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.

Album review: Andrew Bird - Break It Yourself

Andrew Bird has never been a man to settle for the easy option. In fact, the Illinois songsmith seems to have built a career of making even the most simple things obtuse. His admirable back catalogue is built around sweet melodies contorted into tongue-knotting, rhythmically avuncular sweeps that infuse Bird’s musical intellect with his knack for a non-conforming tunes.

Of course, this approach does not a typical mainstream career make. Bird has been toying with a breakthrough since the excellent & The Mysterious Production of Eggs dropped in 2005, yet a dedication to taking his craft into more peculiar territories has always been his undoing. It’s more likely a case of maintaining artistic integrity than deliberate self-sabotage, but there's a certain sadness in knowing the record buying majority is missing out on such a mercurial talent.

With Break It Yourself it’s perhaps a touch too hopeful to think this will change. But there is still a chance. You see, Bird’s seventh studio album finds him finally choosing linearity over his penchant for abstraction. And for the more casual listener, that means these 14 cuts are by far his most listenable. Yet, his followers should not fear: this is still, unequivocally, an Andrew Bird record and he is still stroking tenderly at fraying heart strings with his homely, honeyed tones.

Opener ‘Desperation Breeds’ quickly reveals Bird's evolution. Formed around creeping, acoustic plucks, the tracks rises into a violin-stained melody that moves with the serenity of a moonlit river. Notably, Bird’s vocals sit higher in the mix than ever before; in fact, close your eyes and he could be right beside you as he addresses “accidental pollination in this era without bees” as only he could.

Another indication of Bird’s changing persuasion is the delivery. His lyrical acrobatics and airtight metaphors have taken a back seat; in their place is the voice of a man questioning all that surrounds him. The loose limbed ‘Give It Away’ finds him yearning for a life in the sticks, sheltered away from the complications of the modern world; while on the lilting ‘Sifters’ he contemplates the strength of his own convictions, quipping: ”What if we hadn’t been born at the same time, what if you were 75 and I were nine, would I come visit you?”

It’s not exactly naked lyricism, but for Bird it represents a significant change in tack. He’s telling it as it is, relying on the power of simple melodies to see him through. And it works. ‘Danse Caribe’, in particular, is magnificently insouciant, its country strums whistling out as effortlessly as a summer breeze. ‘Eyeoneye’ is equally intoxicating, shimmering and twinkling with the sort of echoic might The Fleet Foxes could only envisage in their wildest wet dreams.

Much of Break It Yourself finds our protagonist scaling heights he’s so far resisted, combining subtle instrumental nuances with a considerable depth of emotion. And while the picturesque ‘Fatal Shores’ may trundle out like Andrew Bird-by-numbers, it's merely a minor lull that’s quickly swept away by the shiver of cymbals and guitar that greets his cry of “You’re laying mines across the shore, so my heart is ripped and torn” across the swelling, Annie Clark-accompanied ‘Lusitania’.

As swansongs go, ‘Hole In The Wall’ is as powerful as they come, gravitating around a soaring violin that rises in tandem with Bird’s slightly quivering intone. But ‘Lazy Projector’ is the album’s real gem. A shameless, lovestruck tearjerker, it gets by on a lonely cowboy whistle, weeping guitar and the cheek-moistening line: “I can’t see the sense in us breaking up at all”. It’s sad, it’s lonely, it’s Andrew Bird as we’ve never heard him before: open and exposed.

Stepping back from the throes of this umbilical soul-searching, Break It Yourself is Bird’s most consistent work to date. By playing it straight and singing it even straighter, he’s created an intensely listenable and emotional album that’s impossible not to relate to. Somewhere along the line, Andrew Bird took the easy option. He's never sounded better.

Album review: School of Seven Bells – Ghostory

Once lost, momentum is often difficult to recover – a plight New York's School of Seven Bells are getting all too familiar with. While 2008 debut Alpinisms jetted the former three-piece into the stratosphere, its follow up, Disconnect From Desire, saw their status dip toward also-ran territory. Now a duo (sans Alejandra Deheza's identical twin, Claudia), album number three sees SVIIB once again struggling to regain the firm foothold of their initial offering.

