Sinead O'Connor: How About I Be Me & You Be You (review)

Sinead O'Connor -

"How About I Be Me and You Be You"

(One Little Indian/Shock)

Sinead O’Connor came out fighting on her 1987 debut, The Lion & The Cobra, and 25 years on, she still sounds like that girl with fire in her soul and a foot looking for an arse to kick on How About I Be Me And You Be You. Yes, anger has continually infiltrated her work, be it directed at her parents, the opposite sex or the Catholic church, but during the last 25 years, we have also come to know Sinead as a highly contrary artist. One thing that is a constant however, is her dissatisfaction with the status quo. Confusing and confounding fans and critics alike, in the last decade Sinead came out as a lesbian before being ordained as a priest and later rejected both lifestyles when she become engaged to Australian musician, Steve Cooney. No sooner had she announced she would be ‘settling down’, news came through of a quick divorce from Cooney and a further marriage to a man she met online followed. It’s these recent developments in Sinead’s life that forms the basis of How I About I Be Me…

 

The album’s title – a re-writing of the traditional marriage vows - and its content deals directly with O’Connor’s brushes with matrimony – her recent wedding to Barry Herridge lasted only 17 days – and the institution itself. As far as wedding albums go, there is little romantic merit in O’Connor’s words, as to be expected, but rather she challenges the suitor to forget the fairytale (and the Catholic church) idea of marriage. On the first single The Wolf Is Getting Married, Sinead owns the public’s image of her as an unstable - even lamentable - woman of contradictions.  Firstly, she decides marriage will bring her unending happiness and keep away the ‘wolves’ – an animal, in literary terms, sometimes associated with depressive syndromes. The question that the song raises however, is how serious is she? At any given moment the listener could expect to be slapped in the face with a renouncement of all this new-found comfort.

The track 4th and Vine further reinforces O’Connor’s belief that matrimony holds the key to her satisfaction, and is nothing short of a re-telling of The Dixie Cups’ saccharine 1964 hit, Chapel Of Love, yet considering the singer’s recent past, a sarcastic subtext can’t be ignored.  The album takes a sudden and more familiar turn on Take Off Your Shoes, where Sinead is all ‘blood of Jesus’ and ‘hallowed ground’, while V.I.P. is good old fashioned theology in verse. Musically, her later releases veered into reggae which is reprised here. The mostly mid-tempo pace and acoustic instrumentation allows the narrative to take the lead, keeping with Sinead’s folk singer styling and the tradition of reggae’s ‘songs of rebellion’. The album overall is a fantastic observation and summary of O’Connor’s often difficult to relate to personal life and favourite subject matter. She offers an even sharper perspective than on many former revelatory releases, and is still one of the most brutally honest song-writers around - “I was always crazy”; she growls on If I Had A Baby. O’Connor is at her best when she flaunts what most of us would be happy to deny. How About I Be Me And You Be You is a purposeful blurring of the singer’s wishful thinking and the stark reality of her inability to settle down and play house. Perhaps she feels such a compromise would be mean disconnecting from her muse, and so within the safety of music, she has dared to go where she just can’t seem to in life.



lEIGh5

                                            

 "The Wolf Is Getting Married" official video.

Kate Bush: Director's Cut (album review)

KATE BUSH

Director’s Cut

(Fish People)

Kate Bush fans desperate for new material from the reclusive star have been awarded an intriguing prize in the form of Director’s Cut. Calling this new however is misleading as all songs are entirely updated versions, culled from roughly two halves of previously released albums. The track list is compiled from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes, with only the former’s title track receiving a completely new set of lyrics. Re-named Flower Of The Mountain, The Sensual World could largely be seen as the catalyst for Bush’s latest move. At the song’s conception, Kate intended to use part of poet James Joyce’s novel Ulysses in the lyric but was at the time denied rights. Last year, with full access finally granted to Joyce’s words, Kate re-made the song as she had always intended and so began work on ‘correcting’ more and more of the songs that have dogged her over time. The fact that the entire album is comprised of music from those two particular albums won’t surprise many long-term fans of Kate.



