A review of the album 'The Tiny Pieces Left Behind' by Joe Chester

Review Snapshot: The album overall left me cold. I was disappointed because it's always good to hear a new album from an Irish artist that is fresh and has the potential to wow, but I'm afraid that didn't happen for me here.

The Cluas Verdict? 5.5 out of 10

Full Review:
I admit, often to others' disdain, that I am a singer-songwriter fan. Rufus Wainwright, Sam Beam, Glen Hansard, Ryan Adams, Sufjan Stevens and many others count among my favourite singers. All have different styles but  they each have a unique, strong voice and the ability to speak through their music. They're my trusted voices, and I'm always happy when I go back to their albums, any of them. Unfortunately Joe Chester is not going to find a place up there with them just yet, not with this album.

I came to Joe's new album with eager anticipation. I enjoyed 'Murder of Crows', Joe's 2004 debut, but I found there was too much going on with this album. The move away from the acoustic sound of his earlier stuff just didn't work for me. The songs blended together and save from a few highlights the album didn't leave too much of an impression.

The album starts out strong but to my mind doesn't deliver after that. There is sameness to it, I'm not sure if it's his voice or the melodies but I found myself skipping some of the songs as I listened to it for the third or fourth time. 'Maybe This Is Not Love' opens the album. It's a catchy track and sounds like it could be a possible summer single, I imagine it would get radio play. It's upbeat and to my mind the best track on the album. 'Something is Better (than nothing at all)' follows and doesn't quite measure up; there's not enough variety in it and the repeated chorus just crawls along.
 
'The Bodies Start to Move' sounds more like Joe from his earlier work so I was disappointed when the music took over and all but drowned out his voice. 'Fluorescent Light' showcases some nice harmonies with Gemma Hayes. Their voices work well together but again I don't know if there was enough there to sustain five minutes. 'To Hold Onto Melting Love' has a melodic, piano tinkling intro and a simple arrangement. It veers towards a traditional air as the track progresses and it actually works well.

'Why Things Break' never rises above its lacklustre beginnings, nor does'Long Distance Friend' where again I found his voice competing with the music. 'Alarms' unfortunately is my least favourite song on here, I actually found it difficult to stick with it for the entire five minutes 25 seconds. It's repetitive and the least melodic song on here.

The album is one to have on in the background but I don't think the songs jump out at you, save for a couple. I think the length of the tracks also had something to do with it. Four of the tracks are over five minutes long and it's hard to sustain a good melody for that length. 

Celine O'Malley

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A review of the album Colours of Sound by Autamata

Review Snapshot:  Electronica didn't really do much for me before listening to this record, and while listening to it hasn't inspired me to go clubbing in Ibiza (or wherever it is kids go these days) this summer, Colours of Sound is certainly a record that can be loved by those whose musical taste hasn't previously stretched to electronica.

The Cluas Verdict?  8 out of 10

Full Review:
Going to a disco in a small County Kildare town left you with two options.  You either liked grunge, and therefore moshed, or you liked 'rave' (or at least 2Unlimited's watered down version of it) and wore X-Worx jeans. There was no middle ground allowed, lest you wished to be associated with country and western.  It was a tough and unforgiving upbringing with lasting consequences as my decision to wear striped jumpers and ripped jeans while listening incessantly to Nirvana was one that has distanced me from electronica since.

So it was with apprehension that I approached Colours of Sound, the third studio offering from Ken McHugh and co, otherwise known as Autamata.  I was aware of the band, but I can't say I had to much inclination to listen to, let alone purchase any of their material.  Album opener Effervescent changed all that.  A beautiful instrumental piece, it's haunting melody doesn't so much set the tone for the rest of the album as pull you in to its arms like the whispered words of a new lover and then bang, by the time Cathy Davey lends her vocals to Cloud Seekers you've embarked on a full blown love affair with Colours of Sound.

Like all relationships, it has its rough patches.  Come Party at my House and Inter-railing don't feel as natural as the rest of the album and at 6 minutes and 33 seconds A Drive Through the Countryside comes across as a little self-indulgent on the part of McHugh but to be fair, if I could play as many instruments as he can, I'd be showing off too.

The best review I can give Colours of Sound is that it made me feel like I'd woken up in a Joan Miró painting.  Initially the minimalism drew me in but the more I explored the more I found myself in awe of the mountains of sound and rivers of colour.  It's an experience I'd highly recommend. 

Steven O'Rourke

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In the late afternoon of New Year's Eve 2002 I was in a record store in Pamplona, Spain. The shop was in a modern quarter full of apartment complexes, not the old bull-running town centre. There wasn't a great choice of records to buy. The only one that interested me was 'I'm So Confused' by Jonathan Richman, because one of the songs, 'When I Dance', had caught my ear late one night on the radio and it sounded like my kind of catchy alt-pop.

