The best album releases of the month, May 2013

It is proving to be a thankless task to divide this year into 12 chunks. Strong releases just keep coming, so much so that the months are running into each other, and also it is has been hard to whittle May's albums into a tidy 10. Once again I've ignored the very obvious - Daft Punk, Savages, Laura Marling - as they've already had lots of coverage on both blogs and mainstream media. Anyway, here are my choices...


The National 'Trouble Will Find Me' choice tracks: I Need My Girl, I Should Live in Salt, Sea Of Love

A much slower-burning effort than their other albums, this took several listens to click, and I've always clicked with the National's other records straight away. Gradually the lyrical gems hooked me again once again ('Humiliation' in particular is so stunning I feel like applauding), Berninger is pretty much my favourite lyric writer of the last few years, and the tunes are stronger and even catchier than I had thought at first. This will definitely be close to the top of the tree when we draw a line under 2013.


Colleen 'The Weighing of the Heart' choice tracks: Humming Fields, Raven, The Weighing of the Heart
my review the 405
"In terms of subverting the singer-songwriter motif and turning it into something new and genuinely strange, this album reminds me of Arthur Russell's The World of Echo. Songs are hinted at and then morphed into something you don't expect. That Colleen has managed to create a work this beautiful whilst developing her inventive music is something that should be applauded. This album is a genuine delight."


Scout Niblett 'It's Up To Emma' choice tracks: Gun, Second Chance Dreams, What Can I Do?
An album written in the aftermath of a relationship that has ended, 'It's Up To Emma' is as good a record as Scout Niblett has made to date. All those emotions are turned into songs - you have the revenge fantasy of 'Gun', defiance on 'You Can't Fool Me Now', hope ('Second Chance Dreams') and finally, resolution. Musically, the bare bones of her raw guitar and single drummer are joined by string arrangements this time around, which works very well with this material.
I was lucky enough to interview Scout Niblett about this album, the feature can be found on the 405 here


The Fall 'Re-Mit' choice tracks: Victrola Time, Hittite Man, Loadstones

This current line-up have delivered three albums as a unit with mixed results - Your Future Our Clutter was an impressive new lease of life, whilst Ersatz GB failed to deliver much that was memorable, save for a bizarre penchant for metal riffs. However Re-Mit returns to more familiar Fall territory with lots of garbled vocals, motorik rhythms, rockabilly and garage-punk, so of course this is nothing short of a massive return to form.


Deerhunter 'Monomania' choice tracks: THM, Back to the Middle, Monomania
As they've been gearing up to play their back catalogue at the imminent All Tomorrow's Parties festival, the release of 'Monomania' took me by surprise even before I listened to it. It has been my most listened to album of the month, initially because I was puzzled by their decision to submerge their sound in a grungey kind of garage-rock mix, and then because I realised that I loved quite a lot of the songs. Not the Deerhunter album to play in order to win them new fans, but an intriguing and occasionally great listen I reckon.


Mikal Cronin 'MCII' choice tracks: See It My Way, Shout it Out, Don't Let Me Go
Inextricably linked with the popular garage-rock underground thanks to his partnership with Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin's 2nd album is something else entirely. Think the grunge-power-pop of Lemonheads and Nirvana, and songwriting promise which suggest Elliott Smith or even Alex Chilton.


Bibio 'Silver Wilkinson' choice tracks: A Toute A L'Heure, Look at Orion!, Dye the Water Green
Bibio is the work of Stephen Wilkinson, which I guess explains the title to an extent, and this is the follow up to the super-hazy 'Mind Bokeh'. Often tagged electronica, Bibio is actually more of a dreamy, folk-rock act, and this is more obvious on this album, where there are less beats and more "real" instruments. The downbeat nature of this reminds me a bit of Gravenhurst's recent work, really very pretty indeed.


The Pastels 'Slow Summits' choice tracks: Secret Music, Night Time Made Us, Check My Heart
I was a fanzine boy fifteen years ago and I rang up Stephen Pastel and got him to talk me through their then newly released album 'Illumination'. I never thought that it would take until now to release the proper follow-up, but I'm pleased to say that it picks up where its great predecessor left off; melodic and very slightly jazz influenced indie-pop with a lot of depth to it.


Mount Kimbie 'Cold Spring Fault Less Youth'
choice tracks: You Took Your Time (ft. King Krule), Made to Stray, Slow
Another electronica act branching into live instruments and even vocals on their second album. The duo add vocals themselves, but they are joined by King Krule for two of the standout tracks. A few reviewers have hinted that this is a push towards the mainstream, but I wouldn't go that far just yet. It is more accessible than their debut but it isn't a sell-out, more of a development in their sound that works and also makes perfect sense.


