Out and about in England: Dedham

The purpose of my escape from the City was to spend more time with Su and finally feel like I'm living a life down south. Already, I'm starting to see the difference. I've lost - or at least am losing - the commuter bulge; I'm getting out and about on my trusty bike more; and Su and I are having much more fun than I can remember in a long time.

All in all, life is pretty good. The summer down here is significantly hotter than Scotland, so I'm even developing a curious brown - rather than red - complexion as we explore the outer echelons of England. Much of our recent adventures are stemming from a terrrific book called Room at the Inn, which pinpoints the best countryside inns and accompanying walks across England and Wales. So far it's been a revelation.

The English do pubs like no-one else. The local ales are generally exquisite and there's a refreshin, if unspoken, insistence that taverns must maintain an olde English elegance in  both ambiance and decor.  And when the sun's out, there's always - and I mean always - space in the vast beer gardens buried beyond each ale-house's lounge bar.

Last week, we visited Dedham in north-east Essex to take on a three-mile country trail that followed the River Stour. It was a breathtaking and sanguine couple of hours. The English countryside may lack trajectory, but its pancake flat walks are brushed with a rich, earthy palette of greens, yellows and browns that make for some luscious summer eye-candy.

Knackered from our two-hour walk through England's countryside, we ambled our way to the Sun Inn. Centered in the heart of  the picturesque Dedham, this is an inn that packs traditional English pub sensabilities with an intriguing mediterranean menu. Veering between Su's mammoth vegetarian pasta dish and my meaty bread board, our flavoursome, well-presented dishes were washed down with a pair of jet-black organic ales (and equally dark and black Diet Pepsi on Su's side).

Feet-flexed and bellies-filled, we made our way back to Colchester with a rejuvenated sense of the countryside. Roll on our next England adventure.

In an Insta: Polishing photographic turds

Lugging a huge DSLR camera around isn’t always that practical. For a start, spending hours with a huge lens and body hanging from my shoulder is probably not great for my already imperfect posture; while the cost implications of having it nicked on a night out could potentially rise in to the £1,000s.

So, lately, I’ve been using my Samsung Galaxy SII smartphone and the Instagram app as a lightweight and extremely convenient means of taking on-the-spot snapshots of my daily movements. I’m still dubious about Instagram/cameraphonegraphy and its value for photography in the wider sphere (a point my wife addresses here), but at a micro level it’s a fun bit of kit that gives me the option to manipulate god-awful photography into some resembling vintage eye-candy. 

The appeal of Instagram lies in its Hasselblad-like framing and the variety of preset tonal adjustments it offers. Admittedly, it feels a bit like a cheat. Take a fuzzy picture of your family barbeque and it can suddenly look like a not- too-shabby moment when manipulated through the X-Pro setting. Essentially, Instgram is polishing photographic turds for you and I to share with the world.

I can see why this doesn’t sit right with everyone. There’s something about it that feels slightly disingenuous and, as my wife makes her living from pictures, it worries me that it’s leading a gradual depreciation of photography as a storytelling device. But if you take it as what it’s meant to be – a bit of fun – Instagram is another social medium that gets people engaged in photography. That’s probably not too much of a bad thing, is it?

My Instagram endeavours so far…

Album review: Miaoux Miaoux - Light of the North

If you’re one of those sorts who like to organise their record collections by genre, you'd best look away now. Light of the North, Julian Corrie’s debut long-player under the Miaoux Miaoux guise, is the kind of album that’s likely to cause genre-junkies plenty of sleepless nights. It’s not that these ten cuts by the Glasgow-based circuit-bender are unidentifiable – far from it – but trying to make sense of where this record sits as one solid mass is no easy task. In fact, it feels almost impossible.

Effortlessly weaving between infectious pop hooks, conscious hip-hop, ebullient African rhythms, arable folk and star-striding electronica (to pick out just a few), Light of the North is an incongruous, ever-twisting musical kaleidoscopic. Anyone familiar with Corrie’s movements north of the border will recognise this inability to sit still. He has, it’s fair to say, form for steering down multiple directions; connecting dots between myriad Scottish scenes and absorbing all that surrounds him before reshaping it to his own advantage.

