Friday 30 March 2012

LaRM day 53 (Breeders-Edie Brickell)

Weren't the Breeders just brilliant? Really, listening to Pod (1990) again for the first time in ages it strikes me just what an exceptional record it is. The product of the cumulative talents of members of the Pixies, Throwing Muses and Slint (we'll pass over the Perfect Disaster) it's an absolutely astonishing blend of those bands sounds. It's genuinely remarkable how easily you can trace the origins of the songs, while not being able to find any kind of precedent for them. It's a strange, plodding, loping record which leaves some people cold, primarily because of its lack of pace. But it's that drawling sound that really underpins the brilliance of Pod. It's an album that engages with its own rules and has very little interest in anybody else's. It's simply wonderful. Interestingly, as Kim Deal's pet project she really has the last laugh because Pod is worth about 15 Bossanova's and at least 50 Trompe le Monde's. In many ways it's demonstrative of the last days of independent music being artistically minded as well as musically and the strange, singular way in which people made records in the late 80's and early 90's (remember when people like the Breeders and My Bloody Valentine and even the Pale Saints were on Snub TV and Rapido on prime time BBC2 - those days are truly dead now. It's Wild Beasts on Channel 4 at 2 in the morning if you're lucky) was effectively undone by the success of records that followed in the wake of Pod.

Follow up album, Last Splash (1993) is another bit of brilliantly idosyncratic indie rock, but this time out the enigmatic, spacious, weirdly sexually charged nature of Pod has mutated into something rather more straightforwardly rock structured. The obvious reasons for this are the absence of Tanya Donnelly who, although writing relatively straight songs for Belly was still influenced by her half-sister's work in Throwing Muses, and Britt Walford, whose warped, slow drumming was a key element of the sound of Pod, as well as the absence of Steve Albini as producer. Last Splash is a very different beast to Pod and in my opinion is nowhere nearly as compelling or interesting. That's not to say it's a dud, by no means. It's a fantastic indie rock record, but it is an example of the levelling out of the artistic intent that started in the early 90's, making things sound more "festival friendly" (which is I suppose the antithesis of Albini's intent as a producer). The songs on Last Splash are really, really great though. It's an ace album, but I would place it stylistically much nearer to a late Pixies album than I would Pod. As a kind of support to Last Splash they released the Head to Toe EP. Four songs in about ten minutes, it's a brilliant, jolting ride. 'Head to Toe' itself is great little indie-pop song and the covers of Guided by Voices' 'Shocker in Gloomtown' and Sebadoh's 'Freed Pig' are both great.

For most of the next nine years the various members of the Breeders were busy with booze and heroin, and when Title TK was released in 2002 it's fair to say there wasn't much public expectation. It's a surprisingly good album, close, kind of intimate. There's no grandstanding indie rock showing off here, it's low-key and self-effacing. I think the fact that Albini is back in the producer's chair is no coincidence. Weirdly for a record released so much later, it feels like a mid-point between Pod and Last Splash. Unlike Last Splash it's a record that requires a few listens to really get a proper hold on, but it's a very dignified return I reckon, and a very successful one.

Now we have a couple of albums by enigmatic French chanteuse Francoiz Breut. Her second album, Vingt a Trente Mille Jours (2000) came as something of a surprise to the French record buying public I think. Her first album had been mostly chanson in a relatively straightforward style, and the fact that Vingt a Trente Mille Jours is such a mix of styles and themes didn't chime well. It's a shame, because I think she was a bit ahead of the game. Listening to her records now, they wouldn't sit uncomfortably next to the last couple of (fantastic) Charlotte Gainsbourg albums. There's twangy surf guitar, lo-fi indie experimentalism, the requisite chanson, and a host of other stuff all thrown in together, and it really works. It's a great record, moody, odd and absolutely fascinating. Third album Une Saison Vollee (2005) had to be made under straitened circumstances, as Breut had been dropped from her label and did all the work herself. It's an even more eclectic bunch of songs and when it doesn't work it's a bit of a bore, but when it's on form, it's fantastic. I don't know if she managed to maintain any kind of profile in France, but it would be a shame if she's stopped making records.

