First impressions #4: Asher Roth

 

Asher Roth

Imagine the complete opposite of a stereotypical rap star and you’ve got Asher Roth. He’s white, skinny, middle class, suburban and college-educated (hmm, why does that description sound familiar?). He’s not yet released a physical record but he’s taking over America, if you believe the hype.

 

His backstory already sounds familiar, having been signed after posting his songs on Myspace and gathering further internet buzz when he released the download-only album The Greenhouse Effect in June last year. It was the first record on Drama and Cannon’s influential Gangsta Grillz series by a white rapper. Apparently.

 

 

I was excited by my first encounter with Roth, watching his spoken-word recitation on prejudice and hostility (above). It was a rare find for me: a hip-hop artist who was not only intelligent and articulate but someone who wrote lyrics I could really understand and maybe even relate to.

 

My hopes came crashing down, however, when I listened to his debut single ‘I Love College’. It’s a banal and uninspired ode to getting wasted. I’m not saying that’s not a worthwhile pursuit but there have to be better ways of expressing yourself than: “Man I love college/I love drinking/I love women/Man I love college.”

 

In the song’s video, he struts around a frat house with all the awkwardness that goes with a white man’s cliched attempts to copy hip hop posturing. He’s like a young, American Tim Westwood and certainly as cringeworthy.

 

 

Annoyingly though, the song’s been stuck in my head for the last four days. Its catchiness and the very lyrics I am railing against are what will probably make it a hit. The kids love a song about bad behaviour.

 

Despite my disappointment, I’m still keen on hearing more from Roth. It’s not that often you hear of someone in the certified hip-hop fraternity who’s got more in common with an indie kid. Even Roth himself maintains he’s not really a rapper. I wish he’d shave off that ridiculous bum fluff though.

First impressions #3: Antony and The Johnsons – The Crying Light

The Crying Light: a lesson in how to take guyliner too far

Who: Antony Hegarty, the British-born, New York-based transgender singer/songwriter and his band, The Johnsons.

What: The Crying Light – their third album and the follow up to 2005’s Mercury Prize-winning record I Am A Bird Now.

When: 19 Jan 2009

Critical reactions: Antony and The Johnsons have always been critical darlings and the new album has garnered lavish praise from most quarters. It’s even become Allmusic’s album pick for the band. But Rolling Stone gave the record 3/5, as did the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis who makes a valid point when he asks: “How many albums about anguish, death and body dysmorphia, sung in a tremulous, mournful, Nina Simone-inspired voice, does a person need?”

First impressions: Since entering semi-mainstream consciousness as a Mercury Prize-winner, Antony Hegarty has done disco and Dylan: the former by collaborating with pansexual New York dance group Hercules and Love Affair; the latter by contributing a sublimely tear-inducing cover of ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’ to the soundtrack of I’m Not There (the Bob Dylan quasi-biopic where six actors portrayed the legendary singer).

With The Crying Light, however, Antony and The Johnsons seem to have deviated little from the blueprint of their last album. Even the cover image bears a striking familiarity, a black and white photo that’s at once disturbing and strangely beautiful.

Inside, gentle piano and strings underpin melodies that ache with melancholy even when the lyrics take a more positive or at least ambiguous tone. The words still have the power to make you feel both captivated and uncomfortable at a simple turn of phrase. ‘Epilepsy is Dancing’ sends shivers down my spine just as ‘Cripple and the Starfish’ from the band’s first album did.

Dominating everything is Antony’s haunting voice and at times we are reminded of how devastatingly beautiful it can be, such as on the sparse ‘Dust and Water’, which sounds as if he stood alone in the desert at night to record it.

In interviews, I’ve always had the impression that Antony lives in something of a fantasy world, that he wants to be even stranger than he really is. His surprised reaction to winning the Mercury Prize over hotly-tipped young bands was something along the lines of “I’m old enough to be their grandmother.” Well, not really. You’re only 38.

Pretentious statements about his art probably seem perfectly sensible in his own head but down here they make him appear self-aware and without any real insight. It may be I’m drawing unfair conclusions based on quotes taken out of context, but where The Crying Light falls down is in a similar failure to go deeper. For all its moments of brilliance, it doesn’t achieve anything its predecessor didn’t and carries itself with less grace and fewer memorable songs.

