It’s the first time I ever bought a guitar in the same workshop it was made in. Well today I bought a US$30 from craftsman Mr Lay Lwin. In his 60s and dressed in the traditional wrap-around biyin 'skirt' that most Burmese men wear, Lay Lwin is chairman of Sein Shwe Lwin Guitar Garden, on Anawrahta road in the bustling Kyauktada township in downtown Yangon/Rangoon. The shop was a welcome detour in the downpour that blanketed the city for most of the day – this is rainy season. What got me was Lay’s smiling demeanour and loving attention with which he showed me each guitar. The US$30 price tag was also a clincher: prices fluctuate according to whether he’s using plastic or steel tuning gears, or if the strings and frets are steel or a cheaper alloy mix.

The top of the soundbox is pine, the sides plywood. It’s not surprising most of the country is still covered in forestry, that Burma would make guitars. Problem is much of that wood is being slashed by or for Chinese timber companies, who often pay off local officials to turn a blind eye as they drive their loot over the border into China’s Yunnan province. Still, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper earlier this week editorialized on the need to grow trees so the air can be clean and the country green, as if hardwood trees they’ve allowed to be chopped can be replaced overnight.

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Beijing Beat is in Burma this week, just as the country’s most famous citizen, Aung San Suu Kyi is on trial. There’s lots of well-armed police and military out on patrol, but this is no dour nation. The music shops, and there are plenty, sell guitar chord books and stacks of CDs and DVDs of local artists. Chinese pop is big in Burma. Staff sung along to Mandopop megahits while I was getting my hair cut at the East Boys hair salon on Seik Kan Tha Street A five minute walk away, three helpful attendants at the Man Thiri music shop – they produce and distribute CDs, VCDs and tapes as well as DVDs –  when I asked them for their best local folk and Burmese rock CDs plucked me out a work by harpist Haing Win Maung, and this by local hip hop/rocker Alex: Live at Inya Lake.

The local official press is farcically out of touch – the regime’s greetings to Azerbaijani leaders for that country’s national day made the page one lead yesterday – but there are plenty of chances to get alternative views in Rangoon/Yangon. There’s the paper boy selling Thailand’s The Nation on the street near my hotel, and then, in the hotel lobby, the staff watching satellite TV coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial, piped in by the country’s opposition in exile in Norway. That seems to be Burma: a very, friendly, nuanced kind of place. Badly run, unnecessarily impoverished, but also full of surprises. Number one for me was how it makes a good first impression: the new international airport in Rangoon is smart, glass and chrome and attentive, friendly staff. Nothing at all as chaotic as my recent experience flying into Dhaka, in neighbouring Bangladesh. But then nowhere do you hear chaotic Bangladesh’s multiplicity of voices, and debate. I’m looking forward to checking out the live music scene, particularly the Lazy Club, where apparently aforementioned rocker Alex regularly plays.

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A review of the album Battle For The Sun by Placebo

Review Snapshot: If this is how good Placebo sound when they choose to write about 'stepping out of the darkness and into the light' can somebody please arrange to shower Brian Molko with sunlight for the foreseeable future?  An album full of urgency and optimism, Battle for the Sun has the potential to be regarded as Placebo's finest work.

The Cluas Verdict? 9.5 out of 10

Full Review:
After 13 years, 5 studio albums and 10 million album sales, you would have to wonder what possible reasons Placebo have to keep going, especially after the loss of major label backing and Steve Hewitt, the band's drummer for the past 11 years.  Wonder no more, the reason is clear; after spending over a decade dealing with life in the shadows, Placebo, and Brian Molko in particular, have decided to focus on optimism and positivity, the result of which is Battle for the Sun (released June 8).

Those of you familiar with the Placebo back catalogue, 2006's Meds in particular, will be aware that darkness seemed to be an essential element in terms of shaping Placebo's songs, almost to the point of self-parody.  Indeed, at that stage that Placebo were arguably, to quote our own Aidan Curran, 'a band who's future was long behind them.'  That's most definitely not the case however, and while there are still some dark themes on Battle for the Sun it is hard not to feel the sense of optimism that seeps from every nook and cranny of this record. Track 6, Bright Lights, for example contains the following refrain: A heart that hurts/is a heart that works. It's simple, yet equally effective and evocative and a million miles adrift of songs like Pierrot the Clown (Meds, 2006) or Summer's Gone (Without You I'm Nothing, 1998).

The album, recorded in Toronto over three months with Dave Bottrill (dEUS, Silverchair, Muse) and mixed by Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails), actually gets off to a very inauspicious start with Kitty Litter.  For the first 3 minutes, it sounds like typical Placebo fair, musically competent, lyrically excellent and then there is a subtle change of direction and bang, we have the new Placebo.  This continues straight into the excellent Ashtray Heart, which has more in common with the likes of Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire (it must be the Toronto air) than the Placebo of old.

