You Are the One I Pick - Felix

You Are the One I Pick

Felix
Kranky Records.

SCQ Rating: 85%

Few independent labels have nurtured and challenged their listeners with the careful balance that Kranky has over the years, and fewer have been repaid with such unabashed loyalty. The leading cause of such indie-fan devotion is probably the most apparent; that Kranky specializes in delivering records of a certain mystique, an impenetrable yet sonic aura that captures the imagination of our daydream generation. If the imprint’s refined ear for quality were ever confused by listeners as predictability, however, some jaws best get prepared to drop. Barely two weeks after releasing acclaimed albums by Atlas Sound and White Rainbow, Kranky has blindsided followers with You Are the One I Pick, a record that finds Lucinda Chua and Chris Summerlin (AKA Felix) intertwining curious storytelling with lush, elegant arrangements.

Initially, the contrast between notable Kranky artists and Felix land this release in coffee-house chanteuse territory, her quirky vocal delivery and improvisational piano work a distant but relatable cousin to the syrupy pop people usually caffeinate over. If you must, blame Chua’s familiar voice, which caresses words with the innocence of Bjork and announces itself a few cigarettes shy of Chan Marshall, because by the time first track ‘Death To Everyone But Us’ is finished, all those first-impressions will seem hopelessly off-target. What Felix have accomplished with You Are the One I Pick is nothing short of sensational; by stripping the female-armed-with-piano sound of its sad stereotypes and adult-contemporary leanings, Chua (known for touring with Stars of the Lid) and Summerlin (of the rock band Lords) reinvigorate been-there dynamics with a freshness and originality that radio doesn’t deserve. In the process, Kranky has, at least in part, re-written their playbook.

Distinguishing this record from lazy categorization (see above: “coffee-house chanteuse”) is how the instrumentation and Chua’s vocals interact. Despite her memorable idiosyncrasies, whether chanting stream-of-conscious insistences on ‘Death To Everyone But Us’ or collecting careful details on ‘Bernard St.’, Chua, at no point, feels like the sole member of Felix. Backing her expertly honed sensibilities on piano and cello with healthy doses of Kranky aura is Summerlin, who lays idyllic guitar upon some of You Are the One I Pick’s meatier cuts (‘Back In Style’ and the title track, in particular). Bound together, Felix compliment their songwriting with delicate use of strings and tasteful yet infrequent percussion. A sweltering set of strings stretch amid ‘I Wish I Was a Pony’’s fluttering piano-line and bleed into ambient washes on standout track ‘What I Learned From TV’, while sparse drum-taps provide the appropriate time signature in ‘Waltzing For Weasels’. Thanks to the fine disconnect between Chua’s verbal storytelling and the lavish moods of orchestration, You Are the One I Pick’s most captivating moments are those in which Chua and Summerlin seem oblivious to each other’s trajectory and yet their efforts riff successfully anyhow. Besides allowing the listener to choose how they wish to hear the record (focusing on its orchestration or lyrics at their discretion), Felix’s disconnect births a spontaneity that provides extra potency to these songs.

Perhaps it’s because I mentioned Chan Marshall earlier but I think it’s worth noting that You Are the One I Pick contains the same fresh, spacious songwriting that marked Cat Power’s You Are Free… only here, its melancholy and eccentricities are more vibrant. And considering how studied and breathtaking this full-length debut is, it’s difficult to ignore that had Cat Power released it, You Are the One I Pick would land prominently on most every year-end list come December. An irresistibly pointless statement to throw out, I know, but here’s hoping Felix receive the attention and credit they truly deserve. Harbouring the Kranky aura in its warmest glow yet, Felix's full-length debut is too attractive and meaningful to remain under the radar.

You Can Have What You Want - Papercuts

You Can Have What You Want

Papercuts
Gnomonsong Records.

