Not Many Experts

You can almost judge the success of a new band by the diversity of their audience. Any new band, for example, with the mental dexterity to found a soundcloud and have found themselves upon the pages of a couple of blogs will be presented with miserable looking hipsters wearing their ‘vintage’ shirts which smell suspiciously of mouldy tents. It is clear, however, that alt-J have truly captured the minds of the nation’s music fans with their brilliantly eccentric debut album An Awesome Wave, and as a result the sold-out crush before them is made up of overexcited teenage fan girls, goths stuffed to the gills with hallucinogenics, and even respectable men with their polo shirts tucked into the M&S chinos that their wives bought them for Christmas.

Before alt-J appear, though, the already crowded room is treated to the emotionless live performance of Cave Painting. We have written some very enthusiastic things about Cave Painting before and we stick with everything we’ve said; musically they are very impressive, and there’s no denying the tender emotional bombardment that is “So Calm”. But they go about their business with a ruthless, machine-like precision that is one step away from arrogance, and a few past passionless. This detached atmosphere strips their undeniably accomplished music of any of its credibility, and songs that seemed full of warmth and character online now seem flat and vacuous. Things could be far more disastrous though; at least the songs they’re playing are decent and all we’ve described above could have just been an off night, but it simply felt like an aesthetically pleasing CD player would have done a far better job.

The contrast between them and alt-J could not be starker. Every note they squeeze from their instruments is dripping with sincerity, and they seem genuinely overwhelmed by the size and intensity of the crowd. Lead-singer Joe Newman even seems visibly nervous during the first couple of songs, letting his voice drop beneath his usually flawless falsetto. Charismatic actors they may not be, but that simply adds to their appeal as they embody an emotionally-involved humanity that the crowd had been previously starved of. Most importantly, alt-J just seem completely believable onstage, like actual real people, coming across like the nice blokes who might hold the door for you for an unreasonable amount of time in the university library.

Their job, though, is made fairly easy by the fact that they have the privilege of playing what is arguably the strongest debut album of this year. “Intro”, despite their tangible nerves, sounds bolder even more intricate than it did on record, whilst the well ordered insanity of“Breezeblocks” manages even to get all of the goths attempting something close to dancing. It is the perfect balance of theatrics and ear-splitting originality of “Fitzpleasure” that rightly draws the biggest reaction, though. It’s still the best thing that we’ve heard this year, sounding at once brutal, tender, and absolutely inspired. By this point one small sweaty black box in Bristol has lost it, and when “Taro” drops its Bollywood-inspired beats, even the chubby bloke infront of us manages to pull a girl with a suitably embarrassing Indian-inspired dance. We were always sure that their music had a transcendental quality, and now we have proof. She must have been out of her bloody mind.

alt-J have got everything that you could possibly want a band to have; not only the possibly year defining record, but a stage presence which, though not theatrical, exudes honesty and makes the whole thing seem so intensely believable. They may not have that obvious charisma of 10 Lemmys, but they’re not arrogant either, instead they just seem almost academic, with a real love of the music they’re playing, and a real appreciation of the enthusiasm of the audience. Our gigging companion was shaking and next to speechless as we left, and I’m pretty sure that the drugged-up goths hadn’t slipped him anything. Later he managed to squeeze out that it was “the best gig I’ve ever seen”, and as much as I was amused by his enthusiasm, it was hard to disagree.

Unfortunately this musical month was almost overshadowed by an unrelated event in which the often immoral British public expressed their extreme moral disgust at the actions of a few of their immoral members. Days were spent wondering whether it was more important that Rebekah Brooks looks like a media-mogul version of The Simpson’s Sideshow Bob or that she may have been editor of some newspaper at around the time that the whole voicemail listening thing happened. Just incase anyone was thinking of hacking it, you can listen to my voicemail anytime. It’s just my Mum asking where I am constantly.