In most hands, this magpie approach would normally be unlistenable. Yet, a skilled and much lauded remixer, Corrie’s paws are more adept than most; a trait that’s exemplified in his expert massaging of ‘Sweep Clean’s juddering inidietronica and the scattergun glitches of ‘Cloud Computer’s. While this may be his inaugural offering, it’s executed with the trained ear of a musician who understands what he wants and, more importantly, what his listeners want: to dance.

And dance is exactly what this record does. But, given its maker, Light of The North is no pedestrian disco-biscuit-gnawing affair. To really embrace it, to really move to its zig-zagging, labyrinth of rhythms requires a certain kind of patience. Try cherry-picking from its summery branches and the idea of the ebullient ‘Is It a Dream’ living alongside the escalating dance-folk thrum of ‘Stop The Clocks' makes little sense. It has even less effect.

Yet played out in sequence, played out as Corrie meant it to be, and what unravels is a record that can bust a stone-cold, limb-shifting killer like ‘Hey Sound’ before seguing effortlessly into ‘Better For Now’s major-key electro-balladry. It’s no mean feat. And while the closing, slightly tedious, run of ‘Singing In The Dark’ and ‘Ribbon Run’ suggests Corrie’s veneer requires a little polish, ‘Virtua Fighter’s lugubrious beats – accompanied by the debonair rhymes of Profisee – underlines his ability to combine eclecticism and melody without aping a sub-par Hot Chip.

So where should you place Light of the North in your record collection? Even Julian Corrie can’t answer that. But, succumb to the contents of his fine yet indefinable debut, and you’ll soon realise that’s exactly how he planned it.

Album review: The Walkmen - Heaven

Despite their success The Walkmen couldn’t claim to be the most adventurous of bands. Ten years on from releasing their debut LP, the New York-based quintet continue to pursue the sort of jangling indie waltzes that regularly bedeck the background of technicolor teenage soap operas. Yet, admirably, the band execute their rigid stock with a refinement that stretches beyond their contemporaries' reach, as proven on 2010’s career high Lisbon.

Led by the soaring croon of frontman Hamilton Leithauser, album number seven Heaven maintains their march to the mainstream. A highly-polished affair, much of the record strikes a balance between Heartbreaker and Nightingale’s peppy blasts and the more sombre plucking of Line by Line and No One Ever Sleeps. It’s not exactly divine listening, but the title track’s charging, off-piste pulse underlines just how impressive this pony’s one trick can be. Who needs adventure when you have The Walkmen?

Album review: Olympic Swimmers - No Flags Will Fly

2012’s probably not the smartest year for Olympic Swimmers to release their debut longplayer. Not only does a quick online scan for the Glasgow quintet return details of record breaking pool-paddlers like Michael Phelps or Rebecca Adlington, but it also reminds us just how pitiful we Scots are when it comes to delivering chlorine-covered silverware. Fortunately, what No Flags Will Fly does do is underline the song-writing prowess on offer north of the border.

An album awash with pastoral slowburners, the quietened acoustics of Apples and Pears and Rung Down The Curtain recall the melancholic spirit of My Latest Novel and ex-Delgado songstress Emma Pollock. Even when the band unleash, as they do on the cacophonous In the House, frontgirl Susie Liddell’s luscious intone steers them down a more measured and melodic avenue. It’s not quite gold medal stuff, but there’s enough potential here to suggest a podium finish.

Album review: Maximo Park - The National Health

Is Britain still broken, Mr Cameron? Of course it is.

Despite their ahem best efforts, the mantra coined by Dave and his troupe of Etonian chums still rings true today. In fact, with rising unemployment, a crumbling public sector and general apathy towards, well, anything not hosted by Simon Cowell, it’s fair to say 2012’s Britain is not just broken, but utterly fucked. The big society is one big, whopping catastrophe.

It’s at times like these where you need music to articulate the political, social and economic condition of a nation; a sound to fan the embers of disillusioned youth into a raging, ambition-fuelled fire. But what have we got? Dizzee Rascal, Jessie J and Ed Sheerin. Not exactly bastions of anti-establishment fervour. Then again, who is these days?

