SINGLES
THE MOUNTAIN HOWL - Sway (mountain howl)
by Ancient Champion
Very perfectly mellow. Sway as a title might be overstating it.
ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK - Bauhaus Staircase (100%)
by Jay Lewis
We're reliably informed that 'Bauhaus Staircase' will be the last album that Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark will release. So savour this final burst of endearing, if overly-familar, synth pop whilst you can. Feel satisfied that they've managed to rewrite their final chapter so that it doesn't end with those miserable McCluskey solo releases, their reputation as pioneers of smart electronica has been restored. And so, we'll leave them 'kiss(ing) on a Bauhaus staircase' and 'kick(ing) down fascist art'. Reliably pretentious lyrics with a slight whiff of 'Fade to Grey' in the melody. We'll miss them when they've gone
AOIFE NESSA FRANCES - Fantasy (Partisan)
by John Robinson
Beginning a press release by saying "With "Fantasy’" I took inspiration from the High Priestess Tarot card" is not the best way to appeal to this hard bitten cynic, but Fantasy is a lovely, drifting, melodic piece that draws from the more psychedelic, folksier arm of progressive rock, but also to the electronica of acts like Broadcast. The lyrics are a meditation on change and growth, just grounded enough to stay this side of New Age comparisons. The singer Aoife has toured with Destroyer and The Weather Station, and shares the peripheral perspective of someone like Dan Bejar. If drifts a little too much to be memorable, but pleasant working music.
TELE NOVELLA - Eggs In One Basket (Kill Rock Stars)
by Alan Rider
This is bonkers. Good bonkers. Cool lyrics too. Better with the video than on its own.
TAMAR BERK - Cash Out (Tamar Berk Records)
by Ancient Champion
This feels brief, Tamar's getting ready to Cash Out. But... She has a whole new LP for you to listen to before she does that. The cymbals are noticeably under control. I like that but some might be sorry about it. I was working on the details of my lawn, I have recently moved the whole DIY-Garden toolset from Bosch to Makita, the LXT 18 volt thing - is that a good move in 2023? And I was on my knees going around the edge of the lawn with my new grass shears, and I began to wonder whether this is what people do before they cash out. Tidy up, leave everything neatly so. No evidence that they were ever here.
AUGUSTUS MULLER (BOY HARSHER) - Perverse Technology (Nude Club)
by Alan Rider
By now regular OL readers will be familiar with my fondness for left field electronic music and this definitely in that camp. Drawn from the 'Cellulosed Bodies' album featuring scores for two films, 'Crash' and 'Automaton', this is a stark, industrial soundscape of the sort you will be familiar with from films featuring a dystopian view of the future. The accompanying video references J G Ballard's novel Crash heavily, as (I'm guessing) does the film, which is also called Crash. Lets just say its all about Crash. Muller (otherwise known as Gus from Boy Harsher) does a top job of it and this sounds not unlike my own act, Senestra, which is probably why I like it so much. I may well pester the label to send me the full album and lets see how this sits as part of that.
LLOYD'S HOUSE - Ribbons (Wish Fulfilment)
by John Robinson
From Glasgow, Lloyd's House (Five piece led by Lloyd Ledingham) play twee indie pop, with generally pretty chords and melodies with often abstract, absurdist lyrics about modern life. Ribbons, an almost sickeningly sweet pop confection with lyrics about the shifting power dynamics in a relationship, is more cliched than has been the case - "Give you everything you want, sell my soul for free, Take it back when I get what I need..." - a deliberate attempt to get airplay ahead of EP The Masochist, due out 20th October. The main riff and hooks are good, and it ends strongly, but there's some weight missing here: sometimes if you take aim at fluffy pop, that's what you end up with.
TEX CRICK - Easy Keepers (Mac's Record Label)
by Ancient Champion
Tex Crick, what's not to love. He doesn't seem to have a phone or a car but does have a wide angle perspective. Based in Tokyo, made it there from his native Australia, joined Mac DeMarco's record label to make mellifluous melodies that push right up to the boundary of schmaltz without ever even going there. This is way cool. If I could do this I wouldn't have to sit here writing about it for pennies. Do listen.
JAMILA WOODS - Boomerang (Jagjaguwar)
by Lee Paul
Wow! Well. Jamila Woods sets about winding up the easy listening Manhat.Transfer vibe with a perverse speedy-smooth-affair... Great laundry action at the start and you know how much I love that. The rest seems a little de rigueur when it seems like it could be way more vibrant but isn't. Maybe that's the point. Maybe it shouldn't pop. Whatever Jamila Woods can do anything.
THE NATIONAL - Space Invader (Domino I think)
by Lee Paul
Everything is just as you might expect with The National. The timbre, the words, the pondering, and understatedTM instrumental ponderous beauty. It's marvelous how Matt manages to write down and record his every creepy stream of consciousness, and sing so joyously about it as the boys in the band have a mannered freakout. Imagine say, what Lou Reed was wondering about when he was working. Seemingly quite different concerns to Matt. And what matters to Matt, which is Matt obviously, that's his milieu, and so opined here so mellifluously, to music, while the rest of us do the same thing sitting in traffic on the way home from work while listening to the radio. Well done that Matt!
MOUNTAIN GOATS - Fresh Tattoo (Merge)
by Lee Paul
That's right I want The Mountain Goats to season like the sustainable untreated teak garden furniture out back here, and they are probably doing just that. But I am uncertain that I believe it. The furniture causes much debate, should we treat it or leave it? This is either great or a non-ironic high school musical outtake. I don't know.