Opener The Night sets the initial tone, radiating well-worn cathedral atmospherics that eventually worm their way into woozy, kaleidoscopic numbers like Lafaye and Reappear. But beyond this relatively pedestrian introduction lies more caustic thrills: Deheza’s otherworldly intone scythes through White Winds’ guitar-scarred torrent, while album swansong When You Sing is a relentless transient-pop triumph. A record of two parts, Ghostory isn’t the sound of a band regaining momentum so much as one still toiling to find it.

Album review: Yeti Lane – The Echo Show

Despite the repugnant title, psych-pop’s been carving out a respectable comeback of late. Following the release of 2009’s acclaimed eponymous debut, Yeti Lane were firmly wedged into the genre’s electronically-enhanced shagpile. It’s not surprising then to find the Parisian ensemble’s follow up LP, The Echo Show, re-burrowing the vacuum of effects-entangled cosmic odysseys.

However, where its predecessor was often derailed by a tendency to over-elaborate, The Echo Show finds the duo of Ben Pleng and Charlie B rattling out potent slabs of retrograde swells, barely catching breath as they throttle through star-chasing melodies like Warning Sensations and Strange Call. Admittedly, there’s a familiar Errors-like feel to the key-twitching palpitations of Analog Wheel, but Dead Tired’s emotively charged strains prove there’s more than just one gear to this dreamy, multi-disciplined affair. Carry on like this and the psych-pop revival may prove more than just a passing fashion.

Album review: The Malpractice - Tectonics

Trent Reznor has a lot to answer for. Not content with making it acceptable for emaciated, eye-liner clad teens to screech “I want to fuck you like an animal” at passer-bys, the godfather of mid-Nineties goth had more than a helping hand in guiding impenetrable shock-rock Marilyn Manson onto MTV’s radar. Even today, almost 20 years since Nine Inch Nails’ masterpiece The Downward Spiral, Reznor exerts considerable influence over the music industry; his every word doted upon by a slavering soiree of labels, hacks, fans and bands. Bands much like The Malpractice, in fact.

The solo project of much lauded Danish multi-instrumentalist Johannes Gammelby, The Malpractice’s fusion of tense, wiry electronic soundscapes, laced with aggression, bears more than a passing resemblance to Reznor’s penchant for industrialised goth-pop. Admittedly Gammelby’s efforts on debut long-player Tectonics are decidedly more playschool than Reznor’s dark matter, but the air of Nine Inch Nails weighs thick across this 11-track affair.

Of course, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Gammelby is more than adept at sculpting dark compositions. In fact, when he lets go, unshackling from his Reznor-inspired shtick, he proves an elegant, almost elegiac songwriter with an innate understanding of structure and curious pop hooks. But this capacity for originality is often undermined by an inability to step away from his influences; too timid to stretch his own unique ideas beyond a cluster of tracks before reverting back to the sanctity of someone else’s musical bosom.

Album opener ‘Agitator’ is a prime example of Gammelby’s self-imposed limitations. A well executed slice of dramatic electro-doom-rock, the whispered vocals and jarring, stalker-like atmospherics are straight out of the Downward Spiral cutting room. Likewise, ‘Spasm’s turgid guitar chugs and animalistic chorus smack of Pretty Hate Machine’s hip thrusting libido, while the maximalist production and jarring slow-motion riffs of ‘Fault Lines’ rattle out like some sort of bastardised Manson prototype without the ambiguity or balls-to-the-wall bravado to pull it off.

Simply put, Tectonics is at its most intriguing when Gammelby strays off-piste. ‘Boss Stallion’ is a wiry guitar pop blast that threatens to take off into an infectious, liberating singalong; ‘It’s All About Love’ pendulums between hushed beauty and skyscraping, eardrum-mauling sonics; and album high ‘We, The Drowned’ sets out as a brooding, bassy malaise before escalating into a writhing, scratching mass of guitar and drum that has Gammelby screeching: “Please just leave me the fuck alone, I’m not coming out to play.”

Yet, despite these peaks, it’s troughs like weak-limbed thrash ‘Oh, The Irony’ that ultimately let the album down. By dipping a sticky paw into his record box of influence, Gammelby has only succeeded in creating a sense of inconsistency that does too little to merit repeat listens. You can blame Trent for a lot of things, but as Johannes Gammelby is likely to find out, you can’t blame him for everything.