But I wanted to save my money for going to Paris two days later, so I left the CD on the shelf. I didn't buy 'I'm So Confused' by Jonathan Richman in that small music shop in Pamplona, and that decision has had a disproportionately huge effect on my life.

In Paris I looked for the album but I couldn't find it. I went to nearly every record shop across the city and it wasn't there. I became a bit obsessed with it. This was bad news for the French girl with me, who was being dragged across town and back so that I could find some obscure CD. Later, I would wonder why things didn't work out with her.

Back in Dublin, it wasn't in any record shop either. I knew this because I forensically searched all of them. And so, instead of picking it lovingly from the tree of music, I had to descend to the level of ordering it from some warehouse in Arsebucket, Illinois. (Not only do I never order music, but I never download it either. Like with books, I have to find records in the shop after much traipsing over town and rummaging through racks.)

The album arrived and I loved it; multicoloured alt-pop songs with a pitch-black undercoat of despair and loneliness. The songs are from the time of Richman's divorce, and in all of them he's at less than top-of-the-morning form. He's either feeling socially awkward ('When I Dance'), physically threatened ('Nineteen In Naples'), rejected ('The Lonely Little Thrift Store'), insecure ('Love Me Like I Love'), heartbroken ('True Love Is Not Nice') or depressed ('I'm So Confused'). And these are the uptempo numbers.

Of course, listening to the album got me thinking of the French girl, which made me feel like Richman in those songs. So, I was consoling myself with a record which went some way to bringing me down in the first place. "What if I had bought it in Pamplona...?" I wondered.

The following year Richman brought out a new album, 'Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love'. He was happily in love again, and his new songs were every bit as drippy and naff as the title. I was so appalled that I felt the need to warn the wider world. So I wrote my first CLUAS review. Four years later, here I am back in Paris and still writing for CLUAS.

It feels somewhat strange and significant, then, to see Jonathan Richman play here in Paris last night at the Nouveau Casino. These days he's still relentlessly lovestruck and happy, so there's no room on the setlist for any of those dark songs from 'I'm So Confused'. 

However, Modern Lovers fans still get to hear acoustic versions of 'Pablo Picasso' and 'Girlfriend' (spelt "G-I-R-L-F-R-E-N"), and the more recent cult favourite 'I Was Dancing In The Lesbian Bar'. But Richman's uneasy relationship with his own back catalogue, like your blogger's discomfort with using the first person singular pronoun, means that he doesn't play the remarkable 'That Summer Feeling'. (He didn't sing 'Give Paris One More Chance' last night, so Irish fans shouldn't hold their breath for 'Rockin' Rockin' Leprechaun' or 'Just Because I'm Irish'.)

Richman plays the whole show in Spanish-guitar style, as well as singing several numbers in Spanish, so the set tends to blur into one flamenco-lite medley. His only accompaniment is his long-serving drummer, the admirably stoic Tommy Larkins (also his wingman in 'There's Something About Mary'), who gets plenty of solo time whenever Jonathan decides to drop the guitar and start dancing. You'll either buy into Richman's innocent joie de vivre or you won't.

After Paris last night and London tonight, Richman has a short Irish tour this weekend, starting at Whelan's in Dublin on Saturday night (10 May). He then heads up to Belfast on Sunday for the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, and finishes at the Roisin Dubh in Galway on Monday 12 May. Go and see him.

Here's a song you probably won't hear Jonathan Richman play this weekend; the title track from 'I'm So Confused'. You know a bit too much about your blogger now, we fear:

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Looking for something to do over the June Bank Holiday weekend?  Then look no further than The Pod Complex on Harcourt Street where Soundtrack 08 kicks off, showcasing past, present and future soundtracks to the venue.  Tripod and Crawdaddy in particular have been favourite venues of Key Notes since their re-development and so this blog has no trouble recommending Soundtrack 08 as the perfect way to kick off Ireland's festival season, and best of all it's indoors, so you don't need your wellies!

Taking place over 9 nights, all tastes and orientations are catered for.  While there are lots of interesting acts performing; the following three bands are without a doubt the highlights for Key Notes. 

Tapes & Tapes
There are stupid reasons to like bands - for example Key Notes has a fondness for bands with long titles - but Tapes & Tapes are a favourite for this blog because of one of those 'hillarious' mis-hearing of lyrics episodes that we are all prone to.  Being the militant vegetarian that he is, Key Notes once ranted and raved about the Tapes and Tapes song 'Hang the Bulls' for fifteen minutes saying how it was a terrible attitude to have to animal rights etc.  It was only later, and more sober, that this blog went on to discover the song was actually called 'Hang Them All.'  Since then Key Notes has quite enjoyed what he's heard, especially 'Le Ruse', taken from the bands 'Walk it Off' album.