EPs
ARC DE SOLEIL - Last A While (Epidemic)
by Ancient Champion
The primitive soul inflected Last A While is from the an EP alongside the songs Ghost of Fatalia and Loop Drive, all great all around to restore your belief that melody can still matter. Oh man listen to the guitar. Listen to the echo-ey vague vocal. Here comes summer somewhere.
SOCCER MOMMY - Karaoke Night (Loma Vista)
by Alan Rider
An EP of covers of songs by Sheryl Crow, Taylor Swift, R.E.M., Pavement, and Slowdive? The only thought that springs to mind is; why! I despair, I really do.
LPs
MSSV - Human Reaction (Big Ego Records)
by Alan Rider
You might imagine that a trio of musicians who had been around the block a few times, playing with everyone from Tom Waits and David Lynch to The Minutemen, Iggy Pop and beyond to have lost a bit of their edge by now, but mssv, comprised of guitarist Mike Baggetta , Stephen Hodges and Mike Watt certainly haven't on the evidence of Human Reaction. The title track could be straight off a Stooges album in fact. The album is chock full of light and dark and the fact that they all know their craft inside out meant that they were able to record the whole LP semi live and semi improvised largely in a single day (Mayday 2022). Its got power punk elements fused with alt experimental, and (admittedly) the odd overly twiddly muso diversion (but I can forgive them that), and the overwhelming feeling that comes across from 'Human Reaction' is that they still love playing and do it almost intuitively. You have to admire that.
TERMINAL - The New Republic (Metropolis)
by Alan Rider
The first line on this album is "How many guns would Jesus buy?", delivered in a baritone reminiscent of the Sisters of Mercy. In fact if you combine that with sub Front 242/Front Line Assembly/Rammstein tunes you'd be pretty close to what Terminal sound like. Industrial music has actually solidified around that sound since merging with Goth around the mid 90's and is now a long way from its more experimental and individualistic roots in Throbbing Gristle, Test Department and SPK, to the extent that pretty much every industrial album is now interchangable with another, and this is no exception, although it is rather well done. Plato's Republic provides the album title, with the song themes revolving around the gloomy topics of "a world unbalanced, reeling and spinning out of control, running out of time". I get the feeling that Thom Anthony (Terminal being a solo affair) doesn't smile a lot.
INFINITE RIVER - Space Mirror (Birdman Records)
by Alan Rider
Wow. This is a novelty. A label that actually sends in hard copy vinyl all the way from the States with a printed press release. Hats off to Birdman Records and the band for doing that. Space Mirror is a rare example of an album title that fits the music perfectly. Its hard to pin down the sound Infinite River make on this. It's an instrumental, mantra like swirl, constantly evolving, and reminiscent in a way of one of my favourite bands, SQÜRL. That's a very good comparison to make by the way. Each track flows into another like an (ahem) infinite river. I played this late last night. I wasn't stoned but it had the same effect, so save yourself money on drugs and invest in a copy!
MICK HARVEY & AMANDA ACEVEDO - Phantasmagoria in Blue (Mute)
by Alan Rider
Previously I have been very luke warm in my reviews of the cover versions pulled out from this album as singles, especially their dreadful schmaltzy take on Pat Benetar's 1980's hit 'Love Is A Battlefield' as I felt that their heart wasn't really in it, a fact borne out by the lacklustre, and often cringingly embarrassing, videos made to accompany them. Unfortunately, the album continues in this vein, full of the awful croony rubbish that used to fill the bargain bins at Woolworth's. Just because Mick Harvey has some campaign medals to his name with The Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds and attempts to ape Nick Cave's sound, doesn't excuse this lapse any more than it does some of the laughably terrible merchandise (pencils, milk jugs, and angel key rings!) Nick Cave is peddling on his website these days. I can only assume this album represents some sort of mid-life crisis. They may well have a ready made market flogging this sort of bluesy folk rock tripe to the blue rinse brigade, but this album needs to be given a very wide berth by anyone with a modicum of musical taste in my opinion. The fact that a label like Mute are giving this house room I can only imagine is down to Mick Harvey's past glories pulling the wool over their eyes.
WEIRD TALES - Second Coming, Second Crucifixion (Interstellar Smoke Records.)
by Alan Rider
"Weird Tales is riff worship driven by narcotic psychosis" they say, followed by a lot of bollocks about "hatred from the deepest abyss of the heart mixed up with creepshow stories about schizos, drug addicts and slaughter". All sounds a bit heavy duty to me. I don't think they would be a lot of fun to talk to at a party either, so I would probably use the old "oh, look there is X, I haven't seen them for ages, I must go over and say hello" trick if I ever got stuck in a corner with them. In reality they probably all live with their mum and pick up her shopping every week in exchange for having their washing done. This is plodding doom rock of the dullest sort. Each track is pretty similar so even if you make it through the 10 minute snooze fest that is the single ' Damned Lovers Of The Swampire' - the title in itself tells you exactly what to expect - then there is no need to bother wasting more valuable minutes of your finite lifespan listening to any other tracks as you now know more than you ever really wanted to about this band.
ABC - The Lexicon of Love - 40th Anniversary Edition (Mercury Record Ltd.)
by Jay Lewis
In a world of strange arrangements, Jay revisits his favourite 80s pop album. Link here.
Other Materials
JONATHAN RICHMAN AND THE MODERN LOVERS - Roadrunner (Berkeley)
by Ancient Champion
The best right. Where music begins for so many kids. Who aren't kids no more. Ancients now.
Essential Information
Main image video screengrab from Sway by The Mountain Howl
