Album Review: Serafina Steer - The Moths Are Real

In the video for "Island Odessy", the second single to be released in conjunction with The Moths Are Real, we see Serafina Steer on sun-glared beaches and in uninhabited coastal woods. The setting for this video shoot is not immediately apparent, but although there are shots of exotic-looking flora and fauna, I suspect that on this occasion she hasn't actually travelled beyond the British Isles. Sometimes we forget how strange and adaptive our home can be. The story of Britain is in itself an island odessy, which Serafina and her collaborators have expressed superbly on this new album.



The second-in-command cultural ambassador for The Moths Are Real may not be of a huge surprise to those in the know. Jarvis Cocker, who has apparently been waxing lyrical about the previous Serafina album Change Is Good, Change Is Good on his BBC Radio 6 show, takes the helm as the album's chief producer, also astonishingly his first role in the seat. However no-one comes across as a novice here; The Moths Are Real shines with confidence and sophistication, not least in Serafina's yarn-spun quests. Creating vivid locations appears to be one of her many fortes, whether it be the curiously attractive return to the street in "The Ballad Of Brick Lane", or the transformative whirring of "The Machine Room", which the narrator wishes to appease "in my boiler suit and hard hat", Serafina reveals her thoughtful character differently to these musical and thematic settings.

In addition to Cocker and roster of guests (fellow Pulp-man Steve Mackay, Polar Bear's Seb Rochford, Capitol K, David Cunningham and Simon Bookish), there are at least two other qualities Serafina possesses to boost the quality of The Moths Are Real. Her voice is one of them, and perhaps most significant. It darts between her harp (the other, more on that soon) and additional instrumentation as an extension to her often knotty and perplexing storytelling and enables her to surpass twee with a definite poise and latent sensuality. Consider "Skinny Dipping", which counterbalances the perversity of sneaking a glimpse at her fellow swimmer with a delicacy, even beauty. Or the following "The Removal Man", who Serafina scolds as he "called my cathedral a chapel", adding the baffling but not inappropriate "my removed patch, my arse" as a kiss-off. Jarvis's recognisable baritone adds to the mockery of the situation; they equally seem glad to be rid of him. Or better still the opener "Night Before Mutiny", which tells the story of departing seamen from the potent female perspective. The melancholic humour of The Moths Are Real may be expressed most perfectly here. "I kissed the captain but the cabin boy / Was the one that did it for me".



If not the voice, the predominant instrument on The Moths Are Real is the harp. Serafina's playing (do not file next to Joanna Newsom) is usually as tart and piquant as her lyrics, existing somewhere between functunal and elaborate. I'd say it gives the album evidence towards the idea of an instrument being an extension of its musician, captivating right from its opening notes. Serafina takes her harp to places it doesn't seem to have fit before, and bizzarely manages to make it work every time. In the "Machine Room" it feels airy when hovering over its rugged electronic drumbeat companion. It can signify an alien invasion in the song bearing the same name, giving an alternate soundtrack to English science fiction literature. And in "Disco Compilation", possibly the best thing here, it introduces the loneliness of the celebratory dancefloor not heard since Robyn's "Dancing On My Own". Jarvis's mix swells in a house beat and trumpet fanfare until the song is overwhelmed completely. He should be doing this more often.



Call it the real deal, or a complete package, or whatever you like; The Moths Are Real is the first great album of 2013. It has the personality and wit for the folkies, but the forefronted leftfield influences will likely keep the non-folkies interested in at least a few places. The title track serves as the album's closer, a beautiful piece of chamber-pop that shows the sweetness of Serafina's music's simplicity; a simplicity that's brave enough to keep the door ajar for any odessy.

"Feels like... a moth... to the light..."

Angel Olsen - Half Way Home added to 2012 Recommended Albums

I'm making a conscious effort to make my reviews shorter from now on (it's only by accident that over time they've become wordier), so the choice moment for me to announce that is on a review of an album which associated genre I know little about anyway (or is short enough not to demand further description). All I could really find out about Angel Olsen was that she's been a member of Bonnie "Prince" Billy's Cairo Gang, the band Will Oldham has used for several of his last few albums and tours. A six-track cassette of Olsen songs entitled Strange Cacti was also released in limited supply last year, but Half Way Home stands for all its intents and purposes as her debut album.