Best tracks: Dust and Water, Another World

Catch Antony and the Johnsons on tour:

21/05 Brighton Dome Concert Hall (Brighton Festival) SOLD OUT

22/05 Birmingham Symphony Hall

24/05 Bristol Colston Hall

27/05 London Hammersmith Apollo

29/05 Gateshead The Sage

31/05 Dublin Vicar St SOLD OUT

01/06 Belfast Waterfront

04/06 Edinburgh Playhouse

03/07-04/07 Manchester Opera House (Manchester International Festival)

First impressions #2: Esser

A quiff and peanut butter: sure signs of the cutting edge

Continuing my exploration of the state of music in 2009, I thought I’d listen to some of the acts that have been touted as this year’s next big things.

First up is London-based Essex boy (Ben) Esser and band. This guy’s name has been floating around for ages but I’ve only just forced myself to listen to him. Formerly the drummer in now-defunct jerky pop group Ladyfuzz, he’s now writing and recording songs under his surname (worked for Morrissey I guess).

Esser might not be a newcomer to the UK music scene but there’s a sense of DIY bedroom production to his work. That’s not to say the tracks aren’t slick, just that you can imagine them being pieced together from numerous loops and samples on a laptop.

Electro-pop is thrown together with the odd bit of noisy guitar in the kind of gently funky combination that Radio 1 usually loves. Plus the lyrics have got that essentially English Saturday night simplicity to them: “I love you but I don’t know how to tell you,” Esser tells us on repeat on the conveniently titled ‘I Love You’.

Possibly his most inventive song, ‘Satisfy’ has something of The Specials’ ‘Ghost Town’ about it, which is surprising as it starts off with a piano stolen from a 1920s French café. But there’s just something a little too unremarkable about Esser to make him stick. The tunes just aren’t catchy enough; the beats are often a bit tame. And he forgets the golden rule of sampling: if you’re going to repeat yourself, say something that’s worth hearing again.

UPDATE: Second impressions, 19/03/09

I think I may have been unduly harsh on poor Esser. A day later I find there’s something inescapable about a song like ‘Headlock’, even if it’s not a pop masterpiece. Esser’s songs are inventive, playful and honest. And that is a great quiff.

To judge for yourself, listen online via myspace.com/esserhq or Youtube to:

Headlock

I Love You

Work It Out

Satisfied

If you like him, check out the album Braveface when it comes out on 4 May on Transgressive records.

He’s also live on tour next month:

16/04 Leeds Cockpit

17/04 Glasgow King Tuts

18/04 Middlesbrough Empire

19/04 York Duchess

21/04 Manchester Deaf Institute (oh the irony of having concerts here)

21/04 Wolverhampton Little Civic

23/04 Bristol Thekla

24/04 Southampton Joiners

25/04 Exeter Cavern

27/04 Brighton Komedia Basement

28/04 Colchester Arts Centre

29/04 Norwich Arts Centre

30/04 London ULU

First impressions #1: Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

It’s easy to get left behind when it comes to new music. In the last three months I’ve not bought or listened to a single new album and I feel almost completely detached from the world of pop.

So it’s time to play catchup. Over the next days and weeks I’ll be giving my first impressions of this year’s new releases and new artists, thanks to the wonders of Spotify. (If you don’t know what that is then you must be even more out of it than me. Check it out. Your life will change for the better.)

Merriweather Post Pavilion: trippiest cover ever

Who: Animal Collective: Baltimore-based group beloved by indie snobs. Only one of them is an animal – Panda Bear (aka Noah Lennox) – but their record label is called Paw Tracks.

What: Merriweather Post Pavilion: the band’s eighth album released since their formation in 2000. According to Panda Bear himself, it’s their best yet. Named after an outdoor concert venue in their home state of Maryland.

When: 6 Jan 2009 (this shows how out of the loop I am)

Critical reaction: Just one week into 2009 it looked like the critics had found their record of the year. With near universal acclaim (89%), Merriweather is the top ranking album on Metacritic so far this year. Pitchfork gave it 9.6 – their highest rating since Arcade Fire’s Funeral back in 2004.