The artist has been casually critical of the two records in question, just as the media had been upon their respective releases. Now that Kate has put right what she had long seen as errors in her last two pre-millennium albums, I can’t help thinking that the same things that will please many long-time fans are the very same that will disappoint others. As a hopeless devotee, I can’t help but feel heavily critical of the re-workings in both positive and negative ways. Whereas I totally respect Kate’s decision to remake a few songs that she has long felt uncomfortable with, there are mixed results with no noticeable consideration for what her fans may have loved about these tracks in the first place.



My first criticism would be that the vastly different albums (in their original state) The Sensual World and The Red Shoes don’t mesh particularly when assembled as the one piece. The Sensual World – always the black sheep in Kate’s catalogue - had a distinctly down-tempo, almost grim prevailing mood, whereas The Red Shoes was a spiky pagan romp through tales of black magic and mythology. Bush herself always claimed she felt a deep disappointment over how The Red Shoes was received, and in many cases the criticisms were unusually severe for a Kate Bush album. The fact that she disappeared from the public eye completely after, it’s been suggested, was partly down to being so brutally scorned over the album and its accompanying film - The Line, The Cross & The Curve – which leads me to wonder if re-recording that album alone would have sufficed. The Sensual World tracks after all are the least altered by far among this collection.



This Woman’s Work (from The Sensual World) for example, is thankfully only slightly tweaked here with the most notable change being Kate’s cleaner vocal. She exercises further welcome restraint on Song Of Solomon and Lily – both of which retain all of the magic of their parent versions, and Top Of The City also remains glorious, if not a little less starry-eyed than its 1993 counterpart.. However, the Red Shoes most powerful six minutes – Moments Of Pleasure – has been sheered down to its bare bones, omitting everything from its beautiful, climactic refrain to its strings and all the original’s dynamics. This simple piano and choir version does however carry greater melancholy suited to the song’s meaning, but less is definitely not more in this case.



But all the nit-picking so far aside, let me be totally clear, Director’s Cut is by no means a hatchet job done on some old songs in a vain effort to drag them into modern, shiny perfection. Instead Bush has re-done her vocals - in nearly every case - to simply suit her matured, lower octave range and swept away a lot of the layered post-production in favour of some raw jam-style live band mixes. These versions are essentially concert-ready performances which, considering a snowball’s chance of a full world tour, is a really a massive tease. The biggest tease of all however, is the actual possibilities here not realised on some of these tracks. The brassy rumba of Rubberband Girl (from The Red Shoes) has been reduced – and not improved upon at all – to a vocal, electric guitar, drum and harmonica plod. I find it mind-boggling that Kate would seriously envision this track as needing such a lacklustre makeover.



Far more satisfying is the album’s single, Deeper Understanding, which is unusual here in that is works perfectly in its updated form because of its lyric – written in 1989 – about computers taking the place of meaningful inter-human exchanges. However Bush’s own reliance on current technology in making this record is limited to that song with its jarring auto-tune refrain being the only in-organic sound throughout. As the project’s initial purpose was to strip away the slightly saccharine digital production of these song’s originals, all bar Deeper Understanding have been recorded entirely using analogue equipment which, for the most part, provides undeniable warmth in the sound. Although the kind of warmth that comes from non-digital recordings is pleasing, especially when it is a rare commodity in music now, it seems an odd that Kate should shy away from these advances considering the remarkable use of digital techniques and effects on her 1985 LP, Hounds Of Love. There’s evidence-a-plenty in Kate’s back catalogue of an artist who could always comfortably marry the timeless with the very latest.



The perfectionist that is Kate Bush coupled with the amount of time passed since these songs were written in theory should really have produced outstanding results rather than a sizable percentage of confounding ones. Perhaps the long-gestating gripe Kate had with the too-many-cooks sound on The Red Shoes and the occasionally flat-lining Sensual World should have been addressed sooner rather than later. A stunning semi-acoustic rendition of Red Shoes’ track Why Should I Love You – originally a messy sounding duet with Prince - was released in the late ‘90s, offering a more tantalizing indication of what might have been, yet it is missing from this set. The best news surrounding Director’s Cut for fans is probably the fact that Kate, when re-imagining these songs, was inspired to write an entirely new album in the process due out later this year. In the meantime, listeners reacquainting themselves with Kate’s newly re-nurtured back catalogue ‘mis-fires’ have plenty to mull over, find renewed love for or even straight-out hate. Which ever her unwavering disciples choose, one thing that is for sure, having Kate Bush back in any form at all is still a delight worth indulging in.



