https://www.cluas.com/indie-music RSS feeds for CLUAS Irish Indie Music 60 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/298/David-Gray-Draw-the-line#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=298 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=298&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/298/David-Gray-Draw-the-line A review of David Gray's album 'Draw the line' Review Snapshot: David Gray's "Draw the line" - new songs, new band, new outlook. Same old same old. The CLUAS verdict? 5 out of 10 Full Review: Nothing screams late nineties quite like David Gray’s “White ladder”, a “classic” album that worked basically because its lo fi songs captured a moment and because Gray himself consciously, or unconsciously, lightened his own musical mood. Gray has trod so much water since “White ladder” that he has developed webbed feet. Noughties follow ups, “A New Day at Midnight “ and “Life in Slow Motion” are as workmanlike and well intentioned as they are forgettable but his “Lost Songs” collection of outtakes was a peak. His own wife said ”Lost Songs” should be accompanied by a government health warning but it worked because he submerged himself so totally in his own misery. So it’s against that background that he’s now released “Draw the line “ and with a completely new band too - Clune, that annoying drummer of his has been binned off - and Gray has been telling the world that he’s been writing new material at a rate of knots. “Draw the line” may be new material and Gray may profess that he’s been inspired but in the strictest sense it’s more of same and for the most part it’s less than inspiring. The arrangements on this album are exquisite, the band are on the money and the melodies are serviceable but there’s no sense of pushing things forward or of improving on what’s gone before. “Draw the Line” suffers particularly because of Gray’s voice, which is now parched and tinder dry. The album’s outstanding track is “Breathe”, an outstandingly bad duet with the truly scary Annie Lennox. It’s self important, it’s po faced and it’s a little bit creepy but I wouldn't judge “Draw the line” on the basis of one spectacularly bad number. In fact the opener and the lead single, “Fugitive” is about the brightest thing here but really that’s not saying much. “Nemesis” on the other hand is a dark little thing with a lyric that starts out as self deprecation but veers towards self mutilation: I’m the manta ray I’m the louse I am the photograph They found in your burned out house I am the sound of money washing down the drain I am the pack of lies Baby that keeps you sane And on it goes. “Kathleen”, “First Chance”, “Breathe”, and the rest are well arranged and lushly produced pieces of folk rock that merge into each other far too seamlessly . The fact is that despite the stage banter and the big noddy dog head on him, Gray’s a self obsessed little man with a blacker than black world vision. When the greats like John Martyn, Nick Drake, Brett Anderson and Elliot Smith look within for inspiration they look into hearts full of soul but when Gray looks within all he finds staring back at him are his own slights, wounds and injuries. Gray may not produce another “White ladder” and he may not even want to but “Draw the line” does not represent anything new, uplifting or even challenging. Anthony Morrissey More ... Anthony Morrissey Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:00:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:298 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/301/Calvin-Harris-Ready-for-the-weekend#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=301 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=301&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/301/Calvin-Harris-Ready-for-the-weekend A review of the album 'Ready for the weekend' by Calvin Harris Review Snapshot: "Ready for the weekend" is a disco pop sugar rush. Set a late noughties  badly lit overcrowded nightclub to music and you get the picture. "Kid A" it ain't. But that's not a bad thing. The Cluas Verdict? 7 out of 10 Full Review: If you're on the top deck on the bus home on a Friday evening and if you're sitting near the back of the bus where the cool kids sit and if you're distracted by two mid teen shop girls with fingerless gloves and if they're simultaneously gossiping, checking text messages, and chewing gum and if they're listening to an MP3 player on a mobile phone with one girl jiggling one earphone wedged in her shell like and the other girl fiddling with the other earphone and if they're la-la-ing and saying "this one is f**kin' great" there's a strong possibility they're both listening to Calvin Harris' "Ready for the weekend".   "Ready for the weekend" is hedonism rather than music. This album is a guilty pleasure recorded and released a few days ago rather than some time in the eighties. It's best heard on a Friday night when you're getting ready to go out on the town, when you're on your way to getting out on the town, or when you're on the town and out if it. Harris arranged and wrote the whole album but he freely admits that he does not have a singing note on his head so he puts his voice through Auto tunes.   Don't worry about the devil in the detail - let's just say Harris is the Aldi equivalent of Mylo - he is of the generation that has no inner thought and that has to let the world know everything about itself - his middle name is Facebook. When he tweets he rages, at different times he's at odds with hacks, producers, TV presenters, even himself, but you can forgive him everything because he writes near perfect pop songs with tight arrangements and banging - absolutely banging  - tunes. He even makes Dizzee Rascal sound cool and slightly threatening - "Dance wiv me" is a no brains floor filler with Rascal putting out more front, arrogance and machismo in four minutes twenty four seconds than Mick Jagger could generate in forty years.  