Song, by Toad

I think this week may be very tricky for me indeed in terms of gig attendance.  Clients here at Proper Job have just this very afternoon ‘re-strategised’ a pretty significant piece of work so I will probably spend the week working late into the night on what I am actually paid to do for a change, rather than just writing posts and editing video for the entertainment of you bastards.

Still, it’s been a hectic as all fuck August, and I am actually kind of glad it’s over.  Not because of Festival hatred or anything, just sheer tiredness.  And The Bowery is back with us as of next Monday as well, which is bloody brilliant news.

Monday 31st August2009: Jeffrey Lewis & Withered Hand at Cabaret Voltaire.

Anti-folk legends old and new at Cabaret Voltaire tonight.  These two have actually got really similar styles – bleakness and cynicism made brilliant by wit and warmth.

Jeffrey Lewis – Banned From the Roxy

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Tuesday *!*8th*!* September 2009: X Lion Tamer at Electric Circus.

Erm, sorry everyone, this is next Tuesday apparently.

X Lion Tamer – Life Support Machine

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Thursday 3rd September 2009: Aidan Moffat & the Best-Ofs & Rick Redbeard at The Bongo Club.

I’ve said this a dozen times before and I will say it again: Rick Redbeard is fucking brilliant.  Anyone who likes the kind of hushed Americana played by the likes of the Willard Grant Conspiracy, Smog or Bonnie Prince Billy really should go and see him play.  And that Moffat character’s rather decent too.

Rick Redbeard – Dreams of the Trees

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Saturday 5th September 2009: Scott Hutchison (Frightened Rabbit), Withered Hand & Danny from Chutes at Electric Circus.

I don’t know much about Chutes – they’ve been working on new recordings recently, apparently, so not playing live as much – but I know the other two pretty well in terms of their musical output and a quiet solo show from either Scott or Dan would be worth making the trip for.  Put the lot together and you have an absolutely brilliant lineup, if you ask me.

Frightened Rabbit – Poke (Live)

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After so loving Aidan Moffat’s superlative, jarring I Can Hear Your Heart, I was looking forward to this, but with a little trepidation.  It couldn’t be as good, could it?  And no, it couldn’t, unfortunately.

The problem really is the music.  The lyrics are as sharp and impactful as ever, although not quite so manically focussed on betrayal and misery this time around.  This is something of a mercy actually, as that did become a little bleak after a while.  Here the subject matter is almost inevitably a little more diverse, which is good, with songs like The Atheist’s Lament a particularly welcome topic for an incresingly hardened non-believer such as myself.

Others broach Moffat’s own domestic situation.  Where I Can Hear Your Heart was hidden behind layers of artifice, you get the impression that this album comes a lot more unfiltered.  This comes from the presence of songs like Lullaby For an Unborn Child, and the presumably rather wry Now I Know I’m Right, both much more early Tuesday evening kitchen-sinkers than grandiloquent proclamations.

For all these charms, however, this album does not, for me, really succeed as a record and it is down to the music.  I know that sounds facile, but Moffat’s poetic talents actually rescue a couple of songs from the slide into the ordinary, and that trick can’t be repeated ad infinitum.  Basically, a lot of the melodies lack invention and the actual musical framework lacks zip.  It’s actually kind of sluggish.

It would be entirely wrong to infer from this that this that I think this is a crap album, because it isn’t: there are some great moments.  Oh Men! is an obvious one, witty and boisterous, Unsent Letter, Unborn Child, Big Blonde – there are a few.  But ultimately, for all it may contain some superb ingredients, there is enough lacking from this particular record that I can’t really recommend it as much as I hoped I would be able to.

Aidan Moffat & the Best Ofs – Oh Men!

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Aidan Moffat & the Best Ofs – Ballad of the Unsent Letter

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Website | More mp3s | Buy from Amazon

This is a Muppet News Flash.  It isn’t, but there is certainly news afoot at the moment.  The larger labels appear to have woken from their brandy-induced Christmas comas and managed to poke their spotty interns into action once more.  And the result: we have inboxes with Important News once again.  In order, not of how famous the band is and therefore how how highly the news scores on the Official Indie-Kid Excitement Scale, but in order of just how excited I personally am about the release of each track I bring you:

Elvis Perkins in Dearland:

Elvis Perkins’ last album was blindingly brilliant.  Aching, sad, uplifting, and literate enough to be beautifully crafted, but never arch.  To say that I am looking forward to this release is an understatement.  Shampoo is brilliant, with enough stomping funeral blues and ghostly choirs of the underworld to give it massive presence, and fucking hell his voice is in g0od form.  I love this, and I can’t wait.  A couple more tracks can be streamed from his shiny new website.
Elvis Perkins in Dearland – Shampoo

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Neko Case:

Fox Confessor Brings the Flood was so beautiful that I hurriedly scampered through her back catalogue, only to be slightly disappointed.  It was a bit too Lady-country-lite in places, and I find myself slightly fearing that Fox Confessor was an aberration of brilliance, surrounded by a sea of above-average music.  Listening to this song doesn’t reassure me all that much, I have to confess, but I still have hope.
Neko Case – Maneater

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The Decemberists:

Their last album was hardly a classic, despite several great moments.  Something, somehow, didn’t quite click with it, and there were a couple of really duff songs; Summersong and The Perfect Crime were gratingly bad.  The Rake’s Song isn’t all that great, I have to say, and it sounds like it has been prematurely terminated to serve as a preview.  The song doesn’t feel over when it fades out.  But again, I have hope, albeit just a little less in this case.
The Decemberists – The Rake Song

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Aidan Moffat & the Best Ofs:

I think it’s safe to say that we can expect smart lyrics in this release, although what we can expect musically might be less predictable.  After last year’s filthsterpiece he seems to have returned to a more textbook songwriting format, and the instrumentation of this seems pretty straightforward as well.  Not sure what to expect – this is a pretty good song, and I would be very surprised if this wasn’t a really good, enjoyable album with plenty of wry internal laughs to be had.
Aidan Moffat & the Best Ofs – Big Blonde

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