Sunday 29 May 2016

Josh Rouse - 1972 (2003)

Rouse starts off in his lowest key with the title track. Most akin to his early, late-90s material, the song tosses off a dreamy narrative of utopian imperfection about life in its titular year: marooned, unemployed, getting high, and shooting pool. Comfortably sprinkled with subtle percussion and light strings, it's the most acoustic-based track on the record-- and though it might be aimed at a generation three or four removed from his own, it speaks in timeless divulgence.

The rest of the album is more exploratory, but also more compartmentalized within each of its sonic domains. The single, "Love Vibration", bounces a nostalgic eight-track beat with some synth work and light horn arrangements before giving way to a sax solo (!). Which speaks to one of the record's best traits; In each song, 70s-tinged red flags (flute solos, vibraphones, background singers, disco string loops, etc) find a place to settle in, but Rouse minimizes any potential damage by using them sparingly, squeezing highly effective hints of earnestness and atmosphere from them before sending them hurtling back into whatever vintage hellhole spat them out.

"Slaveship" might be vintage Jackson Browne on his birthday, with sparkling piano and handclaps; the shoreline tango "Flight Attendant" fits somewhere between Summerteeth's "How to Fight Loneliness" and something from former Rouse collaborators Lambchop; and "Sparrows Over Birmingham" employs a gospel choir to fill out its period soft soul swing. "James", meanwhile, is a veritable lost 70s soft-rock relic, and one of the only tracks to showcase Rouse's mercurial falsetto. Although not utilized to its fullest here, his voice transforms to fill the needs of the song, showing that, while sometimes the least compelling aspect of his songs, it can be made the centerpiece when necessary.

Lyrically, Rouse takes it easy throughout the album, finding fortune mostly in his simple reel-to-reel personal sketches, though he does occasionally cause facial contortions when traversing groovier territory and crooning gory, anachronistic lyrics like, "I wanna be your baby daddy." He ends the album on a fine note, though, with the symphonic "Rise", calling to mind early Damien Jurado (if he could sing) and some of the Pernice Brothers' more lightly conceptualized moments. 

 
 
 

theAngelcy - Exit Inside (2015)

Folk band from Israel.
 
 
 
 

Mumford & Sons - Babel (2012)

It's hard to imagine a more preposterous road to platinum success than the one Mumford & Sons traveled. Sigh No More, the 2010 debut by Marcus Mumford and his London crew, is a set of rousing tunes clad in choirboy harmonies, clawhammer banjo and Salvation Army brass that exploded amid a sea of AutoTuned cyber-pop. Soon, the band was backing Dylan on the Grammys, recording Kinks classics with Ray Davies and uncannily recalling the days when string bands like the Carter Family and the Louvin Brothers were radio gold.

Babel steps up Mumford & Sons' game without changing it too much. It feels shinier, punchier, more arena-scale than the debut, with the band hollering, hooting, plucking and strumming like Olympian street buskers. The songs lean toward the hooky folkfest stomps of tunes such as "Little Lion Man" and "The Cave," whose beer-slosh melody and fist-pump dynamics branded Sigh No More. See Babel's hymnlike first single, "I Will Wait," and "Lover of the Light" – both are proof that the Mumfords do dramatic builds, dropouts and soft-loud shifts as impressively as U2 or Skrillex. The fact that these guys are able to do big rock catharsis with humble tools is part of the thrill. 
But it's the band's lyrics, and Mumford's delivery, that define the album's sound. Babel is full of all manner of religious shoptalk, with Biblical metaphors swirling like detritus in a Christopher Nolan film. Jesus is invoked above Edge-style guitar on "Below My Feet." On "Whispers in the Dark," Mumford declares an intention "to serve the Lord" over a Riverdance bounce. Compared to unfreaky-folk-revival peers like the Avett Brothers or the Low Anthem, Mumford & Sons really double down on the ol' time religion.

Mumford grew up around evangelicals - his parents are English figureheads of The Vineyard, a California-born Christian movement that's so pop-savvy, they run a couple of record labels. (Bob Dylan was a member of the fellowship during his Christian phase in the Seventies.) But proselytizing is not the mission on Babel. Where Rick Ross slings church flavor to add levity to street tales, Mumford uses it to supersize and complicate love songs. "Lovers' Eyes" is merely the best of several songs that wrestle with betrayer's guilt. On "Broken Crown" he seems both sinner and sinned against. "The pull on my flesh was just too strong," he cries with moving hair-shirt candor. Disgraced politicians could learn something from this dude.

Colored with brass, group vocals and Ben Lovett's understated piano, "Lovers' Eyes" and "Broken Crown" (which, like "Little Lion Man," makes showstopping use of the word "fucked") show the subtler and more British folk elements that marked the group's debut. Those flavors get toned down on this record, which is too bad. But the power of the arrangements and Marcus Mumford's tortured-vicar vocals is undeniable. And if his conflation of love, lust and Christian spirituality sounds more like pre-dawn confusion than neat Bible lessons, it feels all the truer for it. His parents should be proud.
 

 

Xavier Rudd & The United Nations - Nanna

Flanked by new band the United Nations – comprised of musicians from Australia, Africa, Samoa, Germany and New Guinea – Xavier Rudd serves up what he has dubbed his "dream project". A thick reggae influence dominates Nanna – "Flag" is pure Marley – but Rudd adds his twists and his band weave in their individual world music flavours: the swirling Andean atmosphere of the title track and the modern indigenous feel of "Rainbow Serpent' in particular add a nice contrast to the LP's dominant sound. For the most part, Nanna is a beautiful celebration of global sound, the only flaw being that Rudd's own unique voice gets a little lost in all that egalitarianism.

 
 

Fat Freddy's Drop - Bays (2015)

If you’re already quite familiar with FFD’s genre-splicing and casual beat-dropping, then you’ll likely find a lot to love in Bays. Staying mostly true to that dub/reggae ethos, the New Zealanders have managed to suppress any urges to branch out with phoned-in collaborations with guest vocalists (although Food-era Kelis would certainly fit the bill) or mess around too much with the agreed formula. Beginning with ‘Wairunga Blues’, a swinging opener that does enough to pique your interest through its slow-burning and alluring groove, it’s not until the following track ‘Slings and Arrows’ that the album really bursts into life: a quickfire drum fill gives way to an uplifting horn section that’ll no doubt whip audiences worldwide into a mass skank-off.

The techno style of ‘Razor’ is probably the biggest change of pace on the record in terms of the band’s sound – presenting the listener with an unrelenting and rather intimidating beat that insists and insists throughout its eight-minute duration, it’s the mark of producer John Faiumu daring to push the band’s sound to unfamiliar territories. And, as such, it’s a little discomforting – following track ‘Makkan’s chilled, shuffling style is a welcome antidote to the strange and unusual trip that the previous song takes you on; a sensation that’s returned to when the similarly techno-focused ‘Cortina Motors’ kicks into life towards the end of the album.

The centrepiece of this intriguing record, however, is ‘Fish in the Sea’. The second longest track here, Joe Dukie’s Dr. Seuss-leaning lyrics about life’s struggles (“my wife needs a wish from the magic fish”) are enough of a draw to permit his band’s instrumentation to gradually build unnoticed around it, and, whilst it doesn’t explode into any kind of epic crescendo, it’s still the most delightful, smile-inducing moment on the record. You get the feeling that, when performed live, this and many of the songs on Bays could go anywhere – they all serve as a blueprint for the live arena, where FFD really do excel in letting their songs come into their own.

By Sam Moore