Ahh, going all the way back, it's Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars (1988) by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. This one takes me back. I used to love this record. I suppose it sort of fitted in with the kind of REM, Southern rock type of stuff that seemed so exciting at the time. Listening to it now it surprises me how much less naff it is than I expected. In some ways it sounds better with age because there's no expectation of what it can offer. There's still a strange combination of a complicated charm and the whiff of major label contrivance, and although I'm suspicious of it in some ways, it still has got some lovely songs on it, and it still makes me feel like life was fun back then. As smooth rock goes it's as good as you can get really and it has enough slightly old-fashioned charm to mean it still works well. In many ways I prefer the commercial stillborn follow-up, Ghost of a Dog (1990). This is a much leaner and more peculiar record. It has a definite sense of independence and feels much scrappier. There are angular rock songs and odd little home recorded vignettes. Brickell's off-beat way with a lyric is explored to the utmost, which can lead to some rather infuriating whimsicality, but on the whole is fascinating. It's a less slick and more challenging record than the debut and I think it's better for it. Completely inexplicably it also has John Lydon doing very discreet backing vocals on a couple of the tracks...

All kinds of stuff next week. Cheers.

Thursday 29 March 2012

LaRM day 52 (Billy Bragg-Breadwinner)

To my mind Billy Bragg's best album was Worker's Playtime (1988) which really highlighted what a great songwriter he is, as well as introducing new elements to the sound. It's much fuller, there's a whole band on most of the songs rather than just Bragg with his guitar, and he tries out different styles as well (there's a marked country influence to some of the album). He's also tempered the style of his political songs, adding a richness and sophistication that was always there in his domestic songs, but jarringly absent from the political ones. There are some charming songs on Worker's Playtime as well, 'The Price I Pay' and 'The Only One' are great. In some ways the best and worst of Bragg's approach appears on Don't Try This At Home (1991). The collaborations and songs with guest appearances are among the slightest things he's ever done (I cannot abide the clumsiness of the Johnny Marr co-write 'Sexuality' for instance, and the REM collab 'You Woke Up My Neighbourhood', while an OK tune contains Bragg doing a bizarre kind of American accent) but the best songs on here are the best he's ever written. His tribute to his dad, 'Tank Park Salute' is absolutely lovely, as is 'Moving the Goalposts' with its muted trumpet and reverb soaked acoustic guitar. One of the main problems with the album is the peculiar accent that Bragg adopts on a lot of it. It's a totally strange mix of his usual "bard-of-Barking" voice and a decidedly odd sort of transatlantic thing. It's very distracting, and the fact that he doesn't do it on every song (or indeed consistently throughout a song) really seems weird. Still, when the songs are good, they're really great.

I've always felt that Sergio Mendes was catering to the more easy listening end of the bossa nova audience (ie, Brits in the 1970's) and as such, while his records are all perfectly pleasant there isn't anything particularly exciting or interesting about them. His time touting the Sergio Mendes Trio as Brasil '65 is a case in point and their eponymous album from 1965 demonstrates it. The songs are all classic bossa nova and samba standards (some of which he made famous in the first place) and it's always nice to hear 'So Nice' and 'Berimbau', but Stan Getz this is not (ironic that an American should do such better service to Brazilian music than some Brazilians) and although Wanda de Sah had a great, strong voice, she doesn't have that breathtaking casualness of Astrid Gilberto. So, Brasil '65 is great to have on when the sun's out and you're taking things easy, but for anything more satisfying it won't really do.

The eponymous debut album by Bread, released in 1969, is an interesting bit of early California sound. Although the band would descend into making the kind of dreadful slush that appears on compilations for mother's day, at this point they were doing something much more interesting. The tempo shifts and melodic breaks in 'Could I' for instance are really clever, and there are some decent songs on the first album. Now, I'm not really saying that it's a great record, it isn't by any stretch, but it isn't nearly as awful as one might expect. The same can be said of second album, On the Waters (1970). The sound is slicker and smoother, but it's still pretty decent laid-back California sound stuff. It does have the grotesquely cloying 'Make It With You', but that song is a glaring anomoly on the album. The soppiness really starts to make itself heard on third album, Manna (1971). David Gates' tendency to the mawkish is in full effect on 'If' which is a strings and falsetto horror on an epic scale. Half of the album is decent enough soft-rock and the other half is this sentimenal clap-trap.

