Stats me timbers.

So I've gone over the year's stats, and it might be of some interest as to what the most viewed articles were...

1. Charlie Barnes' album launch

2. Fears album review

3. The Pineapple Thief album review

4. RIBS interview

5. 2000 Trees Day Two

6=. RIBS British Brains review / My In The City preview / Best of 2010 List

I love Google Analytics.

I also want to say a big THANK YOU to the 20% of views that come from (what I presume are) regular readers, and really anyone that reads this shit. That an average of twenty people would take a couple of minutes out of their day to read this fiasco warms my bitter fucking heart.

It's nearly 2011! PARTY ON!

Obligatory best of 2010 list.

Ok, I know everybody does one of these, but on this occasion I am going to bow to peer pressure and just go with the flow. If you can't, just can't, be doing with the sheer tedium of another self-important, opinionated list, then kindly fuck off. For that matter, what were you even doing here in the first place? Anyway....

THE LIST

1. Geekk – Charlie Barnes

Let's be honest. This was his first time out to bat, and he came out with this fucking album. Jesus, if I didn't give first place to a twenty-one year old writing and recording a prog-pop album with string arrangements, I'd be told by my boss to hand in my pen and gun next time I'm down the station. 

Reading that back almost suggests that its very existence merits it first place; while there's a little truth in that, don't mistake my full meaning for a second- this is a great album, full of songs in varied in mood, style and tempo as can be whilst maintaining the overall consistency that is appropriate for the album format. That's the kicker, of course: this isn't just a great collection of songs, but a great album, and Charlie has, in a perverse way, shown just how intelligent and forward-thinking his music is by working within this supposedly 'outdated' framework and still coming up with something this arresting and innovative.

2. Grappling Hooks- North Atlantic Oscillation

In terms of sheer originality, there is only one contender for the crown: NAO. They are so damn quirky and original, it still shocks me that Kscope had the balls to sign them and put out the album; not only that, but getting Zane Lowe's Radio 1 Record of the Week award fucking blows my mind. Still only a critic's favourite, that's likely to change with album two, which I am ably informed will be released on Kscope next year. Their catchy electronic hooks, which initially belie a much deeper, more progressive- or post- rock feel to the arrangements, draw the listener in, and the substance and quality of the music keeps them engaged. Just a fantastic band in every important way, and one that repays every bit of effort you put into exploring their musical world.

3. Disconnect from Desire – School of Seven Bells

Look, everybody knows School of Seven Bells are phenomenal, but this record confirmed it; a difficult second, that while lacking some of the gleeful experimentalism of Alpinisms (in lieu of greater structure and more traditional songwriting), was still a great record in its own right, and one that can leave us optimistic about album three. Oh, and the artwork was pretty damn cool, too. 

4. Fever - Sleepy Sun 

This record is very fucking simple. It's desert-blues, pure psych freakout nonsense; it's easy to listen to over and over, and the riffs are just as fresh the hundredth time as the first. It makes the list on the basis of a single word: quality. This is a record that oozes quality- couple that with a earnestness about the music (if not the lyrics, which are basically nonsense, as far as I can tell), and it's somehow far superior to the sum of its parts.

5. All Creatures Will Make Merry – Meursault

I was a late convert to the Meursault bandwagon, joining shortly before this record came out. It has so many different aspects to it that the mind boggles; from industrial to shoegaze, via lo-fi folk, and all the more incredible for being recorded in Mr. Toad's living room (look this up and it'll make sense, I promise). I had the good luck of catching them live at Glastonbury festival- where they played a storming set- as well as in Manchester, and the sheer intensity of their live show is such that it actually reflects back on the record on subsequent listens. Whatever genre these guys actually belong in, they should be hailed as Kings.

6. Someone Here is Missing – The Pineapple Thief

As good (in fact better) than either of the last two Porcupine Tree records, the most recent Pineapple Thief LP is everything that is great about modern progressive; splashes of electronics, distortion and delay combined with a deft grasp of songwriting that even allows for all the instruments to be cast aside in favour of sparse acoustic versions. 