Album Review: Roedelius - Plays Piano

If every piece of music has its place, then Hans-Joachim Roedelius’ Plays Piano fits neatly into the background. That may pass as a compliment struck with a firm backhand, but it's exactly how the Berlin-born kraut rock luminary intended it.

Originally scored in 1985, this 24-part piano séance finds Roedelius gliding through deftly-executed scores that flutter between poignant, tear-stained balladry and giddy flushes of ivory tinkling. Thoughtfully crafted, Roedelius’s seamless compositions won’t strike a chord with those expecting a quick, virulent hit. Instead, it takes time to absorb; slinking through silent spaces almost unnoticed, before threading into the ear canals as a work of lilting beauty.

Pushed immediately to the fore, Plays Piano’s nuances will pass most by as unremarkable background filler. But given time to simmer in the right setting, this is a hypnotic, stirring recording that reaches into places not even Roedelius would have imagined.

Album Review: Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters - Underrated Silence

There’s little point in expecting the unexpected from German electronic pioneer Ulrich Schnauss. His shtick is a synthesised swoon from which he rarely strays. But a penchant for consistency isn’t necessarily a bad thing, particularly when it bleeds through the quality of his work. This collaboration with Engineers vanguard Mark Peters, perfectly entitled Underrated Silence, once again finds Schnauss exploring ethereal soundscapes that air out like the slow undulations of a feather-filled quilt.

For the most part, numbers like the coruscating Long Distance Call and the piano-strewn wash of The Child Or The Pigeon are dreamy, uplifting affairs. Yet a surprising bite lies amidst these softened layers: Rosen Im Asphalt is a Peleton-riding blur of starry effects, while Gift Horse’s Mouth jaywalks to a synthesised funk. It’s not quite an unfettered masterpiece, but Underrated Silence still retains Schnauss’s unmistakable seal of approval.

Interview with James Graham from Twilight Sad

Scotland, despite what its well-intended tourist board may say, is full of miserable bastards. Being a Scot and being a miserable bastard, I’m in the fairly comfortable position of being honest about this state of affairs without running the risk of a doin' by a parochial gaggle of tartan-painted internet activists. But let’s face it, wallowing in doom, gloom and glum-face morbidity is, quite simply, what we do best as a nation.

In recent years, the country has excelled at turning this miserablism into extraordinary music. Bands like Arab Strap, Mogwai and Frightened Rabbit have turned their graveyard dispositions into sounds that connect with punters across the globe. Their guttural tides of woe clicking with an increasingly disillusioned and disaffected western world.

Sitting atop this Saltire-swinging seething heap of musicians is Kilsyth melancholy-merchants The Twilight Sad. Led by gallows-humoured frontman James Graham, the band is renowned for its ear-pillaging guitars and tombstone lyricism. Their inaugural release, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, stormed through the American underground, garnering praise for its bleak, gargantuan stacks of sound. Album number two, Forget the Night Ahead, offered more of the same, espousing hope-bereft tales of solitude and prostitutes.

This week, The Twilight Sad released their third longplayer, No One Can Ever Know. Styled in synths and ladled with industrialism, the record finds the band angling towardsa surprising trajectory. It’s still, unmistakably The Twilight Sad, but there’s more urgency, more ambition than ever before. So, in the build up to the release, I caught up with James Graham to find out what spurred the new direction, how working with Andy Weatherall is a breeze and what it takes to be the next Craig David…

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So James, here you are staring at album number three. You guys are becoming old hands at this. Is it fair to say you are at your creative peak right now?

James Graham [JG]: I don’t know. To be honest since we got signed and went off and did our first record everything has been a bit of a whirlwind. It’s never really seemed to stop. I’ve never really had the chance to sit back and think about everything. It’s just been a case of keeping on writing, releasing and touring. It’s a never ending cycle.

Is that a rhythm you’re getting used to?

JG: It’s a weird one. The way we started was pretty strange, as in we did two gigs in two years and on our third gig Fat Cat came and signed us and sent us off to America to mix a record and play some gigs. We hadn’t even played Edinburgh yet. We weren’t even used to being in a band at that point, we’d written nine songs on the first album and they were the first songs we’d ever written. So being in a band - going away and playing gigs - was all pretty alien to us, it felt like getting chucked in at the deep-end.

