LaRM day 8 (Aislers Set-Alizee)

Meetings all morning so there's not going to be much going on today, but we start with the super-cute Aisler's Set and their second album The Last Match (2000). What a lovely record this is, jaunty and fun, with just the teeniest hint of darkness around the edges. Charming little two minute pop vignettes of indie romance that veer so close to nauseating you can almost see the toilet bowl in your peripheral vision, but always manages to steer clear through charm alone.

Next up is Love is Simple (2007) by Akron/Family. I find Akron/Family a little hard to take because it's just too eclectic for me. I think they wish they were around in 1967 because every song sounds like a mash-up of the Incredible String Band and the United States of America. Now I've got a lot of time for both those bands, but they WERE around in 1967 which is why they sound the way they do. For a bunch of Williamsburg hip kids to be doing it seems a bit of a waste of time to me, but nonetheless Love is Simple does have some lovely touches and some of the tunes are really great in a kind of post-modern way.

Now we have Alarm Will Sound's a/rhythmia (2009) which is a sort of neo-classical number, containing as it does a modern classical take on a number of compositions of the past 600 years which each demonstrate a kind of experimental anti-rhythm in their structure. As a chamber ensemble Alarm Will Sound are fabulous and they clearly adore the music they play but there is a rather determined modishness about this whole concept and while some of the pieces are absolutely breathtaking, and some really lovely, it all feels a little bit cool and overly smart-arsy (as evidenced by the fact that in amongst the classical reinvention is a piece by Autechre).

Then we have the Aliens second album Luna (2008). The Aliens were formed out of the remains of the Beta Band and although I can appreciate that the Beta Band were interesting I could never get properly excited about them the way we were apparently supposed to, and I have the same problem with this record. It's got some good noises and some nice ideas but overall it's just yet another record that spends its time trying to be various different 60's rock acts without relly bringing much to the sound and that doesn't interest me very much.

And we finish off with some unashamedly (and unashamedly awful) Gallic pop music with the beautiful Alizee's first album, Gourmandises (2002). It's slimy, slippery pop music (most of it written by the grande dame of the genre, Mylene Farmer) and performed by a stereotypically fabulously French looking girl (lead single and opening tune 'Moi...Lolita' says it all...). By all accounts, this should have been the beginning and the end of Alizee's career, but as is often the way with slightly more interesting people in the pop world, she has worked with increasingly unexpected people over the years and has shifted into a more considered type of pop music. This one, however, is simply dripping with cheese.

Yet more tomorrow.