In the songs you'll hear echoes of early Cooper Temple Clause, Radiohead, Vex Red, Origin of Symmetry-era Muse, even hints of Mogwai. In particular, if you can get the Extended edition, the album being bookended by the acoustic version of opener 'Nothing at Best' is a delightful contrivance. Overall, it's an album as marked by its technical distinction as its songwriting pedigree; in terms of sheer originality they get beaten, sure, but in terms of the enjoyability or accessibility of this record, they are hard to beat, and I'd not be too surprised if this were my 'most played' album of 2010. 

7. Self-Preserved While the Bodies Float Up - Oceansize

It's very hard for me to be objective about a 'size record, but from initially really disliking this album, I've come around to thinking that maybe it's their best since their masterwork, Everyone Into Position. 'It's My Tail And I'll Chase It If I Want To' is not only the best cut on the record, but may well be my favourite thing they've ever done- it's just fucking mad. 

Back to the record though; I hate using the word 'mature', so, er, it makes them sound old. In a good way. I'm sadly beginning to think that maybe this band will end up never getting the recognition they truly 'deserve', but with Biffy Clyro now fucking massive, and the second generation of bands like In Casino Out drawing influence from them and now starting their own careers, maybe this will change. I sincerely hope it does. 

8. Growing Pains – Dinosaur Pile-Up 

GRUNGEGRUNGEGRUNGEGRRRRRRILOVEGRUNGE. 

Seriously though, the first indication that grunge is coming back, and damn am I ready, especially if it all sounds as good as this. What music writer, musician, or general layabout can't sympathise with lines like "my rock n' roll's been causing all sorts of trouble/bless my poor mother, she always knew something was going on/with her son..."? 

9. The Octopus - Amplifier

This is only so low because the general release is next year (January), but I got mine now, so I slotted it in even though I've not fully marshalled my thoughts enough for a review yet. Its inclusion in this list should convince you of its quality, though. 
 

10. 3am, the Beautiful, the Bittersweet - Fears

This is tacked on the end because I only just realised it came out this year. I've actually had some of the songs for nearly four years, so it almost skipped my mind. It's essentially a download compilation of Terry Abbott's work as Fears, and if I actually counted it as a full album, it'd be at Number One, simple. If you want to know what all the fuss is about, check out my review in the archives, or find a copy of the album and have a listen for yourself. 

Honourable mentions:  

Pale Silver & Shiny Gold - Sad Day for Puppets

SDFP's second turns out to be just as good as their first- a storming grunge-shoegaze concoction whose best cut, 'Monster & the Beast' is up there with the best tracks released this year. Heartbreakingly good.

Small Craft on a Milk Sea – Brian Eno 

How the fuck does he still stay relevant? 'Paleosonic' and 'Two Forms of Anger' prove he's still got it; not only that, but he's got more left to say. 

British Brains (EP) - RIBS

Another first outing, Boston-based RIBS take that industrial-grunge template briefly championed by Vex and TCTC and shake it up with a bunch of stuff that's happened since, not to mention some shades of trip-hop. Were it not an EP, it'd be in the list above. 

Brothers - The Black Keys

Speaking of bands who've 'still got it', there's this. Not as lo-fi as their previous efforts, and perhaps a little less riff-heavy than Thickfreakness, but 'Ex-Girl' is undoubtedly one of my tracks of the year, and for the sheer pop joy of 'Tighten Up' they deserve a shout. 

Scratch My Back - Peter Gabriel

I know it's covers, but it's Peter fuckin' Gabriel, ok? Though there are admittedly a few weak patches (er, 'Street Spirit' what?), it deserves to be here for the covers of Magnetic Fields' 'The Book of Love' and Bowie's 'Heroes', which are so beautiful that they make me stop whatever I'm doing just to listen whenever I hear them. 

Well, that's it. Hope you enjoyed it! Check back in a few days for a review of the elusive Octopus (nearly a week in the making, seriously).

I know it's been a bit quiet lately, but that's mainly because I've been busy with Fresher's (Welcome?) Week up here in Manchester and a load of dissertation crap that means I actually get to have an honours degree when I graduate. 

I have, however, had the time to do interviews with Exit Calm (online on HV now) and Dinosaur Pile-Up (erm, maybe in the next couple of days), and am probably (fingers crossed) going to be interviewing The Pineapple Thief and Dutch Uncles shortly. 