There's lots of innits and tings but if "Dance wiv me" does not make you dance you must be living in a sensory deprivation tank. Mid seventies, Jagger himself would have died for "Yeah Yeah Yeah la la la", it's an insanely catchy piece of falsetto fluff about absolutely nothing made for party people that eat their meals off a mirror. The album's title track and hit single is and will always be a disposable classic - a cheap drum machine intro, a twitchy self obsessed preening little verse and Mary Pearce bellows out a shout out chorus that can be understood in any language, on any dance floor, in any nightclub and at the back of any bus - "I put on my shoes and I'm ready for the weekend". Pop music is one of life's great perishables. Again, Jagger had one of pop's nastiest but best lines - who needs yesterday's papers? "Ready for the weekend" has no shelf life to speak of. It prides itself on being transient, cheap fun. Listen to "Ready for the weekend", and soon, before it begins to smell funny.   Anthony Morrissey More ... Anthony Morrissey Sun, 06 Sep 2009 02:00:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:301 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/316/Royksopp-Junior#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=316 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=316&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/316/Royksopp-Junior A review of the album 'Junior' by Royksopp Review Snapshot: After an uninspiring and uneven second studio album Royksopp get their groove together with "Junior", their summer collection. If you listen to this album and don't smile at least once you don't have a pulse. The Cluas Verdict? 8 out of 10 Full Review: The frankly brilliant "Junior", Royksopp's third studio album, puts a lie to one of the great musical clichés: disposable pop. Pop is pop. If it's good it's good. If it's bad it's bad. If it's "Junior" it's an indisposable treasure. "Junior" is one of the best pop albums this year by a mile, it's varied in tone, it's skewed in its sounds and its sentiments, but best of all it's pure fun. Take the opener, "Happy up here". When asked about JFK Angie Dickinson said he was "the best two and a half minutes I ever had". Alter the context slightly and you could easily say the same about "Happy up here" - it kicks off with a couple of stoner giggles and thereafter it morphs into a Nordic take on the Tom Tom Club's sublime "Genius of Love". Not a note or a millisecond is wasted here and it make you feel like you're fifteen and in love with the world. It's an almost impossible standard to maintain. In fairness "Royksopp forever", the moody instrumental, is remarkably unremarkable and "Tricky tricky" is a musical itch that never gets scratched. Ignore these and listen to "True to life" – its beats are slippery than a bag of eels, you could recite a phone book over it and sound good but instead Royksopp come up with a moody little droned verse and a ravishingly sweet chorus sighed by Anneli Drecker. "Across the graveyard", the final cut, is the instrumental Air spent their lives trying to write, afterglow soft as soft and, again, summery as a breeze. "The girl and the robot", on the other hand, is a girl alone  - "I'm in love with a robot" - waiting for someone to come home. The melody is mildly reminiscent of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the silence" but Robyn gives it some gripping desperation and isolation: "Fell asleep again in front of MTV God, I'm down at the bottom No one's singing songs for me I can't wait for tomorrow" "Vision 1" on the other hand, is the best song you never heard on a summer holiday, best heard in a beach bar on tinny little speakers. It's unadulterated Europop with excruciatingly hippy lyrics: "Everybody let us gaze upon the world, we created And must rest our eyes upon the great machine, as we wave goodbye" That reads awfully but sounds sublime. "Vision 1" is wrapped in sugar and synths and bottomed out with a leathery synth bassline but the lyrics and again, Anneli Drecker's almost angelic tone rip your heart out. The band themselves say that "Junior" is their optimistic album and that the follow up, "Senior", will reflect their darker more contemplative side. If they are true to their word "Senior" will really be a Vale of tears. For now though "Junior" is all of the things that great pop can be: uplifting,  provocative,  laugh-out loud funny. Anthony Morrissey More ... Anthony Morrissey Fri, 12 Jun 2009 02:00:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:316 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/338/Tony-Christie-Made-in-Sheffield#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=338 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=338&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/338/Tony-Christie-Made-in-Sheffield A review of Tony Christie's album 'Made in Sheffield' Review Snapshot: Medallion man steps out of comfort zone, and covers the Arctic Monkeys. "Made in Sheffield " is uneasy listening but it should be heard. The Cluas Verdict? 8 out of 10 Full Review: Early noughties there was a vogue for people recycling American songs from the 40s.  Rod Stewart, Boz Scaggs and Bryan Ferry all dipped their toes in the American songbook pool with wildly varying results. More recently there's been a move towards a kind of musical last will and testament – artistes in their twilight years striving to leave some sort of credible musical legacy. Johnny Cash's last work with Rick Rubin was a very extreme case in point – his vocals on Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" were to all intents and purposes a musical death rattle, you could hear the air fall from his lungs and his heartbeat receding as he shivered through to the last chords. Latterly Neil Diamond also worked in the same general musical vicinity with Rick Rubin. It bought him a degree of cred but you felt he was thinking - forget  "Crackling Rosie", "Sweet Caroline", "Forever in blue jeans", this is the real, tortured me that I want you to remember.   