TheBrit and TheYank

Sometimes a good idea is only good whilst it remains an idea. I realised this once again a few weeks back when researching for this theme. TheYank and I spent a morning / afternoon respectively deciding which bands and singers could be classified as Mockney. During this time TheYank learned a little about the sociolinguistic and geographical makeup of London — it’s not all play, you know — and I ended up wondering how the hell the term could be applied to music given there’s only a handle of artists who can genuinely be classified as such.

So we copped out and picked one each. Rather than choose from the BRIT School sausage factory that has a propensity for producing Mockney starlets¹, I’ve gone for Mike Skinner’s The Streets, who despite living in Birmingham and Barnet sounds like no-one I’ve ever known from either of those two places.

The Streets - Don’t Mug Yourself

The Streets’ debut album Original Pirate Material was met with some derision by the UK garage community. It’s easy to tell why: while it was lumped in with that genre, it doesn’t even to this day resemble a typical garage album - it’s too minimal, chilled and wordy (not rappy). As such it was received warmly by all types of listener - critics included - and became extraordinarily successful. Mike Skinner’s tales of girls, booze and dope delighted many, even those outwith his lifestyle, because they were told with humour and truth. Pitchfork was later to call it the “chav Parklife,” which is a compliment.

Don’t Mug Yourself was the fourth single taken from the album, itself a measure of the album’s success and impact. Recorded after a night out drinking rum in a cinema, watching Monsoon Wedding with his mate Calvin Bailey, it’s “about bugging yourself with a girl .. just really liking a girl and acting like a complete twat.” Soft but crisp percussion and a relentless unwavering bassline serves two purposes: firstly it keeps pushing the story forward, making you want to hear more, and yet it’s sufficiently uninteresting to not distract from his lyrics. The ultimate charm of this song is however the way that it collapses in a heap at the end from Calvin’s impromptu counter-piece, ending with him and Mike giggling their way into another attempt to record his vocals.

The Streets - official website
Mike Skinner - official website
The Streets - Don’t Mug Yourself (Last.fm)
The Streets - Original Pirate Material (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

The Streets - Blinded by the Lights

A Grand Don’t Come For Free eschewed the usual sophomore slump buy gambling on a concept album centering around the loss and eventual recovery of £1000. Second time around, the backing tracks are less melodic and harder, mirroring the darkness of the album, sometimes using rough cut classical samples and stabs to highlight the drama of Mike’s stories.

Few of its songs come with melodies, but Blinded by the Lights is one of them. Mike Skinner carries his paranoia into a nightclub, wrenched with confusion over his new girlfriend. Before he can reach any conclusion, the mix of alcohol and drugs in his body takes him away from those worries, and the loneliness he felt upon entering the club disappears. The backing, which begins with heavy snares, trancey gated pads and ravey soulful backing vocals, becomes gradually more serene. It’s a neat trick because it barely changes; rather it’s the interplay and feeling behind the lyrics that changes the perception of the music - helped by the arrival of hi-hats.

The Streets - Blinded by the Lights (Last.fm)
The Streets - A Grand Don’t Come For Free (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

The Streets - Can’t Con An Honest John

Success and fame treats people differently. The Streets’ third album The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living doesn’t boast, nor does it claim life to be tranquil and happy, which one might expect. Instead it has songs of introspection and the sheer hard graft of being famous and dealing with its consequences. Curiously it bears the most interesting production techniques of all The Streets music to date. The melodies, when present, are more warped, atonal and psychotic, and Mike’s vocals are delivered with even less rhythmic precision. Perhaps this was too much for some critics who marked it down in comparison with the previous two.

The story of Can’t Con An Honest John is simply one of a straightforward pub hustle (albeit a good one), accompanied by a wobbly bassline, off-key padded chords and the occasional drop into a two-stage am-dram EastEnders chorus. Mike expresses through this song his realisation that the music industry is itself a scam: “running the beats is just getting people’s confidence and then taking their money.” It’s possible that the backing and that juvenile chorus is evidence to support that.

The Streets - The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

The Streets - I Love You More (Than You Like Me)

And then it all went wrong. Everything is Borrowed was the flipside follow-up: an album full of terribly obvious philosophising - probably now repeated on dozens of MySpace blog posts or Facebook memes - and almost equally bad music. A disparate set of styles employed as if they were just test tracks. Proof once again that happiness almost always leads to shocking songwriting².

