These New Puritans, Beat Pyramid

These New Puritans, Beat Pyramid
Domino

Like an agitated teenager adrift from the early 80s, Jack Barnett, the spindly frontman of These New Puritans, has one foot in our digitised urban jungle of tarmac and grime (in the physical and musical senses) and the other in parallel realms of occultist mantras, astrology and mythology. Beat Pyramid, the debut from the malnourished Southend four-piece, is a scatterbrain collection of urgent guitars, drone-fuzz bass, looping textures and wild tangents, veering from danceable post-punk to whirring soundscape interludes, all peppered with an ironic deadpan that makes no bones about its debt to Mark E Smith. The lyrics are both intensely cryptic and laughably banal; a bizarre reference to Michael Barrymore on ‘MKK3’ and the profound emptiness of the repeated “0800, 0800” on ‘Elvis’ place the record in a fantasy galaxy, floating alongside the magickal space-age of Myths Of The Near Future but with its roots in a very British melancholia.

For a debut record it’s an astonishing achievement. An ode to pre-Socratic philosophers on the sparse and fantastically grimy ‘Infinity Ytinifni’ rubs up against the playground punk of ‘Numerology AKA Numbers’ - but it’s obvious that this is a juvenile effort, in the best possible sense. The sheer volume of ideas and influences here could contribute to a truly classic album a few years down the line when they’ve grown out of their ADD mindsets and started drinking grown-up beer. Like when a four year old stops drawing stick-men and progresses to wobbly arms and googly eyes: TNP are way ahead of their peers, but Beat Pyramid ain’t their Mona Lisa. This really is a band that needs to be nurtured properly and not just shoved off the roundabout of indie fame when ‘the new New Puritans’ pop up in about, ooh, three weeks?

26/01/2008

Young Marble Giants, Colossal Youth reissue

Young Marble Giants, Colossal Youth (Reissue)
Domino

In the queasy morning light after the sordid all-nighter that was 1977, Young Marble Giants coolly fizzed into being, making a feather-light impact on popular music in the way that only the most innovative and unique bands do. Domino have wisely chosen to re-release the Cardiff band’s one and only album, Colossal Youth, complete with a bumper set of demos, singles and other miscellany from their brief existence.

Colossal Youth was way, way ahead of its time. Unlike other ‘classic’ albums of the period (Unknown Pleasures, Fear Of Music), it hasn’t aged a jot. It remains fresh, challenging and alien in a Mark Ronson-ified pop world, especially considering how laughably primitive the machines and synths they worked with were. Brothers Philip and Stuart Moxham create a brittle landscape of chopping guitars, neat basslines, creepy organ and invented noises for Alison Statton to do her nonchalant speak-sing thing over. It’s Statton’s voice in particular that creates the tense mood – sparse yet oppressive, minimal yet melodic. From the haunted house vibe of ‘The Taxi’ to the Redondo Beach-alike title track, Young Marble Giants created their own world of songs with their own rules, so different from the prevailing aesthetic of the time.

Bizarrely, Amazon is selling Colossal Youth in a bargain package with Nico’s The Marble Index. The records are actually a perfect pairing; unique, uncompromising and terrifying, and resolutely out of the mainstream after all this time. The remainder of the collection is a worthwhile insight into the beginnings of both post-punk and new wave, but does perhaps detract from the purity of the album alone. Thus, I can only award nine stars out of ten. Unless you get The Marble Index too, in which case I award twelve.

03/08/2007

Clinic, Funf

Clinic, Funf
Domino Records

Some years ago, when I first saw Clinic live, they had already existed for half a decade. Dressed in doctors’ scrubs, they used a melodica in virtually every song and played a set so hypnotic that the crowd was left wondering if it wasn’t perhaps Derren Brown behind that surgeon’s mask. Needless to say, Clinic have never been chart-botherers. From raw punk riffs to psychedelic scuzz, they channel anyone from the Velvets to Phil Spector through surf guitars, 60s organ or that really creepy melodica (FYI, a melodica is like a mini keyboard that you play through your mouth. Quite).

After the release of fourth album Visitations late in 2006, Clinic have followed it up with the obligatory B-sides collection. A dire listening prospect as far as most bands are concerned, the B-sides album is usually a necessary marketing evil preceding the old ‘musical differences’ chestnut and a parting of ways. In this case though, such a compilation is truly worthy of the plastic it’s printed on. Though Funf doesn’t present some alternate vision of Clinic’s output or better any previous work, there are some real gems here. The eerily festive ‘Christmas’ and all-out garage punk of instrumental ‘The Scythe’ showcase the extremes of Clinic’s range, and the soul rhythms of ‘Lee Shan’ contrast perfectly with Ade Blackburn’s tense vocals sung through a clenched jaw.

Fate is a cruel bitch, as the saying goes, and the saddest thing about this record is that no one is really going to buy it and, after ten years, few really know who Clinic are. They’ll have to wait for the inevitable retrospective when they split before taking their rightful place alongside Sonic Youth and Suicide as purveyors of brooding, intense punk rock. Or, you could do them a favour and get this record.

17/06/2007

James Yorkston, Roaring The Gospel

James Yorkston, Roaring The Gospel
Domino

On a snoozy Sunday afternoon in the Greenfields at Glastonbury, you might come across a tent where people are lazing on tatty bits of carpet and sipping tea the colour of nicotine. There will be music that seems so warm and cuddly compared to those shouty snotbags on the ‘important’ stages that you feel compelled to sit down yourself and let the sonic sunshine wash over you. A couple of hours later you’ll wake up with a crick in your neck to find that you’re alone, cold and damp and needing more than an alfalfa smoothie to cheer you up. Veganism is hopeless in these moments.

James Yorkston is a vegan and once turned down £10,000 for his music to be used on an advert for butter. His is the music that you would find in the sleepy little backwater stages of Glastonbury, or any festival where milk and two sugars is not an option. Yorkston’s mumbly, cosy voice and equally mumbly, cosy backing band, The Athletes, are like a hot toddy – soothing, Scottish and saccharine. The sweetness isn’t quite intentional, but every track on Roaring The Gospel shuffles past so politely that it takes minutes to even register that the album has ended.

The fact is, there’s plenty of decent folk about. Whether you like the hip, quirky folk that The Sunday Times bangs on about, or highbrow, virtuosic folk like Bert Jansch or Seth Lakeman, or even a stomping ceilidh at a pub, you’re never far from a good bit of folk. So where, really, is the demand for a collection of rarities and covers from a worthy but nonetheless dull artist like Yorkston? It’s all quite good, it’s all perfectly listenable, but you’ll wake up at the end wondering where the hour’s gone and why you can’t get a decent burger.

14/06/2007