Follow on down a little further on this road and you'll come across "Made in Sheffield", impeccably produced by Richard Hawley and his band colleague Colin Elliot. Hawley's own material is pretty much peerless, featuring arrangements that are subtle and that allow his own songs to breathe. The concept on this album is that all of the songs are written by people from Sheffield, including contributions from Christie himself and Richard Hawley. The easier option for someone like Christie would have been to take the afore-mentioned American standards route but with "Made in Sheffield" he's taken a very adventurous step and broken some new ground - hardly a case of Christie does Slipknot but it's a bold step nevertheless and one justified by the album's choice and breadth of material. And yet I fear for it and for Christie's success with it. "Made in Sheffield" should shift by the vanload but Christie has to overcome a number of prejudices – indie rockers will despise it because Tony Christie is music their gummy grannies listen to. On the other hand it won't appeal to the end of pier brigade because it does not feature any hit material but instead features new songs with some uncomfortable moments and truths.    "Made in Sheffield " is a particularly miraculous collection if you remember Christie from the seventies. He swaggered onto shows like "Golden Shot" on miserable Sunday afternoons, big hair, big lapels,  shirt open to his navel and a set of pipes that knocked down walls. Tom Jones had power and resonance but Christie was urgent and a little twitchy – "Avenues and alleyways" is a classic, his voice in raucous cinemascope. A little while back Peter Kay picked up on "Is this the way to Amarillo?" You've heard it a million times, it's kitsch, it's dated, it's karaoke – listen to the vocals though, Christie kicks this song along at a rate of knots.  Very late nineties he recorded "Walk Like a Panther" a very arch and funny piece of work with the All Seeing I (a front for Pulp's Jarvis Cocker). Christie recognised the glint in this song's eye but he played it straight and knew the score.   Christie himself has physically shrunk and his voice has too – he's a bona fide crooner with a decent range and an expressive tone. His voice works perfectly on "Made in Sheffield", which opens with the glistening strings that herald the Arctic Monkeys' "only ones who know" – I never "got" Alex Turner till I heard this song, it doesn't rhyme, it doesn't scan but it's a brilliant observation on loneliness, meeting up, breaking up, moving on and just wondering why - Christie sings "I hope you're holding hands on New year's eve" and makes you want to weep. Donald Fagan would call it Christmas without the chintzy stuff. And he'd be right. "Perfect Moon" is an afternoon tea dance number, and Christie glides through it but even here there's an aching. Christie's own two songs are a score draw- "All I ever care about is you" is a "honey pie" rewrite, it's a soft shoe shuffle, just this side of bland but "Going home tomorrow " is a real pearl, a crying in your beer jaunty little country number that would have graced any Marty Robbins album. "Danger is a woman in love" on the other hand is a thoroughbred torch ballad, the nearest thing to his old seventies catalogue. It's all John Barry and femme fatale but Christie does not vamp and gives the song the respect it deserves with the result that it works on serious and not so serious levels.   Christie's version of Richard Hawley's "Coles Corner" is respectful but the song itself is so good that Kate Perry could do a house version of it and still make you come over all melancholic and winsome. However "Born to cry," third track in, is this album's killer cut. Written by Jarvis Cocker, Hawley and Pulp, this is a stunning piece of melodrama centring on a couple at a crossroads. Everything here is just about perfect- the crescendo arrangement, Christie's voice that barely contains its pain, a huge chorus and a fade that gives the nod to the Fab Four's "Dear Prudence". It's uneasy listening – when Christie sings "you say you're trying to make things better / how come you always make things worse" you're reminded of every hellish moment of every burnt out relationship you've ever had. "Made in Sheffield" is as good a collection of songs as anything you'll hear this year. It should not be labelled, pigeon-holed or categorised. It's honest, heartfelt, entertaining. It's great music. Buy it and enjoy it. Anthony Morrissey More ... Anthony Morrissey Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:48:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:338 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/341/Joan-as-Police-Woman-To-Survive#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=341 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=341&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/341/Joan-as-Police-Woman-To-Survive A review of the album 'To Survive' by Joan as Police Woman Review Snapshot: Joan Wasser has musical smarts to die for but they're not that evident on "To survive". Never was the phrase "difficult second album" more appropriate. The Cluas Verdict? 5 out of 10 Full Review: Joan as Policewoman – she’s got impeccable credentials. Joan Wasser’s top of the table material. She’s in with the In Crowd, she goes where the In Crowd go. She has the look too, the kooky side of well groomed, the hooded noughties eye and a vague sense of mystery. She’s multi instrumental – as my departed old man would say, she plays everything but the linoleum. God’s sakes, BBC even asked her to contribute to a radio documentary about Shostakovich.   