly on the wheel, driving the album into fresh pastures and – surely to Hawk’s chagrin – wider spheres.

‘Wait In The Dark’ is an early flagbearer of his saunter to the vocal fore. A luminous shifter of pop melody, the wiggling synths and agile percussion bear heavy Postal Service hallmarks, albeit with Hawk’s crotch tightening mew replacing the emotive strains of Ben Gibbard. It’s an irresistible opening, doused in love-struck regret and indicating a new approach to song creation, where organics replace synthetics.

Despite its ever-expanding chill-wave contours, Seek Magic was at heart an industrious play on highbrow French house, built on robotic arrangements and primal dancefloor urges. Player Piano finds Hawk scrawling a new signature, crossed and dotted with thick, rich swathes of sound, rather then textures. What he’s created is a record pounding to the beating heart of pop; alive to the nuances of live - or at least live sounding - instruments (particularly keyboards), translucent melodies with a sweet spot and cheek dampening narratives.

Of course, to call it a pure pop excursion does Player Piano a disservice. Complexity rolls through the record’s contents like an antidote to puritanical song structures. ‘Sunhits’’ rollerblading rhythm may shimmer to surf guitar, but the deep choral undertones balance out the slinky, early Nineties swell. Likewise, the simplicity of ‘Offers’’ blissful, day-breaking melody is offset by the foibles of a tin-can synthesizer cross-stitching its way across the cut’s zesty exterior.

Lyrically, the focus often falls on the aftermath of a tumultuous relationship. Through the two-part run of ‘Fell On Ice’, Hawk is buried deep under emotional rubble, examining the remaining painful shards while insisting “I don’t want to remember”. This poignant moment finds Hawk’s brittle tones accentuated by the quiver of an abandoned guitar. Part II washes away such melancholy; a cloud-bursting ivory key shower suggests hope is on the horizon, although you suspect Hawk never quite believes it.

But it’s not all doom-harbouring and girlfriend grieving. ‘Today Is Our Life’ is a striding, steel drum lather of ebullience that grins widely like some Yeasayer-inspired special of Glee, bearing proclamations of “we will never be better off than we are”. Less sweetened, ‘Worries’ opens on a looping Hammond rhythm and pounding tribal beat. From there, it explodes as a hazy ray of optimism, the thick carp of instrument ladling out an impossibly infectious chorus.

Complex of subject matter and sound, Player Piano could have been weighed down by intricacy. Instead, Hawk has interwoven his artistic lusts with clean melodies, creating a nailed-on summer soundtrack that treads the precipice between romantic laments and illuminating, cocktail-shaking jaunts. For someone who’s naturally inclined to back his way into the shadows, this is the sound of a man taking a significant step forward. The limelight awaits.

Album Review: Psychedelic Horseshit - Laced

Let’s face it, if Matt Whitehurst had a plan, playing the game would never be part of it. Having spent the last six years heaving up a bile of grubby-pawed guitars and rat-gnarled melodies under the censor inflaming Psychedelic Horseshit banner, the Ohio dwelling enigma carries more hostility than an Al-Qaeida recruitment rally in a New York City fire department. At times, he’s probably just as popular.

Admittedly, in this age of anodyne soundbites and aeon-pondered quotations, Whitehurst’s razor-fanged attacks on even his most tenuously linked contemporaries offers a welcome swoosh of hilarity (never has there been a more expert attempt at trying to fabricate friction as this bile-filled, brawl of an interview). Yet, when it comes to getting a position in the musical races, such an openly malicious stance tends to find the main stables bolting their doors and reinforcing the locks.

So, when Fatcat came calling with a full album deal it must have taken Whitehurst by surprise. After all, this rickety, unreliable semblance of a band he’s clawed together isn’t one to wager a 7-inch single on, never mind a full formed record fit for prolonged listening. But the Brighton-based label excels at transforming risk into results. And Psychedelic Horseshit’s second proper longplayer Laced proves Whitehurst's not lost his touch.

Crafted in the scuzzy, mothball-addled realms of basements, bathrooms and living rooms, Laced is produced like an audiophile’s Airfix kit; a multi-facet of sounds prit-sticked together on reel to reel tape. Despite the admirable lack of studio wizardry, there’s little sign of the obliterating garage-drone Whitehurst’s troupe (now a duo comprising Whitehurst and drummer Ryan Jewell) have been pushing since those first Horseshit CD-Rs were released in 2006. Instead, this is an electronically-tinged record imbued with certainty and precision, bearing the unmistakable glare of a band finally playing to its strengths.

Decked out in deep tribal rhythms and woozy synthesized melodies, the chaotic Horseshit aesthetic remains intact. In a thrilling three minute wave, the primitive beats of introductory number 'Puff' gives way to 'Time of Day’'s thick coating of carouselling synths and mechanised percussion, while Whitehurst barks out a nasal stream of consciousness. As an opening gambit, it’s light years away from the flimsy wares of 'Too Many Hits' or Shitgaze. These are onion-layered arrangements, dense in sound and underpinned by an ever-present pursuit of ear-gluing melodies.