SCQ Rating: 76%

Upon a single, casual listen, Papercuts can come off like one of a thousand revivalist projects. Precise in his Golden Age-R&B grooves while adding some disaffected vocals, Jason Quever – sole official member of Papercuts – carries a 60s-torch that few would mime so exactingly; not because his chosen era of inspiration isn’t ripe for scrounging through, but because such focused songwriting eventually arises suspicion of the dreaded one-trick-pony label. Full disclosure: (A) I’ve never heard Quever’s previous Papercuts records and (B) You Can Have What You Want, as a collection of songs, does little to deter any one-trick name-calling. Labels be damned! While you can accuse Quever of cradling his muse with white-knuckled singularity, you can hardly criticize the results when You Can Have What You Want is as immersive as it is detailed. Somewhere… aging fans of Jefferson Airplane are downloading their first MP3s…

If you get beyond its easy-to-spot influences and investigate the liner-notes, you’ll find that Quever has aimed higher with You Can Have What You Want than most expected… and by higher, I mean into SPACE… into the great VOID! After a fond farewell to intimacy on opener ‘Once We Walked in the Sunlight’, Quever boards us up into his machine and blasts us into a comatose uncertainty… where our identities are our past memories, and our “contact”, we’re reminded, “has been lost for days”. The cover-art implies as much, depicting featureless bodies falling (or rising?) haphazardly from (or into?) some obscure vehicle-transport. These feelings of isolation are conversely unnerving and comforting; the analog production’s love of organs cause some suffocating moments of nostalgia (‘The Machine Will Tell Us So’, ‘The Wolf’) while the incorporation of a tense orchestra (on ‘Jet Plane’) and soft piano (on the title track) provide a soothing relief to a monotony that is commonly a step from the door.

Not unlike his vaguely space-bound narrative, Jason Quever’s songs are like a capsule - airtight amidst his army of organs, numb to any emotional trespasses. And while a few songs fail to measure up to the record’s high-points (‘Jet Plane’, ‘Dead Love’ and ‘Future Primitive’ is arguably one of the best triple-plays of the year), You Can Have What You Want proves irresistible after multiple listens, with Quever standing at the forefront of the revivalist pack.

Inside Your Guitar - It Hugs Back

Inside Your Guitar

It Hugs Back
4AD Records.

SCQ Rating: 58%

When faced with a question about comfort, the multitude of potential answers all share a strain of brevity. Whether we’re asking about comforts at home or heart, comfort food or comfort music, our first-response is typically short on syllables because from our earliest days in the womb, humans inherently get the feeling and peace of being at ease. As if the band’s name didn’t clue us in, attention hedonists: for your next orgy of fluffy duvets and gourmet ice cream, consider adding Inside Your Guitar to the fantasy; a record so polite and digestible, at times it’s barely discernable.

Their hushed trademarks – suffocating sticky pop melodies under layers of detachment – line up for inspection on opener ‘Q’’s blend of lilting acoustics, steady percussion and muted distortion. It’s a template that lacks the ambition for either memorable success or downright disaster and as such, Inside Your Guitar merely nudges its next ten candidates forward with a “that-didn’t-work-how-about-this?” mentality. And some of them DO work, like the ruminating evening-breeze of ‘Soon’ or ‘Remember’’s cool-kid slow-dance, marrying bleary organs to lyrical sweet nothings. Where It Hugs Back truly struggle is evident on supposed rockers ‘Back Down’ and ‘Now and Again’ which, despite standard indie-rock songwriting, come off flaccid in comparison to first single ‘Work Day’. And while ‘Work Day’ is nearly as reproachable as actually having to go to work, at least its twee-rock foundation better suits the UK quartet’s admittedly sleepy demeanor. Beyond the odd charmer, Inside Your Guitar is a one-spin affair that aims to lull you so convincingly into a trance, it overshoots straight into unconsciousness. Don't fret: it can't hug back if you don't hug first.

Alt Ctrl Sleep - Alt Ctrl Sleep

Alt-Ctrl-Sleep

Alt-Ctrl-Sleep
Lakeshore Records.