The artwork on “To survive”, her second solo album, sees Joan in monochrome, staring into some self absorbed middle distance. She’s bare shouldered and mysterious. The face that launched a  thousand  iPods. In keeping with that the album itself opens with “follow your wishes” – it’s musical drizzle – the piano is mixed right up to the point where you feel you’re being mugged by the bass notes, and the mood and melody are sulky. Joan’s crooning is mannered and as she sings "Will we ever meet again in the house where we started? Will I feel the suede of your skin as you move to turn off the light? Would you honor my wishes?" I’m thinking, take a chill pill Joany. It’s an absolutely dreadful choice as an album opener, there’s no sense of warmth or invitation -  the opposite, in fact. It’s so self involved you lose sight of your own existence but then there’s "holiday", a little bossa nova thing. After the initial reverse of the opening track you‘re hoping she might drag this one back. Initially it’s cute, Joan loosens up a little and even sounds a little kinky - "little did I know you're my holiday the place where I escape to forget about how I don't see you enough" but instead of letting the song breathe and giving it some space Joan instead swoons "at the bridge to your eyes at the path to your scars at the sway of your diamond black ocean" It’s a case of ruining something by saying it – "holiday" should be a jaunty little summery slip of a thing, an ice breaker, but instead it’s a lyrical own goal. Again, the next track, “To be loved” is light on the surface –there’s a dinky little melody, and once you get past the over mixed piano sound, a decent arrangement. And then Joan sings: "How on earth could you have found me huddled under grapes of wrath I will never know but forever I ask how I got so lucky all this time proceeding silent in processional the words, they escape me through my singing cage of how I love you too." Why use one word when you can use a thousand? It’s the same all the way down the line – there’s musical nous in abundance, though at times you feel that the arrangements on “to survive” are musical exercises rather than something that embellish the songs and enhance their qualities.  She has all of the gifts that music can give her but she’s no wordsmith. Pretty much every time she opens her mouth she’s damned from her own lips. By the time you’ve got to “hard white wall” your head is spinning:  "...man, don't you want to dance to the swing of the bach courante to the sway of the leaving trains to the swish of your lash, I cry." Too earnest, too indulgent, too wordy, too precious. With the best will in the world “to survive” should have illuminated, provoked, even enlightened, but instead it irritates, it patronises, it condescends. Joan of Arc. Had a heart. Joan as Policewoman? I’m not so sure. Anthony Morrissey More ... Anthony Morrissey Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:00:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:341 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/344/Dennis-Wilson-Pacific-Ocean-Blue#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=344 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=344&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/344/Dennis-Wilson-Pacific-Ocean-Blue A review of the album 'Pacific Ocean Blue' by Dennis Wilson Review Snapshot: Dennis Wilson was the handsome Beach Boy - he had the musical smarts but they were sidelined till 1977 with the release of "Pacific Ocean Blue", his debut album. It's hit and miss but the hits really hit. The Cluas Verdict? 6.5 out of 10 Full Review: 1977 - the worst thing about being 17 back then was hearing Janis Ian’s “at 17”. I hated this little whinge of a song but I suffered it because every girl I met loved it. What a musical time though – mid May, it seemed John Peel was playing Barclay John Harvest and Hatfield and the North - by July of 1977 he was bona fide punk. One Friday night in August he played “Pretty Vacant”- a real grassy-knoll / where-were-you-when-you-it heard moment. It was around that time Dennis Wilson’s debut “Pacific Ocean Blue” was released. Up to that point Dennis was to the Beach Boys what Larry was and is to U2 – the drummer, of course, but more importantly in marketing terms, girl bait, he was the band’s chick factor. He looked the glamorous side of dissipated - way too cool for skool, the type of fella you’d drink and toke with but you’d keep him away from your girlfriend, your sister, even your mother. Dennis walked on the edge of volcanoes – on one hand he was the one responsible for the band’s surfer sound, he was a genuine surfer dude. On the other he introduced the band to Charlie Manson. Dennis’s was a mixed legacy but it is put in better relief by the remodelled, remixed and re-released “Pacific Ocean Blue“. As is the way with CD re re releases there is a bonus disc and here the bonus CD contains demos and nearly completed tracks from “Bambu”, the proposed follow up to “Pacific Ocean Blue”. It’s a dud, Dennis’ voice was narcotically scorched and the songs are half cooked. Truly a case of catarrh overcoming catharsis. The bonus disc is a distraction from the real business here and the “Pacific Ocean Blue” disc has its own bonus tracks. It’s a highly uneven collection – some genuine peaks, a couple of really ropey cuts and a few might have beens. There are bona fide duds on this album – “Friday night” is bad Pink Floyd, “What’s wrong” is a bad Mike Love Boys type stomper – imagine Billy Joel’s “it’s still rock and roll to me” but saggier and even more complacent. “You and I”, on the other hand, is straightforward AOR mid seventies cheese. It’s not all bad though - “Mexico”, the last of the bonus tracks – is a heartbreaker. It’s an instrumental piece that you’d imagine hearing it as the credits rolled at the end of “Heaven’s Gate”, gorgeous from its first wistful note to its last, evocative and sweet, a hidden classic. It alone justifies this album’s reissue and it’s almost as good as “River Song”, the album’s opener. Written by Dennis and Carl Wilson, this is a truly stunning piece of music – Dennis sounds parched and resigned but the piano introduction, the beefy string and brass and the absolutely soaring