Public Service Broadcasting 'Inform - Educate - Entertain' choice tracks: ROYGBIV, Spitfire, Everest
As long standing supporters of this lot, it has been thrilling to see this debut album chart at no.21 in the UK. All of the early singles are here, seemingly refreshed in the context of the album, and newer tunes like the Kraftwerk-esque 'Now Generation' and the downbeat closer 'Late Night Final' make it more than worthwhile to check out this complete set.

Great Lost Bands no. 15: The Philistines Jr, with an interview

Yesterday, a band called Philistines Jr were added to the All Tomorrow's Parties festival, curated by the National this December. Blank looks all round, but I actually interviewed them way back in 1994 and we kept in touch for a while. I was hopeful they might be added as the National have helped raise their profile by covering one of their songs last year on a kind of 'tribute' album to the Philistines, which also featured Frightened Rabbit and Mercury Rev. Here is the original of the song which the National cover, complete with a video containing cute cats as well as a toddler. Internet gold really.



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**this article dates from Autumn 1994 and was published in Weedbus fanzine, issue 8**

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“The continuing struggle of the Philistines Jr”

Connecticut bunch Philistines Jr have had such a horrible time dealing with the music industry that brothers Peter and Tarquin Kadis, along with drummer Adam Pierce have resorted to living back at home with their parents. Rather than be disconsolate about this, they've saved their money, built a 24 track studio in the basement and set up their own label – Tarquin records. Their main release so far has been a mini-LP engagingly titled 'The Continuing Struggle of the Philistines Jr' and the song '145 Old Mill Road' actually uses their address as its title. I spoke with Peter from the group as he tried to explain this continuing struggle.

“I guess ever since we started we've been thinking we've been doing well, but things always seemed to bottom out. We don't want to sound like we're complaining but it's a sort of weird thing being in a band. We came over to England a couple of years ago and did a Peel session and signed what we thought was a record deal, but that went bad and killed nearly a whole year. Same thing happened in the US.”

Since the single 'Happy Birthday Captain Columbus' you have had a long lay-off. Why was that?
Well 'The Continuing Struggle..” actually came out last Fall (1993) so we had a year without releasing anything. Another label screwed us over and we still owe lawyers money over that one, I'm afraid. We want to release everything ourselves now, but it's difficult. We fund every release, we record and manufacture them ourselves. We would consider bringing in other bands as well, we all play in other bands – such as the Happiest Guys in the World, Iris, the Zambodies (??) but most of those are sillier than the Philistines, but the music is good!

What do your parents think of all this musical activity? You've actually got some soundbites of them on the album (their Dad is heard saying “you know, it's not too late to enrol for medical school”)
“Dad is very uncomfortable with what we do but our Mom basically lets us do what we want, she's not as nervous about it. They're both doctors, psychiatrists, so they would like us to do something more professional!”

With your own studio do you take a fresh approach to recording? I haven't heard it,but I know you have one release with one song in the left channel and a different song in the right.
“ We just think about we can make things different. It's a balance between doing things really well and trying to be really different. Actually recent stuff we have recorded but have yet to release will probably make us more unpopular, but it gets more interesting.

How have English audiences responded to you?
“Our tour pretty much fell through, it's part of the continuing struggle! There's a line in one of our songs, “Have you ever hoped something was true even though you know better?” It's like we run into that all the time. We were supposed to tour with the Family Cat and then Radiohead, but the dates that weren't pulled got cancelled, Although we ended doing four shows in London,one in Exeter and we recorded a second Peel session so it was worth coming over.

John Peel was really the first person to pick up on you, wasn't he?
“Absolutely, he made it possible for us to play in England. He just called us one day when he got our first 12” 'Greenwich, CT' and we thought it was someone pulling our leg, but he wanted to know if he could read our address out over the air so people could write to us, so we ended up being deluged with letters. So later we nervously asked him could we do a Peel session and he was like “Of course, come on over!”

Your music is best described as a fresh, almost humourous version of Pavement-style rock. What sort of music do you find yourselves listening to?
“We've always loved Jonathan Richman, and I really like a new band called the Mommy Heads. We played with King Missile in the US a few weeks ago and that was good, I like the current Pavement record. I like bands that aren't pretentious. Fugazi are cool, I like what they are all about.”

Interview by Jonathan Greer
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and just for luck, here is the National's cover of that song

ATP return to Camber Sands

There has been more head-scratching this week for attendees of December's All Tomorrow's Parties festival, curated by the National. With a sense of deja-vu after the Jeff Mangum weekend was moved back to this March, the rumour mill kicked in over the bank holiday weekend, when ATP were away running a stage at Primavera in Barcelona. Had it sold out, been cancelled or been moved? Another event was in place for Butlins on those dates in December and tickets were no longer on sale. Intriguingly, the "how to get there" section in the official festival info page had been changed to "details coming soon", which was the lead that suggested it had been moved.