It begins with the mesmeric "Acrobat". One of the few numbers to stretch out its instrumentation beyond merely vocals, acoustic guitar and occasional drumming, it nonethelesss pulls one of country music's most searing qualities straight to the foreground: its capability to showcase great sadness. This is painful music, and Olsen makes no bones about wanting to break your heart while she's being recorded. Her voice is a major catalyst in this regard, more specifically the moments when she strains her cords into uncomfortable, even unsettling territory. At other times it shrinks back down to the level of the guitar, and she can be an equally effective comforter, albeit a melancholic one. This dualism is particularly apparent on the extended centerpiece "Lonely Universe". The storytelling on this track is also vivid, beginning with the childhood loss of her mother, before sliding back into a more regular register, although not completely, whilst giving out sagely life advice. The refrain also contains one of the album's strongest thought-provoking images: "Goodbye sweet Mother Earth / Without you now, I'm a lonely universe". Death is a major theme of Half Way Home, and Olsen's attitudes really have to be heard to be appreciated; however love is just as prevalent, cropping up on virtually every track. The shorter tracks that are more focused on the subject - "You Are Song", "Free" and "The Waiting" - rank among the best.



Half Way Home feels like a special album; a strangely nostalgic one at that. At times it reminds me of the kind of music my parents used to play through the house when I was growing up. I've avoided specific cornerstones to avoid inaccuracy, as I'm really a novice when it comes to country, but this album is a welcome discovery, and easily ranks beside the best I've heard this year. Hopefully her connection to Will Oldham will allow Olsen to get her music into the wider community, because her current perspective is a fascinating, alluring one.

Wild Nothing - Nocturne added to 2012 Recommended Albums

For certain people, the "dream-pop" label can carry with it a number of negative ideas. Ideas of sunbaked American students spending hours in dorms with MacBooks and the latest music editing software, writing songs about the girl they're too wet behind the ears to ask out at the cocktail bar. Moreso than that this new generation of indie songwriters are accused of being lazy and unoriginal, favouring the trend of soaking their guitars and vocals in reverb to hide the lack of substance to their work. Add to that the derivative nature that comes from the copy-and-pasted style thse bands follow and dream-pop becomes ripe for parody and ridicule.

The upshot of this genre's popularity is that when someone like Wild Nothing (aka the now Brooklyn-based Jack Tatum) comes along, a songwriter with integrity and charisma, he isn't slept on. Nocturne is the second Wild Nothing album, folowing 2010's sleeper success Gemini, and on surface level there maybe isn't enough change here to convert the typical dream-pop cynic. The most significant is the introduction of producer Nicolas Vernhes, who insures a professional touch to Tatum's otherwise homespun sound. Also of note from a sonic perspective is the influence of 80s British electronic acts such as New Order in some of the guitar/keyboard lines and occasional Stephen Morris-esque drum patterns. Much has been made of this, and it does serve as another usp for Wild Nothing, but you're not going to mistake it from a Factory Records album anytime soon. We are still firmly in the land of reverb.



The true asset to Nocturne is Tatum's capabilities as a songwriter, the moods and themes he creates through his aesthetic. Maybe it was supposed to be Gemini's darker twin - the first three track names "Shadow", "Midnight Song" and "Nocturne" seem to suggest so - but its breezy nature makes that idea a little hard to take seriously. Instead we're treated to songs about girls called Heather and Rheya, and told that "love is paradise" in the five-and-a-half minute centrepiece, the most ambitious track by a stretch. Not exactly dark night of the soul-like stuff. That's not to say these moments aren't rewarding in themselves, and that trio of openers does hold a more tortured presence under all the wistfulness. Take lead single "Shadow". Although the vocals are low in the mix (below some lovely string arrangement), they're not so indecipherable as not to catch such pessimism as "I'd go with you if you asked me to / but we wouldn't get very far, two strangers in the dark". It's a pop song in the Robert Smith template: couterbalancing the instrumental's glimmer of optimism with crushing lyrical blows, and it can't be helped to hang on to the lyrics from there, whether they're the sensual "you can have me"'s of the title track, or the aforementioned laments for "Rheya".

With Wild Nothing's gift for songwriting and extended instrumental and tonal pallette, Nocturne successfully bucks the "style over substance" argument for dream-pop out of the water. Although Jack Tatum's heart is still firmly stuck to his sleeve his lyrics, song structures and tasteful nods to his influences add up to a sincere talent, and there are enough musical ideas happening for the album to work satisfyingly well. Until now I found the closest thing to a varied dream-pop album to be DIIV's Oshin, released a few months ago also on Captured Tracks. And while that certainly isn't a bad album it takes something like Nocturne to show that with any genre there's no obligation to play by the rules when it comes to making an album. There's plenty to stake out on the fringes.