SCQ Rating: 72%

This past November, while living in limbo at my parent’s house, I undertook hour-long searches for new music I may have missed while overseas. The house was fast asleep as I’d fight off my musical-jetlag at 4am with a glass of wine and several band-names I sought to uncover. Possibly the best of these finds is Alt-Ctrl-Sleep, a record I’ve yet to find in physical format that in soft reverberation and lo-fi ambience kept me company those quiet nights.

The duo, comprised of husband and wife Joe and April Diaco, create stunning dream-pop as languid and fragile as windshield frost. Splitting vocal duties evenly over these sixteen tracks, their numb voices sound shut-in, withdrawn from natural light and soaked in lovesick effects. If ‘You Alone’ and ‘Take Care’ evoke the acoustic slow-core of Mazzy Star, ‘In the End’, with its live-drum pulse and easy strums, is accomplishedly theirs; one of several tracks that start by exercising their indie-heroes’ trademarks before rising above into their own sound. This mature mark on lo-fi pop is also heard in the hazy aftermath of ‘Ones and Zeros’, the bittersweet keys of ‘Kandy’ and ‘Satellites (Venus to Mars)’ – a concoction of skittering drums and confident chords that sound epic compared to the album’s unassuming tip-toeing.

An album of such lush slow-core is bound to get monotonous, and while fifty-one minutes of fuzzy balladry will send most screaming for something upbeat, this duo have crafted an elegant mood piece for those who need it. Although sixteen tracks of tepid dream-pop is a bit indulgent (‘Ho-Hum Song’ definitely pushes it), Alt-Ctrl-Sleep sequence it well with a few instrumental segues (the electronic ‘Catching Up To You’ or twinkling lullaby ‘Sleep’) scattered to ensure fluent pacing. That said, Alt-Ctrl-Sleep remains a very low-key album that is best saved for nights alone or quiet bus rides.

Digital Shades Vol. 1 - M83

Digital Shades Vol. 1

M83
Gooom Records.

SCQ Rating: 50%

Over two years after Before the Dawn Heals Us became M83’s pinnacle achievement, Anthony Gonzalez made a wise decision. In only three LP’s time, Gonzalez’s moniker had become synonymous with hundreds of synth-lines, cathartic eruptions of drums and Cocteau Twins’ styled guitars; all parts being appetizing to the ear, but nonetheless predictable. And by the dramatic close of 2005’s 15 minute 'Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun’, it was evident to critics, fans and Gonzalez himself that he had maxed out his own sound, scraped the bottom of the Goth-pop barrel, scrubbed it clean and armed those songs to the teeth. Back to basics, then, on Digital Shades Vol. 1 – a stopgap release before M83’s official 2008 follow-up.

Those readers who just crossed their arms in disagreement over my ‘scraping the bottom, scrubbing it clean and arming it’ theory have some evidence to face on this 35 minute palate-cleanser. Some of this material is actually album-worthy; ‘My Strange Path’ has a techno pulse barely hidden beneath its shoegaze envelope, while the lonesome two-part-er ‘Sister’ could easily be developed into a fan-favourite. The problem is that even the most promising song ideas here are built to sustain M83’s aforementioned trademarks; they’re simply bare-boned sketches of songs we’ve kinda heard before, without the cacophonic drums and such. In fact, the best of this material feels like alternates to the segue-tracks on his proper albums; transient mood pieces that complement the more traditionally structured songs. So if you take one of Gonzalez’s heavily equipped proper LP tracks, and skin it of everything but its vital synth-lines, you’ll likely hear ‘Strong and Wasted’, a simple synth progression, looped repeatedly, with bird calls and generic fuzz. No bother that you could bulls-eye every previous M83 track that bore those same song elements; what’s worse is that in its less-than two-minute running-time, you still feel like you’re wasting your time.

