The Week in Music was bubbling along. And then Ronnie Spector died and, and while there's no more we can add that you haven't seen or read already, the tributes for Veronica Yvette Bennett of East Harlem are rightly everywhere. Here's ours.
RECORD OF THE WEEK
RONNIE SPECTOR - Be My Baby (Domino)
by Lamontpaul
There's never been much to match the moment, the joy, when you're thinking Be My Baby. What else have we got. Don't Be My Baby...
SINGLES
SASAMI - Say It (Domino)
by Tim London
It would be interesting to hear this track without the small army of sound filtering and pitch shifting. As it is It’s like listening to a car with a loud stereo and a faltering motor driving back and forth in the car park of the motel you’re trying to get some sleep in.
CENTRAL CEE - Retail Therapy (Warner)
by Tim London
Teenage socks after wearing trainers all day. (Look, what are you doing in here? How are you even still alive? Did you have horse and cart ubers back when you were a youth? Fuck off out my crib, man. Me and my gang’s got serious chat. Off! Out! And close the door!)
THE SMILE - You Will Never Work in Television Again (XL)
by Lee Paul
In 1981 it sounds like Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner clubbed together bought some secondhand gear and formed a band, The Smile. Then they went on to be superfamous in other groups. Guitars, drums, old-spicey lyrics. Does sound like they had fun doing it and I like that a lot, and I like this a fair bit too.
DESTROYER - Tintoretto, it's for you (Merge Records)
by John Robinson
Dan Bejar's latest album as Destroyer - Labyrinthitis - is out on March 25th. The first single is named for the Italian painter and as oblique as ever: the video and lyrics hint at some hidden depths and "mythic beasts" to be feared or defeated - taken together with the album title the overall vibe is Dario Argento circa Suspiria - who knows what is at the centre of the maze here. Jazzy piano and suspended, ominous percussion breaks into electro at the chorus, dark imagery as the "ceiling's on fire and the contract is binding". Playful and cryptic, as in "your little one's sick of (insert three syllables here) at night", which could be destroyer itself, could be anything, but must be that last-minute cancellation at the last supper, the beast which is never quite glimpsed - intricate, thoughtful and never knowingly transparent: Tintoretto leaves me looking forward to the new album more than I thought and crystallises what a loss to the New Pornographers his absence is.
SOFIANE PAMART - Love (88 Touches)
by
WINDOWSPEAK - Everything is Simple (Captured Tracks)
by Toon Traveller
Love the slow intro, lazy slinky, and easy, hot cocoa delicious voice... Sparse backing, it could be almost any mid-west, middle aged, middle income, middle market focused piece of music. Don't get me wrong that's almost me and Everything is Simple is a song floating on the air, drifting in on the sunbeams.The slight hint of disconnect, adds to the good feelings this gives me. I can imagine a late Sunday brunch, eggs over easy, hashbrowns, juice and coffee in a downtown diner. I hope they keep refilling the coffee because sounds better on every play. Great place to start out our year of reviews.
PAVEMENT - Be The Hook (Matador)
by Lee Paul
Pavement will release some sort of humongous version of their fifth studio LP Terror Twilight in April. While you are contemplating that and little else here's an unreleased track, Be The Hook.
DAVID BYRNE AND YO LA TENGO - Who Has Seen The Wind? (Atlantic)
by Lee Paul
The first release from the Ben Gibbard baby, Ocean Child: Songs of Yoko Ono. Who Has Seen The Wind has a last season feel. It's christmassy. It's sort of boring and lovely too. All proceeds from the LP go to Why Hunger and if you want to know why, look here
PLACEBO - Try Better Next Time (So Recordings)
by John Robinson
Placebo's album Never Let Me Go is out on 25th March and the latest in a long line of releases which can be summarised as "act from the nostalgic past takes on the modern world". Previous singles tackled online hysteria and the saturation of technology: "Try Better Next Time" is about environmental change which will destroy humanity but leave the planet standing, lyrically similar to XTC's nuclear-war baiting This World Over or Spark's Please Don't Fuck Up My World. "Try Better Next Time" is also an insanely brave name to give a song which seeks the approval of critics: we're a lazy bunch at heart and always on the lookout for "Shit Sandwich" levels of brevity. As it happens, Placebo hit that nostalgic bone in me (i.e. reminds me of a girl from the 90s) and it's good to hear their driving, melodic glam rock again and Molko's over-enunciated delivery. It's very on the nose of course, and the exhortation to "grow fins, go back in the water" is more defeatist than we need. It's lifted by the lines where Molko states "I was born out of time, I'm not meant to be here", an attempt to recuse himself which lends a duality to the character singing, better than the too obvious ending of "take a picture, before it's too late".
