Lamb

by Al Jahom

Having meandered via the Bristol trip-hop scene of the early 90′s – Portishead, Tricky, Massive Attack et al – I took to the sound of Lamb with alacrity the first time I heard them*. They played third in the bill at Jamiroquai’s Jam In The Park gig, at Finsbury Park, London in the summer of 1997, when ‘better’ was the sort of ‘things’ still on offer.

Except that, unlike the lightweight efforts from barely-there plinky-plonk-hop groups such as the Sneaker Pimps, Lamb genuinely brought something new into play. The same components seemed to be there as in Portishead – jazz influenced electronica, syncopated beats and a compelling female vocal – but the resulting sounds were quite different – certainly more varied in style, pace and arrangement.

That Lamb’s Andy Barlow and Louise Rhodes hail from my native Manchester could account for the rather more attitudinal and hard-edged approach they have compared to Bristol loafers Barrow, Gibbons and Utley.

It’s safe to say that not only do Lamb cover a wider variety of reportorial bases than Portishead, they had a more human and optimistic sound too.

I use the past tense because Lamb called it a day, to all intents and purposes, in 2004, after 4 albums and 10 singles. A remixes CD appeared in 2005, but the fact that it doesn’t make it to my iPod says what needs to be said.

In ’97, they only had one album to their name and this eponymous offering made a profound impression on me and my compadres.

It’s one of those albums that has a flow to it, and that makes picking out any particular track difficult, though there are lots to choose from on YouTube.

The opener, “Lusty,” is as good an entry point as any.

And the whole album is without duffers, but “Gorecki” is a stand out track.

By the standards of their second album, Fear of Fours, the first seemed altogether conventional.

A much more free-form, chaotic and atonal sound emerged. This album became, and remains, one of my favourite of all time. While it doesn’t knock the first or third albums out of the park, it stands apart from them.

Again, a coherence emerges to the whole, and picking out individual tracks is difficult.

This one, “B-Line,” is special to me, though.

For the full measure of crazy, though, you need to turn to the instrumental track (each album has at least one). In this case, “Ear Parcel.”

Which segues nicely into this – “Softly.”

If nothing else, Fear of Fours proved that some albums just cannot be played to death.

Come the third album – What Sound? – there was evidence that the duo were starting to run out of steam.

Lou having a baby probably contributed to that, but the lard giveth and he taketh away. The glorious result was “Gabriel.”

The instrumental track on this album, “Scratch Bass,” perhaps reminds one as much of Manchester legends 808 State as Aphex Twin.

You may have detected earlier, when I wrote “While it doesn’t knock the first or third albums out of the park, it stands apart from them” that I passed no comment on the fourth album. Between Darkness and Wonder was the album that finished them off – between artistic differences, diverging priorities and recriminations, the outcome was mostly worth little comment.

The first track imbued me the same sense of grievous loss I first felt when Prince stopped singing about boning bitches with his microphone stand and started bothering God – a line that was flirted with on several earlier albums but was crossed forever with “Lovesexy.” Indeed – the Lovesexy tour was built around the good and evil sides of man.

Happily, one track was hanging around that had never been committed to CD – “Sun.” As Lou admitted at the time, it bears no relevance to the rest of the album, but they had to put it out as it had been a live favourite for years.

Speaking of live, after seeing Lamb in ’97, I went on to see them roughly 15 times over the following 7 years – V Festival, Bracknell Music Festival (the intimate gigs were always best), Leeds, London, Manchester and 4 times in Brighton, culminating in that final gig down at Concorde 2. Each one was superb in its own way, even when they weren’t entirely in control of their instruments.

Apparently, they’re back together at the moment, but I fear seeing them again would bring about the same sadness that seeing Madness or The Sex Pistols brings me now.

AJ

*I might also have been dancing in my pants because it was pissing down and I’d stashed my clothes in a back-pack. Drugs are bad, mkay kids?

Houses of the Holy

by Obnoxio the Clown

Bella’s post about “Achilles’ Last Stand” was curiously evocative for me.

I think I must have been about eight years old, visiting my grandparents, when the youngest of my mother’s brothers introduced me to real music.