Stream Grizzly Bear - Shields and Dinosaur Jr. - I Bet On Sky

I've been up early, working my way through the new album by Grizzly Bear, Shields, and have now moved onto Dinosaur Jr. (pictured) - I Bet On Sky. All thanks to NPR Music. Links:

Dinosaur Jr. - I Bet On Sky
Grizzly Bear - Shields

Single of the Week: Angel Olsen - "Acrobat"

This is the second time I've blatantly ransacked a Pitchfork Best New Music track for my own Single of the Week feature, but whatever. When a track evokes such strong feelings of desperate hope and lovelorn curiousity as "Acrobat" does, it becomes a disservice not to recognise it. The opening track to Angel Olsen's second album Half Way Home, out now on Bathetic, does all these things by tugging at the line that seperates harmony and dissonance, played out through creeping yet comforting synthesizer, occasional guitar notes and the lower register of Olsen's extraordinary voice. The lyrical themes are perhaps more affecting, also using binaries to pattern the narrator's intricate feelings, including in the refrain: "I am alive / I thought that I'd died". Other lyrics capture the feeling of distance like some of the best of any unrequited love song; Olsen wishing to be merely "a bit like you" and "that distant thought, / Some growing meaning in yor mind", which in turn creates an interesting contrast with the unrestrained nature of the guitar and vocals. The only trrue reference to an "acrobat" in the song is the one that Olsen manages to survive these imbalanced ideas.


Angel Olsen - Acrobat (Official Music Video) from Toshadeva Palani on Vimeo.

Grizzly Bear w/ Perfume Genius - (Nottingham) Albert Hall Conference Centre (29th August 2012)

The 2 Bears (Ed Droste and Daniel Rossen). Couldn't get the rest in shot, heaven knows I tried.

Perfume Genius

Not too dissimilar to the set they performed at Latitude last month (and because I detailed that here I'm not going to elaborate much). Thankfully I was surrounded by less irriating company this time around. Surprisingly, the main difference between this Mike Hadreas and the one performing to double the amount of people in the i Arena was this one seemed to lack further confidence. Not a huge problem, as is the nature of Perfume Genius, and as far as support slots go, I don't think I could have asked for a better one.

Grizzly Bear
Ed Droste decided to turn the seated show into a standing one. One of the main issues of this was that it became tough to see (and photograph) entirely what was happening on stage. The Albert Hall Conference Centre isn't a typical music venue, and there's no barrier between the crowded audience and the under-three-feet stage. This was probably my only major negative of the show. The setlist ranged across Grizzly Bear's current three studio albums, but some of the night's brightest moments came from the scarcely-performed new material, to feature on the upcoming album Shields. No less than six new tracks were played: "Sleeping Ute" and "Yet Again" were already familiar, but they were rivalled by "Speak In Rounds", "A Simple Answer", "gun-shy" and "Half Gate". Between them signifies a prediction that Shields may turn out to be Grizzly Bear's rock album, and all four members infused these songs with a new passion. Some top-class banter solidified the evening, on the account of it being Chris Taylor's birthday, and they can be forgiven for shortening their encore to go out to celebrate.

I managed to nab myself a setlist, which is how I knew what the new songs were. The penultimate track is called "Half Gate":

Wild Nothing - "Paradise"

The first Wild Nothing track to emerge from the upcoming Nocturne was the beautiful "Shadow" (see my June playlist). Now we have "Paradise" to whet appetites before Nocturne's imminent release date (27th August via Bella Union in the UK, a day later via Captured Tracks in the US):



Track all the info up to the release of Nocturne on the Upcoming Releases page.

Single of the Week: Grizzly Bear - "Yet Again"

There's enough hype out there to tell you that for many Shields is one of the most anticipated records left to come out this year. Even without promotional singles this would be the case, but "Sleeping Ute" and "Yet Again" prove that Grizzly Bear can craft material deserving of such early praise. The former hinted at a weightier, brasher direction for the notoriously sleepy-sounding quartet. "Yet Again" builds on that blueprint and continues to use the band's usual instrumentation to rock out. It's the loudest song Grizzly Bear have put together, but Ed Droste's usual soft vocals keep the balance between the familiar and the obscure tied down. The final minute of the track is taken up by an unexpected freakout of noise, giving further creedence to the idea of Daniel Rossen as the new indie generation's guitar god. Grizzly Bear are drawing attention with their new songs, regardless of whether their previous albums' greatness made that attention inevitable in the first place.

Grizzly Bear - "Yet Again"

The new Grizzly Bear single, "Yet Again" just debuted on BBC Radio 1. It will feature on new album Shields (artwork above). Here it is in case you missed it (you are forgiven):



Track all the info up to the release of Shields on the Upcoming Releases page.