First impressions: I’ve struggled with Animal Collective in the past. I often found their last two albums, Feels and Strawberry Jam, dense and unfriendly even if they were obviously brimming with neatly ordered ideas. Now I think I should have given them more time.

Merriweather Post Pavilion is not only the band’s most accessible album to date; it’s also the most joyful record you’re likely to hear this year, this decade, whatever. The songs here will make you tingle with delight and you’ll have to restrain yourself to stop from joining in with the pounding drums and chorus of “oooh” on the shimmering single ‘My Girls’.

The term ‘baroque pop’ gets thrown around a lot, but when the harpsichord-esque sound of ‘Daily Routine’ kicks in, you know this is a band that make their art out of the intricate. Their keyboard riffs could sometimes be taken from a rave track and their layered, echoing harmonies are pure Beach Boys. There’s even what sounds like a didgeridoo in there.

And yet the reason Merriweather breaks through where its predecessors have stalled is its simplicity. The arresting melodies are strong enough to be heightened, not hidden, by all those beautiful production tricks. I’ll always have time for something that creates this much bliss.

Best tracks: My Girls, Bluish

Animal Collective: they'll hypnotise you with just a wave of their hands

M83 @ Scala, London 22/10/08

Every band, especially when it comes to electronica, have to find their own balance between melody and mood, between traditional songcraft and the build-up of atmosphere. With their most recent album Saturdays=Youth, French group M83 managed to find the middle ground between these two ideals and create a record full of epic pop tunes and instant emotion. As the record’s title suggests, these songs are the sound of adolescence, full of loneliness, fear and excitement; and that’s not just because their heavy 80s influence means most of them could be taken straight from a Bratpack movie.

M83 – ‘Kim and Jessie’

Recreating rich sonic soundscapes in a live arena is never an easy task and tonight M83 don’t always replicate the all-encompassing sensation of their recorded output. They also suffer from the same problem as many of their electronic counterparts in that watching artists press buttons on laptops just isn’t that interesting to watch – it looks a bit like they’re checking their emails and if you wanted to see that you could just stay at work and stick your headphones on. But lead singer, songwriter and chief musical architect of the band, Anthony Gonzalez, still gives it all he has and at least ends up looking like he’s engaging in a particularly exciting online gaming tournament.

Having said that, the band still carry off an exhilarating and varied set, relying not just on the synth pop of their latest album but also throwing in the shoegaze, dance and ambience from their earlier records. Things even get a bit prog-rock at one point, helped in no small way by the enthusiasm of whoever’s running the Scala’s lighting rig this evening. The climax of the show comes with an outstanding encore Saturdays=Youth’s centrepiece, the instrumental ‘Couleurs’. I’m left invigorated and wishing they would play on just so I could continue to dance away the energy that M83 have so skilfully injected me with.

The Mountain Goats + The Young Republic @ ULU, London 16/09/08

After 17 years of performing, touring and recording, folk-rock band The Mountain Goats have made an admirable impression on the indie world even if mainstream success has eluded them. In fact, tonight was this reviewer’s first real exposure to the band – pretty shameful given their prolific output on 15 studio albums (and numerous EPs) to date, including this year’s Heretic Pride.

Openers The Young Republic from Nashville, Tennessee make a valiant attempt to warm up the crowd with their take on alternative Americana, but it’s one that drifts all too easily into classic rock territory. Influence from the likes of Dylan and Waits through to Bright Eyes is obvious, but lead singer Julian Saporiti looks suspiciously reminiscent of Jackson Browne thanks to his floppy hair and brown jerkin. As he pumps the air with his fist, something in his performance his he seems lacking in self-awareness and there’s no hint of irony in sight. Off key singing doesn’t help the cause either.

The word is that The Mountain Goats are apprehensive about touring the UK, fearful of a lukewarm reception. But the reaction from tonight’s packed-out crowd hopefully proves to them just how special they’re considered to be.