Fortunately there are a couple of fabulous non-duds: I Love You More (Than You Like Me) is a story of internal, eternal apprehension, lifted by lounge piano swing, and On The Flip Of A Coin which binds risks with choices, subverts that attachment through randomness, all for a minor rite of passage: “And I got a bit scared of the fate of my baby son’s future / So I invented a reason to see if you could ever make do.”³

I’m especially cool with the former, just because of its chorus and one hilarious line. Unfortunately it never tries to reach a ravishing big band finale - restraint remains one of Mike Skinner’s musical traits - and instead the song peters out with a piano coda acting as a pause before its companion piece On The Edge Of A Cliff arrives.

The Streets - Everything is Borrowed (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

The Streets - Stay Positive

Mike Skinner has stated that the forthcoming album Computer and Blues will be “the final Streets album,” which given the catastrophe of Everything Is Borrowed may be just as well. An opportunity to take a break and reinvent perhaps? For this fifth and final song, I’ve chosen one that reflects what makes The Streets interesting by going back to their debut.

Stay Positive is the lengthy song that closes out Original Pirate Material. This urban sermon is delivered in a way that’s far more direct and magnetic. Spot the difference in his lyrics: “I ain’t no preaching fucker and I ain’t no do-goody-goody either / This is about when shit goes pear-shaped.”

Built from string and piano samples, rough cut and looped, it reminds me of The Young Gods daring use of classical backdrops for their early albums. I drop it here because it’s a useful contrast to the previous song. Mike’s vocals are smoother, more rounded and less blokey, and it’s easier to spend time with the words which are blunt and truthful, yet carry with them an unexpected warmth.

The Streets - Original Pirate Material (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

1. Well, okay, maybe just Kate Nash.
2. Ask Tori’s fans about American Doll Posse and her upcoming Abnormally Attracted To Sin.
3. I’m being ironic with respect to the latter song.

There are three types of album title: the first is the mundane, simply drawn from one of the songs on the album (such as Massive Attack’s Blue Lines); the second is slightly more interesting, being unrelated to song titles, eponymous or perhaps signifying the meaning behind the album (e.g. Tanya Donelly’s Lovesongs For Underdogs). That leaves us with album titles taken from lyrics, the best of the three, because until you’ve experienced the lyric, you may still be unsure as to why the album has been given its name.

Kristin Hersh’s acoustic album, Strange Angels is one such album. The way she deploys its title is effective because she rarely adheres to conventional song structures, which can make her work difficult to listen to. In particular the twisting of similar sounding words and phrases from one line to the next, but also due to the lack of obvious choruses. Listeners need to become familiar with the motion of each song to uncover its organisation, using repeating motifs, sounds or words as hooks on which to hang conclusions.

Shake is unexpectedly the centrepiece of Strange Angels because it concentrates ones attention on the use of those two words. Coming in the middle of the song, they arrive unheralded at the beginning of a line. Boom! What follows stretches through the remainder of the song and the rest of the album, lingering in the background of one’s thoughts. Furthermore, because Shake leads on seamlessly from its perky predecessor Stained, it’s eventual evolution into a separate entity makes it more remarkable. No wonder she uses the term Strange Angels for her musical benefactors.

Kristin Hersh - official website
Kristin Hersh - Strange Angels (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

It was always going to be interesting to discover how Metric would sound after the quiet success of lead singer Emily Haine’s 2006 album Knives Don’t Have Your Back. This lead single from their fourth album Fantasies indicates that Metric can no longer be considered a distinct entity. Instead they’re now an extension; a sonic elaboration of Haine’s solo work, which is no bad thing. Perhaps I should listen to Live it Out once more to discover if this has always been the case?

Both the intro and the chorus are more approachable versions of the languid gloom that lives throughout Knives.. and then there’s the title: the first thought of each new-born. The overall result is downbeat new-rave, which makes its point through repetition. One for those recently impressed by Yeah Yeah Yeah’s It’s Blitz! or, at a push, Client.

