Boo hoo, back in the UK...

For the last few weeks I've been out of the country sunning and de-stressing myself in Fort Pierce, Florida. Although we were visiting family, it was as chilled out a time as I'd wished for. There's something particularly soothing about the sun's rays when you know it's baltic back at home.

For all sorts of reasons, Florida is not everyone's ideal holiday destination. And, on the whole, I'd say it isn't mine either. Yet, if you avoid the tourist trappings and spend some time in the everyday towns and beaches where the ever-friendly locals dwell, it's a pretty special place to visit.

There's little pretence or pomp to the bars and restaurants in and around Fort Pierce. The fish is good, the beer is cheap and the barmen and women make mean mojitos. I'm sure that every time I come back I say to myself I should give up the humdrum office life and spend the rest of my days making margaritas in the sun. Nice dream, huh? I'm not sure my liver agrees.

Anyway, for this holiday I decided to see how far I could get with just my camera phone and my new friend Instagram. Turns out I got pretty far: from Heathrow Airport, to Jensen Beach, down to the magnificent Key West, Hemingway's home and back to my mother in-laws backyard for more booze in the inflatable pool.  

Now, back in the UK and searching for winter jackets and fan heaters, that fortnight already feels like a million years ago.

Album review: Chilly Gonzales - Solo Piano II

At almost three centuries old and five to nine feet in length, the piano flies in the face of musical progress. In today’s world, grubby 16-year olds etch together sounds from the bowels of their bedrooms. It doesn’t matter what they play or how they play it, all they need is a knack for GarageBand and an ear for a bit-mapped beat.

There’s little room for the piano in this get-the-hits-out-quick blueprint. The music industry simply doesn’t have the time or money to create the optimum ambience for tinkling ivories. And, really, is there anyone in 2012 who has the attention it takes to coax wistful notes from this behemoth instrument?
Step forward, Jason Charles Beck. Aka, Chilly Gonzales.

Having worked his magic for Feist, Peaches, Daft Punk and, er, Steve Jobs, Gonzales’s mastery embraces a gamut of styles that runs from hip-hop to classical (sometimes at the same time). Yet, his first full length fling caressing the ebony and ivory keys, 2004’s Solo Piano, was a much-lauded revelation. Its instrumental laments took Gonzales beyond alternative audiences and hurtled him into more mature musical ears.

Eight years and one Guinness world record later, the Canadian enigma has plumped himself back on the stool, popped open the fallboard and recorded another batch of grand piano songs. Assembled from the rubble of hundreds of melodies, Solo Piano II is a natural, if more jaunty, follow up to its predecessor. These 14 cuts are classily sculpted; each delicate and nimble, entwining emotional notes and fluttering melodic jaunts.

Such meshing of ambience shapes Solo Piano II into a rewarding listen. Rather than compliment ‘Escher’s cascading keys, down-tempo numbers like ‘Minor Fantasy’ and ‘Redeaux Lunaires’ create a wave of intermingling peaks and troughs. Yet, Gonzales is streetwise enough to let his work live independently, with softer compositions like the bewitching ‘Evolving Blinds’ easing out engrossing melodic yarns.

At times this richness feels more suited to aristocratic lounge rooms, but there’s enough personality here to captivate a wider audience. Nodes of candle-lit tenderness leap from the tearful swells of ‘Othello’; a smokescreen of fidgety key strokes disguises the heart-breaking tenderness of ’Epigram in E’; while hints of charming cheek lies in ‘Nero’s Nocturine’s dainty and familiar tune.

Recorded over ten days in Paris’ Studio Pigalle, Solo Piano II’s classical leanings and modernistic execution are testament to the piano’s ever-lasting ability to dazzle the masses. And with it, Gonzales proves once again that makeshift beats and bleeps are little match for his extraordinary craft.

Album review: Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

Predicting the Dirty Projectors’ next step is a pointless task. Led by idiosyncratic frontman David Longstreth, the Brooklyn-based quintet explore rock's more challenging catacombs, often teetering on the verge of prog. But this tendency to experiment is, almost always, infused with an easy sense of melody that opens up awkward affairs like 2009’s gorgeous Bitte Orca.