Things get worse yet with Baby I'm a-Want You (1972). I mean, it's called Baby I'm a-Want You for a start. And it's got the execrable 'Everything I Own' on it. And it's got a song called 'Dream Lady' on it. I think realistically this was the point at which Gates effectively took sole control of the band and steered it down the slimy, sentimental route. There are still a handful of nice laid-back West Coast rock songs, but for the most part it's pretty stomach churning. And finally we have the worst of the bunch, Guitar Man (1972). This is quite simply an awful record. Absolutely dreadful. One listen to the dire one-two of 'Aubrey' followed by 'Fancy Dancer' and you'll want to end it all. I can't be bothered to write anything about it really, it's sapped my will to continue doing anything.

Finally for today we have the second 7" released by pioneering math rock band Breadwinner. This stuff is amazing. It's not a particularly easy listen, but by god it's smart. It's brutal, angular, tinny and sharp but the tunes are brief and intense and very, very clever.

Tomorrow has the Breeders all morning - hurrah!

Wednesday 28 March 2012

LaRM day 51 (David Bowie-Billy Bragg)

After the transcendent high of Low (natch), 1977's other Bowie album, "Heroes", is an almost equal piece of brilliance. Structurally similar to Low, it has one side of relatively straight rock songs and one side of fairly experimental pieces, but the line between the two is less starkly drawn on "Heroes". For the first side, 'Beauty and the Beast', 'Joe the Lion' and 'Heroes' are a fantastic, enlivening and propulsive opening triptych. From this point onwards though the Eno-ness of the whole record becomes increasingly evident and although that's in no way a bad thing in itself, the problem is that it starts to sound more like Bowie guesting on an Eno album than a true collaboration. 'Moss Garden's hyper-ambient atmosphere (all Japanese tinkling bells and low-key atmospherics) is pure Eno for instance. It in no way detracts from the absolute brilliance of the album but it doesn't have Low's extraordinary singularity. A couple of years getting off the junk and we have 1979's Lodger. Lodger is another step down, but is still a fine, fine record. In some ways it's a more experimental album than "Heroes" in as much as each song is a combination of abstract sounds and pop structure. There are a couple of relatively straight pop songs ('D.J.' and 'Boys Keep Swinging') but the rest of the album is a kind of schizophrenic mash-up of rock song sensibility and bricolage. The cut-up style of earlier records has a sort of low-key resurrection on Lodger. The album didn't make much of an impression on release, and in light of what had preceded it, it's not hard to see why, but in hindsight I think the album deserved better notices. There's interesting stuff going on here and it's a mistake to see it as a footnote to "Heroes". Incidentally, the album closer, 'Red Money' is a lucklustre and much less successful version of 'Sister Midnight' from Iggy Pop's album The Idiot, which they all made together at the same time in Berlin.

And so, skipping over Scary Monsters, we find ourselves in the company of over-produced 80's Bowie. Let's Dance (1984) is a strange record in that despite sounding like Nile Rodgers had seen a Bowie/Chic fusion as a good idea, the songs aren't terrible. I think the general view is that the album as a whole is a dud, but I can't help but have a soft spot for it. It's certainly not the glorious triumph that preceding albums had been, but as long as you approach it as a straight pop album it's great. Again, the version of 'China Girl' on The Idiot is much better than the version on Let's Dance, but it's fine and the title song and 'Modern Love' I really like as relatively simple pop songs. It's all a bit naff and it's all a bit sterile, but I really don't mind Let's Dance. I haven't got anything Bowie released after though, even I won't go that far. Finally for Bovril it's the 1990 issue of the Changesbowie compilation. Hardly anything on Changesbowie is taken from the albums that I've not got and so it's a useful round up the bits and pieces from the albums that the law says I'm supposed to love and don't. Don't go near the 1990 remix of 'Fame' though, it's ghastly...