Battle for the Sun contains far too many standout tracks to list them all.  The sense of urgency that drives almost every track, combined with very polished production, creates a unique listening experience where you find yourself waiting for the next track while not wanting the current track to end.   New drummer Steve Forrest does an exceptional job considering his mere 22 years and his pounding of the skins plays an important part on the majority of tracks, lead single For What it's Worth in particular.

When I review records, I start off with a score of 10 and try to find reasons to deduct marks.  With Battle for the Sun I found it very difficult to find fault.  It's as accomplished as it is refreshing and while producing an album that defies genres (and indeed people's pre-conceptions of them, this writer included) will be sure to garner Placebo new fans (maybe even Aidan), it is also a record that will startle and delight their many existing fans. I can give Battle for the Sun no higher praise than to say it could well prove to be the essential Placebo album.

Steve O'Rourke

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A review of the album Let The Truth Be Told by Laura Izibor Review Snapshot:  Pretty face on the cover? Check.  Impressive voice? Check.  Middle of the road, vaguely ...

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The summer of 2006 must have been an exciting time to be young and French. Springtime student protests had caused the Chirac/de Villepin government to retreat on controversial employment reforms. Les bleus were heading for the World Cup Final and Amélie Mauresmo was winning Wimbledon. Former Dublin au pair Ségolène Royal was shaking up the presidential election race. And a guitar band from Versailles looked dead certs to become global rock megastars.

As it turned out, those protests gained little in the long term. The French football team lost the final so controversially that Mauresmo’s victory the previous day has been virtually forgotten. Royal lost the 2007 election to conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and (like Sarkozy, in his own way) is now more a celebrity than a politician. And that Versailles band, Phoenix (right), are still only big fish in a small indie pond.

But their 2006 album ‘It’s Never Been Like That’ was a cracker and it at least gained them a larger cult following in North America. They are still the only French rock band with a worldwide audience and credibility anywhere near electro acts like Air, Daft Punk and Justice. And their style of music has become a reference point: if any band mixes too-cool-for-school indieness with lovelorn melodic retro-pop, then they sound like Phoenix.
 
So, in this uncharted territory for a French band, Phoenix have just released their new album. Three years on, will it see them finally close the deal and break through to mainstream success?

It will not. ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’ has at least two excellent singles and rarely puts a foot wrong, but on the whole it leaves you with a sense of disappointment. How come?

Well, a great deal of the problem with the new Phoenix album is that it sounds so much like Phoenix. Most of the tracks on this record wouldn’t sound out of place on their previous album. Thomas Mars’ idiosyncratic vocal style, singing melodies so undulating and jerky that they’re almost out of sync with the rest of the song, sounds familiar by now. Was that all we saw in them?

And now other bands are picking up their sound – we recently mentioned French rivals Pony Pony Run Run, whose single ‘Hey You’ does the Phoenix thing better than Phoenix.

Those two fine songs we mentioned above, ‘Lisztomania’ and ‘1901’, are the opening tracks here and give the album a deceptively strong start. A failing of Phoenix, one reason why they aren’t filling Enormodomes or headlining summer festivals outside France, is that they’ve never written a killer radio-friendly chorus – but ‘Lisztomania’ has a memorable hook (though not as catchy as PPRR’s ‘Hey You’). By sheer force of concentrated Phoenix-ness is ‘1901’ so good. Third track ‘Fences’ is a pleasant bit of disco-indie, but The Virgins sewed up this genre last year with their brilliant single ‘Rich Girls’.

And that’s it for highlights. To mention this album’s fleeting nod to relative innovation, we note that ‘Twenty One One Zero’, the bit of loop-heavy stadium electronica that the band put on the web last year, briefly reappears here during an instrumental called ‘Love Like A Sunset Part I’. It gives way to ‘Love Like A Sunset Part II’, a very brief track which features three heavy acoustic guitar strums repeated. Then next song ‘Lasso’ resumes the classic Phoenix style.

It’d be disingenuous to present this as Phoenix maintaining their standards or refining their distinctive sound – quite simply, this album feels like a risk-free consolidation and the songs aren’t dazzling enough to blind you to this.

Of course, there’s the possibility that several million people who’ve never come across Phoenix before will hear this album and fall for it, or perhaps some well-chosen advertising placement will pierce the mainstream subconsciousness. But neither of these scenarios would make ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’ any better an album. This is still a fine band, oozing charm and talent, but they need to do something new with their music.
 