GANG OF YOUTHS - In the wake of your leave (Youtube)
by Toon Traveller
Crap marketing - track sent out with a very high volume level. I am NOT ABSOLUTELY NOT going to review ANY MUSIC sent out if they make me get out of my chair to turn it down. Infantile trick so no more than a customer whine from me. No apologies, no regrets, no loss - that's the review
BOY HARSHER - Machina (Ft. Ms. BOAN - Mariana Saldaña) (DKA)
by Tim London
Some people are just too lazy to root through the crates for 1980s electro 12 inchers. So they press the New Order preset (minus live bass) and the Propaganda presets at the same time on their virtual DXsevenizer and make their own derivations. The puzzling thing is that hundreds of thousands of other people want to hear what they do. It’s almost as if it’s nothing to do with quality so much as availability, like when there’s a KFC down the road but the Dixieland Fried Pigeon is right outside the school and you know where the kids will go, right? So I suppose I’m saying this is the Dixieland Fried Pigeon of deep fried, breadcrumb coated fast food, finger stinking electro.
RUDRESH MAHANRHAOA'S HERO TRIO - Faith (Whirlwind Records)
by Toon Traveller
CMAT - Lonely (AWAL)
by Tim London
I like Ciara! She says things like ‘my sea legs are beefy in this regard’ in her press release. Even if her singing name seems to be a Belgian cashpoint and there is a mainstream wash of preset reverbs over the mixes of her keening melodies, there is something down-home and lacking hipster self-reference in her records. Her voice only ever just hangs on to the edge of pitch and there is always the possibility of Elvis at the chipshop novelty hanging over the lyrics and performance.
In the 1970s she would have fronted a band of pub rock crazies dressed in that Kilburn and the High Roads mix of druggy, boozy, cracked-concrete decadence. Because we are in the 21st Century Future she is left alone to front it all by herself. If she has a manager I wish that she/he would remind Ciara to take herself seriously so that she can make the most of the promise and maybe look for her own gang to provide some cultural support. This track? It’s the song in the head of a nineteen year-old girl checking her mobile on the way back from buying crisps at a Costcutters in Babriggan. And her da likes it, too.
BINKER AND MOSES - Accelerometer Overdose (Gearbox Records)
by Toon Traveller
What I truly love about Accelerometer Overdose is the disjointed intro from the dual horns. Wow! Just what a good jazz piece should be, a journey in search melody, timing, unity and freedom. Accelerometer Overdose has all of that that, the drums perhaps fighting for space in the mix, but that's part of the attraction - a few minutes in and the pace drops and the delicacy slips deliciously through. AO is from their Feeding The Machine LP due in the Spring, from Gearbox - one of our fave labels, and this absolutely makes me look forward to that. This is the sound of jazz in the city.
SILVERBACKS - A Jobs Worth Something (Full Time Hobby)
by Toon Traveller
A great post punk mix of of prepunk Lou Reed and Iggy pop, the emphasis on the observations of mundane days, with mundane actions, and mundane jobs to go to. Something I can relate to, this is a song of the listless, restless, hopeless, in a lost, but slightly comfortable place, a song for the unhappy powerlessness kind or so the vibe strikes me.
FEMM - MENTAL HEALTH FEAT. YUP'IN - Radical Hardcore Clique (Avex)
by Tim London
The fierce, can’t-be-assed international pose perfected by the almost-noughties generation has now been superseded by the actual noughties generation’s warmer bemused authenticity. So, imagine you are a university art teacher and a twenty-one year old is explaining why the hand-scribbled, crumpled grocery note she is presenting is actually an organic expression of a philosophical point of view. It would sound, in your head, like this. Industrial, fuzzed synths and voices, screams from the women’s toilets in a bar in Dalston and way more excitement than the moment warrants. And you would have to explain that this is very last year, please try harder.
LPs
CAT POWER - Covers (Domino)
by Spanish Pantalones
Chan Marshall hasn’t thrown us many curveballs over the last few albums so it’s easy to predict what her version of the Pogues’ “A Pair of Brown Eyes” is going to sound like on Covers. Same with Nick Cave’s “I Had a Dream, Joe.” (Slow and sad, it’s become a formula.) Cat Power’s third collection of covers doesn’t offer much in regards to new sounds or a different approach, but it’s pleasant enough, I suppose.
ELVIS COSTELLO & THE IMPOSTERS - The Boy Named If (Capital)
by Jay Lewis
Elvis Costello and the Imposters are makin' like there's no time for messin' around on their new F/L. See Jay Lewis' review here
Other Materials
ROOTS MANUVA - So Jazzy (Squish)
by Ancient Champion
Roots a national treasure now. This came out last year and somehow like so many things while we were sitting for a year or so on our asses, we missed it, so here it is. Love it like you should. It's So Jazzy.
DUMMY - Mandatory Enjoyment (Trouble in Mind)
by Ancient Champion
With my finger on the pulse, Dummy, their 2021 LP Mandatory Enjoyment is something to be excited about. Love the organ grinding gal and guy. The punishment beatings dealt guitars. Did even like Pitchfork calling it something like "Record Collector Rock." Dummy make it okay to feel excited about guitar (and organ) bands, with sometimes droney sounds and singing all over again. A band so great that you might even go get that guitar out from the back of wardrobe and call up your drummer friends even though you know its a bad idea. Best band in Los Angeles right now. Some say. Below some songs live from KEXP.
Main Image: Youtube Screengrab Ronnie Spector (1943-1922)
