RECORD OF THE WEEK
DOMINIQUE FILS-AIME - Go Get It (Ensoul)
by LamontPaul
Candian, Dominique Fils-Aimé is just so great - plowing her own furrow I always think. Unaffected by modern music fads and fashions. And so, Go Get It swells up so gorgeously. A Pure pop win. Sung in English and French. What if a piece of music could just make you feel better? Go Get It is joyous. It's got a bit of a Paul Simon Graceland vibe here. Gentle, lovely, and affecting. Sales from the record will benefit Plan International Canada, the organization that defends the rights of children and young women from Canada and elsewhere. And all that stretching in the video, reminded me of me on the track.
SINGLES
PARTNER - Time Is A Car (You've Changed Records)
by Tim London
Managing in one single to combine Fleetwood Mac, the Blue Oyster Cult and America/Canada’s increasing need to include a pitch-corrected country element in every genre. And, with the video, to annoy with a clear-skinned, evenly-featured cast (AKA ‘the band’) who have the skills to drink interesting coffee without ever needing a mint to freshen their breaths. Like bad speed, it invigorates, thrills and rots your insides and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad but I watched it twice and I never do that.
MARION RAW - Unfuckable (Devil In The Woods)
by Lee Paul
I was sitting in the kitchen with some OL people, discussing the art of writing and reading and the welter of press releases that we get and just what about them triggers us and gets a response. And so to Marion Raw. The track title, 'Unfuckable'. Is anyone unfuckable? People can get fucked in so many ways. So what, Marion, is that all about? I am already way more hooked and sinking in and invested in this than in 99% of whatever we get hear or read about. In her PR picture Marion has an amazing 335 type - but not a 335 guitar. That is very cool and the song is going on for a third time already. The giant valve driven chords sound like a David Lynch Twin Peaks era mellow-drone. "Say my name three times..." It's personal, as music is meant to be, intimate, and Marion does this thing with her vocal and lyric that is totally and carelessly calculatedly carefree, "t,t,t,t,t,t,t,t,t,t,t,t, hey, t,t,t,t,t,t,t,t,t,t,t,t today, I'm unstoppable and I'm unfuckable." or it could be, "d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d, hey, d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d, today, I'm unstoppable and I'm unfuckable." Julian Cope might have mesmerised you once in the same way. And at the end of the outro there is tambourine and laughter and Oh dear god, in my ears, in my head and in my heart, A Star is Born.
BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD - Snow Globes (Ninja Tune)
by Tim London
The singer's upset with the drummer.
JIM PERKINS - In the Menagerie (feat. Anna De Bruin) (Bigo and Twigetti)
by Tim London
Remember Space Dust? I think we called it Angel Dust. An infernal, exquisite sensation, flavoured, very sweet and fizzy! How did they do that? Anyway, when you got to the end of the packet and there was just enough to sprinkle on your poking out tongue, that last shiver of tooth rotting pops and crackles and then it was over. That’s this. One minute, twelve seconds. A proper 21st Century single. Put it on repeat and heal your mind.
BRIGHT EYES - Running Back (Secretly Canadian)
by Ancient Champion
Oh My God Almighty! I Love this. Bright Eyes covering Thin Lizzy's Running Back (from the LP Jailbreak - hard to imagine a day way back when this was considered hard rock. Maybe kids weren't so hard back then). I remember using Jailbreak's die cut gatefold LP cover to transport the porno mags the boys shared. Leaving crucial elements of their covers, erm, inadvertently exposed. Boys! Seems so Carry On now. Probably part of a moral panic back then. Maybe so, look how fucked up my relationships have been. This song evokes difficult areas of child/teen/hood. Inspired, and hewing closely, but not too closely to the original. Love what sounds like a plinky plonking yamaha reface organ. The Mungo Jerry vibe and the Bentley Rhythm Ace swing beats. Conor Oberst, sings like a devious genius of music. He is one. What is not to love about this?
BEN MARC - Mustard (Innovative Leisure)
by Ancient Champion
Ben Marc is best known for his arresting Breathe Suite recordings, lush affairs, on which to ponder what... when breath is unavailable, when breath is taken away. "Erase my voice..." I often casually causally shout that hyperbolically when something is I see or hear is breathtaking. Never like this. From slight to epic and back again. Ben pulled in some of London's jazz glitterati for some parts too. Expansive, challenging and Amazing to hear. Mustard is shorter, sharper and comparatively whimsical, but mustard is complex too and Ben Marc gives it its due.
SPIRITUALIZED - Crazy (Bella Union)
by Ancient Champion
I don't know what I expect from Spiritualized. Waiting around for a record forever, if four years is forever, and then from the forthcoming, Everything Was Beautiful, comes Crazy, an exercise in Billy Sherrill countrypolitan pop pastiche in a Rugby accent. Of course Spiritualized wear it well. It's a play by numbers for these guys. And I can listen to it all day and so on. Somehow wanted something else, wanted more. That's just me. I am old, I don't know whether I have much time for it. Literally don't.
CULT OF LUNA - Into The Night (Metal Blade)
by Toon Traveller
there's a finely strummed guitar, phased and treated, there are distant vocals, almost strangled, think dark end of the street, think garbage pails, and the feel of fine rain, plodding and splodging the wet streets of some faded industrial city. Get into a post metal mindset. Think about whether you still like Test Department, Into The Night could've soundtracked 40 Days of Night, it's a song that underscores menace just around the corner, not too sure if i liked it, but it's intense, intriguing and strangely moreish. LP The Long Road North, soon.