choral work lifts this track on to a heavenly scale. “Moonshine”, a ballad, is equally as good - no one alive could spend time around Brian Wilson as Dennis did and not soak up some of his musicianship and nous but “Moonshine” has a desperation and depth of despair about it that the Beach Boys could never capture. It’s classic break up material –“you said you loved me / but in another way”. “Moonshine” fades with a harmonic orchestral loop that could play till the day you die. “Rainbows” is a jaunty little thing too, all sunshine and banjos. “Only with you” is also featured on the bonus tracks – Dennis wrote this for the Beach Boys’ equally patchy “Holland”, where Carl took the lead vocals. “Holland’s take on “Only with you” is soft, almost coy, but Dennis’s vocals make it more substantial, more tangible, more honest. Dennis Wilson was a wasted talent in more ways than one and “Pacific Ocean Blue” is more a series of inspired musical moments than a coherent album. One for the curious. Anthony Morrissey More ... Anthony Morrissey Sat, 20 Sep 2008 02:00:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:344 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/349/Frank-Sinatra-Sinatra-at-The-Sands#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=349 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=349&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/349/Frank-Sinatra-Sinatra-at-The-Sands A review of the album 'Sinatra at The Sands' by Frank Sinatra Review Snapshot: 'Sinatra at the Sands': the world's most famous performer recorded at his peak. The Cluas Verdict? 8 out of 10 Full Review: It’s an approximation of a Sinatra story I heard but it’s still worth telling. Glen Campbell was a much sought after session guitarist in the sixties, and he even played on the incomparable “Pet Sounds”. He was engaged to play guitar on “Strangers in the night”, a song Frankie did not particularly like. In the studio Campbell was sat at the front of the orchestra, completely and utterly transfixed. He spent the whole session staring at Sinatra as he shooby dooby dooed his way to another million. At the end of the final take Sinatra thanked the conductor, pointed to Campbell, and said, “who’s the fag??” Sinatra – so many words have been written about this man, from the fawning extremes to the damning depths. He was a million things to a million people: a voice, first and foremost, but also a womaniser, a sharp dresser, a functioning alcoholic, a Kennedy supporter, a nut job, a loving father, a mob underling. Read the bios – if you’re stuck for a book to get you through a long haul flight check out Kitty Kelley’s “His Way” - it’s high class screed, a guilty pleasure of sorts that trashes Frankie and his reputation. More recently Antony Summers gives a more thoughtful account of Sinatra’s life, his gifts and of course, his flaws. My own view is that, like most iconic figures he led three or four lives, he packed as much into a day as many of us would just about shoehorn into a month. He was akin to a prism – depending on where you stood or how the light shined, he could be a monster or an angel, often at the same instant. I know some Cluas readers have mixed feelings about Sinatra – his music summons up images of drunken uncles singing “my way” at Christmas, or the girls dancing in a circle at the office Christmas party doing dreadful kick ups to “New York New York”. It’s easy to copy his style, easy on the surface at least. One of the best episodes of Frasier features a storyline in which Martin Crane composes a song for Frankie - “she’s such a groovy lady / she makes my heart go hey dee hey dee”. A host of others tried and still try to approximate his style, even his look – crooners like Matt Munro, Perry Como, Tony Bennett have performed gamely without delivering the killer punch but latterly, Westlife’s attempt at rat packery was utterly risible and Robbie Williams’ “Swing when you’re winning” never even came close. You can see why he had so many imitators - he was the greatest pop singer ever. From the mid fifties to the mid sixties he produced a stunning collection of albums, some swing, some torch balladry, some show songs, but with every cut exquisitely produced and perfectly - and I do mean perfectly - sung. What a lot of people, both his disciples and detractors, refuse to acknowledge is that his sound, his speciality, was high-class pop, devoid of graces or affectations, and this explains why so many people related to him. He completely absorbed every song he sung, so much so that you wonder if the reason why he could not handle people at different times - he was a legendary sociopath - was that he actually lived the songs he sang and that they hollowed him out emotionally. More than anyone I’ve ever heard he really inhabited his music, bled every note and lived every line. His class, his status, his style and his voice are heard to the best effect on the recently reissued “Sinatra at the Sands”, a remixed, remastered recording of a live gig at the Sands hotel in 1966. In the outside world the Beatles and the Stones were peaking, and the Velvets were a glint in the art rock milkman’s eye. None of this means anything here, it’s the right show at the right time – Sinatra’s declining years are a bit ahead of him, his voice is as sweet as it was but it’s tempered with experience, cigarettes and alcohol. Count Basie leads the band and Quincy Jones orchestrates – you’ve never heard a backing band like them, the arrangements never overshadow Sinatra and when they do, as in “I’ve got a crush on you”, Sinatra teases the sax player who dares to step on his pitch. Sinatra’s studio albums in the fifties and sixties are masterpieces but there’s a physicality to the music here that’s completely missing from his studio work. As the show progresses his voice roughens but what really kicks in is the way he plays with the songs, adding a word here, changing the lyrics there, vamping up the band and above all just