Anyway, there we are, excuses made. I thought I'd post an article I never quite finished (mainly due to Student Direct's Travel section biting the dust). Yes, I know it's hackish, but that was kind of the point. Why bother writing unless you make it fun?

Morocco for £300, or, how I learned to stop worrying and love bread and water.

Call me Ishmael. Some weeks ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me in England, I thought I would travel about a little and see the North African part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get backpacking as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the road. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the journey as me.
    There you are, proof that I’m not the only one who gets restless when he’s at a loose end. To quote Steve Coogan in 24 Hour Party People, “if you get it, great, if you don’t… then you should probably read more.” Anyway, what follows is the tale of what happens when you have no money, two weeks with nothing to do, a 1999 Sony CD Walkman, a handful of prog-rock albums, and a propensity for getting food poisoning. Seeing as taking to a ship isn’t really the done or possible thing, I figured Morocco was as good as anywhere. The budget? A mere £300, including flights, and to ensure my fiscal accuracy, I determined that my accountant should accompany me.
    “Where’s our taxi, man?” my accountant asked, as we left the cool mountain stream of the airport for the dead heat of the Marrakech evening. Turned out, of course, that we’d walked straight past the small man with mis-spelled ‘Riad Douzi’ on it, but man found, we headed off into the city, with me attempting to re-learn my long dormant French. “Why are there no seatbelts?” asked my accountant, looking around worriedly at the disorder of traffic in the early evening rush-hour. I translated. The answer came: “so you can fit seven passengers in”. Right. Good thing the speed limit was only sixty-kph-or-so, I thought. Entering the Medina, the roads quickly became all-but impassible to traffic, with several seemingly impossible moments where two cars had to pass resolved by shutting up roadside shops and stalls and moving everybody out of the way. Before too long, we were dumped outside our hostel. We tipped, but evidently not enough; for the first time we encountered a facial gesture that was to become well known to us- “you fucking cheapskates”. Oh well. We were shown around and given tea by a guy called Abdul (more on him later), and set off to find some food.
    We had barely gone twelve paces down the road before my accountant was set upon by hawkers. “English, yes? You want to buy hashish?” Without blinking came the reply, accompanied by a famous gesture- “These aren’t the tourists you’re looking for.” Fighting the confused faces, he continued, “You don’t want to sell me hashish.” As we walked on, he paused a moment, turned, and added thoughtfully, “haram.” Clearly the previous week spent with his nose in an Arabic phrasebook had paid off, for that last comment elicited a “fuck you!”
    Fun fact: in Moroccan Arabic, ‘tramp’ and ‘student’ are almost perfectly assonant. I’d heard a lot of stories before we came about beggars everywhere and aggressive hawkers, but while the hawkers were still there, I found it difficult to spot beggars or homeless anywhere we went- I can only assume that the Moroccan tourist board has been cleaning up or something, because there’s no way during a global recession that Marrakech, dependent on the tourist economy, has less tramps than Manchester. Our friend Abdul suggested that cheap Ryanair flights (a recent development) have extended the length of the tourist season in the country, but I’m not so sure.
    Having done a quick turn around the markets, or souqs (I say quick, but I mean getting repeatedly lost while walking around for a day and a half), we decided to head out desert-wards, catching a bus to Ouarzazate, centre of Morocco’s booming film industry. On our way to the bus station, we picked up some street food, tried to avoid a hawker by speaking German (he switched instantly to flawless, idiomatic German, to which we shrugged and walked off while he chased us), and saw a teenager in a Ché Guevara t-shirt (further evidence of western cultural hegemony). The bus was delayed for an hour while a blazing row was conducted in Arabic, ostensibly about seating arrangements, but also (we think) about smoking on the coach.
   

There was going to be more- jokes about B-Ark, a London rude boy with an Edinburgh accent, general tomfoolery, and of course three or four days of being on bread and water. We got fucked over by National Rail as soon as we got home, too, but that's hardly new is it?

Making a stand for Progressive Rock....

Right, so first off the bat I’m going to deal with one potential criticism that I clairvoyantly anticipate coming my way: yes, Rick Wakeman is a tool. I know it, you know it, and deep down, I’d like to think that he knows it. Obviously Steve Howe was a genius, and the rest of the members of Yes were incredibly talented; but let’s be honest, their best album was The Yes Album, and that was their last pre-Wakeman outing. Your honour, I rest my case.