In this vein, album number six  is possibly the Projectors’ most accessible. Masterful cuts like Just From Chevron and the string-bleeding About To Die are still laced with pirouetting time signatures and matadorial guitars, but there’s a creamier feel to their delivery. Built entirely to mesmerise, Gun Has No Trigger’s hypnotic mist and the shimmering chimes of Impregnable Question are symptomatic of the album’s gentile, yet intricate nature. Smooth and simple, Swing Lo Magellan has the makings of another Dirty Projectors classic. How utterly predictable.

Album review: Dan Deacon – America

America by name, America by nature. Dan Deacon's follow-up to his 2009 career high Bromst is swathed in the big, bold and sometimes graceless chutzpah of the country it was created in. But these brainbox battering beats are as much an examination of the Baltimore-based composer’s sonic progression as a delve into what motivates the United States of America's inner psyche.

On the face of it, little's changed in the land of Deacon. The hyper-driven distortion of Guildford Avenue and Crash Jam are as euphoric and ear-screeching as anything found within his extensive back catalogue. But beneath this maximalist exterior lies an understated romantic streak that weaves its way through the tingling gaze of The Great American Desert and Rails' parping trumpets, climaxing in True Thrush's melting android melody and hexagonal drum patterns. A triumph, for sure – America is perhaps more vast and complex than even Deacon had anticipated.

Shufflin' to work... #1

Over the past few weeks I’ve been setting my iPod to shuffle on my way to work. Admittedly, this doesn’t have anything to do with trying to explore my bulging and mostly unlistened to MP4 collection, it’s really because I’ve been finding it more and more difficult to pick an album out for the half hour or so journey. Shuffle just seemed the easiest solution.

Now, a few moons ago my good friend Euan (who writes this lovely little blog) did at one point document his shuffle journey to and from work. I don’t think he’s still doing it, which is a shame as it was a good insight into what’s on his stereo. So,  I thought I’d appropriate his idea (sorry) and occasionally start to lay down what randomly infiltrates my lugholes on my way to work.

The rules here are simple: write a couple of sentences about the track that appears on my shuffle before said ditty disappears back into the gaping 7,000+ song void that is my iPod. Also, I can only write about the tracks from the moment the train leaves the sattions and arrives at my destination. So, it could be a long, long article depending on Network Rail’s competency.

Now before I start - as something of a pre-emptive disclaimer for some of what's about to appear here -  I have to declar that I’ve been working as a music journo for about seven years and there is definitely a lot of shite that I’ve barely bothered to listen to still lurking in the dark, dank depths of my iPod. So, some of this tunesmithery is not there of my own accord. Although some of it is – for which I make no apologies. Well, maybe a few.

Let the shuffle begin...

Friday, 10 August 2010. 8:18am train leaves Colchester...

Yeasayer – Ambling Alp (instrumental)

 A bulbous, bouncing bass and ski-slope tumbling drums slosh together around my eardrums, while a persistent synth-line worms and wiggles across this jungle canvas. Doesn’t even miss the vocals. An ebullient, and rather hopeful start

Tune-Yards – Little Tiger

My, my, mt, isn’t this an awkward, cranky, dirty, melancholic, lo-fi thrum? It’s like the personal score for a wind-up ballerina from the wrong side of a New York crackhouse. Eerie, is probably the word.

Primal Scream – Struttin’

Hmm… this takes me back. Primal Scream’s blues-rock-schtick might have tickled my 15 year-old self, but this Hammond-heavy, funk-gunk wig out has a tame, laboured feel to it. Given the amount of pharmaceuticals Bobby G and co packed in their personage at the time, it’s a toothless, edgeless bore.

When Saints Go Machine – Fail Forever

Woah. I forgot about this. What. A. Track. A buzzing, tectonic roll of synths and strings, it washes out on an ice-cool motorwaying aesthetic that nods it's head to the effortless minimalism of Pantha Du Prince.

