No Happy Endings

OK, I’ll confess it up front. When it became clear that Lucas Renney was abandoning the sort of up tempo material that the Golden Virgins did so well, I was a little concerned. Not at the quality of the early demos but just at how this might translate over a full length LP.

I needn’t have worried – his songwriting is more than strong enough to cope without the need to resort to attention grabbing rock dynamics. I’ve looked everywhere on this record but I can’t find a weak song anywhere.

The pace only once rises above that of the ballad – on the penultimate track ‘Rising Soul’. It’s something of a surprise to suddenly be presented with an uptempo number so close to the end of the record yet it doesn’t feel out of place – it fits perfectly.

Otherwise the big strength of the songs are their gorgeous melodies. Whilst the arrangements can’t all be described as lush, there’s a distinctly late night feel to some of the material, there is nonetheless a luxurious feel to the songs. Yet despite the attractive arrangements, lyrically the songs deal with familiar Renney territory. They may all be songs about love but mainly these are songs of obsession, regret and maybe even death – rest assured there are no happy endings.

‘Strange Glory’ is nothing less than a triumph. In fact IMHO it deserves to be considered in the same breath as the best two LPs of the year  so far De Rosa’s ‘Prevention’ and the Lord Cut-glass LP. I would urge you to investigate!

Listen to tracks from ‘Strange Glory’ here. Buy the album here.

A (very quiet) live version of ‘Lord Knows I Do’:

Long Time Coming

Apologies for the lack of posts last week. I had planned on doing a number of things whilst I was away but although they were largely written I wasn’t able to upload them due to “internet connection” issues. So expect regular posts in the next few days!

One of the very first posts I wrote for the blog was about former Hüsker Dü drummer Grant Hart titled, unless I’m much mistaken, ‘Waiting For The Man’.

At that point, it had been more than 7 years since Grant had released an album . Well there was almost another three years of waiting to ednure before his new LP ‘Hot Wax’ was finally released a couple of weeks ago.

Despite the fact that I rate Grant as both a terrific songwriter and brilliant singer, my expectations of the record weren’t necessarily high. The first song from the record to see the light of day was a demo version of second track ‘Barbara’ which appeared a few years ago around the same time as Bob Mould’s dance influenced ‘Shine Your Light Love Hope’. The Sugarlist reaction was interesting – the Bob song was derided in comparison to Grant’s song. But my take was somewhat different. I thought ‘Barbara’ couldn’t surely be a serious Grant record.

Then four years later the preview clips from ‘Hot Wax’ weren’t that exciting either. Nonetheless a new Grant record is such a rare event, it had to be investigated. Well I’m not sure it merits the description classic, but ‘Hot Wax’ is better than I was expecting – much better. And it seems to improve with every listen.

‘Barbara’ is not the joke song I once feared. It’s certainly a song that broadens Grant’s range touching on the sort of whimsical psychedelia that Julian Cope once majored in. Another tracks that heads off in a new direction is ‘I knew All About You Since Then’ a slow burner with a faintly Gallic atmosphere. Both actually work really well.

Otherwise the new LP is fairly uptempo. Opening track ‘You’re The Reflection of the Moon on the Water’ actually nicks its principal riff from another late 70s Liverpool standard ‘Books’. However there’s no further extension of the Liverpool Explodes era – the rest of the LP sees Grant on familiar territory with an organ fairly prominent on a number of songs.

As I’ve said before Grant’s voice is fairly unique, truly one of rock’s wonders, so to be able to hear it over the course of a full LP is tremendous. But as ever with Grant’s records, ‘Hot Wax’ is a little frustrating.

Firstly it’s really short clocking in at under 35 minutes (unless you download the re-recorded version of Hüsker Dü’s ‘Wheels’ from Amazon). Secondly, and more importantly the production leaves something to be desired as it’s on the thin side, with one or two tracks little better than demos.

Nevertheless the fact that the record is here is something of a miracle. It might not quite touch his classic LPs ‘Intolerance’ and ‘Last Days of Pompeii’ but, even without the 10 year wait, it is a record that is a welcome addition to Grant’s catalogue.

A solo live performance of the aforementioned ‘Barbara’:

Panda Su Too

The final act confirmed for the MPT show on Sunday 29th November at the Westport Bar in Dundee will be the wonderful Panda Su. I’ve seen her perform twice this year in Dundee and Edinburgh and a fortnight ago she held the launch for her debut LP ‘Sticks and Bricks’.

The EP was somewhat delayed but was finally posted out last week. What’s surprised me about it is that live her sound is quite stripped back based principally on her voice and acoustic guitar. The record though is far more layered. There’s an electronica undertow to opener ‘Eric Is Dead’ with its samples, whilst ‘Pot Kettle Black’ features keyboards, bass and drums.

