08/03/2002

ALFIE: A Word In Your Ear (Twisted Nerve)

The danger in fleeing your home roost is sacrificing all your original charm in the first place. But for a band who never quite 'formed' as be genetically produced from a stash of rizla papers, acoustic guitars and woolly hats, the promise of big label budgets and even bigger headwear was never seriously going to dent Alfie's unkempt loveliness. And so we meet Lee and co in that fractious mid-point, with fully-fledged album 'proper' A Word In Your Ear, both a historical start and end, and yet easily one of Twisted Nerve's most fantastically charmed and fully-realised dreams at the same time.

Alfie, of course, work best at one speed - bedraggled - and they know it. Where If You Happy With You Need Do Nothing set the tone for nu-acoustica-goes-schizo, A Word In Your Ear is much less Alfie-doing-the Charlatans-doing-Dylan than Alfie-doing-Simon & Garfunkel-doing-Alfie. It's a complete-sounding record in every sense of the word. Opener and title track 'A Word In Your Ear' is pure sun-flecked summer charm, like Nick Drake 'Bryter Layter'-era goes baggy while the implausibly lovely 'Halfway Home' and the lolloping groove of 'Cloudy Lemonade' edge them closer towards folky classicism. The song that singer Lee Gorton calls Alfie's sure-fire summer smash is just that; 'Summer Lanes', all angelic shuffle and shimmering pop chorus, being everything it's early live incarnation promised. The overall result is intoxicating stoner pop (yes - pop!) not so much at ease with itself, as having packed its bags and buggered off for a countryside trek.

As a Twisted Nerve swansong, it's perfect. As a defining blueprint of all-things wonderful in Alfie world, its easily just as beyond reproach, and most of all, cynicism. The real Wonderland anyone?

(9) David Sue

BILLY JENKINS: Life (VOTP)

An entire generation of suburban white kids, beset with inadequacy but blessed with musical taste, appropriated the riffs and equally potent myths of the blues masters. The Yardbirds' treatment of Bo Diddley's 'I'm A Man' ("spelt M.A.N.") is archetypal: callow in comparison to the original but classic rock 'n' roll teen sublimation. Only one in 20,000 English bluesmen inhabits a recognisable reality.

Step forward Billy Jenkins, anarcho guitarmeister and arch-demythologiser, whose latest offering brings the blues home to Bromley. 'I ain't got no blackcat bone, never had a mojo hand... but I'm still a man... (That's H.U.M.A.N.)' he sings with winning honesty. In fact, Jenkins manages to extend the subject matter of the blues: 'I'd just turned 12, when some bastard stole my bicycle...' (which he takes as conclusive proof that 'There Is No Lord Up There'). Jenkins' love of the blues is genuine and his knowledge is awesome, although he can't bring himself to perpetuate a musical cliché and his guitar runs dissolve into nervy clusters. Pure genius.

(8) Mike Butler

BOLA: Fyuti (Skam)

Manchester laptop surgeon Bola may not be as famous as label mates Boards of Canada, but his second album for Skam occupies the same dreamy terrain. Both 'Pae Paoe' and 'Vertiphon' opt to soothe and seduce the listener with a variety of lush synths and strings whilst 'Tibular Vader', 'Horizophon', 'O' and 'Chuma' add crunchy beats, swollen bass-lines and moody, sci-fi electronics. 'Soleiele', 'VM8' and'Shoob,e' slow down the tempo with rubbery beats and gorgeous washes of synths, but it's the broody, magnificent 'Magnasushi' that suggests Bola is the bastard off-spring of Autechre and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Buy this beautiful record and find out why.

(9) Sarah-Jane

APOLLON & MUSLIMGAUZE: Dark Thoughts (D.O.R)

Though he died in 1999, Salford musician Bryn Jones aka Muslimgauze lives on through his immense body of work. Eight more albums are scheduled for release between now and April whilst (European label) Staalplaat insist they have enough new recordings to keep fans busy for another decade. This collaboration with Martin Lee-Stephen (aka Apollon) was originally recorded in early 1998 and finds the duo mixing ambient / isolationist tones with post-industrial electronics. Tracks like 'Brutalisticus', 'Mujibur" and 'Calcutta' mix Arabic vocals with heavily phrased drones and aggressive break-beats whilst other tracks mix Middle Eastern instrumentation with tones, hisses and bass-lines. Not everyone's cup of tea then, but a must for Pan Sonic and Muslimgauze fans.

(7) Sarah-Jane

22/02/2002

Infinite Chinese Box - Miss Black America (Integrity Records)

AN impressive wall of heavy rock and roll sound is accompanied by Jimi Hendrix-style guitars on this gut-punching slab of music. And above all the RACKET it is even possible to clearly hear the actually quite pleasant vocals of young Seymour Glass, 22. It harks back to a time when men had long hair, ridiculous moustaches, leather jackets and dirty jeans. The refreshing modern twist is that this band formed through mutual hatred of drum `n' bass and it actually sound good as well.

Cover Up - UB40 (Virgin Records)

LET me first declare an interest: I hate UB40. Now you know where I'm coming from I'll begin. Everything UB40 does sounds to me like the result of a jam session featuring the Tweenies and Teletubbies on xylophone and synth and Zig and Zag on vocals. This is no different. This is a slow, balladic version of the usual UB40 offering. And sadly, I still hate them.