The promoters have now announced that The National ATP will take place in the festival's original home of Camber Sands as Butlins, who had hosted most of the events over the last five years at Minehead, have ended their relationship with the festival promoters. The event is still being curated by the National and the impressive line-up remains intact. Existing tickets are valid, with the last batch going on sale tomorrow, and you have until the end of June to apply for a refund if you can no longer attend. All details are on their official site.

The Pontins complex at Camber Sands was the regular home to ATP festivals until 2007 when they began to use the much larger Butlins at Minehead for nearly all their UK festivals. The last one at Camber was the ATP vs Pitchfork event in 2008. ATP are assuring people that Camber has been upgraded, obviously worried that people will compare it unfavourably with Minehead.
Information on the refubishments can be found here, and I have to say it looks a lot better than when I was last there in 2005.
It states

Accommodation:
651 apartments have been redecorated including new curtains, new flooring in most and new beds
All Club and Classic apartments have had a full refurbishment
New fridges, new cookers, new flooring, modern microwaves and toaster kitchen inventory
Brand new addition of 130 new apartments added to the resort
3381 brand new beds.
Public Areas:
Two new brand Dance floors
Fully refurbished and new carpets in the Fun Factory and Lunars
Queen Victoria pub/restaurant fully refurbished

If you've never been there, I think it's fair to say that it has quite a few differences with Butlins at Minehead. When I was there we had to use £5 card meters for chalet electricity and someone had to sleep on a sofabed in the living room due to the layout. I don't think this has changed, but feel free to correct me if it has! There were only two main venues, although the larger one can hold everyone on site. I think the capacity is 2,800 which is actually smaller than the Centre Stage at Minehead. There isn't as much choice in terms of food and drink, though I thought the main bar, the Queen Victoria, was great. The lack of bars meant that Camber was much more inclined towards chalet parties and this obviously added to the fun. Also the venues usually sounded great and no bands had to play anywhere as soul-less as the Pavilion stage at Minehead. So it's a case of swings and roundabouts really, though I have a lot of affection for Camber. The picture above was taken by me at a chalet party at Camber; the digital timestamp says it was taken at 7am. No sleeping in the living room that night!

My review of the Slint curated ATP at Camber Sands is here

LISTEN: The National have a new song on Game of Thrones soundtrack, and contribute to children's app

I will be covering this weekend's I'll Be Your Mirror in London for the 405, so there won't be many updates here. One thing I should post about is the latest activity from the National.
First of all they have contributed a new, very downbeat song called 'The Rains of Castlemere' to the soundtrack of season 2 of Game of Thrones. I'll be honest with you, I rarely watch TV and I have no idea what Game of Thrones actually is, but I have embedded the song below.



Whilst that song isn't very typical of the National's recorded output, they have also been working on something even more unusual. A children's iPad/ iPhone app called Dragon's Brush has been created by John Solimine of Spike Press, who has done a lot of artwork for the band in recent years. Now Aaron Dessner from the band has written the music for the story, which is narrated by Matt Berninger himself. Here's a short trailer for it. Matt Berninger reading a children's story; that seems pretty cool to me.

review: Sharon van Etten 'Tramp'

Brooklyn-based Sharon van Etten has been steadily establishing herself as a folk-rock songwriter with two fine albums, Because I Was In Love and Epic. For her third album Tramp she finds herself with a wider musical palate to work with, courtesy of producer Aaron Dessner of the National and a stream of indie-rock collaborators including Zach Condon of Beirut, and members of Wye Oak and the Walkmen.
All the pre-publicity for Tramp has dealt with the album's difficult gestation period, as it was largely written and recorded when van Etten was not in a relationship and was living a transient existence, touring and sleeping on sofas.
It initially comes across as a very bleak album and it took a few listens to click with me. Doleful and dirge-like are two words to describe this, and that isn't meant as an insult. A quick glance at the track listing shows the titles are all short, and are often just mono-syllabic words. In contrast, the overall sound of Tramp is fuller than her previous releases although Dessner's production is very subtle and this clearly isn't a National record with a female vocal. Far from it in fact. Van Etten comes across as assured though slightly fragile in her delivery, and the overall sense of bleakness is only lifted by the odd lilt in her voice and some very striking lyrics.
'Give Out' is the finest example of her lyrical craft, and much like the rest of these songs it sees her lost and alone and over-analysing her past relationships. One verse in particular in worth quoting in full,

“I’m biting my lip as confidence is speaking to me. I loosen my grip on my palm, put it on your knee. In my way, I say, you’re the reason why I’ll move to the city or why I’ll need to leave."