For the uninitiated (like myself), The Mountain Goats is the project of singer-songwriter John Darnielle, whose lo-fi guitar sounds and intense and witty lyrics have seen him take the band through numerous incarnations. Current members Peter Hughes and John Wurster make welcome contributions but it is, of course, on Darnielle that the focus lies. His nasal voice somehow veers between American and Irish sounds but always with a warmth and excitement that befits the utterly charming songs. And his ad-lib introductions (though probably rehearsed) are hilarious – who’d have thought you could be so funny about songs that include child abuse and alcoholism as their subjects?

Plenty of material from the band’s most recent and highly acclaimed album receives an airing, but it is ‘classic’ songs like ‘No Children’ and ‘This Year’ that get the most rapturous response. And you can’t miss the massive grin on the band’s faces as the crowd all chant “Hail Satan” during ‘The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton’. After tonight, let’s hope they’ll never be nervous about gracing these shores again.

Bloc Party in odd rush release

Tomorrow Bloc Party are set to release their third album Intimacy, taking the increasingly common step of rushing it out in order to avoid leakage onto peer-to-peer downloading networks. Except they’re not releasing it properly, they’re just making it available to download two months before the CD is available to buy. Two months!

For someone like myself who values the physical artefact of an album, this is a bit of a slap in the face. I enjoy savouring the unique moment of placing a new CD in the stereo and listening to those new notes for the very first time. Yes, you can preorder the physical release now while still getting the download for a total of £10 (its £5 and £8 for the download and CD separately), but why should fans be restricted in this way or forced to wait longer to receive their prized new record when they are the ones who are willing to pay for the album and probably who will value it the most?

Of course the music industry today is in turmoil and needs to find new ways to make money to combat the popularity of illegal downloading. But this strategy seems both foolhardy and disrespectful to fans. Making it available online so far in advance of the physical release will not stop it from appearing on peer-to-peer networks. CD buyers who make still make up the majority of the record-buying public are unlikely to be lured into legal downloads this way and so a huge part of the market will be cut out for rather a long period of time. Why not make the most of these fans’ enthusiasm by releasing the physical record sooner?

I have another issue with Bloc Party’s methods here. We have been promised that the CD will have different tracks to the initial internet release but it has not been specified what exactly these tracks will be. They could be bonus b-sides, live versions, additional new album tracks or something different altogether. If they are effectively bonus tracks then the marketing strategy seems confused – why snub CD buyers for now while simultaneously encouraging people to hold out for the physical release with the prospect of extra material?

If, on the other hand, these tracks are intended to form part of the actual album itself, then you have to wonder about the band’s respect for the album format. It seemed so strange, in the case of second long-player A Weekend in the City, that a group who had taken the time to craft a quasi-concept album would be happy to re-release it with an additional single jammed in the middle, throwing the integrity of the tracklisting and running order out the window. Now, their third album could be altered in a similar way.

Of course whether these tactics are down to the band themselves or their record company is unclear. But what seems apparent is that artists and industry types alike have yet to formulate a realistic and sensible strategy to combat internet piracy.

Intimacy is available to download and pre-order from Thursday 21 August from www.blocparty.com

From the mouths of babes

I don’t know why exactly, but the sound of children singing on pop records fills me with angsty dread. It’s not that I dislike kids in any way or have anything against young people raising their voices in song. It’s not some repressed childhood memory thing either – embarrassing revelation coming up – I actually rather enjoyed being part of the school choir; not that it did anything for my credibility or popularity at the time though, and we once absolutely butchered Bohemian Rhapsody.

I raise this issue now as Swedish singer Lykke Li releases another frustratingly catchy single ‘Breaking It Up’. On previous tracks ‘Little Bit’ and ‘I’m Good, I’m Gone,’ the potentially irritating bubblegum tunes were made irresistible by her enticing voice, sweet and innocent yet so sexual and aware that a few notes were enough to conjure the mental image of her legs wrapped firmly around you. But on ‘Breaking It Up’ all that is replaced with the incessant whining of (at least what sounds like) a gang of twelve-year-old girls. The fantasies vanish in seconds and my hand rushes for the stop button. Listener’s droop. When it comes to pop songs, there’s just something about the high-pitched unison of a children’s chorus that seems inherently out of place.