Metric - official website
Metric - Fantasies (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

While The Knife’s Silent Shout was praised for its music, Fever Ray’s debut is worth appreciating for its minimal, icy compositions, which are perhaps more beautiful. This enables Karin Dreijer Andersson’s lyrics and her voice(s) to be the centre of attention. When I Grow Up offers typically leftfield snapshots of thoughts and day-dreams, accompanied by a watery oriental soundtrack that borrows much from Silent Shout. It is, like the rest of the album, spectacular.

Best appreciated a little larger.

Fever Ray - official website
Fever Ray - Fever Ray (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

So, after the hassles that YouTube have had with PRS Music in the UK, what comes along to make the music industry appear even more bewildering? Why, it’s a new music and video entertainment service from Universal Music and YouTube, with both parties sharing advertising revenue.

Apparently these two are going to join forces to form something called Vevo, which like all such dead-end ventures will launch “later this year.” Vevo is the only place where Universal (and possibly other record companies) will showcase their official videos.

Woah. How did that strategy get past the notepad-in-the-bedroom stage? Universal is relying on significant numbers of YouTube users to actively visit another site in order to watch their videos and hoping that everyone else looking online for them will end up at Vevo.

Hands up anyone who visits official major label websites? Yup. Exactly. This exclusivity could wreck major artists’ careers given that increasing numbers of people are watching videos online rather than on television. As I’ve said before, videos are promotional devices - the idea is to have them everywhere and easily accessible. Once again, Universal is trying to grab revenue where ever they can find it as compensation for their long term incompetence.

TheBrit’s Number 8 of 2008

I am prone to gushing enthusiastically on most music reviews because I usually only write about music I enjoy. Still, I need to get something out of the way quickly: The Amber Sessions is magnificent. Here’s why:

Jo Gabriel’s album lives alongside its darker sibling The Last Drive In. They’re both naked instrumental recordings borne out of musical passion - a boundless urge to create and to express emotion. The Amber Sessions is also a 4 track affair, but definitely not lo-fi (apart from occasional tape drop-out.) Indeed, the unexpected richness and depth of the recordings is to be admired, and yes, it’s stunning when played loud.

Synthetic string pads and processed loops form the bedrock of much of the album. Jo’s piano accompanies their shifting sounds, diverging at will or brushing across them. Although centred around progressions, it darts off periodically to embrace song structure. Subtle dissonance emphasises the melodies and sometimes the piano falls away completely, to let the accompaniments peek through, unadorned. These tiny moments are breathtaking. This clash of the simulated with the real is critical to the mood and success of the album.

Considerable attention has been given to the sequencing of the pieces, so whilst it’s possible to cherry pick individual tracks that work on their own, the album is probably intended to be heard as a complete work. It can be intensely consuming. Curiously, The Amber Sessions also excels as ambient music - the choice is yours.

Introduction to this landscape comes in the form of the opening tracks Sway, Flicker and Crush. Sway immediately generates tension due to the slowish attack on the lower strings, which rub against the organ drones and chord-less piano lines. The melody changes subtly, incorporating additional pads to round off this slow starter. The shorter Flicker picks up the pace, but cuts back on the melody. Here, little sonic experiments begin to emerge - a trait which considerably enriches the second half of the album. Crush uses abrupt organ stabs and delayed piano to tease out variations in rhythm, relishing the space it has been given.

Delightful though these are it’s only when Moments Like Drops arrives that the first fully realised tune unfolds. Here the piano deviates from its previous excursions through greater variation in tone and dynamics. Only a cycling plucked instrument keeps it company. Savage Bliss continues on this new course, re-introducing the organ and strings, then constructing recurring cascades of harmony and modulated tempos. By now the importance of those first three tracks becomes obvious.

Passing / Arriving temporarily returns to that isolation with crumpled samples and screeches but chooses to re-invent itself twice, firstly as lounge music, which confines the piano to one side, then again by adding strings, becoming more elaborate and beautiful in the process. This stunning piece boasts the vital links between what has already been heard and what is to come.

In the meantime, the strings and guitar that open The Sun King tempt three times before the long-awaited keyboard arrives. When it does, this stereo mix contrasts with its recent restriction. Summoning is all about percussive rhythm but it’s important not to ignore the counterpoint which at times becomes the dominant melody.