The songs are all familiar from the live shows (a good sign in itself) but one thing I hadn’t noticed was that the opening to ‘My Sorry Little Heart’ is very reminiscent of Kristin Hersh even if the chorus takes it off in another direction entirely.

As something of a novelty for this day and age, the EP has been released on that quaint format, the CD. I think it’s actually my first CD single of the year but the format allows Su to pull off that old CD trick – the hidden track. (How many times have you left a CD running to be scared witless when the hidden track finally kicks in) Anyhow after 6 minutes of silence a rather funky banjo led reprise of ‘Eric Is Dead’ finally starts and what it does is illustrate rather niftily the range of Su’s talent.

Highly recommended.

Here’s a live, make-up-less performance of ‘Eric Is Dead’ from Homegame this year which is akin to the ‘hidden track’ version on the EP.

Footnote

The full listing for the MPT show is:

Saint Jude’s Infirmary
Kid Canaveral
Panda Su
Hookers for Jesus

It’s fair to say I’d pay to see that show and I’m rather excited by it.

The 3 B’s – Iain Banks (Havoc Rocks)

Iain Banks has been on something of a roll as far as I’m concerned in recent years. It’s been a while since I didn’t enjoy one of his books and ‘Transition’ isn’t the book to break that run.

There’s been some debate as to why ‘Transition’ isn’t an Iain M Banks novel because it is unashamedly sci-fi, featuring as it does people able to travel between parallel worlds. In ‘Walking On Glass’ and ‘The Bridge’ it however has quite established precedents in the Iain Banks canon even if they are somewhat in the distant past.

At times ‘Transition’ reads like a Ken MacLeod novel not least because Banks has created a detailed world which would probably bear revisiting. But, although many of its concepts seem barely touched upon, the story itself feels properly resolved even if there is something of an open ending.

Told from multiple points of view (although not as many as may first appear), ‘Transition’ is one of those books that challenges you to keep up on its terms given that there is a minimum of exposition in each thread (not unlike some of the early Ken MacLeod books). But it is successful in that goal as each tale is involving making this something of a page turner.

Given its nature, I felt that I hadn’t necessarily picked up on everything first time round and so I quickly re-read it. Curiously, despite the fact that I knew who the patient turned out to be, reading the book for the second time gave me a totally misleading interpretation of who he might be.

I remember going to see Banksy at the Pittenweem Arts Festival a number of years ago and was astonished when a number of people turned away when they found he was reading from the then current Iain M Banks novel. I suspect that these narrow minded people will be disappointed by this book, but no-one else should be. Buy it here.

MPT Presents Again

Yes, the rumours are true. There will be another MPT presents show in Dundee on Sunday 29th November.

Confirmed to play so far are Saint Jude’s Infirmary, whose second LP ‘This Has Been The Death of Us’ is released tomorrow, Kid Canaveral who released new EP ‘Left and Right’ a couple of weeks ago and Dundee band Hookers for Jesus, who are so new they don’t even have a Myspace!

I’m glad to say this is not all my own work this time and that Andy from HFJ is bringing a lot of experience to the party.

We’re both really excited about the bill for the show and are hoping for a good turnout. At least we’ve got a few weeks longer to plan for it than I had last year.

The gig will be taking place upstairs in the Westport Bar (just down the road from last year’s show at Hustlers) and there will be more details to follow soon-ish.

See you there!

Statement of Intent

June was a busy month for quality LPs and it didn’t come as much of a surprise that there’s been something of a fallow period since.

October though is shaping up to surpass even June in terms of auntity and maybe even quality. This month sees new LPs released by Lucas Renney, The Twilight Sad, Grant Hart, Saint Jude’s Infirmary, Fuck Buttons, Strike The Colours, the Raveonettes and even (finally) Echo & The Bunnymen to name but a few whilst Zoey van Goey’s debut ‘The Cage Was Unlocked All Along’ gets a welcome re-release on Chemikal.

There have also been 2 notable EP releases, the launches for both I unfortunately missed. Kid Canaveral have followed the rather bizarre trend for cassette releases with their 5th single ‘Left and Right’ EP whilst Panda Su releases her debut EP ‘Sticks and Bricks’, pre-ordered copies of which have been dropping through letter boxes this week.

All of which, coupled with some free time during the school holidays, means that I have plenty to write about and, for once, the opportunity to  do so. So look forward to an upsurge in the number of posts (although I still need to  sort out my file storage issues).

And for something special, check back tomorrow.