This penchant for adventurism often finds Whithurst exploring a sprawl of effects-board inspired avenues. The intense calypso-varnish of 'French Countryside' is impossibly hip-jaunting, while 'Tropical Vision’s lobotomised feedback pulses to an intense, ritualistic beat that could have been born in the belly of an African jungle. More exacting, the opium keyboards that slowburn across 'Dead On Arrival’s deep nocturnal lament recall the comatose state of an Andy Weatherall-inspired Primal Scream – particularly with Times New Viking’s Beth Murray making an appearance on cat mewing harmonies.

Of course, Whitehurst’s over eagerness with a synth doesn’t always pay off. Airy numbers like ‘Automatic Writing’ and the lifeless title track jar with a feeling of incompleteness, like products of a half-cooked idea still bubbling to fruition. Yet, such gripes are pithy when confronted with the magnificent seven minutes opus ‘I Hate The Beach’. Gearing up to the sound of bending keys and cowbell clatter, Whitehurst drawls out “I hate the beach, but I like the nice weather” as the cut morphs into a cocophony of scratching guitar and virulent drum. From here, it transcends as the sort of riotous, primary coloured acid trip Gruff Rhys would be proud of.

Unquestionably, the track is Whitehurst’s finest moment to date; a euphoric high on a record that doesn’t just build on the band’s potential but kills its ‘shitgaze’ credentials stone dead. Ladling Psychedelic Horseshit in amongst the lo-fi blurting of Wavves and Vivian Girls rejects the grandiose ambitions sought and often scaled throughout Laced. Closing out on the positively charged, almost ebullient, bongo-blast of ‘Making Out’, this coarsely cut sophomore LP represents a pivotal shunt in direction and, perhaps more importantly, psyche for Whitehurst. For once, he can consider the game well and truly played.

Left With Pictures - In Time

It’s easy to see why most bands approach their second longplayer with a note of trepidation. Having a lifetime to write album number one then a matter of months to produce the subsequent musical goods is a galling proposition. Add to it the very real prospect of an attention-bereft fanbase having already moved on to the latest fad and that sophomore offering begins to look like a monumental challenge. No wonder so many artists combust at the second hurdle.

Perhaps anticipating this career-erasing proposition, Left With Pictures have approached the follow up to 2009’s Beyond Our Means with an unusual twist. In Time may bear hallmarks of an archetypal album – 12 tracks, 45 minutes long, available in a range of formats – but its contents were composed in a much more unique manner. Over the course of 2010, the London quintet set about writing, recording and producing one full song (with accompanying video) a month and releasing it via Gideon Coe’s radio show on 6Music. In Time is the fruit of that labour.

Now, as many a marketing department will attest, the piecemeal approach to presenting a product will (in the very best marketing speak) maximise customer desire, leaving the manipulated masses slavering for more. But that only works if the product’s actually desirable. Give your audience something it doesn’t want and you’ll fail. No amount of floral window dressing or quick-quipping slogans can change that – a lesson Left With Pictures would have done well to heed.

Admittedly, In Time’s creation certainly piques interest, but its contents are far from rousing. The arable-pop ensemble seem to have addressed the criticisms of Beyond Our Means – a solid chamber-pop showing that lacked any real chomp – by honing in on the presentation rather than the execution. Instead of producing a thrilling follow up of glossy indie jaunts, they’ve crafted an inoffensive offering that drifts along as a translucent daydream, blissful in its own sense of nothingness.

‘Constantly’ serves up the first taste of the record’s banality. The tender, creeping piano strikes give way to a rising wash of plucked banjo and mourning strings while Stuart Barter unleashes a haunting, misanthropic warble. It’s a choral affair, and one that’s rich with instrumental textures, but there’s no underlying spark, no neck-bruising grab of the collar that demands attention. Instead, the cut’s gauche, celestial blowing is helium balloon-like in sound: momentarily cute, but all too easy to let go and forget about.

The driftwood accumulates the deeper you wade. 'October Waits’s a capella waltz reclines as the bellowing of a barbershop quartet lost deep in Robin Hood-era Sherwood Forest. ‘Go, Simon, Go!’ is equally reliant on retrograde swooning; working the initial cool jazz beat into an airy Ooberman-like haze that finds Barter purring “don’t give up you’re almost there, there’s one more night away from home, and then your mother comforts you”. Such honey-smothered odes to love may work for wet-eared school boys. They don’t here.

Given the iterative blueprint, In Time’s disparate, schizophrenic nature should be its main stumbling block. But this lack of melodic flow almost proves its redeemer. Beside 'Ropes’'s stomach-acid gargle of cute synths and strings sits the buoyant pop spectacle of ‘June’, an infectious, tumbling rollick that – aided by Toby Knowles’ acrobatic tenor – has the curious edge of Wild Beasts doused in sunshine and high on valium. Likewise, the delicate, candle-burning canticle of ‘River Avon’ bears absolutely no resemblance to ‘The Ideas of March’s giddy, medieval swell, yet it's all the more remarkable for it.