lEIGh5

Manic Street Preachers - Postcards From A Young Man (review)

MANIC STREET PREACHERS

Postcards From A Young Man

(Sony)

Before its release even, the latest Manic Street Preachers album was heralded with a kind of surrender entirely out of character with the band; "Last Chance To Get Our Message Out There" was the cry from within – and what could that possibly mean for an act eleven albums old, and seemingly cursed and weighed down by misfortune and unpopular viewpoints? Were they surrendering or posing a threat? If they truly are considering a break-up, their detractors can at last say 'saw that coming years ago', but this possible last chapter in the Manics story will in no way be a bitter one for fans, who can comfortably celebrate Postcards... as one of the band's strongest albums in their 24 year career.



The Manics have survived against some pretty big odds all along. Missing-presumed-dead members, songs built around socialist meanderings and obscure literary references, (surely enough to drive many a  rock fan away?) but mostly a lack of broad, consistent interest. The Manics could easily be saddled with a 'glory or death' tag, but their refusal to be defeated even in some pretty glory-free times means either incredible unity within their ranks or sheer stubbornness has kept their fire burning. Which ever is true, I'd back them over a frothing Beta Band, a rearing Catatonia or a six-legged Super Furry Animal any day.



The Welsh trio have remained largely unchanged musically since first injecting their melancholy punk anthems with a little stadium pomp on 1996 classic, Everything Must Go, but subsequent releases often struggled to match that album's rich offerings. All but the hardcores probably shrugged at the band's post millennium releases, which up until last year's outstanding Journal For Plague Lovers, were met with little acclaim, but Postcards From A Young Man is a vital sounding push to the front of a once disappearing line, and the sound of a band mad at themselves for resting too long on their laurels.



All of the regulation MSP fare is still present in 2010; the history book rifling, communist values, Britain in crisis etc… but these touchstones are delivered on Postcards without any of the awkwardness of the sometimes over-wordy early records. Confidence reigns and, although orchestras and choirs feature throughout this album, a lot of the excess fat found on such releases as 2000's Know Your Enemy, for example has been shed. You can almost hear the conversation between Bradfield, Wire and Moore as they embarked on their 'last chance' effort, which probably concluded with a remark close to 'never mind the bollocks, let's just make the album we've always wanted to'. Whatever thoughts they indeed had, this band knows its true strengths and unabashedly plunders them for all they're worth. The title track for starters is almost a cobbling together of the 'old' and the 'new' Manics' sound, acting as an awareness-metre of how much they have grown musically over 24 years. It also tidily announces the album's concept - the artist's present selves weighing up the value of progress against their past selves' quaint existences.



Being a Manics record, of course they're cranky about mindless consumption over elementary pursuits - and they've never written more clearly on the subject. Take A Billion Balconies Facing The Sun for example – guest bassist Duff McKagan (ex-Guns 'N' Roses) adds some fat 'n' heavy licks to Bradfield's no-nonsense rail against online bullying. It's worth noting that McKagan's presence, along with other guests Ian McCulloch (Echo & The Bunnymen) and John Cale, is down to a few Manics' childhood dreams being fulfilled. If you'd ever wondered who they count among their heroes, (Stephen Hawking was busy), there's the top three. Ian McCulloch's duet on Some Kind Of Nothingness – actually the dark twin of Kylie Minogue's Some Kind Of Bliss, which the Manics wrote for her - is celebratory, but one of the less impressive moments overall, in spite of the tricked out full choir backing. Cale meanwhile is more impressive on the Radiohead-esque, Auto-Intoxication, adding keys and 'non-descript noise' to this track about being slaves to the world wide web.