DAVID BENJAMIN BLOWER - Where You Don't Want To Go (DBB)
by Ancient Champion
A more sombre David Benjamin Blower? Conversely this is DBB's first song since his truly astonishing Soil that I can't get out of my head, Kylie Style. There's a hook here Where You Don't Want To Go...
CHAI - WHOLE (Sony)
by Tim London
Japan loves a jazzy chord. I think it denotes a kind of authentic muso sensibility. So, whereas, say in the UK this theme tune to a new Japanese romogentlesitcom about a very attractive young couple in an asexual relationship - actually, I’ll stop there, that’s the perfect review. It sounds like what it is. PS: one bonus point for winding up the grunge heads of Sub Pop who are mortally offended and rightly so by ‘their’ label putting this out. Oh, the iiiiiiirony. Actual review: the sound of an asexual relationship on mainstream TV. In Japan.
VR SEX - Victim or Vixen (Dais Records)
by Spanish Pantalones
Another apocalyptic single from the gothy, electronic band out of Los Angeles. I’ve championed these creeps for years and I’m happy to hear that this new single sounds incredibly encouraging. “Victim or Vixen” has all of the elements that made their last LP (Human Traffic Jam, 2019) so engaging – it’s dark, dystopian, and loud, but there’s a little more atmosphere. It sounds bigger, and it does what lead-off singles are supposed to do, which it gets the listener excited for the forthcoming album.
SPOON - The Hardest Cut (Matador)
by Toon Traveller
CAT POWER - These Days (Domino)
by Ancient Champion
We've been a fan of Cat Power for decades, since whenever. Cat's latest, Covers, is out now. A collection of covers. Her version of Jackson Browne's These Days is from that LP. And while Jackson Browne's original is all a Byrds-y, Parsons-y, Cali-country rock-cryer, Cat strips that skin off and bares its bones and then, and then oh man, your heart is gonna hurt at the entire wastefulness of your entire fucking life in three minutes. Gorgeous, stunning and dangerous. Now where's my number for thmy therapist. I got a lot of C words into this.
THE DELINES - Kid Codeine (Decor)
by Ancient Champion
People call her Kid Codeine. Her boyfriend is a boxer who's broke. When a story opens like that, oh man! Oh wow... You knows you're gonna be hanging on 'til the, knuckles raw. No amount of angelically choral ba, ba,ba,ba,ba,ba,ba,ba's, no amount of soothing horns can take the edge off. The Delines don't mess about.
IGNORING OLIVIA - Staying (Including Olivia)
by Alarcon
There was a time in the early to mid ‘90s when Ignoring Olivia’s “Staying” would have found itself on the College Music Journal charts alongside with female-fronted bands like Throwing Muses, Bettie Serveert, and maybe Ethyl Meatplow. Stilted lyrics, unusual time signatures, lo-fi production – it’s a comforting genre, whatever it’s called. I promise you, if this Long Beach, California band can put together an album’s worth of songs that sound like “Staying,” they could break. (Sorry, no official video, but here's a clip of their debut single released last month.)
URGE OVERKILL - Forgiven (Omnivore Recordings)
by Alarcon
After more than a decade of silence, this is the new Urge Overkill – they sound more macho than ever, sort of like an American Rolling Stones, circa 1972 around the time they were getting their rocks off with Exile on Main Street. It’s a jolt of what they used to call “four-on-the-floor rock n’ roll.” I’m not sure what the expression means, but it gives one the sense of a loose and fast, hard-charging thumper of a three-minute single. All guitars, snarls from Nash Kato, and mixed very over the top. I hear that the rest of the album this song precedes will have the same vibe as “Forgiven” If true, this could be a comeback.
LPs
DIAMOND DOGS - Slap Bang Blue Rendezvous (Wild Kingdom Records)
by Spanish Pantalones
I don’t know if I should ignore Diamond Dogs or campaign for their expulsion from the entertainment industry. I was drawn to Slap Bang Blue Rendezvous only because of the band’s name – Diamond Dogs. A blatant Bowie reference. Sometimes that’s all it takes. I see dozens of music press releases a week and they’re usually about dull bands I’ve never heard of, but I had to know what a band who named themselves after one of Bowie’s glammiest singles sounds like. Sadly, Slap Bang Blue Rendezvous is reminiscent of your 68-year-old father and his buddies reliving old glories. There is a corny Lou Reed-on-meth vibe crossed with some watered down Mott the Hoople here and there, but it comes off mostly like a rock parody album.
KIEFER SUTHERLAND - Bloor Street (Co-op Music)
by Spanish Pantalones
Kiefer is a much better actor than a musician. Bloor Street is simply generic -- it sounds like it was written by a computer program. Only a cold, calculated computer program could produce something this bland and flavorless. When I listen to Bloor Street, all I can think about is all the money spent on studio time, post-production, alcohol... money that could have been spent better practically a billion other, more productive ways.
REPTALIENS - Multiverse (Captured Tracks)
by Spanish Pantalones
Multiverse is truly the surprise of the week. It’s light, poppy, dreamy, and slightly psychedelic. I don’t know much about Reptaliens, other than that they’re a synthy guitar pop duo based out of Portland, Oregon made up of Cole and Bambi Browning. Give this one a listen or two, there’s something really special here.
Essential Info
Main image youtube screen grab of Dominique Fils-Aimé