Well, with a new album entitled The National Health, perhaps perennial indie middleweights Maximo Park are throwing their hat into the protest-songwriting ring. They are, after all, prime candidates: their ardent Geordies roots and bouncing guitar anthems have been flailing the sweat-smothered limbs of UK youths since the rambunctious melodies of A Certain Trigger mainlined into the public domain in 2005.

Yet frontman Paul Smith’s rousing claims that The National Health is 'about taking back control' prove slightly misleading. The title track’s full-paced guitar thrashing and gargantuan chorus line suggesting “things will change tomorrow” is one of only two openly questioning cuts on a record that prefers to veer into the band’s traditional terrain of sordid sex talk and misanthropic romanticism.

This shouldn’t be a deterrent, however. While The National Health may be lacking in political balls, it represents a return to some semblance of form for a band that was coasting to oblivion after 2009’s Quicken the Heart. The grubby brawl of ‘Hips and Lips,’ in particular, feels monumental; jetting out on austere Tubeway Army-style synthesizers before exploding into a cacophony of driving guitars and drum. It's a remarkably bare-cheeked blowout, made all the more curious by Smith's Jamie Stewart-like wrangling over the complexity of pouting partners.

Much of the album finds Smith turning to the pantheon of British indie-pop for inspiration, a move that serves up some decidedly mixed results. His rose-tinted spiel of going to the “verge of England’s ocean” during ‘Until the Earth Would Open’ is as weary and spiritless as the jangling melody that surrounds it. Yet, his blatant Morrissey-borrowing on ‘Reluctant Lover’s mid-tempo swoon holds much promise; peppering sly linguistic nuances into his sorrowful miaow helps massage out a substantial, tear-stained lament.

This contrast in style characterises the record’s, and possibly Maximo Park’s, biggest failing - one step forward is often followed by another step back. So, while ‘Write This Down’s juddering riff and the wild motorik of ‘Banlieue’ – a bestial album high – imply the band have finally nailed their colours to a more courageous mast, their integrity is let down by the paceless balladeering found on ‘The Undercurrents’ and ’What Becomes of the Broken Hearted’, both of which unveil a worrying penchant for Snow Patrol-like ennui.

Still, within these 14 cuts exists clear traces of a band that could still serve up something special. But, for now, rather than jet-streaming Maximo Park back into the limelight, The National Health gives the likeable quintet a firm footing from which to stop their seemingly inevitable decline. Given the current state of Cameron’s Britain, that’s probably not such a bad result.

Album review: Cornershop - Urban Turban

Twenty-one years. That’s how long Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres have been plying their funked-up trade under the Cornershop banner for. And in that time the duo have never once felt the need to fit into the vicissitudes of grunge, brit-pop, trip-hop, grime, nu-rave, chillwave and any other poorly-coined micro-genre that signified the sound of the moment. How many 21-year olds can say that?

It’s an admirable gameplan. Many pious acts has wilted in the face of a dime and a chart topper, but for the most part Cornershop have managed to pitch it their own way. Yet, a discernible lack of airplay and column inches since that hit (which was really someone else’s handy work) means few outside beard-stroking cliques have had the chance to wiggle their rumpus to the mighty 'Lessons Learned from Rocky I to Rocky III' or bust out a fictitious slap bass to 'Good Shit’s endemic indie-an (Indie + Indian?) pop.

But it matter little to messers Singh and Ayres. They’ve kept quietly shipping gold-plated (if not gold-selling) records like the phenomenal Handcream For a Generation; like the extraordinary Cornershop and the Double ‘O’ Groove of; and like the still-growing Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast. Each one is a hot-trot of experimental funk-folk-hip-hop fusion that pushes whatever boundaries these two foremen want to push, whenever they want to push them (there was a seven year gap between albums five and six). As the football chant of the moment goes: They’re Cornershop, they do what they want. And they do.