Musicians were all engaged in the time consuming activities of the month; registering topical domain names such as hasrebekahbrooksbeensackedyet.com and hasthenewsoftheworldbeenshutdownyet.com, therefore they only managed to release 5 albums between them all last month, so they’re the only 5 that I’ve written about. And one of them’s not even out until September… I guess everyone really did get caught up in the whole sanctimonious criticism of the scandal thing. Hopefully we shall return to music next month, but until then, here’s 5 albums which are all quite brilliant in their different ways. Continuing the trend started last month, our non-existent Album Of The Month award goes to Washed Out and Youth Lagoon.

Each listen of “Within And Without” reassures me that music becomes ‘cool’ at least partly because it is amazing. The thing is, I could barrel out a rambling essay about how good “Within And Without” is, but ultimately I would just want it to look like this, and seeing as that already exists, well, there’s not a huge amount of need for it. All that is needed is for me to urge you, even if you won’t read that entire review, to at the very least listen to Washed Out’s gently propulsive, nostalgia drenched ‘Amor Fati’ below just so that you can be convinced that he’s brilliant and then buy the album. That’s almost 90% certain to happen, and in the 10% of cases where people don’t agree, he’s the coolest thing going so they’ll buy it/illegally download it anyway. Go for it.

Washed Out – Amor Fati by Not Many Experts

Youth Lagoon – The Year Of Hibernation

Not that it’s a particularly recognised category, but Youth Lagoon has easily become our favourite new artist to stumble out of nowhere in 2011. “The Year Of Hibernation” is the only reason why; its considered, hazy take on heart-wrenching anthems is emotionally intense in the way that Bon Iver achieved with his guttural debut. Buried beneath the layers of hipster-attracting lo-fi, though, is a set of mournfully constructed pop songs that are packed with hooks in their own distinctly melancholic way. He may not be the happiest of chaps but he’s completely enthralling, and its hard to want it any other way when his paranoia and disillusionment have created such a remarkable album.

 Youth Lagoon – Cannons by Not Many Experts

The Horrors – Skying

“Skying” has managed sell 13,924 records by sounding like Echo and the Bunnymen, a band popular with people around the age of 40. These people do not know that the internet exists and are therefore unable to illegally download music, thus resorting to the old fashioned purchasing. Also, it has received glowing reviews that are enough to make you think that Faris Badwan is, in fact, the Rupert Murdoch of alternative music journalism. This is related to the first point; established music journalists for newspapers have, generally, also notched up a few years, and are reassured that The Horrors sound like music that was cool when they were.

But there’s also the fact that “Skying” is breathtaking in many parts. At its best, moments like “Still Life” are wide-eyed euphoric, others like “Changing The Rain” steadily breath new life into trodden textures, and some others are slightly underwhelming, but let’s not concentrate on that too much. There are only 5 albums here so there’s not much room to be too critical. Honestly, it may not be the masterpiece that almost everybody is heralding, but its got a cracking cover and some perfect moments.

The Horrors / Still Life by sockformation

SBTRKT – SBTRKT

Today is a big day for Mr SBTRKT. And not because he is partaking in the Commons Committee’s grilling of News International bosses, although it would be perfect to see him interject half way through proceedings with the “All I see is you. Stars. Open-arms. Pharaohs. God. Kings and queens” refrain from ‘Pharaohs’ with his crotch waving infront of Murdoch’s head. It is quite unlikely, though. Instead, the Mercury Prize Longlist will be announced, and according to an extensive survey we commissioned earlier this week, approximately 95% of people are certain that SBTRKT will be on the list. This is mainly because his debut album, imaginatively titled ‘SBTRKT’ is unstoppably brilliant, crossing the post-dubstep zeitgeist with garage, soul, pop, and even something that’s strangely similar to disco; the album highlight ‘Pharaohs’. The thing is, even if the Mercuries don’t give him a mask-covered nod, ‘SBTRKT’ will still go down as the most interesting, addictive, and pioneering electronic album that 2011 has offered us.