Mistress of Time begins the four tracks which gradually build to complete the album. Here Jo plays busily alongside a dusty operatic loop. It’s initially unsettling, but through familiarity these two resolve their differences. What follows next is more remarkable: Juno blooms in the wake of Passing / Arriving but nuzzles up to a scratchy, detuned cello which is granted its own little solo for the coda.

The final two pieces, Amber and Mothlight unexpectedly replace the strings with snippets of renaissance music. Amber is the baby of the two - a sleepy diversion from Juno’s perkiness. Mothlight develops further: the ebb and flow of tension that threads carefully through the album is finally released, by using two or three individual piano tracks wrapped around Thomas Tallis’ acclaimed motet Spem in alium. This brings the album to a dazzling and deeply satisfying conclusion.

Jo Gabriel’s most widely known album, Island, is set firmly in the mould of singer-songwriter. Only the brief instrumental If Not hints towards The Amber Sessions and if you love Island I implore you to investigate this too, and indeed her new one Fools and Orphans. The Amber Sessions is a fascinating complex piece of work that becomes more impressive with each listen.

Jo Gabriel - official website
Jo Gabriel - The Amber Sessions

This review originally appeared on my personal blog last year and has been changed slightly for publishing here.

When Last.fm announced late last month that for certain parts of the world, access to Last.fm radio would soon cost 3 Euros a month, many people were outraged that something which was free was no longer, as if it was their perpetual entitlement.

I have news for them: it was never free. Last.fm pays artists and labels per individual song play and there has always been a choice for listeners - pay a subscription or put up with advertisements. While advertisements do not directly suck money from listeners, they distract and subconsciously persuade them to part with it. That’s why we have them - they work. The move to a subscription-only model is for regions where Last.fm cannot suitably organise and support advertising, and hence they have to find an alternative source of funding.

On the flipside, labels and artists shouldn’t have a problem either. However, charging a subscription is clearly incompatible with the idea of free music. Those who willingly release music without requiring payment are either forced to receive monies, or to have their music heard but payment going to others. For example, netlabel Rawmatroid has decided to withdraw their music from Last.fm because they have no desire to earn money from it.

I can understand that decision, but it’s not one that I would take, because it implies that the cost (or free-ness) of music is ultimately more important than the music itself. Music is too valuable to the richness of our lives to be restricted due to financial issues or principals. Furthermore, exposure (through whatever outlet) gains listeners who can then be directed back to its source. Musicians and independent labels should exploit these services in order to grow their visibility and gain fans. Because once you have fans, you can do anything.

TheBrit’s Number 9 of 2008

Miss Kittin first came to my attention when she worked with Felix da Housecat on his 2001 album Kittenz and Thee Glitz, which was one of the first electroclash albums - a genre with which she is still associated, but if anything electro house would be more appropriate now. A more substantial collaboration came that year in the form of First Album, co-written with The Hacker, compiling tracks written since 1997. It exploited her coolly detached spoken vocal style, made more enticing by her French accent. But Caroline Hervé is a DJ at heart, having mixed since 1994. Inevitably, as is the case with all DJs nowadays, this led to her debut solo album I Com in 2004 which gave her a greater opportunity to experiment and bring forth her varied musical influences. Whilst critically acclaimed, I Com was merely a launch pad for BatBox, which arrived last year.

Its cover, designed by Emily The Strange creator Rob Reger, bares black bat motifs, and this style lives deep within the sound of the album - stretching back over 25 years to its birth in house, goth and synthpop, although this is unclear from the opening track. Kittin is High retreads early Detroit techno, with splashy percussive loops, but adds sophistication via evocative vocals, sweeping ravey basslines and a blissful refrain. These gorgeously sung but wordless backing vocals, give a clue as to the main progression on this album: Miss Kittin has started singing and I wished she’d begun sooner.