With that out of the way, we can move on to business. At the root of the problem as I see it is basically dogma surrounding the term ‘progressive’, as in ‘progressive rock’. At the time it was no slur- a by-word to describe those groups not moving within traditional pop structures, experimenting with textures, effects and time signatures, to me that’s the very essence of what is exciting about the creation of music. However, post-Wakeman, shall we say, people began drawing a line under the hallowed canon of mainstream-accepted Floyd, and discarding all that they saw as ‘pretentious’. It’s usually lazily attributed to the rise of Punk, but I’d say it’s more to do with the fact that the later crop of ‘progressive’ musicians were up their own arses. Phil Collins (and sorry to bang on about him, but seriously) Rick Wakeman epitomise this for me.

I’m prepared to let off Peter Gabriel purely because he was such a great musician, and because ‘Solsbury Hill’ is one of my all-time top records (as they say in High Fidelity)- but I strongly suspect that he, like my other super-leftfield prog hero Mike Oldfield, was, as I delicately put it earlier, up his own arse.

Prog never really recovered from this mainstream perception, at least for those under a certain age. It’s been a dirty word for many since the late 1970s. But ‘progressive’ rock did not die. It evolved. At the end of the 1980s, a young man was releasing bizarre, structureless psychedelic rock pieces on underground labels in the UK, supposedly by a mythical, lost ‘70s prog band. His name was Steven Wilson, and the band was called Porcupine Tree. The music, such as it was, largely consisted of home demos, but over the course of ten years he gradually accumulated musicians to make his ideas a reality. By the end of the decade, they released Signify, a turning point in their career. Progressive rock was back.

Except that it didn’t need to be revitalised by its parent scene anymore, for something rather more remarkable had happened. A cult British band, growing for sometime in stature on the basis of two well-laid out, accessible grunge records suddenly emerged from a lengthy recording process with a new record. The record was called Ok Computer, and it changed everything. Here was the record where every major trend in guitar music from post-rock to shoegaze to no-wave to prog to grunge to britpop met; sometimes it wasn’t coherent- not all of the tracks were universally adored by fans- but it represented the first mainstream success for a ‘progressive rock’ record for a young band in nearly twenty years.

As Dr. McCoy would no doubt have pointed out- “it’s Prog, Jim, but not as we know it!”- indeed so. Though Radiohead have always refuted links to prog rock, it is undeniably of the genre, at least in its purest, original meaning. The proof: is it progressive (i.e. does it intend to drive music to a new place)? Yes. Is it rock? Listen to ‘Paranoid Android’ and tell me it’s not.

After this, Radiohead lost their nerve in the face of success, and have moved on to create other, challenging sounds, but if anything are now more Krautrock than prog most of the time, but that’s ok, because Neu! and the others’ influence was soon to be felt elsewhere as well. 

At the turn of the 2000s, the modern progressive scene really re-emerged. The Pineapple Thief formed (though they would experience little success for many years); Oceansize began to write songs such as the first iteration of ‘Heaven Alive’ (that would end up on their sophomore Everyone Into Position, five years later); Amplifier were taking last-album Soundgarden and marrying it to space rock, all within a Rush-esque power trio. Elsewhere, Devon lads Muse had finally put out their debut, Showbiz, an album heavily indebted to Rage Against the Machine and Radiohead’s The Bends, but which showed an inkling of the genius which was to come on its successor. In Aldershot in the South, The Cooper Temple Clause and Vex Red were marrying the industrial approach of Nine Inch Nails and electronica of Squarepusher and Massive Attack with Nirvana and post-grunge bands such as Silverchair. Let’s not forget that across the pond, Tool were about to celebrate their tenth anniversary, and the krautrock-inspired garage prog monster that was The Secret Machines emerged on the New York scene. 