And I have such strong memories, even now, of lying on the carpet (a hideous ’70s concoction of browns and oranges, occupied by heavy, dark wood furniture with green and beige fabric) looking at the cover of Houses of the Holy and trying to figure out what the hell was going on with those naked children climbing up the rocks. It was a beautiful sunny day and there were loads of kids running around outside, but somehow I was completely mesmerised by this strange music. Up until then, I’d only ever been exposed to ’60s and ’70s pop (and pap!) but this was alien and strange and very, very different.

It started off conventionally enough, apart from Robert Plant’s curious voice and the fact that the music was somehow better, more interesting than anything I’d ever heard.

And then there was this melancholy, wistful song. I’d heard any number of corny “slow songs” but this was just … different. It wasn’t cheesy. Everything was just so clear, so foreign to my young ears. But so bewitching.

And whereas I’d normally have moved off to do something different, I stayed and listened to the whole album. Track after track of something that grabbed me. I didn’t get tired of it.

But while there are some great tracks on the album, one stood out for me above all the rest:

It was scary. A song had never scared me before. I was freaked out. Sitting in a room with the doors open to let a breeze run through the house, sunlight streaming in through the windows and my mind was filled with snow and cold and terrible dangers and fear and dark Norse deeds.

Eventually the album finished and I did go run around outside.

But something changed forever that day. Houses of the Holy made me take music seriously, it made me realise that music could be something other than a background noise.

There are other Zep albums I like more, there are albums by other artists I like more, but I can’t remember where I heard them the first time.

Houses of the Holy will always be special to me, because it was the first time I really listened to real music.

Plastic Beach

by Mr Civil Libertarian

Gorillaz, cartoon band that critics insisted on calling “just a gimmick” despite 15 million sales and a decade of cult following, are, after another of their trademark several-year absences, back on the scene with their third album (if you exclude B side collections, which are worth picking up on their own merits), Plastic Beach.

If, like me, you prefer the fantasy put forward by the band’s videos etc, to the reality of Ex-Blur man Damon Alburn with a load of session musicians, then having abandoned their previous hideout, Kong Studios, in favour Plastic Beach (“The most isolated place on the planet,” says Murdoc) built on tons of trash thrown to sea (ah, environmental themes are becoming clear already and we’re hardly past the album cover), the band (or at least, bassist Murdoc and vocalist 2D – obese drummer Russell and guitarist Noodle currently MIA) are free to pursue musical experimentation to their hearts’ desires. Once again packed with guests, ranging from Mos Def to Lou Reed, the band churn out another success of an album that manages to hold your attention from the opening track, an orchestral piece that balances suspense and tranquillity in an oddly disquieting way, to the last, “Pirate Jet”. In the 58 minutes between those two points, a dedicated listener will be treated to a huge variety of sounds.

In the first ten minuites, you’ll have heard hip hop (“Welcome to the World of Plastic Beach”) and – Gorillaz have never shied away from World Music influences – an Oriental inspired pan pips fused with the above (“White Flag”). But both these tracks are mere warm up for what follows.

Lead single “Stylo” (why yes, that is Bruce Willis in the video) with Mos Def and Bobby Womack comes a few tracks in. Possibly consisting of not a single “real” instrument, this synthesizer-heavy tune features an addictive bass line and good vocals from guests Def and Womack as well as 2D. Although “Stylo” was probably the best choice for a single, since most of the other tracks need to be heard in the context of the full album to be fully appreciated, “Stylo” is in fact one of the album’s low points. Not at all fitting in with the tranquil beach theme or the reflecting-upon-affluent-society ethos, “Stylo” almost seems to be an added extra to the album than part of the album itself. Not that’s its a bad song; it just doesn’t seem to fit in with its neighbours.

“Superfast Jellyfish“, one of said neighbours, is a bouncy and uplifting tune, which as far as I can make out is about fast food. Sure to become a fan favourite, “Jellyfish” contains good vocals provided by long time Gorillaz colaborator De La Soul (Clint Eastwood and Rock the House from the debut album) mixed with the trademark Gorillaz oh-so-slightly avant garde style. It’s a more upbeat and energetic tune than most on the album, but after every MSG-driven energy rush comes a crash, in this case in the form of “Empire Ants”.

Much more slow paced and relaxing, “Empire Ants” may remind some listeners of the repetitive muzak often deployed in hotel lobbies and elevators. At least, until the 2 minute mark, when the drums and synths really kick in, alongside Yukimi Nagano’s vocals. Then the tune takes a totally different direction.