SBTRKT – Something Goes Right (feat. Sampha) by Aeros

Benjamin Francis Leftwich – Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm

Undeniable evidence that Mr Leftwich is talented comes in the form of the fact that he’s Radio 2 endorsed whilst avoiding being the sort of inoffensive bollocks popular with my mum. Not that anything about “Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm” is particularly offensive; Benjamin is definitely a softly spoken type, but at least he isn’t deliberately trying to be uncontroversial. Instead, everything on “Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm” is racked with honesty; his melodies are more adorable than this guy but avoid being contrite courtesy of his breathy sigh of a voice. He might not be wanderingly inventive, but he’s got enough character to avoid being anybody else but himself.

Benjamin Francis Leftwich – Atlas Hands by Dirty Hit

Evidently, Radiohead’s reputation for industry-questioning release strategies (or lack there-of) precedes them, so upon the release of The King Of Limbs, rush releasing the album within 5 days of its announcement was just not enough. Perhaps making a mockery of the rigid structure of release dates currently employed in the industry, the decision has been made to, instead, release the album today digitally. Whether they are trying to make a point or not is purely obsessive speculation, but, whatever the motive… The end result is the same, and I’m not particularly close to complaining about getting a new Radiohead album a day early… Although if they could be slightly more thoughtful next time and consider my blood pressure, state of my arteries and general health, that would just complete the package.

As exciting as this prospect is, it’s also a slightly terrifying one, for having a predecessor with the stature of  In Rainbows doesn’t forgive you for your mistakes, but highlights and heightens them…  Despite the hysteria and hype surrounding another unconventional release, as soon as the downloading has been done and you realise that there’s another 80mb of Radiohead sat in your computer, the  unavoidable question starts to emerge; where, in Radiohead’s arguably unequalled hegemony of albums, does The King of Limbs sit?

The answer was never going to be clear or predictable – two qualities that Radiohead, and The King of Limbs, are mercifully free of. And it was never going to be conclusive either, or even an answerable or relevant question. But it’s just unavoidable. The fragmented drums and directionless wanderings of keyboard of album opener “Bloom” seem almost wilfully obtuse, whilst the rest of the album relaxes into more methodical songwriting, whilst still bearing the typical hallmarks of Yorke’s creativity.

Elsewhere, “Lotus Flower” was presented today as something of a lead-single of the album by the release of its slightly not-worth-watching (and definitely not worth repeating at 2am in any city of the world) video, a move explained by a rumbling bassline that will have anybody who thinks that they are very cutting edge describing as “post-dubstep”. We’re also especially pleased to announce that the very obsessed soul who identified the song that Thom Yorke played in Cambridge last year as “Give Up The Ghost” was, indeed, correct. What he didn’t know was that the whole thing would sound hundreds of times better with the warmth of Johnny Greenwood’s”Reckoner” reminiscent guitar. Preceded by the stunning “Codex”, though, it’s tough to appreciate. A paradox of a quietly throbbing synthetic beat, and simple stripped down piano chords backed by Yorke’s wail, it works unbelievably well. They may not have been the first to mix acoustic and electronic, but as always, when they’re not the pioneers themselves, they’ve surpassed all previous attempts. In fact, The King of Limbs could very well be seen as a reconciliation of the physical and electronic aspects of music, and as dubstep lurches and folk reclines at opposite ends of Radio 1’s A Playlist, this reminder that the two can be perfect bedfellows could be a perfectly timed example.

It’s clear that Radiohead have avoided trotting out 8 “Radiohead-ish” tracks on The King of Limbs and simply cashing in on an eccentric release strategy that has the world’s media in rapt attention, and for that we can only do them the decency of appreciating the album as its own. Endless comparisons with In Rainbows will abound but are nothing but futile analysis – In Rainbows is its own great album, and The King of Limbs is a fascinating piece of music, but ‘great’? Investing time is the only way to tell, and the least we can do is hold off complete judgement until minutes and hours have revealed what the album has to offer, regardless of the instantaneous nature of 2011’s music journalism. All we can say for sure is that “Lotus Flower”’s video definitely proves that Thom Yorke has still not discovered 2011’s equivalent of the Macarena. The search continues.

Radiohead – Little By Little by Not Many Experts