The Deer In You - Gerling (Infectious records)

I'M certainly interested in the concept of The Deer In You - which I guess means there is also one inside me somewhere. I sometimes wondered if there was some kind of beast - or at least a pussy cat - loitering there somewhere. The music from these Australians is equally difficult to interpret, with kind of looped, raging drums and guitars over fairly out there vocals. At least having a deer inside is safer than having a kangaroo inside.

SIMON DONOHUE

15/02/2002

See This Through And Leave - The Cooper Temple Clause (Morning)

JUST love that cover art, a photo of a Volvo outside a dormer bungalow - an archetype of cosy suburbia - but with a hose running from the car's exhaust into the letterbox of the house. You expect the music to be as darkly eloquent, and you are only partly disappointed. The best song Who Needs Enemies? certainly lives up to the promise with an epic, snarling masterwork of jazzy brass and murky harmonies which sees singer Ben Gautrey at his most Liam Gallagher-esque. Despite labouring under some frankly odd comparisons with Hawkwind, the band actually combine an Oasis-like swagger with the kind of operatic intensity of Muse or JJ72. Though they are not averse to a little guitar abuse {ndash} witness the raw Been Training Dogs - it is the more restrained material which is most memorable, for instance, Digital Observations, which sounds like Kurt Weill meets Eels. Like so much post-Radiohead British rock, Cooper Temple Clause play cold, distant music, made to be admired rather than loved.

Tell `Em Who We Are - LHB (Telstar)

THE usual squelch-making, voice-mangling paraphernalia makes this a ramble through familiar soundscapes - like Daft Punk but not quite daft enough. They boast at least one truly great song title, Olivia Newton Christ, and a genuinely intriguing collaboration with singer Imogen Heap, but like so many albums of this ilk it is insubstantial - appetisers with no main course.

Loud - Timo Maas (Four Twenty)

A SOMEWHAT tastier offering from Planet Groove here. It opens impressively with Help Me, which has a vocal by Kelis supported by something which sounds like incidental music from Star Trek. Maas is German DJ who goes for minimal arrangements and airy, frothy grooves. Tracks like Hard Life have a subliminal feel reminiscent of Kraftwerk, while the spoken word squeekathon We Are Nothing is positively philosophical.

Full Moon - Brandy (Atlantic)

GLOSSY R&B songs trot out of Rodney Jerkins' studio like widgets coming off a production line. But the trickier productions here, such as All In Me, tend to obscure Brandy's good old-fashioned talents as a soul singer. Much better are the simpler fare such as Come A Little Closer and Love Wouldn't Count Me Out, hidden away almost apologetically towards the end of this 17-track album.

07/02/2002

Lovers Live - Sade (Epic):

LOVERS Rock was quite a comeback album for Sade, switching us back on to the music which was the soundtrack to many a yuppie dinner party. But we needed no reminder of one thing: some performers are studio animals and some work best on stage, and Sade is most definitely among the former. There is nothing wrong with these live cuts of Sade''s best songs, old and new, it is just that they do not have the smoky intimacy of the originals. I cannot think of a better way to break the Sade spell than to add a bunch of braying, hooting Californians into the equation.

Escape - Enrique Iglesias (Interscope)

ENRIQUE is certain to be this year''s Ricky Martin on the karaoke scene, and the swelling strings of that chart-topping ballad Hero will make it Our Song for many young hearts. But a horrible thought occurs around half way through this album by Julio''s successful son: take away the undeniable sex appeal and the occasional Latin-style flourish and you are left with music which has a lot in common with that of Chris de Burgh.

Yes, it's THAT corny. Corny is not necessarily bad. Barry Manilow built a career on it, after all. Enrique makes no pretence of subtlety, and makes no secret of the fact that he composes with the arenas of the world in mind, listing among his own heroes those titans of stadium rock, Dire Straits. So, with a few exceptions like Love To See You Cry (featuring a groove similar to Kylie's Can''t Get You Out of My Head) Escape is high quality, but very obvious pop-rock with a lot less steamy Spanishness than you would want. But then he must be doing something right (24m albums shifted thus far) and Escape is certain to sell like San Miguel in a Benidorm heatwave.

Walking With Thee - Clinic (Domino)

TAKE a little of the cool lunacy of Can, a dollop of the urban alienation of John Carpenter''s soundtrack to Assault On Precinct 13, and a pinch of Philip Glass and you get Scouse foursome Clinic. The chilly soundscapes of melodica, piano and clarinet, are complemented by Ade Blackburn''s somewhat robotic vocals, and the whole icy brew is interspersed with mad rock and roll. The fact that they were a support act on Radiohead''s Kid A tour gives you a good idea of just where Clinic''s head is at.

Behind The Music - The Soundtrack Of Our Lives (Telegram)

THOSE pesky Swedes beat us at our own game again. Unencumbered by the cynical, factious, fad-ridden nature of the UK rock scene, TSOOL give us some thrilling pastiches of Anglo-American pop, such as the proggy Mind The Gap, the Keith Richards shapes of Sister Surround and 21st Century Rip Off, the Lennon-McCartney-ish Broken Imaginary Time and Still Aging, a variant of Summer Of Love American rock. Very clever stuff.

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