Next is the only album that was released by indiepop outfit Boycrazy. Foreign Words (2000) is pure charm from start to finish, one of those rare twee-pop albums that doesn't cloy and isn't infuriating. If anything it's just a delightfully summery low-key bit of breezy indiepop that late spring days were made for. I get the feeling that they were one of the many Portland bands who could have gone on to do more if there hadn't been a glut of similar bands in that area at the time. It's a shame though because despite the cheery and light sound, there is some interestingly murky stuff going on in the background to this album which sets it a bit apart, and the ramshackle sound of it all isn't by accident, I suspect it's by clear and tight design.

And so on to good old Billy Bragg, starting with debut mini-LP, Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy (1983). Seven lovely little scrappy riffs on politics and ordinary human life, the quality of songwriting is variable to say the least, but between Bragg's delivery and his reverb drenched, tinny guitar, I can't help but be charmed every time I hear it. The songs that are decent are really great, and throughout his career Bragg's best songs tend to be the delicate ones about relationships rather than the political rabble-rousers and so 'Richard' and 'A New England' win out here. First album proper, Brewing Up with Billy Bragg (1984) is a step forward in terms of production (it sounds like someone was behind the mixing desk - that's the only difference really), but identical in delivery. The songs are much stronger on the whole though, and some, like 'St Swithin's Day', are genuinely lovely even despite Bragg's gruff "working-man" vocal. The 'Between the Wars' 7" is OK, the title track is decent typical Bragg leftist stuff.

1986's Talking with the Taxman about Poetry was another step forward, with some fabulously gentle songs about British domestic life. He still couldn't get round the tendency to browbeat musically speaking with the political songs and although the plain speaking lyrics of 'Ideologies' I have no problem with, it's as if he can't bring himself to bring any sophistication to the tunes. 'Levi Stubb's Tears' on the other hand is a really nicely structured song with some delicate phrases, and proves again that even if the underlying point is political, it's the domestic songs that he really excelled at. I suppose it was just the political atmosphere at the time that meant that plain speaking from the left was important (more so now than ever I would have said, but it appears everybody is too scared to express ideological stances from the left. Fine for the right apparently but from the left? "God, you're so naive, etc, etc...") and expected, and Bragg's gentler tunes went largely unnoticed until times changed.

Bit more Bragg tomorrow then a whole load of Bread. Jesus, "a whole load of Bread". That sounds terrifying, no?

Tuesday 27 March 2012

LaRM day 50 (Bootsy's Rubber Band-David Bowie)

Bootsy? Player of the Year (1978) is another slab of purest hard funk. This time around Bootsy has stripped back the slowies and focussed on the serious business of the funk. In some ways this is a shame because there isn't any contrast on the album (until closer 'As In (I Love You)' which is less a slowie than a muted breakdown) and simply getting the funk on throughout gets a bit wearing. It's all pretty much gold though, and I think it's nearly as good as Ahh..The Name is Bootsy, Baby. Fourth album, This Boot is Made for Fonk'n (1979) is more of the same. Again, the concentration is on the hard funk rather than the slower tunes and by the end of the 45 minutes I find my mind has wandered, but on the whole Bootsy is still turning out some high quality stuff. All of Bootsy's albums have a certain degree of silliness and 1980's Ultra Wave (which was actually released as a Bootsy Collins album, but I can't be bothered to separate them out) is the worst of the lot for mucking about, and the tunes aren't really there either. It's still seriously funky but the tunes veer between forgettable and terrible.

It's on to Boss Hog now, starting with the notorious debut mini-LP Drinkin', Lechin' & Lyin' (1990). Notorious not for the contents of the songs, but for the cover photo of singer Cristina Martinez which, as you'll see below, speaks for itself. I loved the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Pussy Galore, and was keen to pick up anything that Jon Spencer made. Drinkin', Lechin' & Lyin' is a stereotypical messy splurge of tinny guitar noise and the occasional shriek or shout from Spencer or Martinez. It's closer in nature to the late Pussy Galore records, so there isn't a great deal in the way of songwriting or melody but there's tons of energy and it's a fairly glorious scrappy mess. Follow up album, Cold Hands (1990), is pretty much more of the same, but it's better recorded and you can hear that there's some control to the noise this time round. It's still a smear of grimy, tinny noise but it's got a bit more structure this time around and is all the better for it.