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Key Notes realises he's been a little quiet of late.  There are lots of exciting goings on at Key Note Towers, more of which you'll read about in the coming weeks.  However, to make up for the recent radio silence this blog has a double pass to give away to Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs this Thursday, May 28.

Flirting with music for the first time in 1991 as a founder member of all girl garage band Thee Headcoatees, Holly Golightly's career really took off with the release of her debut record The Good Things in 1995.  Blending blues and folk rock, Golightly has released 13 solo albums over a wide variety of formats and labels, one of the most successful of which was Truly She Is None Other, which was written in partnership with Billy Childish.  Described as 'a scruffed up British version of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, the albums lead track Tell Me Now So I Know was chosen to soundtrack the Jim Jarmusch movie Broken Flowers.

In 2006, following 11 years of tourning and recording with the support of a full band, Holly Golightly teamed up with one man drums/guitar/double bass ensemble Lawyer Dave to form Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs.  Their second album as a duo, Dirt Don't Hurt, was released in October 2008 to critical acclaim.

On Thursday night, May 28, Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs bring their blend of folksy blues to Andrew's Lane Theatre.  Tickets are available for €15 from the WAV ticket office, Road Records, City Discs, Sound Cellar or the usual outlets.  However, thanks to Forever Presents, Key Notes has a double pass to give away.  To win, just email keynotes[@]cluas[.]com with 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' in the subject line before noon on Wednesday.  A winner will be chosen at random and, as usual, Key Notes' decision is final.

Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs:  Jesus Don't Love Me

 

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A review of the album Nightcycles by Subplots Review Snapshot: At times melodic, at times fractured, Nightcycles is at all times a beautiful and ambitious debut long player and, for that, Subplots...

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DM Stith and The Acorn (live in La Maroquinerie, Paris)

Review Snapshot: A cracking double bill of cinematic, romantic North American folk-rock to warm this cold Paris cellar. DM Stith is the quiet small-town Everyman with an otherworldly voice; The Acorn are your ideal college roommates. In their own ways, the two acts win over the crowd with their invention, sincerity and vision – though most punters will go home talking about Stith.

The Cluas Verdict? 9 out of 10

Full Review:
The average rock fan, on heading out on a Friday night, probably worries about catching things other than pneumonia or the common cold. But here we are in La Maroquinerie, a popular Paris venue, on a May evening and it actually feels chilly down here when normally these cellar walls are running with punter perspiration.

You see, the place isn’t even half full – and whenever the door opens, a draught sweeps round the room. It’s odd that more people haven’t come out to see such an attractive double bill of two buzz names on the transatlantic indie music wires.

But those here tonight are the curious and genuinely interested: fortunately for both acts, most people stand right up at the stage instead of leaving a crescent of indifferent floorspace to greet the performers. There are no ‘SHH!’-ers here nor need of them. And tonight’s committed crowd is rewarded by two engaging and enjoyable shows. These two acts go well together.

Both DM Stith and The Acorn (support and headline acts respectively) play a blend of indie- and folk-rock flavoured by more exotic influences, though the American evokes the bookish teenager and the Canadian band are more like your joint-smoking college roommates. (Keyboardist Mike Dubue actually enquires mid-set whether it’s easy to procure marijuana in Paris. For the record, the wisdom of tonight’s crowd holds that it isn’t.)

Where Stith’s recordings are swathed in swirling wisps of ether, on stage with his band those songs are concrete and robust – the man himself (above right) goes about his business in a workmanlike way, chiselling out chords like an apprentice carpenter and grinning boyishly between songs. (He looks like a teenage Donald Sutherland.) To strum the rhythm of ‘Pigs’ he mutes his guitar by folding a piece of cloth through the strings – but then still takes the trouble of making the chord shapes. And as he launches into the next song he forgets to take the cloth out of the strings. His air of affability makes him quite likeable. (After the show he chats amiably with fans at the merchandise table.)

But that voice, piercing and melancholic like a train whistle across a prairie, still conjures up romance and escape and a sort of bruised yearning. This is captured in his music by exotic scales and chord progressions such as in songs like ‘Fire Of Birds’ and ‘Pity Dance’. Adding to the pleasing sense of oddness, the violinist and cellist produce a Theremin-type sound by swinging red plastic outflow pipes over their heads.

Dare we say that Stith steals the show? Well, we can’t remember ever seeing a support act coming back out for an encore, as Stith does tonight after heartfelt calls from the crowd.