Those two lines in themselves are enough of a reason to investigate this album; the way that they sum up her feelings about that relationship in such brief detail is a skill rarely found outside prime-period Go-Betweens, for example.
Next track 'Serpents' is the rockiest arrangement and it works really well, and the sad but pretty 'Kevin's' brings the tempo back down. 'Leonard' is another beautiful song and her vocals weave such a great folky melody over more relationship analysis. “I am bad at loving you,” she sings on the refrain.
Her vocals are often double-tracked or accompanied and I actually think that this larger sound works well for her, although I guess some may complain that the rawness is diluted. I wouldn't agree, I don't think Tramp is an easy listen at all.
“We Are Fine”, which is essentially a duet with Beirut's Zach Condon, is musically more upbeat but the refrain of “I'm alright” seems to be coming from the perspective of a best friend or a professional counsellor, it's more a case of “we will be fine”, really.
“Magic Chords” is musically a bit different, built from basic snare drum and keyboards into a sing along refrain of “you got to lose sometimes.” It's also one of Sharon's strongest vocal performances here.
“I'm Wrong” is a gentler song which just floats without any rhythm track to anchor it; the lyrics are adrift with daydreams about someone else, she is letting us hear her thinking aloud.
There is an old adage about albums "growing on you" or "warranting repeated listens". In my experience this is very true of Tramp. Brutally honest and self-analytical, it sounds best when you are on your own late at night. I'm reminded of that old discussion about “who sings better in the dark?” The answer, at the moment, is Sharon van Etten.

Tramp was released in the UK yesterday, 7th February 2012. Sharon van Etten will be playing ATP's next Nightmare Before Christmas curated by the National, in about 10 months from now.

Slow Thrills Friday mix no1: Wintering Out

Yesterday I uploaded the first of my old fanzine's archives to a new site, weedbus.posterous.com, and they will be appearing at the start of every month for most of this year, as a PDF book and a Soundcloud audio stream.
So far this year, Friday has meant Spotify playlist day so, following on from that run, I am introducing our mixcloud into the grand scheme of things. From now on Friday will feature either a playlist OR a guest mix, and to start the ball rolling (and test the systems of course), I have uploaded my own short mix. It is deliberately downbeat and wintry, it is not intended for dancing; a bit like myself a the moment. The mix is embedded below.

Slow Thrills mix no.1: Wintering Out by Slowthrills on Mixcloud

The guest mix slot is open to anyone and I have invited a few people so far, but if you feel you can do one please email me at slowthrillsj-blog@yahoo.co.uk for more details. Music-wise I am very openminded but it will have to fit within the broad musical remit of this blog, so go easy on the funk/metal crossover tunes.

Spotify playlist no.3

The one regular feature on this site that I have managed to stick with is the weekly Spotify playlist. The third instalment features acts that have been mentioned on the site over the last week. There's a live track from the National, Josh T Pearson plays an electric version of a song from his album, there's another Guided By Voices album track, new releases from The Shins, Francois and the Atlas Mountains and Django Django. This week's token oldie is from Prolapse. Next week's selection will have 30 mins and join up with the others to make a 2hour playlist of highlights from the month on here. Listen up!

The National to curate ATP's Nightmare Before Christmas 2012

***UPDATED INFO - here - in brief, this is now at Camber Sands and is no longer the sole December ATP event***

Whilst some of us are still waiting to go to last December's Jeff Mangum curated event, the finest festival promoters in the land have announced plans for this year's Nightmare Before Christmas. The event will run between December 7th-9th, 2012 at Butlin's in Minehead and will be curated by the National. This will also be the National's only UK performance in 2012, therefore almost guaranteeing a sell-out. Tickets are on sale from Friday 20th January at 2pm.
I'm pretty excited about ATP announcements in general and I've definitely got a buzz out of this one too, despite hearing a pretty strong rumour about it last Friday. I see there are a few grumbles from regulars already on various threads but I reckon the National will put together a good ATP. The line up so far is
The National
Kronos Quartet
The Antlers
Owen Pallett
Boris
Tim Hecker
Sharon Van Etten
My Brightest Diamond
Wye Oak
Lower Dens
Megafaun
Suuns
Dark Dark Dark
Buke and Gase
with many more to be added. Also, after the panic surrounding the Mangum event being rescheduled I reckon ATP needed to nail someone with a huge fanbase who could shift tickets quickly. So enough of the moaning folks, you wouldn't want ATP to go under now, would we?