The album's powerful rock 'n' prose single, Its Not War (Just The End Of Love) – a paean to the media-driven divide between East and West - and All We Make Is Entertainment are probably the ripest fruits on offer overall. But following run of (what would be) easy choice singles - take your pick of Hazelton Avenue, Golden Platitudes, The Descent - the album hits you with a kicker of a finale - the beautifully titled Don't Be Evil, which makes me want to praise and damn them for the same reasons. There they go, being all articulate and irritatingly correct about lost humility through online social networking, the old grumps. But damn them if they aren't right on the money with this, and damned if any band's who've actually  sprung up in the internet age could nail this topic so accurately and awesomely as the Manics have. Not satisfied with this triumph alone, it also happens to be one of the best rock songs of the year.



Yes, there is a vague, unsurprising concept running through Postcards From A Young Man, but it never feels whiny or self-important. As much as it is an album concerned with our increasing reliance on the virtual/digital world, it equally mourns the lost art of tactile communication and by proxy, the band themselves have whole heart-idly reconnected with their audience.

lEIGh5

"Postcards From A Young Man" video.

The Paradise Motel: Australian Ghost Story (album review)

The theme of Australian-specific subject matter has been a constant in Paradise Motel's music and for that alone they qualify as a rarity. To my ears they are suitable carriers of the torch left once The Triffids expired as a band, especially on this new album - their first in eleven years. In the case of Australian Ghost Story, that torch highlights the dark tale of baby Azaria's mysterious death at the start of the '80s, and the subsequent trial by media - the first of its kind in this country - of the one-time accused woman at the centre of the story, Lindy Chamberlain. 

 

The story of Azaria Chamberlain's death has been told and re-told to the point of fictionalising and wild assumption; perfect fodder for a songwriter, which in The Paradise Motel's case has been generously applied. The band have lyrically always offered fragments of often menacing stories and scenarios of nameless characters, but with their new album set for release on the 30th anniversary of the Azaria's death, the subject of the stories has a name and the scenarios are documented. Really though, menacing is hardly broad enough a term for what is on offer here. Each track's narration jumps from reflection to mythologising to accusation incorporating the viewpoints of all the stories mainplayers, including the unique environment of the Red Centre. On opening track The Witnesses, it isn't apparent who the narrator, vocalist Merida Sussex, is voicing until the line 'my wife tracked the footsteps/we found her guilty' and the listener is suddenly reminded of Lindy's tragedy at having her husband turn on her during the trial. The song quietly berates the witness testimony's given credence at the time, yet avoids dwelling in heroes and villains territory as might be expected.



Chamberlain's trial is touched on during a couple of the songs, but it's the descriptions of the landscape and its role in the Chamberlian case, and when Merida gives a voice to Lindy that really draw you in. A Bend In The Terror for example sees the mother telling her deceased daughter 'now she is free', all the while reassuring herself and questioning her memory of the events, maybe even imbibing them so as not to forget the short time in which Azaria was alive. The imagined letter from Lindy to Azaria, Stations Of The Cross is kind of half spiritual babbling mixed with intruding cold reality, making for an engrossing finale to the band's rendering of this story. Musically Paradise Motel are swimming in familiar waters, they go between bare accompaniment and sweeping orchestral numbers, all while Merida's voice remains a central steady pace and pitch. Perhaps because of the subject matter, the band have gone for a more soundtrack-ish approach to the music. The string laden tunes are memorable but not distracting from the tales being told in the detached way in which Sussex sings.



The mood with which the band tells this now legendary story is at odds with such familiar things as the tragic-comical news footage often wheeled out showing Chamberlain's famous dingo remark. They instead choose to highlight things such as Lindy's deeply religious beliefs at the time of Azaria's death and the betrayal she felt by her husband and country. The Paradise Motel have written a concept album devoid of obvious romanticising about actual events, instead they present an impressionist, cloudy observation as would happen with a familiar story after many years of being retold.

 

I for one am overjoyed that The Paradise Motel have decided to record again after such a long break, and to tackle this particular subject makes their return all the more delicious. At a time in Australia when junk media trialing saturates prime-time TV, it's all the more important that this story and it's consequences for one Australian family are remembered. The legacy of Azaria Chamberlain's death has been a plethora of artistic statements; from the Meryl Streep film (Evil Angels), to countless paintings, and that bizarre opera to name a few. Australian Ghost Story is a fine continuation of that tradition and a very welcome return of The Paradise Motel.

