The first thing that struck me about the album was just how poppy it is, especially for something released on Touch, one the UK's top experimental music labels.  Sarah Peacock's vocals are much, much more prominent here than anything I've heard from Seefeel — and there are actual lyrics, even lyrics the band considered important enough to print in the liner notes.  It's not what I was expecting at all, and I think it negatively affected my first impression of the album.

"Naked" starts Beauty Nowhere off good enough.  I didn't care for its driving electronic percussion and erratic vocals initially, but it's definitely a grower, and eventually traces of that blurry, pulsating Quique-era Seefeel sound emerge.  "Torn" has an urgent, almost drum-and-bass production style, which, when combined with an incredibly irritating buzzing sound that is used as a melodic element, doesn't sit very well with me.  The band turns around and starts heading in the opposite direction with "Hold Me Down", a very slow piece that relies entirely on a minimal percussion line and ethereal, layered, reverb-laden vocals.  It's not a great track, but it is more interesting that a brief, cursory listen might indicate.  "Think in Japanese" is in a similar style, but this time it adds a curious bassline to the mix.  Again, not great, but not bad either.  I think "Something About Brigitte Neilsen" is the worst track on the album; it's literally just a drum-and-bass-inspired rhythm and nothing else for three and a half minutes.

Things start to improve a bit with "Happy in Her Skin", which features sensual, lo-fi (as if the singer was in the next room over) lyrics behind a slow, plodding beat and a rolling bassline.  "Ride Me" sounds like Tim Hecker (who wouldn't release an album until four years after Beauty Nowhere) if he put a female vocalist on his albums.  The resemblance to his noisy, melodic washes of sound is almost shocking, in fact.  Finally, Scala finnish the album with a cover of "Heart of Glass", originally by Blondie.  It's surprisingly good, slower than the original but still quite fast compared to most other tracks on the album, with a sort of housey feel to it.

You know, I didn't realize it until just now, but Beauty Nowhere actually seems to fit in pretty well with the trip-hop sound of the '90s, maybe just a little noisier or more experimental than the big names of the genre.  I've never been crazy about trip-hop, so of course it shouldn't come as a surprise that the album didn't do much for me.  There are a few good tracks, but for the most part Scala's first album is very uneven.  Maybe Mark Clifford was the one who made Seefeel work.

http://www.myspace.com/mercuryrevmusic

From wikipedia:

Based in Shepherds Bush, West London, The Passions' music was grounded mainly in Barbara Gogan's voice, and Clive Timperley's delicate echoplex guitar work. Before forming in 1978, most of the members had spent time in other groups. Timperley was an ex-101ers, whilst drummer Richard Williams and singer/guitarist Barbara Gogan were in the punk rock outfit, The Derelicts. The Passions' first single, issued in March 1979, was "Needles and Pills", which helped them gain a recording contract with Fiction Records, home of The Cure. The Passions were predominantly a guitar band but they fitted in with the spirit of the times, being part New Romantics, and part "European grey".

Mazzy Star was an American dream pop band. They formed in 1989, from the band Opal, a collaboration of guitarist David Roback and bassist Kendra Smith. Smith's friend Hope Sandoval became the group's vocalist when Smith left the band.
Mazzy Star is probably best known for the song "Fade into You" which brought the band some success in the mid-1990s and was the group's biggest mainstream hit, earning radio and MTV airplay. Roback and Sandoval were the creative center of the band, with Sandoval writing most of the lyrics and Roback composing most of the music.

Download: Among My Swan

Web: Website

Needless to say, it was a really good show. The last song, “You Made Me Realise”, overwhelmed me. Their feedback loop sustained and grew and grew until the building and the very air shook. I kept wondering if they would hit the resonant frequency of the building’s foundations and we would be buried under a pile of rubble. It was an intense sensory overload. I could even feel the vibrations crawling down my throat every time I opened my mouth. Thank goodness for earplugs. During minute 8 of their 15 minute jet-engine explosion, I dared remove one just to get a taste. All I heard was WHHOOOORRSSSHSHSSSHHHH.

Anyway, some pics:

The clip below is from the documentary's final performance.  Sigur Ros played their last free concert in Reykjavik and this is the final song of the set.  The song is "Popplagið," or "Untitled #8" from their 2002 album ().  It's about a 10 minute clip, you have to listen to it in its entirety to get a full appreciation for this song.  It starts mellow and then grows quite ominous and finishes in a bluster of lights and rock.  Good stuff.

Okay, this is hardly a new release, but I wasn't blogging when Blonde Redhead's 23 came out last year, and since I gave it a listen this morning and was bowled over all over again by how great it is, I thought maybe I'd write about it a bit.

I'll confess that I don't know a huge amount of Blonde Redhead's music.  When I was doing college radio back in the late 90's, I knew some guys who liked them a lot, and I played tracks from them from time-to-time myself.  I recall them sounding pretty much like Sonic Youth knock-offs, but if that was the case then, their abilities have developed quite a bit.

Which isn't to say that Sonic Youth isn't still an apt reference point.  They're definitely still an art rock band, and the album ripples with tension.  But the band indulges their pop instincts now as well.  This contrast is embodied in singer Kazu Makino's voice, which often verges on shrillness, but never quite crosses that line, instead coming across as both unearthly and alluring.

