Album Review: Journey - Mario Basanov

Lithuania's Mario Basanov has released a number of spot on singles over the past couple of years and here he turns his hands to a full album for Needwant, Journey. It's that classic tricky territory - the house long-player, all 16-songs and 68-minutes worth.

His 'Lonely Days' track from last year regularly crops up when I'm picking favourite tracks for lazy sunny afternoons and so Journey has a lot of potential... Only it sadly never really manages to deliver.

Basanov takes the generous step of replacing the big singles 'We Are Child Of Love' and 'Lonely Days' with alternate, album versions. On a shorter album such as Merveille & Crosson's (who didn't take this step, presenting only 30% new material on their album) it might be a wise move. Here it feels stingy if anything - where are the big moments and why is the album being denied it's tent poles? 'We Are Child Of Love' loses its thundering bass and tech-heavy percussion, resulting in a more cautious, subtle take that lacks a little of the gravity of the original.

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Journey - Mario Basanov

In comparison to what he has done to 'Lonely Days' however, the version of 'We Are Child Of Love' seems pretty acceptable. Originally a beach-bound Balearic gem, here 'Lonely Days' closes out the album in the form of a slow, Prince-inspired ballad. As a b-side or a bonus track this might be fine but here, as the only version on the album, it feels like a con. It simply lacks all of the subtle disco of the original.

These changes do Basanov no favours as there aren't any natural replacements for these down-played high-points. Mario's willingness to drop the BPM and play things slow should be commended but it feels like at times he goes too far - the result plodding rather than laid back, and lacking the charm of his earlier, sunnier work. Guest spots are wheeled out to provide vocals but a lot of these feel like standard album-filling fodder, not providing extra dimension that a decent collaboration can.

There are a few moments that survive however. The gentle percussion of 'Slip Away' gives the track a delicate, emotional feel reminiscent of the use of steel drums on the latest xx album. 'High School' leaves out the guest vocals and instead delivers a tight piece of electronic funk, complete with thick, chunk bass, handclaps and vocal shouts.

Basanov is at his best when a bit more left-field, pushing into funky, relaxed  sunshine territory. Aside from the slightly jazzy 'Mes Souvenirs' and two frustratingly good interludes there just isn't enough of that here, and yet there is too much of everything else. There is talent in Journey, it's just buried beneath 45-minutes' worth of desire to create an album.

Journey is released through Needwant tomorrow, available to pre-order on MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link].

Album Review: Endangered Species - No Regular Play

Greg Paulus has a habit of turning up on some of my favourite tracks, frequently lending his trumpet work to give electronic music a element of sophistication. Here he teams up with Nick DeBruyn to release the duo's debut album as No Regular Play on Wolf + Lamb.

Paulus and DeBruyn met when they were just eight years old, gradually bonding over a a love of A Tribe Called Quest, Mile Davis and John Coltrane. Those influences may be writ-large across Endangered Species' length but this is still an album that is unmistakably their own. Paulus' trumpet frequently punctuates warm, electronic beats and there is a clear manifesto in support of all things funky here, with bouncy analogue bass a-plenty. It's a refreshing album from start to finish.

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Endangered Species - No Regular Play

Jumping off with the thick and luxurious 'Birdfeathers' Endangered Species makes a seductive entrance. Gentle piano, wandering trumpets and warm chords give things a sunny outlook. The album increases and decreases the pace as required and so the title track is a more taught, upbeat piece, snappy spoken vocals creating melding with a heavy, funky sound.

'Nameless' is infatuated, a laid-back vocal serenading whilst a tidy percussive backing cements a base for a layered chord sequence. It's an entrancing moment, warm and invigorating, and over all too briefly.

There are clear jazz, soul and funk influences throughout but these are usually blended together and combined with new styles, as on 'Keep It Right'. This plays a snappy, soulful trumpet line against a series of pads, eventually creating an enjoyable interplay between the brass and the bass.

Aside from warm, laid back electronic music some of my favourite sounds are soul and jazz. Endangered Species blends these together to make something convincing and joyful, providing Wolf + Lamb with their strongest album release yet.

Endangered Species is out now, available on CD and MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link].

Album Review: DRM - Merveille & Crosson

Merveille & Crosson's debut album follows their two earlier EPs (DRM Part 1 and DRM Part 2) and expands on the vision of those releases to create a full length piece. There are nine tracks in total here and all six tracks from the previous EPs return. They are good enough to justify a place in long-play format but it does knock the album in value for money stakes if you have both of those previous releases.

The eclectic freestyle approach of those EPs very much remains here but the album is held together as a whole, something I doubted would be possible based on my experience of DRM Part 2 earlier this year.

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DRM - Merveille & Crosson

DRM opens with 'Nymphean', a track of gentle, warm water-sounds and flickering echoes. It feels very different to anything on either of the previous EPs - soulful, considered and welcoming - and it is hard not to be left wanting more.

This experimental approach towards music for late night listening recurs throughout the album. 'Pending' makes even more sense situated here in the album's opening third than it did on DRM Pt 2. The gentle piano refrains and layered percussion both delicate and funky. Similarly 'At The Seams' provides a deep, jazz-influenced moment, Arthur Simonini's piano playing unravelling in a bed of ambient noise.

There are more upbeat moments too, though they never lose the desire to confound expectations. Much of the impact of Ricardo Villalobos (seemingly everyone's muse these days) can be felt here. The title track sounds like someone tidying a warehouse to dance music but whilst the found sounds can distract it is the texture and taught bass line that glues the track together. Similarly 'Orca', upbeat and driving, twinkles The electronics feel like they want to fold the listener up into a warm place, inspiring dancing shapes. Both tracks are destined for dance floors but fit in here

without detracting from the album's clear intelligence.