showing his mastery of the music. It’s a combination of tempo, timing, cadence, and phrasing, often more poetic than musical. The show’s programme comprises mainly standards – there’s a kicking “Come fly with me”, a masterful “Under my skin” (check out the band’s mid song fill), and a playful “Fly me to the moon”. There’s the ballads too – a slightly maudlin “One for my baby and one more for the road” and an almost chilling “It was a very good year”. The one track that disappoints is “Where or when”- here it’s a swing throwaway but years before he recorded an almost chilling torch ballad version of this beautiful song. The thing that surprises here is the banter Sinatra shares with the audience and his mid gig monologue is a real eye opener. It’s a stand up routine that starts off with a series of gags at Count Basie’s expense, and halfway through the routine he trots out some really dodgy lines about Sammy Davis junior. By today’s standards it’s racist and yet, and yet…it’s of a piece with the complexities of this man that Sinatra was the first to insist that black musicians and performers such as Basie and Davis should stay in Las Vegas. The monologue finishes with a hilarious account of Sinatra’s rise in show business and his early days in Hoboken, and the audience are eating out of his hands. The show finishes with a fantastic version of “My kind of town” – Sinatra has given it everything, he plays with the lyrics, the band kick the hell out of this tune. This is glamorous exciting music. For a few moments it makes you feel like a millionaire, and this is what great pop music can do. Sinatra has a vast collection of studio and live work on record but if you’re going to buy one album of Sinatra’s, one collection that gives you an insight into this icon’s words, music and character “Sinatra at the sands “ is the one for you. Anthony Morrissey More ... Anthony Morrissey Sat, 06 Sep 2008 02:00:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:349 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/188/Spiritualized-live-in-Dublin#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=188 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=188&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/188/Spiritualized-live-in-Dublin Spiritualized (live in Tripod, Dublin) Review Snapshot: Saints or stoners  - you decide- a rejuvinated Spiritualized storm the Tripod with a set of old, rather obscure, favourites and tasters from their new album. With Jason Pierce looking merely heavily tubercular rather than close to death, the band in its current state is working a minor storm and its back catologue gets better and better with time. The Cluas Verdict? 8 out of 10 Full Review: A Wednesday in early May and I’m talking to a neighbour. "I’m going to a gig." "Who?" "Spiritualized – Jason Pierce, the singer, has nearly died, like loads of times, he never made a penny from any of his records but he’s a genius, he does this atonal drone thing, there’s feedback, and one minute he’s all gospel, the next he’s a screaming junkie, you should see him, he looks like death warmed up. Like, literally." "Great- we’re going to a gig to – Boyzone in Belfast, I can’t wait, a girl’s night out. " Two weeks, three hours and twenty minutes later and Pure Phase is pumped through the speakers as an intro – it’s a synth thing from Electric Mainline and while it’s a simple single note call and response, like much of what Spiritualized do it’s effective and affecting. Jason Pierce himself looks unwell, as opposed to looking close to his last breath – last time I saw him he sat down through the entire show but tonight he’s moving unassisted. The band open with one of Songs From A&E’s lesser cuts, You Lie, You Cheat and basically set it on fire. On the album it’s an under produced filler but here it’s full of bile, madness, sadness and utterly controlled anger. The band leave the song behind and morph into a guitar driven wig out, a stinking, spitting beast of a thing, and just when you think your heart will explode in a millisecond, the band go from a blizzard of feedback to Shine a Light, one of the quietest and most serene pieces the band have recorded. This gig is ostensibly a showcase for Songs From A&E, the new album, but it’s typical of Pierce’s cussedness that Spiritualized only play two or three of the new songs- the single, Soul on Fire, won’t sell a copy but it’s close to perfection, full of real emotion and power.  Pierce also dips into Amazing Grace, one of the band’s less impressive albums for a pumped up Lord let it Rain on Me, a ripping Cheapster and a gorgeous Oh Baby. The encore just about sums up the band’s inherent contradictions, with a calculating take on Come Together, a stoner’s anthem, followed by a stunning evangelical Take Me to the Other Side. It’s a case of hymns taking on heroin but it works. Throughout the show Doggen, the lead guitarist, more or less spars with Pierce, making sounds a guitar should never make, the coloured girls go "doo doo doo doo", and hardly a note is wasted. Life is made up of moments, some good, some bad, some dreary – Spiritualized are contradictory, maddening and self indulgent but they have given me more spellbinding moments than most. Pierce, these days, is for him relatively robust and has a fantastic bunch of musicians around him and a back catalogue to die for. See Spiritualized if you can –and soon. Anthony Morrissey More ... Anthony Morrissey Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:20:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:188 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/374/Elbow-Seldom-Seen-Kid#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=374 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=374&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/374/Elbow-Seldom-Seen-Kid A review of the album 'Seldom Seen Kid' by Elbow Review Snapshot: Top class intelligent rock pop – Elbow could never make you happy but they could afford you a better class of misery. That’s all changed – Guy Garvey buys a "Choose Life!" teeshirt and drinks from the well of contentment. The Cluas Verdict? 