This isn’t to suggest that The Acorn are any less enjoyable; they rock. Their songs fall into two camps: lumberjack-shirt folk-rock (‘Crooked Legs’, ‘Fallen Leaves’) and Vampire Weekend-style college world-pop (‘Low Gravity’, ‘Flood Pt 1’). They do both well. The apparent extravagance of having two drummers is justified by the band’s dependence on strong, inventive rhythms: while DM Stith requires attentive listening, The Acorn are for dancing and most of the crowd bop along to their set. That said, in their own way The Acorn are just as poetic and escapist as Stith – those world rhythms, of course, but also singer Rolf Klausener’s rich, warm voice and songs about his mother's youth in Honduras.

The only downer of the night is that this band’s best song, the joyous tribal hymn ‘Flood Pt 1’, is drowned in a murky sound mix that has too much bass: the track’s glorious guitar line is almost completely lost. Many people here tonight have come to see The Acorn on the basis of loving that song, so it’s a pity to hear it slightly botched.

There’s something in the North American experience that constantly inspires books and music and art which are cinematic and sincere and aspirational compared to the self-conscious cynicism and irony of many European artists. Whether it comes from the vast widescreen landscape or immigrant heritage or maybe some last trace of the frontier spirit, both The Acorn and DM Stith exemplify this. They deserve to be playing packed furnaces of venues from now on, and we suspect that Stith’s support-slot days will soon be behind him.

Aidan Curran

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Okay, so we might not have fancied their most recent album. But in the spirit of ‘G’wan Oirland’ and all that, we’re pleased to report that Bell X1 are playing a high-profile Paris show tonight (14 May), one that’s bound to win them great exposure and interest among French music fans.

For the last concert on their current continental tour, the Kildare band are headlining the latest edition of Les Inrocks Indie Club, the regular band night hosted by Les Inrockuptibles, France’s best selling and most respected music and culture magazine.  The show takes place at La Maroquinerie, one of the best-known rock venues in Paris, and the line-up is completed by The Phantom Band, The Soft Pack (that fine Californian band formerly known as The Muslims) and local hopefuls Toy Fight.

You being fairly sharp, you’ll have noticed that the nationalities of the acts are given on the poster (right). G’wan Oirland!

One of the added benefits of headlining a show organized by a top-selling music magazine is that said top-selling music magazine invariably gives you plenty of glowing publicity and blurb and what have you. Thus Les Inrockuptibles have called ‘Blue Lights On The Runway’ “glacial et lancinant” – icy and piercing. (‘Lancinant’ is also the word in French to describe a sudden, shooting pain such as your correspondent’s recent running injuries.) We don’t see what they mean (unless they mean ‘painful’), but that’s the sort of language you find in French music reviews.

The band supported Nada Surf in France last year, but it seems their second-fiddle days are behind them now. With tonight’s high-profile Paris show and a Benicassim appearance to come, Bell X1 are really making a go of things here on the continent and perhaps they might return to Eire all inspired and creatively reinvigorated. Good luck to them.

Honestly, we really like ‘Neither Am I’ – especially ‘Man On Mir’ and this one, 'Pinball Machine':

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Making a music video is generally an expensive undertaking and, even if bands go for the cheap and cheerful option, having the skill and imagination to make it look professional can prove just as difficult getting finance. 

Over the past 6 years, however, acts such as The Frames, Duke Special, Fight Like Apes, C O D E S, The Mighty Stef and Future Kings of Spain have all had the opportunity to work with student filmmakers thanks to a special collaboration between the Tisch School of Arts at NYU and Hot Press.

This year saw the program celebrate its 100th video and, as you can see from the above photograph, Key Notes attended a special screening to mark the event on Wednesday May 6.  On the night the Tisch filmmakers premiered videos (in various states of completion) from The Laundry Shop, The Dirty 9's, One Day International and Moth Complex.  [Declaration of interest: Steve O'Rourke, author of Key Notes, is friends with Aoife O'Leary of Moth Complex and earlier this year was involved in helping and promoting the band.]

Unfortunately, none of this years crop of videos are available yet but this blog's favourite on the night was One Day International's video for Little Death which had an Eighties kids TV program feel to it, very camp but it worked very well.  Of the other videos, The Laundry Shop's The Daily Special and Learned my Lesson by Moth Complex were still very much works in progress.  The video for Lucy Opus (The Dirty 9's) was perhaps the most 'classical' video of the evening, following, as it did, the sure fire format of movie scene, band scene, movie scene, band scene, movie scene, fade; cracking song though.

Key Notes' favourite video of the Tisch/Hot Press venture remains Syndicate by the Future Kings of Spain and this blog doesn't need much of an excuse to play it again:

Key Notes will, of course, post another blog when this year's batch of Tisch/Hot Press videos go live.

Photo Credit: Hot Press

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