This new breed of ‘progressive rock’ bands were now truly progressive in the way the genre was always supposed to be- loosely connected by various threads of experimentalism, but united more by attitude than by sound. Scenes are bullshit, but attitude is genuine, and it is just this that these bands had in common. A desire to push the boundaries, to excite with the sounds, structures and effects they were using made all of these bands some of the most exciting things to happen to music in a long time. The sad thing is, that whenever these bands (most of whom deny the association) are mentioned in the same breath as ‘progressive’, it brings with it negativity, when surely the greatest accolade of all for the artist is that he attempts to be original?

Final thought: whilst I’m aware that Picasso said that “if you imitate nothing, you create nothing”, and that it’s basically impossible to be original, you can still try your best to take of your surroundings and make something more. That’s what unites these bands, and without them, my life would be a whole lot duller.

That’s why I say three cheers for progressive rock! Hip, hip, hoo- …oh. Just me then.

The Pineapple Thief

Someone Here is Missing

Kscope Records

Rating: 4.5/5

Having only recently discovered The Pineapple Thief through the (excellent) Kscope podcasts, I had no idea what to expect from their new LP. With only ‘Nothing at Best’, the opener, to go by, I was expecting an album of Vex Red electronica with touches of Porcupine Tree- progressive, shades of Radiohead or Muse and a few long instrumental sections.

Of course, it doesn’t sound like that. In fact, it kind of sounds like what I imagine Porcupine Tree would sound like if they’d started in 1999 instead of 1989 (or thereabouts)- and that isn’t just because Bruce Soord’s voice bears some resemblance to Steven Wilson’s. The reason Porcupine Tree have finally (rightly) taken the mantle of kings of modern progressive is because they spent ten years absorbing and synthesising contemporary music influences- the music of the 90s, in other words, with their original influences- psych and prog, presumably.

The Pineapple Thief sound like they’ve grown up with Pink Floyd and Nirvana rather than Pink Floyd and King Crimson- rather than sounding like they’ve absorbed from their surroundings, they sound like they were already kind of there, and have simply taken some time to hone their big ideas into the right package. Sure, there are some octave chords and post-2000 Massive Attack moments; I would be surprised if one of them didn’t own a copy of Team Sleep, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that by being more urgent, aggressive, and perhaps a handful of years more contemporary, they sound like that most rare of musical entities- a young progressive rock band. More than that, they are really talented too. And accessible. Progressive? Accessible? “Surely not!” I hear you cry, but believe me, if you can’t get into Someone Here is Missing, you are never going to get leftfield guitar music.

So a quick look at the tracks then: ‘Nothing at Best’ is hands down the best song on display here. It’s so good I could talk about it all day, so go and find it and have a listen. ‘Wake Up the Dead’, from a ponderous bit of strange percussion and synth bass suddenly explodes into a maelstrom of ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ mid-career frantic Muse chord-work, while ‘Preparation for Meltdown’ effortlessly moves from post-rock breakdown to Vex industrial grunge crescendo and back again, before closing with a Now Here is Nowhere-era TSM outro. After the intensity of the opening four tracks, the acoustic ballad ‘Barely Breathing’ seems ill-placed, but soon TPT are playing to their strengths again with ‘Show a Little Love’, ‘Someone Here is Missing’, and ‘3000 Days’, the second best cut on the album. Oddly enough, the ‘chorus’ (I suppose) figure reminds me of a similar repeated section in label-mates North Atlantic Oscillation’s ‘Alexanderplatz’. Who cares. It’s bloody cool, and the swooping descent is a rush not unlike the timeless chorus of the Pumpkins’ ‘Tonight, Tonight’; breathlessly exciting and cinematically epic.

The album closes on an acoustic reworking of ‘Nothing at Best’. When I first saw this, I couldn’t believe it- album consistency gone! Why didn’t they end it on obligatory 9-minute workout ‘So We Row’? Why did I buy the Limited Edition? (Etc.) When I actually got around to it however, I discovered a tasteful version of the track that works to bookend the album much in the same way as ‘Emergency Contraception Blues’ and acoustic version ‘The Giantess’ do on the first Bombay Bicycle Club album. Fantastic.

At its best, this is music to fall in love to; dramatic, evocative and emotive. At its worst (very occasionally, I might add), it’s plodding and repetitive, blighted by trappings of modern prog; lacking clear melody and either verging on metal or sub-Sonic Youth atonal musings. Between the two extremes, it’s still an album to fall in love with.