“On Melancholy Hill” will give fans of MGMT a buzz; 2D has obviously been listening to Oracular Spectacular. The album continues, never letting go of its “peaceful beach” theme – “To Binge”, again with Nagano, being a prime example. It’s impossible to be angry whilst listening to this song, it’s simply too peaceful on the ears.

These are just a few standout tracks on the 16 track, hour long album; many of the songs are great on their own, such as “Stylo” and “Superfast Jellyfish”, but like its predecessor (and unlike its predecessor’s predecessor), Plastic Beach comes out as an album, much like Pink Floyd’s The Wall, or Rush’s Power Windows, that to be properly enjoyed needs to be listened to as a whole rather than as the sum of its parts. As usual for the band, it’s ambitious, and covers more genres than you could throw a stick at, but once again it all comes together beautifully.

No review could skip the underlying theme of the album; not quite explicitly environmentalist, the record exudes concern for humanity’s apparent disdain for dear old Mother Earth. Albarn himself says of the record’s lyrical content:

I suppose what I’ve done with this Gorillaz record is I’ve tried to connect pop sensibility with … trying to make people understand the essential melancholy of buying a ready made meal in loads of plastic packaging…

We didn’t create plastic, nature created plastic. And just seeing the snakes like living in the warmth of decomposing plastic bags. They like it. It was a strange kind of optimism that I felt… but trying to get that into pop music is a challenge, anyway. But important.

The State I Was In

by Graeme Archer

I wouldn’t waste time dreaming about me

I was sort of lost, well, not lost, but in a new job, in a new town (a New Town, in fact), in a new country, and I was still young, so that I hadn’t yet developed antibodies to the concept of novelty, whether in people, or in things – I still had that curiosity about other things, about the outside world, a curiosity, I find, that diminishes with age (I’m not proud of this), and so when this guy, Andrew, said to me one day – I know a band you would like, I didn’t react, as I would now, with a sort of weary – Oh? and an expectation that I wouldn’t like the band; instead I said – Oh? Who are they?, and felt touched that this random stranger in my new work environment should have been sufficiently interested in how I appeared to him, that he tried to link what he saw with the music he liked to listen to.

When will you realise that it doesn’t pay to be smarter than teachers, smarter than most boys? Shut your mouth: start kicking the football.

I should explain that I am rubbish about music in general, and pop music in particular. My earliest musical passions were twofold – sneaking into the Front Room to dance to Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (there, I’ve said it) and also to listen repeatedly, until it wore out, to the home-made recording I’d made of the theme tune from the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, direct from Radio 4 onto my monophone radiocassette recorder (it’s called Journey of the Sorcerer, that one, by the way).

If they knew what’s going on in her life, what’s going on in her life, there would be a documentary on Radio 4.

Well. So the bootleg CD labelled Tigermilk was taken back to my tiny flat in Bow, and I put it on, and listened. A voice of distinctly Scottish ethereal beauty filled the room.

I was surprised; I was happy for a day, in 1975. I was puzzled by a dream, that stayed with me all day, in 1995.

The band are Belle & Sebastian, and the singer (and writer) is Stuart Murdoch. He is a genius, an under-rated genius, a lyrically and musically gifted, insightful and beautiful man. Those opening lines come from The State I Am In, a line that appears not just in the chorus but in my favourite verse. I won’t do this often but I’m going to quote it in full:

The priest in the booth had a photographic memory for all he had heard.
He took all of all my sins, and he wrote a pocket novel called The State I Am In.
And so I gave myself to God – there was a pregnant pause, before he said – OK.
Now I spend my days turning tables round in Marks & Spencer; they don’t seem to mind.

Why did that song get so under my skin? The rules of this blog require us not to mention politics – good idea – but I hope I don’t break the rule if I let out a secret, which is that almost every article I’ve ever posted to the ConservativeHome website began its life hidden somewhere inside this song. Sometimes I label the pieces explicitly – there are posts of mine called The State I Am In, or Puzzled By A Dream – but whether articulated or not, the melancholic phrasing of this song is the leitmotif of most of my words (the others come from a passage in Iris Murdoch. Having only two sources of inspiration is somewhat limiting for a someone who wants to write, but we are what we are). This obviously has nothing to do with party politics, nor even necessarily with the subject matter of the songs (I’ve never given myself to God; unless my very existence does so, and the pregnant pause has now stretched to beyond forty of your Earth years).