John Maus – Streetlight

An airy, feathering fug of 80s keyboards and echoic vocal simplicity that’s dichotomous enough to shiver spines and move feet. This is Maus at his genius best.

Deerhoof – Rrrrrrright

Blam. Blam. Brrrrrp. Brrrrrp. This is as demented, childish and jaw-droppingly ferocious as you’d expect. The only lyrics I can make out behind the din of the train seem to be “eclectic melodies, popping out our hairy bits.” I hope, hope, hope I’ve heard that right.

Broken Mirrors – Chromatics

It’s taken me a while to “get” this Chromatics record, but “get” it I now do. Yet if this this brooding, elongated, spacious epic had been my introduction I’m not sure I would have bothered trying. Dull as fuck.

Otis Redding - A Home in Your Heart

This is gorgeous. Old-school, hip-jiving soul resplendent with parping brass, shotgun percussing and a golden guitar line, topped of by the gravelly pipes of Otis. Amazing.

R.E.M. – Romance

I forget just how “indie” R.E.M were in the beginning. This breezy, jangle-pop number is not Stipe et al their finest, but it’s a touchstone for the jaunty, non-aggravational direction the band took in the 90s.

Real Estate - Younger Than Yesterday

Just what you need on a sunny morning on the way to Chelmsford. A melting, slow-burning affair led by languid guitar chimes and bleary-eyed vocals. Reminds me of why I took such a shine to Real Estate in the first place (that second album really wasn’t up to scractch though).

Train arrives in Chelmsford at 8:50am

Colchester: A cycle-path's perspective

A few months ago I bought a bike from Colchester’s fantastic Cycle King. I made the decision, initially, to get me from A (my house) to B (the train station) with more haste than normal. In that sense it’s worked out perfectly. I’m shaving 20 minutes off my daily commute and am now incorporating a regular flow of  exercise into my life.

More interestingly, it’s allowed me to see another side to Colchester. Having no driver’s license [a decision fuelled more because of a preference for spending lesson money on booze rather than any environmental idealism in my younger days] meant my sightseeing was limited to the stretching of two legs or my other half’s compliance in exploring beyond the confines of North Hill in the car.

So far I’ve free-wheeled my way around the country paths of Cymbeline Meadows and, a very muddy, Highwoods Country Park. I’ve also zipped my way around town, weaving in and out of traffic while I make my way to the various veg stalls peppered across Colchester during the weekend.

What’s struck me since my setting out on my cycling adventures is just how impressive Colchester’s biking infrastructure is. Too many councils in the UK pay lip-service to cyclists, creating pointless cycle paths that are poorly thought out in terms of congestion and the direction of cycling traffic.

Since 2008,  Colchester Borough Council (CBC) have spent an extraordinary £4.2m on increasing the number of cycle journeys in the town by 75%. My impression is that it shows. Perhaps not in the people actively cycling in town – the ratio of bikes to cars is significant, particularly around North Station – but the number of cycle routes available is certainly above the national average (if there is such a thing) and a thousand percent beyond the options available in my home town of Edinburgh.

An article in the local newspaper the Gazette last year suggested that the funding has been wasted [I have to say the article was loaded with negative rhetoric]. But Colchester, from my initial impressions, is a transient town that has relied on gas-guzzling cars to get around for far too long. Changing mindsets is not a short-term solution and, hopefully, CBC is aware of this.

Cycling in Colchester needs to be seen by Joe Public as a viable alternative to using the car. From my perspective, as a professional communicator, CBC must actively steer the promotion of getting in the saddle from cost or health-based messages (two particularly patronising and unspecific hits). It has to set a more emotional tone, highlighting the importance of building a long-term framework for the future of the town and the people who live in it.

Steering Colchester away from the perception that it’s nothing more than a commuter’s town obscured under the shadow of London should be a primary objective of CBC. That is, of course, not easy, nor can it be done through cycling alone. But by creating a community of people who prefer to explore the town on two-wheels, rather than escape from it on four, CBC will be well on its way to creating a Colchester that’s not just cycle-friendly, but cycle-centric. A town you’d want to live in.

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.