 

lEIGh5

Click to watch:





THE PARADISE MOTEL: Brown Snake (video)



THE PARADISE MOTEL: Watch Illuminum (video) 



THE PARADISE MOTEL: Bad Light (video)





 

Massive Attack - Heligoland (album review)

Massive Attack it has to be said take their sweet time in serving up any product at all, so when an album does arrive it's something of an event. The band so far in their 20 year career have never fully escaped the shadow cast by debut album Blue Lines and are it seems destined to have all subsequent works compared to it. The thing is, all Massive Attack albums are largely blueprint in formula and why shouldn't they be? The recipe's good and nearly always works, and with only five albums in their cannon, you could hardly say they're flogging a tired old nag.

Despite long periods of inactivity, there's still something of an old friend factor to Massive Attack so the time spent listening to their new set was  to be a fairly comfortable experience, surely?. There would be some familiar tales, told by voices reminding me of good times with perhaps some new learned wisdom thrown in...? Well, no. In fact Heligoland actually comes across more like a total stranger. I find myself having to tease information out of the music rather than the expected easy flow of long-time acquaintances. On the upside to this, repeated listens show Heliogoland to be quite a strong contender for slightly sinister new best mate. A great companion to stand with in the 7-11 at 4am, bleary eyed and pretending you're in an American indie film about to pull out a shotgun and say something deadly cool.



So it's a little unfamiliar, but like all Massive Attack albums, there needs to be a bit of environment set-up to really appreciate it. Candles... well if that's your thing, but low light for sure and maybe a jostick and something in the room that hums, such as a fan. The first thing you'll notice about Heliogoland is by half way through the ten tracks, the mood and tempo are set at lucid and are not likely to change. And change they do not, but like thoughts during lucid sleep, so much is revealed if you just allow it to happen. Opening track Pray For Rain begins by layering live drumming with morose strings which eventually turn into popping electronic blips sung over with an increasingly urgent robotic chant until finally a flourish of gentle falsetto 'aaahhh's' come in as the music mimics a breaking drought. This song hails the welcome return of Grant "Daddy G" Marshall who hasn't sung on a Massive album since 1998's Mezzanine. The vocal duties on the rest of the album include the usual long list of guests, Tricky's ex-vocalist Martina Topley-Bird appears on Babel and Psyche - and naturally, it's a perfect fit. Her lazily half sung parts automatically trigger thoughts of Tricky's earlier work, which was always a heavier extension of Massive Attack's.



Regular guest Horace Andy also returns here sounding better than ever on Girl I Love You, backed with a tremendous live horn section. The single, Splitting The Atom, is the most immediate track here, boasting ice cold strings and a hip hop beat suggesting perhaps a Gorillaz influence resulting from Damon Albarn's contribution to the track. However, it's the combined effort of Albarn, Grant Marshall, Robert Delnaja and Elbow's Guy Garvey on Flat Of The Blade that stands out the most. Garvey sings ominously "...I'm not good in a crowd/I've got skills I can't speak of/things that'll chase me to the grave..." over a rising string melody and occasional horn blasts. All the best elements of the album come together on this track, and if you like 'em dark and brooding, it's guaranteed to please. That said, there is a warmth to Heliogoland that was missing from 2003 album 100th Window. The use of live instruments or rather the choice to not bury the live instruments in the mix is a huge benefit to the album overall. There's a good variety of vocalists and collaborators on offer, each given room to breathe and make their individual stamp on the songs which in the past had always served Massive Attack well. Core founding member Robert "3D" Delnaja is still lurking in the corridor, chain smoking and rasping away, only this time he's paused at the door and allowed his guest ensemble to shoulder a good deal of the work. Heligoland ultimately is a grower of an album, if not just for it's detached mood then for it's striking contrast to most popular music currently on offer. Grab it and let it grow, you won't be disappointed.