It’s a combination of the melancholic tunefulness (I almost don’t want to analyse this too much), with Stuart Murdoch’s early predilection for describing broken or circumscribed or otherwise limited lives, usually (but not always) female lives, and often, on those early albums, in a locale that I could instantly recognise – the Castle Hill, the Byres Road:

Anthony, bullied at school. Get your own back, now you are cool. Or are you scared?

Yes, Stuart. I was scared, nearly all of the time. Scared of how I appeared to other people, scared of how they would react to me (lots of pregnant pauses). Only huge acts of will and energy kept the outer shell intact and the brazen face presented to the world. But sometimes, when I was young, and alone (in every sense): oh, the state I was in.

Now this is hardly a particularly singular experience. And there are songs of great joy from Belle & Sebastian also. But the defiance of a life lived against the will of the others – albeit sometimes with unfortunate consequences (Lazy Line Painter Jane) spoke to me so directly it quite nearly freaked me out. It felt like the guy was in the room whispering in my ear. How could he see inside me so clearly?

Well. Time passes. The state I was in became a markedly happier place. A memory that will stay fresh throughout my life is the night that Keith took me to Somerset House, on a sunny evening, and we watched Belle & Sebastian sing all their beautiful songs, as the sun went down over the Thames. But you carry that wistful egg, that loneliness nugget, somewhere deep within, I think, for always, if it finds a home inside you at a critical point of your youth; and the contrast between the joy of having my man stand behind me, as the singer whose songs I love took to the stage in front of me and began to sing – I was surprised; I was happy for a day, in 1975 – was too much. I broke down and cried. For my father, I finally realised; for my father who died just before I went to the New Town, and who I’d never be able to introduce to Belle and Sebastian, or to Keith, or to anything in my life again. How I miss that man. He would have loved Stuart Murdoch’s songs.

On An Island

by Obnoxio the Clown

I’m afraid it’s time for a specialist rant again.

Roger Waters was (and probably still is) a real fucking bastard: a manipulative, bullying, uber-control-freak shithead with an ego the size of Jupiter; pernickety, difficult, abrasive and unpleasant. He was (and definitely still is) a genius as well.

Of all the members of Pink Floyd, he was probably the most mediocre musician. He made up for it with a capacity for composing and for steering and bullying greater musicians than he into his chosen musical direction.

He was, without a doubt, a complete cunt, who had, by the time “The Final Cut” was released, managed to eject Rick Wright from the band. He was probably the only reason why Pink Floyd broke up.

However, with all that, he was probably the only reason Pink Floyd was such a seminal and remarkable band. I am sure that the frustration and stress of having such a cunt making your life an outright fucking misery definitely inspired the band to greater heights, and of course, his positive contributions were in the quality of the writing he produced.

It was embarrassingly obvious to all just how important he was to Pink Floyd when “The Division Bell” was released: a technically superb, well-performed, well-produced, but utterly forgettable album which went nowhere, especially when compared to such masterpieces as “Dark Side of the Moon”, “Shine On, You Crazy Diamond” and, of course, “The Wall”. Even the much-maligned “Final Cut” was much more coherent and more musically interesting.

Many years on, and we come to the real subject of this rant. David Gilmour is a content and successful man: he tours his solo projects, he enjoys rapt acclaim for his breathtaking live acoustic shows, he is happily married and has a great relationship with his kids.

He has just produced a new album, called “On An Island”, which he co-wrote with his wife. Despite the fact that he’s as old as my father, his guitar playing is possibly better than it’s ever been. The album is beautifully produced and packaged, a joy on the eye and easy on the ear.

There’s only one problem, though.

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It’s fucking SHIT!!!!

Part of the greatness of Pink Floyd’s music is doubtlessly the competition between Waters and Gilmour to write and play the best tracks. It’s certainly clear to me that Gilmour after Pink Floyd wrote much less interesting music than when he was harbouring murderous thoughts about Waters. And his music has reached an all-time fucking low now, his biggest beef is whether or not it’s his turn to pack the fucking dishwasher. What kind of fucking inspiration is that?

He has repeatedly said that there is no way he’s working with Waters again, he’s done that and he’s moved on. David, you fucking need to get something a bit more challenging in your life than arguing with the missus about whose turn it is to do the cunting dishes.

Stop this fucking limp noodling around on your guitar and start fucking stretching yourself again, you lazy fucking CUNT.