8.5 out of 10 Full Review: I spent a miserable weekend in 2001 listening to "Asleep at the back", the Elbow debut. It did not float my boat – too claustrophobic, too twitchy, too forbidding, too foreboding. Elbow were trading unashamedly in unhappiness and over an entire album their blackness faded into an uneasy and unlovable grey. I bought into "Seldom seen kid", their latest, because of Richard Hawley’s involvement. He duets with Elbow’s Guy Garvey, the band’s frontman, in the jaunty "the fix", where, get this, Elbow do Funny, and - even better - Sinfully Funny. The filter tipped Hawley as always sounds as if he was born, lives and will die in an overcrowded snug. Garvey, in fairness, outdoes him, sounding like a man that sleeps in doorways surrounded by empty Buckfast bottles. "The fix" is a cautionary waltz time tale of race fixing – when you hear the line "redoubtable beast" in a lyric you know you’re in a special place. Hawley and Garvey ham it up like noughties Frankie and Dinos, obviously loving every minute of it. But "the fix" is only one of a number of stunning tracks on this album. Second track in, "The bones of you", is staggering – literally, it’s a great big loud woozy love song, Garvey belting out a superb lovelorn lyric underpinned by a swishing beat and masterful arrangement. Top it off with a ripping guitar solo and a sonic boom that morphs into the chorus and you’ve got one of the songs of this or any other year. "Grounds for divorce" is reckoned by the critics to be a stand out and it is, it’s average, which is well below the quality of the rest of the album. It’s their "we will rock you", a weak lyric ("There'll be twisted karaoke at the Aniseed Lounge") and a chorus that goes nowhere. It’s a serious aberration, in fairness, and "Audience with the Pope" takes place in the same murky world as "The Fix". The band sound like they’re playing in a grotty bordello and Garvey ruefully croons about the type of girl your mother warned you about, and with good reason. "Starlings", "One day like this" and "Mirrorball" are gorgeous love songs, absolutely awash with romance and longing while "Weather to fly" is one of the best songs ever written on families and how to survive them... Poundin' the streets where my fathers feet still ring from the walls and we sing in the doorways and just bickering around figuring how we're wired inside perfect weather to fly "Weather to fly" had the potential to be a touchy feely mess but Garvey holds it all together. What could have been soft and sticky is instead wry and clear eyed. If you’re downloading this album don’t cherry pick, it should be heard in its warts n’ all entirety. Pretty much everything on "Seldom seen Kid" sounds fresh and unforced – you get the impression that much of the arrangement work was done on the hoof and there is a depth and perception in Garvey’s lyrics that sometimes takes the breath away. It’s music with conviction, humour, and, where necessary - as in "Friend of ours" - a tribute to a recently departed companion, pathos. "Seldom seen kid" is a pivotal moment for Elbow: with this superb collection they’ve moved from being contenders to being a band that can sit at the top table.  Anthony Morrissey To buy a new or (very reasonably priced) 2nd hand copy of this album on Amazon just click here. Check out the CLUAS review of Elbow's debut album "Asleep in the back" Check out a review of Elbow live in Dublin in 2001. More ... Anthony Morrissey Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:12:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:374 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/400/Animal-Collective-Strawberry-Jam#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=400 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=400&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/400/Animal-Collective-Strawberry-Jam A review of the album 'Strawberry Jam' by Animal Collective Review Snapshot: The Animal Collective- they'll always call a spade a frog. "Strawberry Jam" is a collection of left field quirky pop songs that drag you kicking and screaming into their world. The Cluas Verdict? 6.99 out of 10 Full Review: John Lennon famously dissed Avant-Garde as the French for b**sh*t. He dissed it in one breath and then he foisted the truly ugly "Revolution 9" on to the world, in the process nearly shipwrecking the White Album, the Beatles' best. I take a kinder view - Avant Garde represents a licence to make noise. Some bands yak about it, some wear the teeshirt, some bands just do it. It's a rare boast but in these dull times the Animal Collective are about as avant-garde and leftfield as you can get. To coin a phrase of James Joyce, this band put their collective hats on with a shoehorn. "Strawberry Jam", their latest, is a musical tightrope walk. On the one hand their songs feature layers and layers of discordant sound, scrubbed synths, dislocated beats -think Autechre but a bit further out there. For luck add lyrics written by Ivor Cutler on a funny one. The crowning glory here are really simple melodies that could have been written and sung by a nine year old with a kiddy falsetto - we're talking Brian Wilson in a fireman's uniform c. "Smile". If it resembles anything "Strawberry Jam" is Beefheart's "Troutmask Replica" but with tunes. Its sound is narrow and concentrated, there's barely room to breathe, never mind move. It's pre adolescent music created totally for its own sake - at times it sounds like the first time the band have used instruments- but "Strawberry Jam" is also incredibly focussed and disciplined. The Animal Collective may sound a shambles but they're a very organised shambles. "Peacebone" is the album's kicking opener. Imagine radio static thumping into your forehard, a kind of synthesised firefly fuzz, it kicks around your cranium