I remember speaking to people in the Scottish media when you guys were picked up Stateside. Everyone seemed mystified as to where you’d come from and how they’d failed to pick up on you. It was a bit of a strange beginning for the band, wasn’t it?

JG: Yes. Every Sunday we’d play in New York when we were mixing the album and I think we were playing to 100 people or something. It was probably because it was a Fat Cat showcase. Then we’d come home to Scotland and end up playing to just our family and friends.

Do you ever wish you’d done it differently?

JG:I’m quite glad we did do it. If we had to play around Scotland and all the different venues we’d probably have got quite frustrated as we’re quite lazy, to be honest. I suppose in some ways it would have been better to do it because we would have been ready for going out and touring, having an album out there and promoting.

When you only play two gigs before you record your first album, it’s weird. I suppose in a way it was good to be quite naïve. That probably helped in the studio and that’s what helped the first album happen. But, at the same time, when you’re out playing live people are pretty brutal and they’ll tell you exactly what they think of you. So it might have been good in that way.

The last time we spoke was just after the launch of Forget the Night Ahead and you seemed under a lot of pressure. Has that changed for you in this album?

JG: I think I put the pressure on myself. I’m trying to stay away from what anyone is saying on the outside. It’s not that good for me. Ultimately I’ve been happy with everything we’ve released, I wouldn’t have released it otherwise. But I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. There’s no doubt about it, there are a mix of emotions coming through with the run up of the album. I’m happy, I’m excited, I’m shitting myself. I’m just everything you can go through.

I’d be lying to say ‘I’m confident this is the best thing ever’. You just don’t know what people are going to say. We’ve learned that with the first two albums. Everyone has different tastes. I think the main thing to begin with is that you’re happy with it and you’re proud of it. I don’t think we could have done any better with this album at all. We’ve done ourselves justice on it. It’s definitely a pretty nerve wracking thing.

Is it more nerve wracking because of the overhaul in sound on this record?

JG: I suppose we were known for a certain thing before, in the first two albums. I think the majority of what we’re known for is still on the new record. It’s still us. When you’re in a band and you’re releasing new material you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. I’m not going to say that every single person who likes our band at this point is going to like the new record. But at the same time I’d like to think that on this album the songs and song-writing are better. I think song-writing is one of our strong points and that’s still there with the album.

I wouldn’t have wanted to hear a Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters Part 2 or a Forget the Night Ahead Part 2. If you want to listen to those albums go back and listening to them. Any band I like, I want to see them try new things and develop and that’s what we’ve tried to do. So, I’d say there was a slight excitement about the new album because of this change in direction. I wouldn’t even say it was that big a change of direction really, although I can see why others might think it would be.

I’d say it still sounds like a Twilight Sad record, but moving on in a more natural direction. In an odd sense - despite it’s heavy gothic tints - it seems to be the most immediate record you’ve released so far.

JG:Yes, totally. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. It was natural, there was no point where any of us sat back and said ‘we need to change, we need to do this’. We just sat down and wrote the songs. Nobody started questioning what we were doing. It wasn’t a case of ‘change this, change that’. We used what was interesting to us and what was exciting us. The album is a case of us moving on and trying new things. I don’t want to hear us doing the same thing. We would get bored ourselves. If we’d produced something like the last albums we’d probably be calling it a day. It’s boring and not the point of this band. We want to try and get better with every release and that’s what we’ve been doing.

There are a lot of reference points to gothically-tinged, propulsive acts in the press release, was that what you were listening to when making the record?

JG: I think that is what Andy [Macfarlane - guitarist] was listening to. I’ve not done anything different to be honest. Andy gave me the music and I added lyrics to that. There’s a slight change in what I’m writing about on every album, but it’s still about friends, family, personal things. But Andy was definitely listening to that kind of stuff when he was writing. I think he’d been to Berlin on holiday a few times.. I suppose what you’re listening to always sub-consciously comes through into the music you write.

So was it a case of Andy rocking up with some new sounds and you guys taking his steer?