For the last 50 years, from rock’n’roll to hip-hop, pop music has been the cultural representation of teenage rebellion, of fighting against the system and breaking free from authority. Sex, drugs and occasional political diatribes were the themes and guitars and turntables were the means. Of course the reality of the music industry production line is most often a world away from this romanticised image; but in my mind, the sound of a harmonised troupe of young people, trained and disciplined by their elders, is the opposite of pop’s symbolic freedom.

I fear I’ll always have this immediate aversion to the sound of children on record. It was a stroke of genius to for Pink Floyd to invert the common connotations of the choir by getting a bunch of cockney schoolkids to coarsely holler “We don’t need no, educayshun!” Yet I still can’t help but cringe when their prepubescent voices emerge from my speakers. Maybe attending one too many recitals has forever burnt the associations of Andrew Lloyd Webber medleys into my brain.

Ironically, my own choir carried out a miniature rebellion by refusing to sing Another Brick in the Wall at the suggestion of one long-haired prog fan. Perhaps even then I knew that four part arrangements of unbroken voices just weren’t meant for rock and roll.

Top five songs to shudder to when the kids’ voices kick in:

Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) – Pink Floyd

Dirty Harry – Gorillaz

You Can’t Always Get What You Want – The Rolling Stones

Never Forget – Take That

The Lost Children – Michael Jackson This slightly obscure album track from 2001’s Invincible is especially unnerving because you don’t know how many of the kids on the record might have spent the night at Neverland.

No Age + HEALTH + Lovvers @ Scala, London 11/08/08

When you arrive at a gig and there are more men with beards than there are women of any kind, you expect to see chin stroking aplenty as skinny guys play intricate and intellectually challenging guitar parts. You don’t expect stage invasions and rousing raucous rock and roll. Yet that’s exactly what this triple lineup of noisemongers produce tonight.

Lovvers sound retro. Not retro like they’re just ripping off old songs. Retro like they are actually an early 1980s punk band. Like they were actually there. Like in a 1980s teen movie when the rebel character goes into a grotty little club to watch a band – Lovvers are that band. Like when you’re a teenager and you download a song because you heard it was an influence on Kurt Cobain, and you’re not sure you really ‘get’ it but you know it’s good – Lovvers wrote that song. Can a band so old fashioned really be relevant? When they sound this vital then the answer is “hell yes!”

Lovvers are what punk is supposed to be: heavy, hard and shouty but essentially three-minute pop songs with plenty of hooks. Singer (or perhaps vocalist is more appropriate) Shaun Hencher screams his way through a slowly awakening audience, but it is Henry Withers’ melodic guitar licks that really entice and keep you listening after your in initial excitement has abated.

A term like ‘experimental punk rock’ is confusing at best and mostly just an apparent contradiction. Wasn’t punk supposed to kill off all that weird proggy shit? HEALTH certainly exhibit plentry of fret wankery; in fact, when they stop thrashing about long enough for you to catch a glimpse of their faces, it looks as if they’re really having a wank – mouth open, eyes closed in a kind of tired, almost pained ecstasy orgasm face. It might occasionally verge on the ridiculous, but HEALTH take their music seriously.

The first few songs come across like derivative shite, but as more and more weird keyboard noises emerge, things become a lot more interesting, hypnotic even. As the long haired vocalist/pixie prances around the stage, limbs a-flailing, you realise those screams aren’t coming from his mouth. They’re coming from the effects pedal, as if somebody’s soul were trapped inside; like the sounds you’d expect to hear emanating from the Ghostbusters’ trap. Ghoulish.

It’s with the appearance of tonight’s headliners No Age that the crowd gets really excited. Their simple drum and guitar combination is about as far from the White Stripes as limitations allow. The seemingly poor quality sound only adds to the effect of a band so scuzzy they make the Jesus and Mary Chain sound like they’d been playing acoustic guitar all this time.