Up to this point the band had been a sort of lightened version of Pussy Galore, with Martinez's presence scarcely audible, but the release of Girl+ in 1992 suggested that they had been working on developing the sound substantially. Opener 'Ruby' is a much more controlled and slinky song, with a clear melody and a much more restrained feel than their usual stuff. It also uses a parping trumpet as well as the usual battery of guitar and drums, and Martinez is given a song to actually sing, with Spencer relegated to background barks and shouts. The rest of mini-LP Girl+ is along similar lines, less restrained, but certainly as structured and controlled. It's a clear sign that they were taking being in a band much more seriously, and that impression is heightened further by the brilliant Boss Hog LP which appeared in 1995. This is without a doubt the best record they made, a blistering set of grubby blues-rock which finally utilises the best that each band member has to offer. Martinez really finally gets to do her stuff, with her throaty, sometimes vicious, sometimes drawling delivery and it's a revelation that she can actually deliver. Spencer has given the bass and the guitar some space for once and the songs alternately roll and swagger. It's closer in feel to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion albums that he was making at the time, but it's still got it's own character, mostly thanks to Martinez, and the whole thing is fantastic. There were a couple of singles released from the Boss Hog album, one of which was 'I Dig You'. It's a decent tune, but there are better on the album, and the B-sides aren't essential but the cover of Wire's '12XU' is good fun.

There was silence while Spencer concentrated on the Blues Explosion (and both he and Martinez were concentrating on their first child - the physical results of which Martinez is keen to underplay, if the cover of Whiteout is anything to go by) and then in 2000 Boss Hog released their final album, Whiteout. A changed line-up and the introduction of keyboards meant a changed sound again and this time out it's a really glossy sound, tightly produced, fully fleshed out songs and a strong sense of purpose. But despite some occasional scuzzy guitar work, it's a million miles from the sound of the band that released Drinkin', Lechin' and Lyin'. It's much more of a tight pop album than a junked out indie rock one. That's not to say it isn't a good album, it really is, but it sounds odd when you listen to the records in order in one session.

I've always been a bit apathetic when it comes to old Davey Bovril's Hunky Dory (1971). I think that it's all a bit annoyingly wilfully twee and when 'Kooks' comes on it makes me feel like I'm going to come out in hives. But to be honest I think it might be another case of being antagonistic towards records that we're all told that we should like all our sodding lives. None of the big songs really get me, even though I know that they're great; 'Changes' and 'Life on Mars' leave me relatively cold despite the fact that they're fantastically well written songs, and stuff like 'Queen Bitch' and 'Andy Warhol' is just too transparently derivative. Bowie was still in thrall to too many other people at this point I think and it would be a while before he truly became a unique talent. I'll grant that 'Quicksand' and 'The Bewlay Brothers' are great tunes though. To compound the evidence that I'm contrary to the max, I haven't got any of the next few albums (no Ziggy Stardust, no Aladdin Sane, etc), so we move straight on to Young Americans (1975). Despite the fact that it's a load of stupid rubbish, I love Young Americans. The title track is a great bit of overblown cod soul (in fact most of the album is great overblown cod soul) and it's a testament to Bowie's inordinate lack of humility (some people read "genius") that he thinks he can get away with this stuff. AND HE CAN! It's amazing. Nothing about Young Americans feels authentic (from the cover shot of a pouting, soft-focus Bovril onwards) but nothing about it feels wrong either (alright, with the sole exception of the bizarre and absurd cover of 'Across the Universe', but, charming though the song is in it's own odd way, it's still an absurd song anyway). 'Win', 'Fascination', particularly 'Somebody Up There Likes Me', it's all weirdly, uniquely cheesy and all utterly great.