JG: Andy sent over the rough guitar parts to me and I wrote the songs towards them and he just built them up. It was like previous releases, but he just used synths this time. Then Mark [Devine - drums] works his parts on his own as well. There was no point when it was like ‘Andy what the fuck are you doing? Where’s the mental guitars? What’s happening?’ We just kept going with it. We could have put noisy massive guitars in this production, but I think it would have spoiled the songs. Andy’s guitars are still there on the tracks but he’s just done it in a different way. It’s a brave decision on his part, to be honest, because that’s what he was known for. If you go see Andy play live, he fucking blows your head off - my ears are fucked from it that’s for sure.

I can imagine - I don’t fancy having that sound blasting through my head every night. With the change in musical direction then, has your song-writing changed to fit in with the music?

JG: A lot of the stuff I do is pretty subconscious and I write what I write. There was definitely a them running through the album. I hope this doesn’t sound wanky in anyway, but I see it as every song is a chapter in the over all theme and that’s why I think the album needs to be listened to as a whole. Does that sound wanky? [laughs] I’d hate to come across like a total prick.

But there’s definitely a theme running through the record. It wasn’t challenging at all, I just did what came naturally. I think that’s the one good thing about the band; we’re not trying to be anything we’re not. Our music is pretty honest, there’s no bullshit with us. It’s just five guys who are making music and want to make it in a certain way. There’s no airs or graces about it, we just do what comes naturally and if it comes out good that’s brilliant.

I was a bit concerned the album might end up with Andy Weatherall’s pawprints all over it, but it still comes out sounding like a Twilight Sad album. How much input did he have in its creation?

JG: When we were doing the demos we were thinking about having a producer in for the first time. Even though we knew what we were doing, it would have been nice to have someone to help guide us along. We gave it to certain people who were interested and Andrew [Weatherall] was one of them. We met him and he gave us a mix tape of the sounds and songs he thought we could use - his musical knowledge is off the scale.

Andy and Mark had done a shitload of pre-production before we went down to London to make sure we didn’t waste any time. Once we got in the studio, Andrew came in and said ‘you’ve done everything I would have told you to do’, so he was there to help guide us and bounce ideas off him. All the song structures were set before we got down there. He was there as a reference point, telling us we were doing the right thing. He worked on some of the vocal sounds and things like that, so I’m glad he was there. He was more like an anti-producer.

As a record it doesn’t feel particularly Scottish, there’s more of a grimy industrial city style sound to it than anything else. Is that what you were going for?

JG: We’ve never been ones for waving the Saltire flag around. I suppose, like everything we do, we never really think about that. On the first few albums I guess you could get a definite Scottish feel, but aye I definitely see where you are coming from. Someone was telling me they were listening it on a train the other day and it sounded great.

Exactly. It’s more industrial, almost urban - but clearly not in the ‘urban’ sense like, er, Craig David or someone like that.

JG: I’d be pretty happy if we sold as many records as Craig David.

You might need a bit more of an optimistic outlook for that James

JG: Aye, we’re fucked then aren’t we?

Possibly. But I’d not worry about it, just ask yourself where is he now and feel smug as fuck. As a Scottish band, Twilight Sad are one of the few in recent times that have ‘made it’ beyond the Scottish borders. What makes you so different?

JG: Ultimately we don’t want to be liked just in Scotland. The whole ambition of the band is to try and see how far it can go. I don’t want to just be popular in Scotland, even though I definitely do want to be popular in Scotland, it’s where I live and I love it. But you can’t make a career out of that. I want this band to go to different countries, play to different crowds. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got no delusions of grandeur. I can never see us being a massive band. I just want out music to be as big as possible so we can keep doing it. That’s the one thing these days, it’s pretty hard to be in a band financially. The one hope we have of this album is that it allows us to make another album.

Is that sense of sustainability the ambition for the band then?

JG: Yeah, we’re not looking too far ahead. We love doing this, it’s great. It’s not as easy as I thought it would be. I’m not too sure what else I would do, I’m rubbish at everything else. People might say I’m rubbish at this as well, but that’s up to them. I always saw the band as a work in progress and it was always going to take time for us to get any where. We were never going to blow up to be a big band on any album, it was just going to be a steady grower. We looked at bands like Mogwai and how their career went. If we could get half as far as they have, I’d be happy with that. The way their career has went is very natural and that’s the way I want it.