From about halfway through the set, the stage is near permanently invaded by a group of extremely earnest fans. Though No Age’s songs aren’t always the most memorable, as a live act, their combination of intelligence and vigour has the ability to release the inner mosher of even the nerdiest, most skinny-wristed, curly-haired, four-eyed, socially awkward young gentlemen. And really, that’s what rock and roll’s all about: making the uncool cool, or at least seem cool, or at least feel cool, at least forget that they’re uncool because for that brief moment, nothing but the music matters.

Field Day festival 09/08/08

Almost all new festivals seem to suffer an inescapable array of organisational pitfalls from sound system failure to toilet overcrowding. Just take ZOO8 and the Mighty Boosh Festival this year as dramatic examples. This leads me to believe that a) most people thing organising a festival is easy when, b) it is bloody difficult, nigh impossible.

East London’s newcomer to the ever-burgeoning festival season is Field Day and, by all accounts (that I’ve heard), its first outing last year was little short of a disaster. However, the organisers have bravely carried on, pulling themselves up by the laces of their plimsolls and attempting to learn the harsh lessons of their initial attempt. And while there seem to be some haters still out there, in my opinion it was a great success.

Field Day lived up to almost all its promises, providing an eclectic and interesting cross-genre lineup of artists in a fun and friendly atmosphere. And without too many perfectly coiffured trendy try-hards, drunken aviator-sporting landfill-indie louts or worn out fogies complaining it wasn’t as good as festivals used to be.

Yes, the weather was miserable. Yes, Mystery Jets and Dan Deacon pulled out. Yes the female festival-goers had to queue for yonks to use the portaloos, resulting in a line of squatters along the perimeter fence. But despite all of this, everyone I came across seemed to be in high spirits, in a “hardship brings us together” kind of way, and genuinely excited about the music.

Noah and the Whale kicked things off with a brightly coloured start (from their blue and yellow getup at least). Much-hyped “song of the summer” ‘Five Years Time’ goes down well but there’s a certain repetitive formula to each remaining song – start quiet and slow, build to energetic folk tune complete with fiddle and trumpet backing – that leaves the crowd wanting.

Howling Bells adequately release their brand of female-fronted grungey rock before giving way to a band whose performance both live and on record continues to astound me: Wild Beasts. Even in the setting of a dreary day with a limp crowd, they perform each song with the love and attention usually reserved for small children (who thankfully seem to be largely absent today – what on earth makes people think it’s a good idea to bring their toddlers to festivals?!).

Laura Marling seems to be plodding along in a pleasant and inoffensive way as I watch from behind the control tent but I don’t stay to hear the beautiful ‘Ghosts’ as I’m keen to hear the Mae Shi. Initial disappointment at what appears to be another dull band supposedly working under the banner of ‘experimental punk rock’ gives way to some actually pretty interesting sounds and some actually pretty fun songs that my little brain doesn’t quite know what to make of in the 15 minutes I see them perform for.

Choosing Jeffrey Lewis over Of Montreal, I head to the Homefires stage and peer over the umbrellas to watch Jeff and his female companion crank out some classic anti-folk. Much to my surprise and delight this included the epic and incredible ‘Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror’ with the scratchy violin replaced by battered acoustic guitar but losing none of the head-fuck of lyrical flood of consciousness. Plus to experience previously unfamiliar songs is a genuine treat from this master of storytelling and “Creeping brain, creeping brain” still rings round my head.

Paying £6 for uncooked pasta is enough to dampen things more than the rain ever could, especially when done to the sounds of Lightspeed Champion who receives an undeserved bump up to the main stage. Indeed Mystery Jets cancellation is my biggest disappointment of the day as “Two Doors Down” and “Young Love” would no doubt have blown the clouds away, such sunny pop songs as they are.

Another hard choice comes as Efterklang takes precedence over Les Savy Fav, but thankfully their creamy mix of Sufjan Stevens sounding baroque pop and Broken Social Scene collective zeal instils me with joy. However, the weather has finally broken me and with no great love of headliners Foals or Simian Mobile Disco I decide to retire to the warm and dry.

For all the complaints made since the day, I remain convinced that the weather was the biggest problem and that Field Day presented the left-field-loving public with a festival of impeccable taste. Where else could you find as great and varied a collection of artists for a mere £26.50 plus booking fee?