The reason I’m disappointed is because I enjoy M83, not to the degree of superfans who romance his myspace page and declare Digital Shades their favourite record ever, but to the point that I’m insulted when a man of Gonzalez’s talent wastes such a awesome idea. This was his opportunity to branch out, take his maximal strengths and turn it inward, focus on texture and atmosphere, or toy with actual field recordings and new instruments. He hasn’t done any of that here. Instead, we get an unfinished M83 record - a rather slow one at that - which is no closer to ambient than ‘Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun’ is. On a quiet autumn day, you could do a lot worse than Digital Shades in your headphones, but in a market brimming with talented ambient artists, this falls flat.

Saturdays=Youth - M83

Saturdays = Youth
M83
Mute Records.

SCQ Rating: 77%

What the hell did John Hughes really do? Sure, the man directed Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club -two movies that explored adolescent confusion and high school politics in the 80s – but what made those movies so memorable (nostalgia for the 90s and apparent inspiration for the late 00s) had less to do with the filmmaking and everything to do with the bond between music and youth. Let’s not forget that the early 80s delivered the MTV Generation; innovative music videos and a new cultural movement that gave young adults the opportunity to feel closer to the music through wardrobe, opinion and attitude. How much Hughes had to do with his soundtracks, I’m unaware, but that is why people like Anthony Gonzales of M83 still site his films as inspirational; they are part of a zeitgeist that feels untouchable now, regardless of how many people try to revive its trademarks.

And try they have. Nearly five years after bands like The Rapture and The Killers came to embody what critics imagined to be the height of retro’s influence, M83 return with Saturdays=Youth, a record openly dedicated to everything 80s culture aspired to. If you’re anything like me – an ardent M83 fan or someone who dislikes mainstream 80s culture - that last sentence is rife with insecurities. To be as direct as possible and cut to the chase, Saturdays=Youth is hit-and-miss; a record that thrives off its muse as often as being buried by it.

‘You, Appearing’ is among the best ambassadors for the former, a piano-led slowburner that carries such emotional weight, it’s nearly a burden to love. Not only is it light-years beyond anything off Digital Shades Vol.1, it’s also the first of many new M83 classics: particularly ‘Kim & Jessie’, which encapsulates the sound of 80s melancholy like no other. When at its best, Saturdays=Youth balances its Goth-tinged moodiness with the cinematic arrangements that M83 are renowned for, and in those moments (like the luxurious ‘Couleurs’), we can hear how Gonzales has finessed his songcraft. Where Before the Dawn Heals Us was a cacophony of explosive synth and guitar attacks, the new M83 is refined to a more aerodynamic sound, choosing atmosphere over abrupt shifts in dynamics.

If only Gonzales was able to refine some of his excessive tendencies that, despite feeling appropriate to what we recall as the most excessive of decades, are guilty of inflating this record beyond small feats it possesses. The majority of these songs, even the highlights, are each about a minute longer than they should be; a mere sixty seconds that manages to diminish the impact and excitement of the record. In the most obnoxious example, ‘Midnight Souls Still Remain’ is a hollow repetition of two notes that travels eleven minutes without so much as a subtle shift. That this would’ve been unwelcome on Gonzales’ largely ignorable Digital Shades ambient record should indicate how unwanted it is here, and it’s sadly one of several stalemate tracks that fail to evolve beyond their glossy impression.

As we’ve come to expect from M83 (without Fromeageau, anyway, who left after 2003’s Dead Cities, Red Seas, Lost Ghosts), there is some undeniable cheese on display, mostly in Gonzales’ love of over-the-top drama. Amid the Cure-borrowed guitar licks of ‘Graveyard Girl’, we’re confronted with a young female who, after professing her love to gravestones, spouts “I’m fifteen years old, and I feel it’s already too late to live. Don’t you?”. I know that’s expected to be a rhetorical question but I can’t play along. For an artist who gives new meaning to the term ‘cinematic’, it’s troubling that Gonzales has chosen to contextualize his work to such narrow confines. Maybe I prefer the comfort and self-assuredness of being in my mid-twenties over those confused but swell-at-the-time teenage years. Or maybe I was too young to appreciate the technicolor glow of 80s culture; after all, I was only two years old when Sixteen Candles came out. My point is, so was Gonzales.