LEIGH SALTER

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Fever Ray album review (2009) (unpublished)

FEVER RAY



Sometimes, amazingly, hype is actually not misplaced. In the case of Sweden's The Knife it almost defies belief that their last album Silent Shout (2007), a dark and uneasy listening venture, in contrast with so much dumbed-down over-hyped music, had became so widely applauded. The brother-sister duo made no attempt to follow up the multi-Swedish Grammy winning album, but instead retreated from the spotlight in a desire for anonymity. Vocalist Karin Dreijer was about to expand her family, and so decided that The Knife, for the time being, should retire. Stepping away from her brother and creative partner Olof, Karin discovered a new freedom to work without the boundaries automatically imposed by a split input. Post-natal, she found herself working tirelessly on what would become Fever Ray, writing in an often exhausted state between nappy changes, bedtime stories and bottle feeding. This situation, unique to new mothers, resparked Dreijer's creative drive into overload. All through this mainly solo effort, we are witness to the most powerful extremes of a writer pushing themselves to be entirely selfless while still absorbed in, and open to, their subconsciousness.



The haunting If I Had A Heart begins with an ominous mechanical humming reminiscent of German industrial noise makers Einsturzende Neubauten. It's quite a misleading introduction, but does set up the theme of vocal manipulation integral to the many moods weaving throughout the ten tracks here. If I Had A Heart starts out sung slinky and soft, artificially transposed to just below a natural human voice pitch, then soaring in a yearning, child-like soprano, highlighting Karin's arresting accent. Occasionally there are multiple Karins singing the same lyric all in different pitches, then layered to give a contrasting warmth when the music reaches its sometimes icy depths. In places it is evocative of glaciers and frozen lakes, the severe north Scandinavian weather garnering more than one mention. There are many and varied topics at the heart of the songs, but Karin writes mainly in an interpretive, sketchy manner. Much of what is said is second to how it's delivered. On I'm Not Done for example, Karin's vocal is down unusually low in the mix. The effect is of a voice drowning in the music's stormy waves, yet still determined to be heard until the final breath. As one of the most impacting tracks here, its heavy tribal conga drumming and amplified echoing finger clicks draw in the listener, forcing them not to ignore that fading voice in amongst the din. On most of the rest of the album, there is little urgency in Karin's delivery. She likes to stretch all her notes and often lets the instrumentation take over for several bars, when suddenly her unaltered natural voice reappears in response to a dark menacing robotic one. This gives the effect of a parent reading a story book to a child and doing the different character's voices – the creepy voice for the villain and the sweet spoken voice of the heroine. Karin, as the mother of two young children, perhaps has subliminally taken her role as the storytelling villain/heroine into the studio.



The album's first single, When I Grow Up, is lyrically a playful look at an untainted child's view of life's endless possibilities, and yet avoids sounding remotely sugary or schmaltzy. From first listen, Triangle Walks’ gorgeous Eastern strings and enchanting whistled melody will attach to your brain and sit in your ear until you're humming it over and over. Seven thrives on a cyclic, sexy looped beat awash with an eerie wind sound effect and gloopy synth line. It’s a wonderfully uplifting moment and brings an expertly placed mood shift to the proceedings. On the pulsing Concrete Walls, Karin experiments to the extremes of the voice-tone enhancer, creating a gloomy unsettling atmosphere echoing The Dreaming era Kate Bush. The contrast of a gentler sound and crystal-clear singing on Keep The Streets Empty For Me is sublime. This desolate hymn finely embodies the sweet feeling of an exhausted, relaxed state. Dry & Dusty is melodically perfect. It exists in a world beyond clunky design, effortlessly speaking from the subconscious. The album closer, the epic Coconut, is the hot spring in a freezing lake evoking some of Joy Division’s most shimmeringly beautiful moments. Portishead came close to this sound on their last release (on which The Knife's influence can be heard all over) but Fever Ray have nailed it.



This album will be enough to send many a worthwhile electronic act back to their studios with hands-in-the-air frustration at their own shortcomings. Fever Ray is the sound of an artist with a finely tuned skill in drawing on previous experience, while remaining full of fresh discovery. Dreijer sounds so focused and precise in her ambition to present otherworldly music, imbibing her interest in film noir. This breathtaking work will not only satisfy fans of The Knife, but also show that Karin is a powerfully unique talent, perhaps even more so than The Knife’s combined strength.





I'm calling it album of 2009... What I love about Karin is she puts so much love and care into her music. She doesn't just serve up any old shit and hope it sells enough copies to pay for itself!





Fever Ray review links (official website)