I think the significant reduction in the size of the track titles compared to those on the previous records is quite an interesting move. Has that got anything to do with your head space at the time of writing or is it a reflection of the band’s newish direction?

JG: I think it’s a mixture of stuff. I don’t think those kind of titles would have worked on this album. It definitely worked on this album and made sense in the whole of context. It wasn’t subconscious, but it was one of those things that we all went ‘this is what the song is called and everyone said aye cool’. I definitely think it would have been wrong to try and call it some massive book-type title. But, aye, the song titles definitely getting smaller. I think it’s maybe where we are as people as well.

The song titles may be smaller, but they are still pretty dark. What kind of frame of mind were you in when you wrote the songs?

JG: [Laughs] I was happy-go-lucky, I’d like to say. As people we’re pretty normal. I know a lot of people think we’re the most miserable bastards going, but I enjoy writing about the darker side of life, rather than somebody bashing on about how great their life is and how everything is bright because obviously that’s just not true.

You’re never going to make the next Craig David with that attitude.

JG: Nah, there’s no way. I cannae see me doing my version of 'Seven Days'. Although my version of 'Seven Days' would be pretty good, actually. I could definitely alter those lyrics a wee bit… But I’m definitely in a better head space than the second record. That record was pretty much the depths of despair for me. It was a pretty hard time. That’s why I wrote that. I only write when I’ve got something moan about. And believe me I’ve got lots of stuff to moan about. I'm a moany bastard. I’ve got piles of stuff I want to write about.

So is lyric writing is cathartic for you?

JG: Pretty much, yeah. A lot of what I’m writing about is subconscious as well. That song 'Days From The Birdhouse', I had an inkling about what it was about. Then one night when we were playing it, it completely clicked with me. It was really weird. That happened with Nil on this album. My dad had listened to it and he mentioned a lyric in the song and said ‘y’know who said that don’t you? That was so and so from ages ago’. And I didn’t realise. I surprised myself with that. I must be writing subconsciously in some ways, even though I know what I’m writing about, there must be other wee things in the back of my head that come out for some reason.

Maybe not take that to a psychologist to get that checked out.

JG: They’ll definitely say I’m a weirdo. But I knew that anyway.

Talking of weirdos. You’ve taken up Twitter with some enthusiasm

JG: I was quite hesitant to get involved in that world to be honest. No one really knows much about us, I don’t think. I find it quite a good way to talk to people who like your music. I’ve stated talking to people I would never have talked to.

So you see it as a useful way of cutting out the middle man, i.e. me?

JG: [Laughs] I find that 905% of the internet is negative. It’s a fucking harsh world out there. So I like to keep it positive. I looked at what I wrote the other day and 90% of it was pish, but at the same time 90% of it was positive. I don’t like going about saying that people are shite. The only person I like saying is shite is Aidan Moffatt when he’s in his house drinking and watching the music telly.

I was just about to ask what you thought of Aidan’s 140 character escapades

JG: I think it’s amazing. It’s what Twitter is made for. He’s basically saying what everyone else is afraid to say. I think I’ve called a few folks dicks on it, but they’ve deserved it. I’m trying to make myself a bit more positive than my music might suggest

January in pictures

It's been an odd month. Things started hopefully, before descending into a stress-filled heap, and then levelling out at the tailend. Or so I hope.

Anyway, I've done a few interesting things in that time. Like wandering about the Cotswolds with friends, visiting the zoo and, as ever, enjoying the Swan-infected waters of Colchester's river. I've also set up a Lighbox site, for some of my cameraphone shots - which tend to be even worse than what's here - which you can have a scan of over here








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Album Review: Errors - Have Some Faith In Magic

Control does funny things to people. Held in the wrong hands, it's a murderous swine of a power. The annals of history are peppered with examples of how it can be taken to the most extreme levels; where lateral thought and common decency are overthrown by a fug of totalitarianism and self importance. And that's just modern day traffic wardens.

But even when massaged in the right palms, control isn't always such a virtuous thing. The responsibility that goes with authority can overwhelm once creatively poised lines of thought. Suddenly the inventive mindset that helped forge control in the first place becomes the unspoken enemy. Playing it safe is the default position. There's no room for chance taking.