But anyway, forget all of that trash, because here's the real deal. It's shameful that I haven't got Station To Station and I can't explain why I haven't, but I haven't and there it is. So we move on to the highlight of the Bov's career as far as I'm concerned, 1977's Low. All that mucking about in Berlin with Eno, Iggy and heroin might have been as tawdry and miserable as it sounds but boy did they all make some great records out of it. Low may well rank as the greatest album of the 70's for me. It's an absolute masterpiece with no precedents, no lineage, no real roots and as such it's truly extraordinary that it seems so solid, so complete, and so robust. Truly unique records are few and far between and most aren't actually much fun to listen to, but Low is in a class all it's own. This really is the sound of experimentation as pop music and it's glorious. The fizzing, melodic first side is the real treat but it still sounds remarkably bold to have an entirely contrary second side, reserved exclusively for ambient, experimental soundscapes, but even these aren't alienating or challenging. It's incredible stuff. And what's more it has probably the greatest line in modern pop music in 'Breaking Glass' - who but the Bov could get away with "Don't look at the carpet, I drew something awful on it - see". Unmitigated genius.

More of the mighty Davie B tomorrow.

Monday 26 March 2012

LaRM day 49 (Tracy Bonham-Bootsy's Rubber Band)

Tracy Bonham's The Burdens of Being Upright (1996) is a strange record in that it's much better than it really should be. A lot of the time it veers dangerously close to hideous Alanis Morisette territory, but somehow just manages to stay clear. I think that may be more to do with the people that she was working with as much as her own songwriting. Sean Slade and Paul Kolderie from Fort Apache studios were at the time the producers du jour for the lighter end of the 90's US indie scene and it's probably to do with their steering Bonham more towards the Liz Phair end of the "female angst rock" spectrum. It's still a decidedly dicey album, but it's certainly not awful. The problem is, it feels like it should be....

And so on to one of the most over-rated albums of all time, For Emma Forever Ago (2008) by Bon Iver. Besides having one of the most cloyingly twee album titles it's also a determinedly insipid listen. In some ways it sounds like something a Brits school teacher would write as an example of how to appeal to "sensitive indie types". Alright, that's going a bit far, but really, what is the big deal? There's virtually nothing I really like about For Emma Forever Ago; I don't like the falsetto, I don't like the downhome lo-fi, I don't like the melancholic atmosphere, I don't like the back story of him retreating to a cabin in the woods to songwrite out his demons about his failing relationship. And the reason I don't like any of those things is because I'm sure they're all bullshit. It's all a crock, I don't believe any of it. The whole thing absolutely stinks of pretence and schtick, it feels horribly calculated. And what's more, virtually the whole thing had already been done by another bullshitting chancer, Micah P. Hinson. Anyway, whatever, even if you put all that to one side, it's not much more than alright I suppose.

And it's appropriate that we should move directly on to someone who trades in this sort of stock but of a much higher quality and with much more interesting intent. Frankly Justin Vernon is Nick Hornby to Will Oldham's Dostoevsky. Criminally I've never picked up I See a Darkness, so for the Bonnie 'Prince' Billy section we start with Ease Down the Road (2001). After the various Palace records, Ease Down the Road was surprisingly polished and it doesn't suffer in any way for it. If anything it really helps to underscore just what fabulous songs these really are. Incredibly strongly structured and brilliantly constructed, using influence in a fluid but honest way. In many ways Ease Down the Road is the most honest distillation of Americana so far recorded because I think a lot of Americana acts would really like to be able to use the leftist country roots style and do it justice, but because most of them simply can't they opt for a more lo-fi approach. Ease Down the Road was, I think, Will Oldham's way of saying that his lo-fi work is a choice, not a necessity.