Despite these momentary stays of execution, In Time mostly courses with an insipidity that scythes down its ambitions as both a listenable piece of work and a musical project. Sure, once in a while, fleeting slithers of song may lodge their way into the ear canals, but these are rare occurrences on a record lacking sharpness or direction. As a concept and a marketing trick, one tune a month may prove an attractive hook on which to hang a range of unpolished ideas. As an album, In Time proves the result is much less appealing.

Live Review: Maps & Atlases, Gallops, Lady North

Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh
30 January

Buried in the bowels of Edinburgh’s Old Town, Sneaky Pete’s is the sort of place that’s easily passed by. Wedged between the Grassmarket’s aggressive watering holes and the gruesome, tangerine-tinted meat market that is the Cowgate, this granite-wrapped venue keeps a low profile amongst such inhospitable company. But with the city’s music halls dropping quicker than the flies of a sailor in Leith docks, perhaps a little reserve is for the best. After all, Lord knows where the reaper’s scythe will land next.

Despite its menacing surroundings, Sneaky’s rafters are rammed tonight. A disparate bunch of hipsters, chin-strokers, hippies, students and cherub-cheeked teens line the floor of this sardine-packed sweatpit. The reason, most likely, is to pitch a spot for the headline draw in a venue with as much breathing space as a vacuum-packed Renault Clio, but it’s reasonable enough to suggest the allure of an intriguing undercard is equally irresistible.

With nerve-ends clearly jangling, local noise-mongers Lady North are first to the fore. The trio’s tectonic throbs of guitar, drum and bass have been making in-roads into the Scottish music scene over the last six months, providing a contrasting blast (and I do mean blast) of refreshing air to alt-folk’s gentile snoozing. And, despite a few jittery opening moments, their five song assault merely feeds their reputation as intriguing and unpredictable purveyors of pulsing math rock.

Led by Scott Bullen’s android guitar, each sonically-perplexing number is serrated by percussion so shuddering it could rectify any clogging bowel obstructions. But Lady North are no avant-garde thrash merchants; tonight they show a tuition that captures wider strains of funk, reggae and prog, and an eagerness that tears apart at convention with gnarling effects pedals and toxic, gyrating basslines. In short, it’s an exhilarating opening set and one that’s met with a barrage of clapped palms from Sneaky’s expanding masses.

Given what’s gone before them, much lauded Welsh instrumentalists Gallops are already on the back foot as they amble on stage. Their intricate electro-fare may be riddled with rich percussive layers and angular guitars, but there’s little pull in this inconsistent and, at times, anodyne showing. At their glitchiest, the quartet drive through intriguing limb-flinging ideas with a barrage of incessant anti-disco grinds. But, too often, it degenerates into furious slabs of guitar that writhe out like early Nineties bandana-rock over a bed of tumbling drums and bleeps.

Struggling with this kind of musical bi-polarity is not something that’ll ever trouble tonight’s headliners Maps & Atlases. Over the past five years the Chicago four-piece have escaped math rock’s claws and advanced as a band lacking any obvious hole for a pigeon to reside. Intelligent pop may be as close as it gets to nailing their luscious, yet perplexing, arrangements, but, given the band’s evolutionary nature, it’s probably wiser to accept that theirs is a sound without need for inscription.

From the opening flutter of ‘Pigeon’s Graceland-aping veneer, it’s clear Maps & Atlases are having no trouble getting to grips with the hefty mosaics of debut LP Perch Patchwork. Every note tonight is seamless, every gruesome time signature executed with militant precision. For a band so readily portrayed as laid-back dudes, the urgency and accomplishment that burns through the rhythmically bewildering ‘Artichokes’ and ‘Living Decoration’s cascading guitar is astonishing.

What’s more surprising is just how far they’ve extended their reach. Not so long ago, this was a band that floated on the periphery, seemingly too obsessed with Don Caballero and guitar tapping for the dainty lug holes of many a listener. But tonight they’re pushing out flummoxing numbers like ‘Every Place Is A House’ and ‘Witch’ as if they’re modern pop chalices. Not that this is Britney-like in nature, of course - Dave Davison’s nasal tones are too impregnable for such ignominy – but the sugarcane melodies of ‘Solid Ground’ and ‘If This Is’ are so thick and lugubrious they’d easily sweep the feet off a wider, less knowledgeable audience.

In what’s a near immaculate set, ‘The Charm’s heavenly crescendo is tonight’s defining moment (even more so than the band’s foray into the crowd for an end of night sing-a-long) – it’s ear-consuming splash of tribal rhythm mixed up with Davison’s penetrating shrill hypnotises both crowd and band alike. In every sense, this is the kind of majestic, all-encompassing performance befitting a band at its peak; one that knows there’s little out there to touch it right now. And sure, no-one likes a show-off, but with tricks this good it’s almost impossible to complain.

Photos by Su Anderson