You can check out the video for 'Hang the Bulls Them All' here:

Midnight Juggernauts
When people like Justice and Pedro Winters start calling you their favourite band of the year, you know you must be doing something right.  It's not really hard to see why they are so popular either.  Mixing a blend of cosmic disco and synth-rock, every review seems to describe them as a meeting between two relatively different artists.  Not being one to buck a trend Key Notes would like you to imagine Air jamming with T-Rex whilst experimenting with various illegal substances.  Beat that Pitchfork!

See for yourself with 'Shadows' taken from the recently released 'Dystopia' album.

Public Enemy
Not only is this Public Enemy, but this is Public Enemy performing 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back' - in Key Notes humble opinion the defining moment in Hip Hop's history - in its entirety!  Often mentioned in various 'Greatest Album' lists, it's influence is huge, most likely because of the way it showcased other artists talents by using a huge range of samples (approx. 75) over the albums 16 tracks.  Time magazine famously described this album as 'Loud, obnoxious, funky, avant-garde, political, uncompromising, hilarious.'  It's all of those things and it's a lot more besides.

Don't believe the hype?  Okay, well here's 'Don't Believe the Hype.'

Tickets for Soundtrack 08 are available from all good ticket retailers.   More information on the festival can be found on the POD website.

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On a call this morning with Betty Heywood of NAMM, the US-based international body representing makers of musical instruments I learned that one of the least likely victims of the economic turn-down in the USA are Chinese instrument makers. Ambitious local brands like Pearl River are hurting as house-building slows down means fewer grand pianos are going into the living rooms of middle-class America.

The slump in the USA and rising raw materials costs globally (caused largely by China's rise) means rising costs for instrument makers Jumps have been particularly sharp in traditional Chinese instruments – often made of imported hardwood – rose 162 percent. Liu Sheng, Maketing manager at Shanghai Piano Co.Ltd, a private company exporting 20 percent of its mid-to-upper level pianos - The US and Europe and US, Germany and France are top three markets tells me that rising wood and metal costs are forcing the firm to spend 5% of the revenues are spent in R&D “We'll stimulate our sales by improving our technologies.”

Some of the companies I've talked to, like massive Korean-owned Sejung which makes guitars and pianos in Qingdao, say they're cutting costs through  local sourcing of parts like wood and strings. Others will just sell more at home, to ever-wealthy Chinese. Nanjing Moutrie & Schumann Piano Manufacturing Co sells two thirds of its 6,000 pianos to Fujian and Guangdong. 

 

Like its cars though, China's instruments definitely have an image problem. Guitars made in Japan and the US boast better materials and sound quality, says Wu Ligen, a technician at the maintenance department at GAid, a rare guitar. “You can easily tell the difference in listening to the timbre of a Chinese and then a Western or Japanese made guitar.”

It may all just be a matter of time before China has a brand of its own to rival Gibson or Steinway. I also talked earlier with Wang Gentian an avuncular bureaucrat who runs the China Musical Instrments Association from a comfortable new office in Beijing’s Fengtai district. “If western peers compete with us in making traditional Chinese instruments they wouldn’t be able to match us,” he said. Wise words.

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It was the summer of 1987. I'd just turned 13 and I was working for my father as a labourer, mixing cement and carrying blocks on a building site on an orchard farm in County Armagh. I was earning 10 quid a week. I was working with grown men for the first time, trying to appear worldly and mature. That didn't last long once my uncle found out that I fancied the orchard owner's daughter and that I was too scared to do anything about it. (I found out that she fancied me too. That scared me even more.) I remember being glued to the Wimbledon tennis championships as a I was a rabid Stefan Edberg fan (so was the orchard owner's daughter...). But mostly I remember attending my piano lessons on a Thursday evening when Victor, my piano teacher, would spend most of the lesson playing records - The Alex Harvey Band, Led Zep, The Pet Shop Boys (!)... The summer of 87 was great, I was growing up and I was growing to love music.

That summer was also all about the Michaels - Jackson's Bad and George's Faith. Surely two classic of the finest pop albums of the 80s, I agree... but, for me, Midnight Oil's Diesel and Dust was the album of the year, if not my childhood. It was sensational. Beds are Burning was an incendiary single (pardon the pun). A song that evoked the outback and heat and was as uncompromising as Peter Garrett's haircut. I bought the tape from Gene Stuart's Record Shop on Irish St and, quite literally, played it until it died. I'm sure I had at least three copies of that album in a short period of time (do you remember when your tape player used to chew up only your favourite cassettes?). 