Master and Everyone (2003) is a partial return to the more grimily recorded and super downbeat version of songwriting that Oldham was more familiarly known for. It's a great record, brief, concise and loaded with both emotion and irony, as most of his records are. In some ways this period of Oldham's career was relatively poorly recieved critically, which to my mind shows how little people understood what he was trying to do. There's something tragic about the average music fan and the average music critic's determination to believe that "darkness", "authenticity", all that hokum which is all made up nonsense in the first place, is the benchmark by which certain forms of music should be judged. I think that Oldham is simply fascinated by the structure of American music and uses it in various ways to explore its potential. Hence some records are lo-fi, downbeat, and therefore invariably appeal to the fairly thoughtless, over-earnest listeners, and some are brighter and looser with a clearer nod to country music at its most accessible. The greatest crime that Oldham committed as far as some were concerned was in releasing Greatest Palace Music (2004), an album on which he re-recorded his own songs in a polished, brighter way. Hilariously what I think people were furious about was the sense that they were foolish to have taken the gloom at face value and that Oldham himself clearly has always had his tongue in his cheek, at least some of the time (the super-fun version of 'I Am a Cinematographer' is clearly irony in overload). Greatest Palace Music is a truly lovely album, and I tend to listen to it not as reworkings of his own songs but as an album of new material. The arrangements are so different and the mood such a deliberate (and wilfully upbeat) contrast to the original settings, it's pointless to listen to it as being versions of the same songs.

There's another mixture of various low-key approaches on 2006's The Letting Go. Again, it's a long way from the ragged shambling of earlier Palace albums, but it's also nowhere near as ornate and polished as Greatest Palace Music. It's closer to Master & Everyone than anything else, but it's still a fairly unique album in its own right. There are straight late-blues workouts, fabulous downbeat country songs, and there are prominent counterpoint vocals from Dawn McCarthy throughout, which is a new development. In terms of songwriting it's another supremely accomplished set, and it's an impressive record all round really. In 2007 the demo tapes that Oldham and McCarthy exchanged when writing The Letting Go were released as Wai Notes. It's interesting stuff, very lo-fi, scrappy, press-play-and-record, but as a little insight into the collaborative working process it's pretty revealing.

Window, handle, vandal - yep, those are rhymes according to the mighty Betty Boo's 'Where Are you Baby' (1990), one of the greatest singles of the 1990's. It's a blistering work of philosphical import, intellectual rigour, and I for one can't remember another top 40 single that grapples with the complications of assessing the relationship between one's moral philosophy and the need to successfully exist in a world of increasingly complex ethical challenges. It's a work of remarkable assiduity and perspicacity and it challenges any preconceived notion of inherent value in the creation of art, as well as instituting a definitively new way of using deconstructivist thought in the application of critical judgment. The B-side, 'Boo's Boogie', is shit though.

About 20 years ago I saw the JB's play in a sweaty club in Bristol and it was awesome. Maceo and Pee Wee were playing, but there weren't many of the others who moved out of James Brown's collective and into George Clinton's. And there was certainly no Bootsy Collins, whose Bootsy's Rubber Band albums were the second tier behind Clinton's own Parliament/Funkadelic records. Stretchin' Out with Bootsy's Rubber Band (1976) is one side of decent hard funk and one side of slower numbers that might impress the lay-days. On the whole I don't really understand "the funk" and so a lot of stuff that people say is particularly good sounds much the same as other stuff to me. I can only go entirely on whether I like on song more than another therefore, and Stretchin' Out doesn't get me going completely nuts. It's pretty funky on the first side, pretty smooth on the second, and there isn't too much P-Funk "wackiness" to get annoyed about either. It's all pretty good, I like it well enough. Second album, Ahh...The Name is Bootsy, Baby! (1977) is more of the same, with Bootsy's absurdly elastic bass piledriving its funky way through the tunes, most of which have a solid swagger and a kind of reckless funkiness about them, the rest a slick smoothness. It's a great album and it also showcases Bootsy's gloriously kaleidoscopic personality.

More Bootsy tomorrow, a bunch of Boss Hog and Bowie.