This type of control - the fermenting, grey-matter dissolving, long-term variety - has seen the mainstream music industry come to a shuddering standstill over the years. Lauded yet archaic labels are being outflanked and outmanouvered by wiley young bucks; mainstream rags are folding quicker than an origami sensei; while music retailers are navigating their ships with the foresight of an Italian cruise liner captain in the Mediterranian. Bands aren't much better, often attempting to re-pique listeners' lugs by winding out re-heated leftovers from the days they sounded 'fresh'.

Thankfully, Glasgow electro outfit Errors have always valued progression over this out-of-control control. The quartet's debut LP, exotically entitled It's Not Something, But It is Like Whatever, was a glitching, slinking, synth-stained wench of a record that never took itself seriously. Its follow up, Come Down With Me, was more unhinged; lathered in afro-rhythms, it contorted its various musical limbs into wild-eyed rankles that felt equally at home in the Amazon as they did on the dancefloor. Which ever way you took them, you could never accuse Errors of being entirely on top of things.

Here, then, at the foothill of album number three, the band have earned the right to a little control. After all, it's been six year since they signed to Rock Action. Six long years. In that time they've watched notable contemporaries appear then disappear almost as regularly as they've seen the letters M-O-G-W-A-I tattooed into every line of every review. But they've survived. Unscathed and unaffected, the band have gradually climbed the scales of leftfield respectability.

In many ways, Have Some Faith in Magic helps Errors secure their place atop the UK's shagpile of bleep-making behemoths. This is the sound of a band taking stock. A band more measured than ever before. There are no stray movements, no wayward throes. Every note is considered, mulled, strangulated. Yet, it's surprising just how non-manipulated it feels. Somehow, amidst all the rigid architecture, Errors have conjured up something utterly organic in nature, but skin-tight in direction.

Such clear headed precision is immediately noticeable. Opener 'Tusk' sets out on a thick, chomping guitar growl, before breaking into a cathedral synth apogee. Bereft of atypical android-electro signatures, this is a crisp and linear mark up, where layers of drum and synth build into swarms of faintly victorious bit-crushed melody.

Pre-release, much has been made of Stephen Livingstone's increased vocal input, suggesting a not-so-subtle shunt in direction beckoned. But the reality is nowhere near as overt. Livingstone's woozy, affected tones add depth rather than focus, supplying a hymnal incantation to the entrancing cosmoses of 'Magna Encarta' and 'Cloud Chambers's textural rhythms. Like everything here, the vocals are more than just tokenistic; they have rhyme and reason for being there.

On early listens, two clear circling points exist. The bass-bin pushing, gutter shuffle of 'Pleasure Palaces' creates a hypnotic, persuasive bounce that's impossible to resist, slinking its way through a star-scattered playground of cathedral synth and pulsating beat. 'Earthscore' is more aggressively charged. Coiled by tribal rhythm and monolithic keys, it's an intensely claustrophobic, demented affair that unfolds, cinematically, as a magnificent other-worldly soundtrack.

As exhilarating as they are, these propulsive efforts are considerably out of step with the record's slow-burning centre. Composed of gentle rhythms that exude a distinctly Balearic temperament, ...Faith in Magic is a considered and self-reflective affair. Post-rock is, as ever, at the core of Errors work, but in this claustrophobic, overhanging chasm lurks a less primal beast, where thick, airy numbers like 'Barton Spring' or 'Blank Media' verge eerily close to a smart, scholarly elegance that takes time to study and sink in.

But once it's in, slotted and stapled into some realm of the brainbox, it's brilliant. Unashamedly, undeniably, unequivocally brilliant. With Have Some Faith in Magic, Errors have out-Mogwaied Mogwai, out-Sadded The Twilight Sad. Through each of these 12 immaculately crafted slabs of grandiose sound lies mesh upon mesh of complex, interwoven melody that, like the beatific swells of album climax 'Holus Bolus', chimes with an array of emotions.

Admittedly, it is, quite probably, a peak they'll never again scale. But Errors are no longer inviting us to come back down with them. They're no longer in the mood for, like, whatever. That was another time, another band. Right now, they're taking us to where they want to go. And they can. Why? Because this is a band in complete control.