The pairing’s latest slab of plastic, Urban Turban, won’t come as much surprise to hardened ‘shop afiianados. Of the record’s 12 cuts, half have been released as part of the band’s The Singhles Club, a rag-tag collection of outtakes and collaborations issued sparingly across the last couple of years. It’s hardly a congruous listen, then, but it’s consistent with the quirky, off-kilter pretentions that signify any rewarding Cornershop jaunt on your stereo.

Delicious opener ‘What Did the Hippie Have in His Bag?’ is the most Cornershop of Cornershop cuts. Built around a big, bendable bassline and simplistic beat, the track’s sunshine melody is tied together by the unison of Singh’s smooth tones and the chirpy harmonies of a school choir. Sadly this good-time chirrup is the last time we hear Singh take the lead until the same number is reprised down the end of the line, a move which is partially to the record’s detriment.

An overdependence on guest-crooners has the disadvantage of interfering with the record’s flow, particularly as Urban Turnban is as stylistically capricious as you’d expect from a Cornershop affair. ‘Solid Gold’s segue into ‘Beacon Radio’ is particularly awkward; the shunt from euphoric Nineties House to avant-garde break-beat experimentalism is as seamless as shifting from neutral to fifth.

Yet, amidst these transgressions exists joyously-coined numbers that showcase Cornershop at their most inventive. ‘Who’s Gonna Lite It Up’s fuzzy guitar and boggy percussion snarl into an acid-dropping throb; ‘Concrete Concrete’s Hammond-keyed stomp is as raw and infectious as a Sixties soul shakedown; while the ice-cold ‘Dedicate’ turns out an intricate electronic rhythm that belongs on the sun-sodden shores of a small Spanish island.

It’s safe to say Singh and Ayres have lost none of their ability to surprise. And nowhere more so than in the Velvet’s-esque glare of the divine ‘Something Makes You Feel Like’. Sauntering to the hiss and fizz of a languid guitar line, vocalist SoKo wheezes: “Forget your pills for your tummy, for you head, you can’t sleep, you're depressed, you feel weak. Do you bleed? No. So stop your whining…”. Lyrically, it’s as apathetic as Cornershop have ever been, but musically it's the most evocative four minutes of their career.

After 21 years, it’s hard to believe Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres are still capable of producing moments as vivid and relevant as these. But, like an awkward young adult who refuses to join in with the hip crowds, Cornershop have proven they are no ordinary British band. Age, it appears, is treating them well.

Album review: Lower Dens - Nootropics

On the face of it, Lower Dens are as cold as they come. The glacial aesthetic that underpinned the Baltimore quartet’s debut offering Twin-Hand Movement often seemed as dense and impenetrable as a polar ice-cap. But hidden below this frozen facade was a warm heart, teased out by Jana Hunter’s mesmerising purrs and gorgeous fluttering of guitars.

Album number two Nootropics continues to strike a balance between mystical detachment and shy romanticism, connecting band and listener through an opium-daze of languid melodies. Admittedly, it occasionally misses the mark, with numbers like 'Lamb' gently floating off into the ether as a background of understated and underwhelming psychedelia. But when it's on-point, this is an album of undiluted bliss that fingers its way inside your conscience through deftly crafted soundscapes.

‘Brains’s labyrinth-like rhythm is the immediate show stealer. Breezing along to tap-dancing percussion, it expands into a gorgeous swell of synthesizers that recalls the frantic folky-murmurs of Here We Go Magic, before delving seamlessly into the coruscating afterglow of ‘Stem’. Less immediate but no less engaging, the gloomy 'Candy' leans on taut guitar lines and Hunter’s breathy intonation of “I never could cut you down” to create an inverted and gorgeous sweep.

Frustratingly, Nootropics is let down by Lower Dens' penchant for pissing about. The scene-setting scar of twitching feedback evident on ‘Lion in Winter Pt.1’ does little to prepare you for the metronomic beat and electronic judders of 'Pt.2'. Likewise, the 12-minute-slog of ethereal undertones and breathless sighing found on tedious closer ‘The End is the Beginning’ is bereft of precision, preferring to loll along aimlessly, as if teasing listeners to reach for the off-switch prematurely.