Friday 23 March 2012

LaRM day 48 (Bonde do Role-Bongwater)

Bonde do Role's With Lasers (2007) is a silly bit of knockabout Brazilian aggro electro-pop. Bonde do Role were the sort of daft flipside to CSS's rather more earnest Brazilian postmodernism and although CSS are a far better band, With Lasers is still a really enjoyable album in a daft sort of way. There's lots of bleepy noises, lots of simple drum machine patterns and lots and lots of shouting. About what I have no idea, but it's all good ridiculous fun. It's not a great album, but you can't help but enjoy it.

Right, so now it's the mammoth Bongwater run. I'm going to enjoy this but I don't think anybody else will. I love Bongwater, I think they made some of the most interesting and smart indie records of the last thirty years. It's all psychedelic nonsense for the most part, but it's such clever and entertaining and downright funny psychedelic nonsense that I just love it. First mini-LP, Breaking No New Ground (1987) is a tough listen because it concentrates more on the guitar workouts than it does on Ann Magnusson's brilliant stream-of-consciousness lyrics and theatrical delivery. They did a large number of covers over the years and Breaking No New Ground has a fun version of 'Ride My See-Saw' and a complete psychedelic demolition of Zep's 'Four Sticks'.

Next up was double album, Double Bummer (1988). Nobody in the world agrees with me but I think this is the best record the band made. It's an absolutely unholy mess of thick, gloopy psych freak-outs and spoken word narration, with the occasional pop song thrown in for good measure. But there are so many ideas, so much irony and so much outright smart-arsery that I think it's a truly awesome achievement. And Magnusson's stories this time out have developed into some genuinely hilarious and genuinely frightening things. Apparently she made a lot of this stuff up as they recorded, on the spot. If that's true then she's even smarter than I already thought. The whole record is summed up in many ways by 'Dazed and Chinese', another sludgy, muddy, psyched up Zeppelin song with the lyrics screamed and muttered, for no particular reason that I can make out, in Chinese. It's utterly brilliant. In fact everything about Double Bummer is brilliant. The only single the band ever released was a double A-side with covers of 'You Don't Love Me Yet' and 'Porpoise Song', both of which are more restrained than usual, and all the better for it. In fact both songs are done in an absolutely lovely style, lovely not being a word you would often apply to Bongwater's records.

1989's Too Much Sleep I don't like quite so much, in fact I think it's my least favourite Bongwater album. It's too disjointed and too many of the songs feel like experiments in listener endurance. There is some fabulous stuff (the album ends with two gorgeous songs in 'One So Black' and 'No Trespassing'), but songs like 'Mr and Mrs Hell' and 'The Psychedelic Sitting Room' are too abrasive for me, and the album on the whole isn't quite tuneful enough. Penultimate album The Power of Pussy (1990) is generally regarded as their best record. It's certainly a brilliant one and has a more certain cohesion than Double Bummer, but it doesn't have quite the same bizarre sense of internal logic. The songs on The Power of Pussy are really stylistically experimental and the sludgy psychedelia has given way to a large extent to other kinds of musical style. There's a flute on the title track for a start... The songs are really strong, and Magnusson's imagination is absolutely on fire (bearing in mind the whole album is an ironic concept album about sex and Los Angeles, her filthily toned narration of stories that are no more salacious than being about trips to the museum is absolute genius), Kramer's production is better than ever and the whole set is great.

Final album, The Big Sell-Out (1992) is another sterling piece of work. The sludge is almost entirely gone by this point but the psychedelia certainly hasn't and once again Magnusson's awesome feats of characterisation and narrative are in full effect. There is possibly the slight sense that things weren't quite right in the Bongwater camp and the record can sound a little strained at times. But there's tons of it, and it never drags for a second, there's not a wasted minute. Again, like The Power of Pussy, there are all kinds of disparate musical styles employed throughout The Big Sell-Out, but it never feels any less than a unified whole, or any less than a highly ironic, exceedingly witty retort to music and to culture generally. It's a brilliant, occasionally disturbing record, that is a fantastic end to a truly singular career. The incredibly acrimonious split between Kramer and Magnusson that brought the band to an end not only ruined their relationship forever but also the legal fees incurred by their various dragging each other through court broke Kramer's label, Shimmy-Disc and they went bust. A sad end to a brilliant label and a remarkable band really.

See youse all next week.