Goodbye - Ulrich Schnauss

Goodbye

Ulrich Schnauss
Domino Records.

SCQ Rating: 71%

For Schnauss, who has long possessed a trademarked sound of combining electronic atmospheres with his shoegaze affinity, a recording technique can stretch over songs at a time without wearing the German-born artist down. His insistence on turning the same trick, though certainly to blame for some homogenous moments, has resulted in a beautifully varied catalogue that no one would mistake for anyone but Schnauss; the breakbeat-crazed summer days of Far Away Trains Passing By, the more expansive palette that perfected his electronic-pop confections on A Strangely Isolated Place, and with Goodbye, Schnauss has given three distinctly different sides of his sound over as many albums. Representing the most adventurous of his recorded work, Goodbye also displays the weight of Ulrich’s excessive tendencies and falters under the burden.

Looking back at the first two albums, Goodbye seems like the inevitable climax to close a trilogy that, release by release, became increasingly rock-driven. The confidence accumulated between Faraway Trains… and A Strangely Isolated Place is obscene, and Schnauss’s growing comfort in his songwriting and reliance on collaborations brought him to this blockbuster; more layers, more noise, more structure, more vocals. As one of many who adore the subtle glisten of A Strangely Isolated Place, I can’t help but focus on these apparent upgrades. The songs that Ulrich boasts were constructed from over one hundred different recording layers are easy to spot, not only because they represent the bulk of Goodbye, they’re also the tracks that sound strangely one dimensional. ‘A Song About Hope’ is especially difficult to find; its backbone buried under so many layers that you’d almost think Schnauss is trying to hide something.

As talented as Schnauss is, some of these multi-layered songs benefit from their weight. The title track flips between the excitement and loneliness of indefinite farewells, while ‘Stars’ was made for humid nights and highway drives; a perfect culmination of new technique and old shoegaze songcraft. Even the tracks that initially feel too light, despite such heavy production, catch on with repeated listens, giving ‘Never Be the Same’ its otherworldly feel.

Hand in hand with the cover art’s ominous night-scene, Goodbye seems destined to be an audio companion to late night traveling. The result of three years in production, Schnauss has cast heavy shadows that often overwhelm his ear-friendly compositions, and at its heaviest, reduces some good ideas to sonic wallpaper.

Pocket Symphony - Air

Pocket Symphony

Air
EMI Records.


SCQ Rating: 74%

Pocket Symphony, the band’s fourth proper LP in ten years, is irrefutably beautiful; a mix of crystalline piano, spacey acoustics, and thin vocals to comfort your headphones through cloudy wanderings. And although the band has achieved their goal of making an ideal song-cycle for the I-pod generation (as their title suggests), Air have certainly limited their talents to that singular vision, and worse, welcomed their sound into the dreaded leagues of ‘background music’.

The well-placed ‘Alone in Kyoto’ on Talkie Walkie felt appropriate as a cinematic close to that amazing album, but stretched over Pocket Symphony’s twelve songs, Air’s imaginary film scores lose their edge and become languid suites woven together. Nearly every song feels designed for soundtrack purposes; the sleep-ridden, what-to-wear solitude of Monday mornings with ‘Photograph’, watching your office-crush during lunch-hour with ‘Redhead Girl’, or your evening tram-ride home in ‘Somewhere Between Waking and Sleeping’. Despite their understatedly lovely arrangements, these songs drift by like so many unmemorable stages of routine in our 9-5 days, and while they are soothing, they’re hardly exciting.