But for all its challenges, for all its moments of indecision, this is an album busting with an array of sweet spots to hone in on. Coiled around swooning harmonies and a deep, bulbous bassline, the delicious ‘Propagation’ is the sort of melting, heart-string pulling swell Grizzly Bear would be proud of; while the stuttered percussion and cathedral-atmospherics of 'Nova Anthem' are synchronised into a gorgeous sweep by Hunter’s seductive tones.

Ultimately, Nootropics takes time to ingest and understand. It’s undoubtedly complex, awkward and occasionally without direction, but it also produces moments of astonishing splendour, each with the capacity to bring neck hairs bristling to attention. They may continue to exude a cool air of pretention, but musically Lower Dens are starting to warm up.

Album review: Graham Coxon - A+E

The Brits 2012. Globally-adored, multi-million-unit-shifting pop songstress Adele has just had her Best British Artist acceptance speech cut short by multi-million-shit-joke-shifting celebrity brown-noser James Corden. Adele flicks Corden two of her finest digits and saunters off to the cradling arms of her record label chums and a champagne-soaked table. In another world, the Twittersphere is already going ape-shit - or as close to it as you can with 140 characters.

What could be more important to the British music industry than the biggest selling female artist on the planet in 2012? And not just any ‘biggest selling female artist on the planet’. One of us. A local girl who’s vocal chords are so pure, so wholesome they don’t need to be digitised to the point of resembling a phlegm-hacking chest infection to sell records. She’s Grammy award winning, for Christ’s sake.

The reason? A blast from the past. A band that will never die, no matter how obsolete songs about park living, country retreats and woo-hooing are today. Blur - fucking Blur - are making a comeback. For the thirteenth time (probably). We’re told by Corden and his media lackies that we must treasure this moment; this epoch-defining opportunity to relive Britpop. A lawyer, cheese-monger, a gorilla and a be-spectacled man-boy stand foppishly on the stage like the last 20 years haven’t happened.

It sounds agonisingly shit.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Blur is no longer each member’s main squeeze. It’s a band that’s wheeled out for special occasions, like your dad and his pals thrashing on their Fenders to 30 reception guests for Aunt Val’s third marriage; a school reunion of middle-aged men kicking out the jams of their glory day in the garage of a detached suburban bungalow. With one exception: their next session is the Olympic Games. Not bad for a garage.

Yet, if you listen to any of Graham Coxon’s press interviews, this backward-looking bullshit doesn’t sound like his bag. The others, perhaps. But Coxon? A limelight-avoiding indie kid who never really grew up; a stripy t-shirt wearing, borderline-depressive; a creator of 2009’s poignant, introverted acoustic slowburner The Spinning Top. It doesn’t add up. Why would he relive a period that left him crippled and dazed? Why go back when he’s doing an admirable job of going forward?

Maybe Blur is just a hellish vice to give up? A band-based equivalent of a decaying crack pipe. Going by Coxon’s eighth solo album, A+E, it certainly seems that way. Instead of proving he’s happy to lay former glories to rest, Coxon uses these ten tracks to send out a message that he’s far from done with Blur. In fact, a number of these thrashing, trashing pop stutterings sound so eerily familiar it’s as if he’s created a concentrated PR campaign to prove that Blur is in fact he. The good guy. Not those egotistical, press-slavering parasites (and Rowntree) who have sullied its name.

This is not always a bad thing. Especially if you have a penchant for the bouncing indie-pop tuned to the lo-fi frequencies Coxon and co flushed out in their latter years. Opener ‘Advice’ clangs to a barbed-wire guitar that fuzzes and scratches into an explosion of drum while Coxon screeches ”someone gonna give you advice until the morning”. Its successor, ‘Bah Singer’ is equally tumultuous; stacked with aggravated, staccato guitar that hurtles across a backdrop of mayhem percussion and wailing sirens.

Short stabby pop songs are evidently a piece of Coxon’s past. Despite being just ten tracks long, A+E doesn’t short change the listener. Every cut passes the four minute mark and some roll further on, seemingly without end. Often, it’s a successful ploy that showcases Coxon’s ear for intricacy: the gnarling, introverted ‘Knife in the Cast’ screwdrives the ear-canals with painstaking precision, while languid cowboy lullaby 'Ooh Yeh Yeh’ shows Coxon at his most mellow. Yet, the unlovable ballast of ‘Running For Your Life’ should have been cut short at birth, never mind five minutes down a track of shambolic, unlistenable punk-pop.