Jens Lekman performs new song for the Guardian

"I Know What Love Isn't" is the title track to Jens' new album, out 3rd September. Below watch his solo rendition of the track, with an introduction containing the quote "And that didn't really work for me, because I'm Jens Lekman":

Jens Lekman - "Erica America", and new album announcement

Singer-songwriter Jens Lekman hasn't released a full-length album since 2007's Night Falls Over Kortedala, but I thought last year's An Argument With Myself EP was pretty great. 2012 sees a new Jens Lekman album, I Know What Love Isn't, out on Sectretly Canadian from the 3rd September. "Erica America", the album's new single, and the tracklist are below:



1. “Every Little Hair Knows Your Name”
2. “Erica America”
3. “Become Someone Else’s”
4. “Some Dandruff On Your Shoulder”
5. “She Just Don’t Want To Be With You Anymore”
6. “I Want A Pair of Cowboy Boots”
7. “The World Moves On”
8. “The End Of The World Is Bigger Than Love”
9. “I Know What Love Isn’t”
10. “Every Little Hair Knows Your Name”

Grizzly Bear announce new album, and share new track

Time to dig out those copies of Veckatimest and Yellow House again. Grizzly Bear's as-of-yet untitled new record is coming out on 18th September via. Warp. Their new track, "Sleeping Ute" is below, as is the album's tracklist:



1. "Sleeping Ute"
2. "Speak in Rounds"
3. "Adelma"
4. "Yet Again"
5. "The Hunt"
6. "A Simple Answer"
7. "What's Wrong"
8. "gun-shy"
9. "Half Gate"
10. "Sun in Your Eyes"

The Antlers announce new album, and share promo video

Undersea is the name of the Antlers third record, and follows last year's Burst Apart, which made it onto my list of favourite albums of 2011. It's out 24th July on ANTI-. Watch the promo video below:

Hot Chip, Bobby Womack and The Tallest Man On Earth albums streaming at NPR Music

Happy Monday! New albums galore at NPR Music! Links below:

Hot Chip - In Our Heads

Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man In The Universe

The Tallest Man On Earth - There's No Leaving Now

Another great week for music? Well it looks that way.

Top Albums of 2011 so far

Yeah, thought I ought to do something like this to make up for the inactivity over the last few months, not to mention the first couple of months before the blog started. Although I divided the albums into genres as to avoid direct ranking there is definitely some overlap to be had. If you consider yourself to be a fan of a particular genre, I highly recommend checking out each of the albums displayed under the relevant heading. Only albums and EP's from January to June 2011 have been included, and no decision is ever final, more of just an idea of what I think of right now (a few might be the result of being recently passed through my speakers, but hopefully I've eliminated a great deal of bias). I'm bound to have missed a few good ones, so this is a great chance to start leaving me comments. Also apologies if the images are a little small, its the best my creative skills could manage.


Pop

(l-r)Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes, Gruff Rhys - Hotel Shampoo, The Go! Team - Rolling Blackouts,
Givers - In Light, tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l

Rock

(l-r) TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light, Fucked Up - David Comes to Life, Radiohead -  The King of Limbs

Punk/Post-Punk

(l-r) Times New Viking - Dancer Equired, Iceage - New Brigade, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong,
Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil

Rap/Hip-Hop

(l-r) Death Grips - Exmilitary, Beastie Boys - Hot sauce Committee Pt.2, Big K.R.I.T. - Return of 4Eva,
Shabazz Palaces - Black Up, Tyler, the Creator - Goblin

Dance

(l-r) Cut Copy - Zonoscope, Junior Boys - It's All True, Metronomy - The English Riviera,
Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact

R&B

(l-r) The Weeknd - House of Balloons, Frank Ocean - Nostalgia, Ultra, Beyoncé -  4

Singer/Songwriter

(l-r) Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts, Julian Lynch - Terra, PJ Harvey - Let England Shake,
Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo

Electronic

(l-r) Burial - Street Halo EP, Prefuse 73 - The Only She Chapters, James Blake -  James Blake,
Africa HiTech - 93 Million Miles, Panda Bear -  Tomboy

Indie/Folk

(l-r) Bon Iver - Bon Iver, The Antlers - Burst Apart, Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues, Destroyer - Kaputt

Garage/"Lo-Fi"

(l-r) Thee Oh Sees - Castlemania, Black Lips - Arabia Mountain, Dum Dum Girls -  He Gets Me High EP,
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unlnown Mortal Orchestra

Instrumental/Other

(l-r) Battles - Gloss Drop, Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges,
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Tao of the Dead,
Clams Casino - Instrumental Mixtape/Rainforest EP

Any thoughts?