Air still manage to captivate us on several songs, however. ‘Mer Du Japon’ is an all-too-brief exercise in synth-pop, addictively energizing compared to its surrounding songs, while ‘Napalm Love’ is a haiku buzzing with a similar combination of synth, drum machine and piano. ‘One Hell of a Party’ displays the band’s recent love of rare Japanese instruments (the Koto and Shamisen) in a sparse but thrilling ballad featuring Jarvis Cocker’s breathy vocals. Even ‘Once Upon a Time’, at five minutes and featuring the same unwavering piano arpeggio, never ceases to be anything but classic Air.

The most surprising aspect of this album, perhaps, is Air’s nonchalant exit from electronic music altogether. While their organic sound was audible in Talkie Walkie, it was countered with some sparkling effects. Here we find the band completely unplugged, and while they prove that their songwriting doesn’t need effects to hide behind, I’m surely not the only fan who will miss their adventurous side.

Ma Fleur - The Cinematic Orchestra

Ma Fleur

The Cinematic Orchestra
Ninja Tune Records.


SCQ Rating: 67%

Listening to ‘That Home’, the minute and a half introduction to Cinematic Orchestra’s first album in five years, was shocking for just about everyone. Long-time fans were expecting another bass-heavy collection of twisted jazz samples. Ninja Tune enthusiasts were looking for a new release that might stimulate the trip-hop genre. Anyone else who knew of Jason Swinscoe was likely surprised to hear he was still working under the moniker. And then, there’s myself, who was shocked to be buying a Ninja Tune record, period. It’s a label I have much respect for, as the English-based brand was responsible for my interest in turntablism and DJ-ing; the baby-steps in my pursuit of electronica. All the same, I thought the odds of me buying a new Ninja Tune record in 2007 were as likely as me tracking down CDs from the long-defunct Mo’Wax label, but here we are.

Listening to the first song of Ma Fleur was also curious because it was bound to upset anyone who maintained expectations on the band. The influence of jazz is only evident in the exploratory nature of these ten Swinscoe originals, meandering through piano-led melodies that stretch into new age ethers. The beats are irregular, and faceless to any particular genre. And most fascinatingly, the album’s opener and closer (variations on the same song book-ending the release) sounds unusually like Coldplay. Yes, the Cinematic Orchestra purists can squawk all they like over my Coldplay reference. Deep in their contrary hearts, they know it’s true. And since, beyond my brief interest in their material on Everyday, I had no expectation on J. Swinscoe, this was a pleasant surprise.

Maybe too pleasant…? Ma Fleur has had wide-appeal, largely because it was written to be such, and I doubt many could resist its melancholy (or the vocal contributions of Patrick Watson and Fontella Bass) on first listen (note ‘To Build a Home’s diligent inclusion on Grey’s Anatomy, if you’re unsure). Sadly, the magnetic array of sounds which drew me to this record ended up being the songs themselves; every emotion sought and detail recorded was at face-value, hiding nothing, and within a few listens it becomes clear that Ma Fleur is not intended for deep listening.

Once that disappointment settles in, the record has enjoyable moments: the acoustic reverie of ‘Music Box’, the collapsing beauty of ‘Breathe’ and the aforementioned vocals, for which I credit Swinscoe, who made some wonderful casting decisions concerning who would sing for his material. And despite its mellowed atmospherics, one can still hear the Cinematic sound, from the deep bass in ‘Familiar Ground’ to the beat-work that wakes up the aptly titled ‘Time and Space’.

Let the fans debate whether Ma Fleur was intended to be Cinematic Orchestra-lite from its conception or not, I for one feel that the album is too thematically tight to be a failed attempt at following Motion or Everyday. Jason Swinscoe knows what he’s doing, and that’s why the underwhelming songs, pretty as they are, weigh heavier on the scale than its bright ones. As the liner-note pocket of photographs explains, the songs of Ma Fleur are “inspired by but not tied specifically to any…” of the photos, and are present to aid the listener “in constructing or creating the narrative contained at the heart of this suite of music”. In other words: these songs lack emotional impact so imagine your own. And if you can’t, it’s your own fault. Well played, indeed.

Listen to The Cinematic Orchestra here.