and is on the point of driving you over the edge till it just about morphs into something resembling a melody. Before you know it you're wrapped in a hallucinogenic cross breed of ELO's "Mr Blue Skies" and the middle eight of the Fab Four's "A day in the life". From its first notes till its loping drumbeat closer "Peacebone" is a surrealist guilty pleasure. The rest of the album, particularly "Unsolved Mysteries", "Chores", "Fireworks" with its dazzling Adam and the Ants drum loop, and the stunning "#1" are more of same. It's fariground music but the fairground's located on Mars. Surprisingly, given the pitfalls presented by thei ambitions, everything works here, with the possible exception of "winter wonderland", which is sluggish and lacking a decent tune. "Derek", the album's demi calypso closer, is the nearest thing here to a conventional song and song structure but even then it's barely of this earth. "Strawberry Jam" tests its listeners without patronising them, envelopes are pushed to hte limit but at its core "Strawberry Jam" is very simple - a band writing and producing sounds that they love, that they believe in, sounds will never enter the mainstream and that will hardly raise a dime. "Strawberry Jam" is all of these things. It's also enormous fun. Anthony Morrissey  To buy a new or (very reasonably priced) 2nd hand copy of this album on Amazon just click here. More ... Anthony Morrissey Sun, 04 Nov 2007 02:00:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:400 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/415/Bjork-Volta#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=415 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=415&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/415/Bjork-Volta Review Snapshot: This reviewer's first childhood memory was hearing the Beatles' "I want to hold your hand" and he's been in love with pop music ever sionce then,"Volta", Bjork's sixth album, is the worst album this reviewer has ever heard. The CLUAS Verdict? 0 out of 10 Full Review: Very little music actually depresses me – not even the suicide note that is Joy Division’s “Closer”. A couple of tracks in it has “Isolation”, a bit of a stomper, although its subject matters are alienation and despair. I loved The Smiths but, as Noel Gallagher rightly pointed out, many of their actual tunes are foot tappers. Old grumps like Joy Division, Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen, John Martyn, the Floyd, Suede, and Lou Reed have looked on and walked us through the dark side, but these musicians’ portrayal of unhappiness and depression is sometimes so beautiful and evocative that the music becomes something to be cherished and revisited rather than dreaded and avoided. And yet - I can remember a Wednesday, sometime in June 1981, I was bored as only a twenty year old can be. Someone gave me “Selling England by the Pound” by Genesis. I forced myself through it with the youthful optimism that only a twenty year old can have. Big mistake. This album was truly dreadful, overblown, over arranged, over thought, and overplayed prog rock. “Battle of Epping Forest “ in particular drained me of my will to live. I was utterly downtrodden by the end of it, not because of the music itself, which was longwinded and tireseome, but by the thought that this band of talented musicians had spent so long and their record company had spent so much money putting this product on the streets. No-one had the sense or courage to say thus far and no further shall you go. Think of it too, the record company could have spent the money promoting someone with something new and valid to say. Instead we were left with the musical equivalent of Emperor’s new clothes. 26 years on, I never thought I’d get that miffed, bothered or upset by an album and then I heard “Volta”, Bjork’s latest. Pessimists, as they say, are never disappointed. I saw her performing “Earth Intruders”, “Volta’”s opener, on Jools Holland’s “Later”, with a cast of thousands. It’s Reel 2 Real’s “Move it” reduced to a clumpy tempo with added orchestra, fiddly percussion bits and of course Bjork herself on vocals. It sounded horrendous, and the Beeb subsequently showed her performing it at Glastonbury. Same cast, same sound, same result. “Earth Intruders”, like the rest of “Volta”, takes several listens for the listener to appreciate how gut wrenchingly awful it is. Her vocals are mannered and formulaic – restrained verses are followed by screeching choruses that blip off the radar and set distant dogs barking. It’s arty, it’s fussy and ultimately it’s a gratingly smug package. Unbelievably it gets worse as the album progresses-or declines. "Wanderlust” is wretchedly drippy, and “pneumonia” and “vertebrae by vertebrae” are as painful as their titles suggest. “Declare independence” is root canal surgery set to music. Antony Hegarty duets with Bjork on the “the dull flame of desire”, which is merely vibratoed highly mannered crap but it’s far better than the rest of the worthless screed played out on “Volta”.   Bjork has talent that desperately needs to be properly harnessed. Her earlier material was quirky, her melodies and lyrics sounded as if they were recorded on another planet but she was operating within a disciplined framework of good solid arrangements and sparse production With “Volta” however she has managed to produce that rare thing, a timeless album- its base badness won’t date, 50 years down the line it will still sound as contrived, as forced, and ultimately, as hollow as it did the day it was let loose on the world. “Volta” is the worst album I’ve ever heard. Bar none. If by these words I’ve prevented one person from buying this stinking heap I’ll face my maker a happy man.  Anthony Morrissey  To buy a new or (very reasonably priced) 2nd hand copy of this album on Amazon just click here. More ... Anthony Morrissey Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:58:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:415