Most intriguingly, an unmistakeable dance-driven undertone drives A+E’s finer moments. Built on a kaleidoscopic loop of bleeping effects, 'What’ll It Take' examines the more cordial side of krautrock while Coxon wails "What’ll it take to make you people dance?” over and over before dissolving into the background like some sort of mangled smoke alarm. The outstanding ‘City Hall’ is a motorik punk banger, and ‘Seven Naked Valleys’ throbbing riffs and gyrating sax bring out a loin-rubbing side to Coxon’s usually tamed mannerisms. It’s enthralling stuff.

Despite the quality of the execution, it’s difficult to shake the sense that A+E has been done before. And although the steer towards more dance-friendly aesthetics reaps significant pay-off, this isn’t an album with the clout to feature high on many playlists come the summer months. Which is a shame, because some of Coxon’s finest solo moments are to be found in the belly of this rewarding, if stunted, record. But today, in 2012, A+E and Graham Coxon will always fall under the shadow of something much, much bigger. Something that will never end. And, like that night at the Brits, it’s not Adele.

Album review: Maps & Atlases - Beware and Be Grateful

In just two albums Chicago’s Maps & Atlases have experienced the kind of transformation few bands ever encounter. From the epileptic math rock squalls of their early recordings, the quartet pushed their frenetic guitar noodles out as more rounded arrangements on debut Perch Patchwork. Album number two, Beware & Be Grateful, finds the band edging closer towards more mainstream climes; building on their pop-sensibilities to create a consistently fascinating longplayer.

Much of the band’s presence lies with frontman Dave Davison, whose emotional purrs push the knotted melodies of Fever and Old Ash into gorgeous, shivering swells. Despite the trend towards more accessible blasts like Vampires, a sense of intricacy presents itself in the likes of Silver Sail and Bugs, which rattle to a labyrinth of time signatures and ebullient guitar noodles. With Beware & Be Grateful, M&A have created their most rewarding effort to date. Their transformation is almostcomplete.

Album review: Dead Mellotron - Glitter

Given the celebrated output of Deerhunter/Atlas Sound foreman Bradford Cox, it’s surprising just how few imitators he has. There’s good reason for this: few have the wont to subject audiences to an hour-long interpretation of My Sharona, nevermind the dedication to reel out a slew of high-quality longplayers without pause for breath. While it’s likely Baltimore outfit Dead Mellotron possess neither of these attributes, there’s more than a trace of Cox’s shoegazing shtick to their enveloping swoons.

On third record, Glitter, the trio’s dedication to tripped-out psychedelia bleeds through this spacious seven track effort. But despite any perceived familiarity, there’s little predictability on show. The shimmery trance of Can’t See combusts into an exhausting guitar collision; Making Up is a coruscating melodic sweep; while the opium-den chimes of Babe melt insouciantly into the airwaves. At times magical, Glitter is Dead Mellotron’s first clear step to discovering themselves, rather than others.

A neglected blog...

Phew, it's been a while.

In my defence it has been a pretty dramatic couple of months. I've finally taken the step to cut out the commute and as from 11 June I will be working much closer to home. It's been a tough decision - I feel a bit disappointed I'm not going to get to see the Olympics in full swing - but ultimately the opportunity to travel for 40 minutes a day, instead of almost three hours, is far, far too tempting. Plus the money's good.

So what will I do with all that time? Well, that's what I keep asking myself. I guess I'll need to get my teeth stuck into something juicy, or at least palatable. So far I'm mulling over kayaking, yoga, photography and karate. I'm also seriously considering getting dog. Although I sense that may be a step too far.

Hopefully it means I'll have the opportunity to do some more rambling around Colchester's rather divine countryside when there's light (and it's not actually raining). Last weekend Su and I made our way around a local country park while the sun made a rare appearance. It's been a while since I've used the camera, which definitely shows, but it was good to get back out and about. Long may it continue.