Colombia are re-releasing the album complete with a DVD documentary of their outback Blackfella/Whitefella Tour, an experience which inspired the album and its focus on Aboriginal rights. Alongside Beds Are Burning, Dead Heart is the emotional hart of the album and the classic Sometimes ("Sometimes you're beaten to the core/Sometimes you're taken to the wall/But you don't give in") was a clarion call to the original inhabitants of Australia - don't give up. Just a few months ago, the newly elected Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, apologised to all Aboriginal people for past wrongs. No doubt Peter Garrett, his Minister of the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, was a proud bystander.

For me, Diesel and Dust is the classic Australian album. This re-release is a great excuse to get acquainted with one of the best rock bands of the past three decades. Unfortunately I never got the experience an Oil live show - did any of you?

 

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A review of the album 'Attack & Release' by The Black Keys Review Snapshot:  The latest blues-rock offering from the Ohio delta duo benefits from Dangermouse's knob-twiddlin...

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Review Snapshot:  In terms of 'stripping it down' The White Stripes have nothing on Wildbirds & Peacedrums. Their concoction of enchanting vocals and variable drum sounds proves to be...

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A review of the album Do It! by Clinic

Review Snapshot:

Do It! sounds like an indie band who have gone on a bad trip and taken some vintage instruments with them, with the result that Clinic sound like a four-piece power rock group who have been placed behind a sheet of glass in the dungeon of some warped fairground (just listen to the Coda, with its vaudevillian nightmare intro). It works.

The Cluas Verdict? 7 out of 10

Full Review:
Although my first encounter with Clinic left a decidedly unfavourable impression on me, with 'Do It!', their fifth album, I finally get it. It’s a new sound creation, floating some way above accepted style and genre, and this is a well-made demonstration of that.

It is clear from opening track Memories, that Clinic’s strength do not necessarily lie with their songwriting, but their ability to create and work with sounds. Whichever side of the natural/raw vs. production debate you might stand, you just can’t deny that the studio has done Clinic a whole lot of good. Most songs on this album are undeniably decent chugging alt / art / punk / rock / folk / eh? tracks but with often uninteresting and/or indecipherable lyrics and frankly quite strange lines from all instruments, it’s their manipulation and combination of unusual and often vintage sounds that makes them stand out from the crowd: Clinic think like an electronic band but act like old-fashioned rockers. Each and every track sees a new mix, a new guitar setting, a different organ, a vocal drone, some deeply-buried harmonica or brass. Constantly changing panning, EQ. and mix settings make each of those sounds in each track a new and distinct event.

Clinic have restructured the musical hierarchy, removing melody from its top post and replacing it with rhythm and sound-world; harmony is still in there somewhere, although their ex-key chords make it a difficult thing to follow. Although they have mastered both subtlety and directness, it’s the former that permeates most of this album, particularly in their rhythm and barely discernible drum beats. Drum and instruments meld and progress in an organic and natural way, despite their unnatural and industrial overtones.

As an introduction to their music, 'Do It!' provides a solid base of the Clinic aesthetic; as the fifth in a line of albums, it, like its music, follows a steady path of progression which can only continue with the next.

Anna Murray

 To buy a new or (very reasonably priced) 2nd hand copy of this album on Amazon just click here.

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A review of the album 'Any Port In A Storm' by New Amusement

Review Snapshot: This is the debut release from local Dublin act New Amusement. Up until now there has been little said about this band, but this mini-album should put them on the map as far as the local scene goes. It’s simple indie pop rock but it’s a pleasure to listen to. They may start making waves yet.

The Cluas Verdict? 7 out of 10

Full Review:
Last month I popped into the Student Bar in UCD to see a Fight Like Apes gig. It was a Champion’s League night but fortunately they had televisions screening the Man Utd Roma game during the support band’s set. However it was not long into their performance that my neck craned away from the TV set to see what band were producing these quality indie rock sounds. Alas it was New Amusement, a name unknown at the time to both myself and the good company I was keeping. For the next half hour they distracted me from Rooney and co with a solidly excellent set.

Imagine my surprise when their mini-album, ‘Any Port In A Storm’, found its way into my post box for review last week. I eagerly popped it into the CD tray and pressed play. Instantly I can tell that in the studio they are quite different to their performance at the Student Bar. The distortion present at the gig was not intended by the band, just a feature of the venue it seems. So it’s different to what I expected, but it’s good.

In a similar vein to Delorentos, New Amusement write catchy indie pop songs, but with a tinge of melancholy. This twist is shown best in the standout track on the album, ‘Gone To Sea’. It’s fast paced and light but with a down beat tone to it. “Like a sailor gone to sea, who’s to blame for this farewell/Walked the beach and the sand was hot, now the tide has blown away”, sings Brian Molloy.

‘Are We Winners’ shows the band’s confident self-assured side. It has a real sense of urgency, and as far as indie pop rock goes, it is a cut above The Pigeon Detectives et al. In parts, this album may sound a bit formulaic, but as debut releases go, this shows real promise. New Amusement, another good addition to the local scene.

Garret Cleland

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