Opening track "23" is all thundering drums and deep bass, with "Glider"-era My Bloody Valentine guitars layered on top.  The song walks a fine balance between art rock and pop, and does it magnificently, setting the stage for the rest of the album.  The album's second highlight is "Silently", whose slinky beat, ethereal harmonies, and poignant chorus make it the album's pop centerpiece.  "Top Ranking", the penultimate track, could almost be described as jangle pop if it wasn't so apprehensive and creepy sounding.  And album closer "My Impure Hair" is haunting, beautiful dream pop, allowing the album to drift away at the end, in contrast to its thundering opening.

Those are the album's highlights, but the rest of the material is fine as well. Amedeo Pace sings the bulk of the album's middle section ("Silently", somewhat oddly, is nestled between his three songs), and while his voice is a bit annoying, it fits the unsettling vibe of the material (the best of his songs is the propulsive "Spring And By Summer Fall").  This album is really good.  I'm going to have to dig into the back catalog.

Slowdive were a shoegazing band formed in 1989, lasting until 1995. The band was formed in Reading, Berkshire, England and soon signed to Creation Records in the UK. The band consisted of Neil Halstead (vocals/guitar), Rachel Goswell (vocals/guitar), Nick Chaplin (bass), Christian Savill (guitar), Adrian Sell (drums, 1989), Simon Scott (drums, 1990 until early 1994) and Ian McCutcheon (drums, 1994 onwards). Goswell and Halstead had known each other since early childhood in Reading, Berkshire, when Goswell was an obsessive fan of The Smiths. When Savill and Chaplin left the band after the release of Pygmalion, the remaining members renamed the band Mojave 3.

Download: Souvlaki

Just For A Day

Pygmalion

Web: Myspace Page , Website

San Francisco indie pop band Minipop put out their debut album,A New Hope, late last year on Take Root Records. A collection of female-fronted guitar pop in the vein of late 80's British dream pop bands like the Sundays, it's subtle charms sneak up on you, digging in their hooks on repeat listens.

The songwriting is solid, and the sparse but atmospheric production fits the material well. Much of the album's best material are majestic mid-tempo numbers like "Fingerprints" and "A New Hope", which ride on waves of ethereal, layered vocals. But other standouts stray from this style - "My Little Bee" is hushed and fragile, while "Butterflies" is a slice of bright jangle-pop, a pop hit in a just world. The album's highlight, however, is "Precious", a moody, bass-driven epic that builds to a beautiful, stirring chorus.

Not all the songs are as good as those, but the album has few weak spots, and is well paced (though I notice most of my favorite songs show up on the second half). Recommended.

Unsere unumstrittene Nr. 1 - egal was da noch folgen wird. Mazzy Star ist eine der Dream Pop Bands überhaupt... vom Namen her dem breiten Publikum eher unbekannt, dürfte die Musik dem ein oder anderen doch sehr vertraut vorkommen - wird sie doch immer wieder gerne genommen um Szenen in Fernsehserien zu unterlegen. Immer dann - wenn Geknutscht oder noch vielhäufiger liebeskrank gesehnt wird.

Viele Lieder von Mazzy Star handeln von unerfüllter oder dem Scheitern geweihter Liebe. Wikipedia unterstellt ihnen sogar suizidale Tendenzen. Dies sehen wir zwar anders - auch nach tausendfachem Spielen der wunderschönen, bisweil traurigen Musik blieb der Griff zur Pulsadern schneidenden Rasierklinge aus und wird dies auch in Zukunft bleiben. Ein bißchen Emo blickt Hope Sandoval auf vielen ihrer Bilder aber schon drein. Auch wird ihr nachgesagt, sie trete live nur in gedämpften Scheinwerferlicht bzw Kerzenschein auf.

Dennoch - nicht jede Musik, die von Liebes- und Weltschmerz erzählt ist gleich dem Todeswunsch nah.

Fade Into You ist eines der schönsten und weniger traurigen Liebeslieder von Mazzy Star und perfekt zum Knutschen und Kuscheln. Hope Sandovals meist anbetungswürdig lakonischer Gesang fordert hier die verschmelzende Liebe ein - nach der sich alle Verliebten sehnen. Dieser Moment des Eins-werdens, der von zynischen Singles oder SchonZuLangeVergebenen oft als liebeskrank bezeichnet wird.

Mazzy Star ist dann auch die Band, die DifferentStars und SomeVapourTrails zusammen gebracht hat...nachzulesen in der kleinen über uns Einleitung zu Lie In The Sound.

Obwohl sie sich nie offiziell aufgelöst haben und immer wieder Gerüchte um ein neues Album im Internet kursieren - die letzte Veröffentlichung Among My Swan (Capitol) liegt 12 Jahre zurück.

Allen - denen zur Zeit der oder die Richtige zum Knutschen fehlt - sei dieses Lied gewidmet:

Mazzy Star - Blue Flower

Fanseite mit ausführlichen Informationen: http://www.mazzystar.nu/

DifferentStars