Because it suits her music. She’s admitted that her music is technical and listening to many of the tracks on this album gives a strong indication that everything is assembled with care and precision. For example, the interlocking drums, clipped percussion and mangled leads of Metalhead all blend together brilliantly, whilst not forgetting the dance-floor. It would sound fairly cold were it not for the smallest vocal loops that occasionally lighten the mood. Elsewhere, at the other extreme, she demands we focus on her voice: Wash ‘n’ Dry is a ‘dust yourself off’ ballad, delivered and mixed torch-song style, and although awash with effects, it makes for a daring addition to the album. Later, final song Lightmaker is more naked, summoning comparisons with downbeat, played out Depeche Mode songs.

There’s still evidence of her earlier music. The sweat and leather post-gig romp of Solidasarockstar adds her already established vocal style to reggae techno and an incisive knowledge of how pop music works. Her influences are quite obvious, although maybe not to her: DJs have to really learn the tracks they mix and the songs she’s mixed over the past 14 years have left their mark, not merely directly, but through their own progenitors. Play Me A Tape gathers these years together then adds icy, misshapen chords to turn a song about building playlists for a loved one into something darkly romantic.

BatBox works best when Miss Kittin’s more upfront about its intents. Grace provides the first instance, applying a throbbing guitar bass-line (last used to good effect on Juliet’s album Random Order - and whatever happened to her?) to a clinically crisp prominent groove, evoking memories of late-80s goth clubs. If its mix was dirty and full of reverb you’d easily detect the musical DNA of The Sisters of Mercy. This heritage is clearer on Barefoot Tonight, her paean to live gigs, where the claps are tight and the hi-hats hiss. But Pollution of the Mind is where the collision of genres works best; using an arpeggiated, delayed synth bass to drive Teutonic rhythms which are then elevated by her cooing, dreamy vocals.

Her love of music appears more genuine than most club DJ’s turned album artists, who cynically adopt musical tricks to generate emotional responses. Consequently BatBox is better for it. Especially in its most impressive song Machine Joy. Everything is focused, club oriented and heavy, but over the top Miss Kittin half-sings her praises to the abandonment one feels when locked inside a song, either as creator or listener, only to conclude “Joy is in the rhythm of the machine.” Which is why I’ve written about it here.

Play it black.

Miss Kittin - official website
Miss Kittin - BatBox (official website, Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

Even in 2000, it was rare for the UK music weeklies to make much of anything that wasn’t dance or indie. For other genres one really needed to read specialist magazines. So the appearance of Lil’ Kim’s second album The Notorious K.I.M. in their reviews surprised me, and I was even more startled to find it widely praised - most likely compensating for missing out on her debut Hard Core.

I therefore metaphorically rushed out to buy it (i.e. ordered in online) only to be completely underwhelmed by it. In fact I never made it through the album in one listen, and to date I never have. Part of this is due to its unremitting aggression - I strongly felt on my first listen that she should just have a cup of tea and a lie down. Her voice too lacks variety and has a pitch, which, when combined with the beats, makes 18 tracks tiresome to listen to. Incidentally, I have no problem with its explicit lyrics or how filthy she can get.

However, as I’ve discovered over the subsequent years, the majority of its songs are fine when listened to on their own. Having them appear at random amongst the relative tranquility of the rest of my music - when I have my music on shuffle - mixes and messes things up a bit.

This song is not particularly notable compared to the others on the album, except she does use the word “valedictorian.” Oh yes.

Lil’ Kim - The Notorious K.I.M. (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

We’ve got used to the predictability of a single preceding its album. But sometimes musicians reach a certain level of maturity (with perhaps a corresponding fanbase) that mark themselves down as “album artists.” For them singles aren’t necessarily important, because their albums are guaranteed to sell, so the dual promotional effort isn’t worth it or required.

In such cases, radio singles are often the replacement: A forthcoming single which will (or might) be released after the album is distributed to radio stations in order to trail it. It’s a way of keeping casual fans notified.

Tori Amos’ Welcome to England is the trailing first single for her forthcoming album, the clunkily titled Abnormally Attracted to Sin, to be released on 19 May 2009. As I suspected from the photo shoots, and the interviews surrounding its concept (because every Tori album has gotta have one), this further indicates that the album may be a successor to Scarlet’s Walk - which is a revelation of sorts following the dismal American Doll Posse.

Tori still hasn’t learned to lay off the wanky guitar solos though - this isn’t 1973 anymore.

Tori Amos - official website
Tori Amos - Abnormally Attracted to Sin (Amazon US)