The relative paucity of new material is a poke in the eye to fans but the result is an album of strong, flowing, sophisticated electronic music.

DRM is released on Monday through Visionquest, available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD [affiliate link].

Album Review: Luxury Problems - Andy Stott

Andy Stott has done a lot of music making, only I haven't really been listening. Experimenting with house, techno and dubstep for almost ten years it was only last year, with his album Passed Me By, that I became familiar with him. And thus, I suppose, stopped letting him pass me by (sorry, I felt I had to otherwise the un-used pun would just hang there for the whole review... Maybe my whole life).

At that point Stott was on his way to critical acclaim having found his own space within the genres he had previously experimented with. Elements of dubstep and techno blended together to make the deep, thick treacle sound of dub techno. As is the vogue Stott went  s  l  o  w  and his music developed a sense of foreboding weight it previously lacked. "In snatches compelling but ultimately difficult to get a handle on" - that is how I would have described Passed Me By.

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Luxury Problems - Andy Stott

Seemingly unable to slow his rate of output to anywhere near the same level as his music Stott is already back with a follow up (though 2012 still sees half as many Andy Stott albums as 2011 had). On the magnificently titled Luxury Problems (it can be read at least three ways - impressive for two words) Stott collaborates with opera-trained vocalist Alison Skidmore and it is quickly apparent we have a very different sound again.

Skidmore's vocals are used like any other instrument on this record, clipped and looped and layered to create both melodies and rhythms. There is a clear line from the skittering beats and angelic vocals of Burial's Untrue to this record but it is also clear Stott is inspired by much more than one genre, let alone album - visit the dark, looping bass of the title track with it's sudden snatches of funk, for example.

Luxury Problems is a starkly cold album, marked by the vocalist's crystalline vocals. It's deep, dark and claustrophobic - head music for losing yourself to. But by working with Alison Skidmore, Stott has given his music a centre around which it spins - a point of reference and a point of relief. Passed Me By was an album to admire more than one to love, but here Stott grows and his music becomes more essential as a result.

It's this change that really makes Luxury Problems. The album ends on a Stott's version of a ballad - the vocals layered upon a slow, warm series of echo-heavy, deep bass notes. It isn't long, but it provides just the closure Luxury Problems needs and the sense of progression his other work lacked. As the key shifts down on 'Leaving' it sounds like a spinning top slowing, in danger of toppling...

Luxury Problems is out now, available on CD, LP and MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links].

Book Review: How Music Works - David Byrne

I've been a fan of music for almost as long as I can remember, whether it was the songs that first captured my attention on the radio (embarrassingly Status Quo's 'In The Army Now' is one of my earliest musical memories), Top Of The Pops (Kylie anyone?) or the music my father used to play in the car and seemingly impossibly late (to my young ears) at parties (Tears For Fears and the Thompson Twins). When I was about twelve I started buying my first music and within a year of so it quickly became the thing that defined a lot of what I was as a person: a rapid, insatiable appetite. It could explain what I felt inside. It was a badge to be worn metaphorically or sometimes literally, telling those around me what sort of person I was.

Of course music, and the way people consume it, is always changing. My own relationship has changed massively - through times of increased or lessened importance, at times I continue to be bowled over by how much music can affect me and at others I just want to pack it all away and embrace silence. The way we consume music now - with us at all times, on our phones and in our pockets, and with more songs at our fingertips than even imaginable 15 years ago: sometimes means we take it for granted. Maintaining a music blog can make this relationship even stranger - a little too often listening to a new album by an artist you think you genuinely appreciate feels a bit too much like "work". Listen, think, write, move on to the next...

I've read a number of books about music over the years. These tend to either focus on specific aspects, artists or genres or instead deal with broader phenomenon. Last year I commented on Simon Reynolds' Retromania, a book that intrigued, depressed and annoyed me in equal measures to the point where I felt a little bit like I may be going off long form writing about music, especially about popular music.

David Byrne's How Music Works isn't at all like any other book I've read about music and it feels like breathing fresh air. First I shall pause briefly on a little criticism, simply to get it out the way - much of what follows beyond that will be quite the opposite. Byrne is a natural raconteur. How Music Works is a beautifully presented work in hardback - a striking, cushioned cover, colour throughout, clean and well spaced type. It is a joy to read and, unlike the work of Reynolds for example, very easy to read. It is almost like an interesting rambling chat with the man himself.

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And here's the rub, my little nugget of criticism: music books often lack academic rigour and here Byrne sometimes pontificates and devises theories without much to back them up. Or he seems to simply cherry pick those he likes from others. That these ideas are often so interesting and feel (at least to me) intuitive makes it hard to begrudge Byrne's approach though. Save the academics for academies - I finished my schooling some ten years ago so I shall happily take a little pinch of salt with in exchange for interesting read.

Everything else about this book is a marvel. As I have already tried to evidence here (and across hundreds of pieces and almost eight years of maintaining this site), I have spent a lot of time thinking about, writing about and consuming music. I've spent more money than I care to think about on music and can't even begin to comprehend how much actual time I've spent listening to music (2 or so hours a day for almost 20 years?). Despite this the very first chapter (18 pages long) significantly changed the way I think about music.

There are a number of key themes here and the book can broadly be divided into three areas, though these aren't segregated and visited in turn so much as called upon as needed, as they would in a conversation. These themes are Byrne himself, history & theory and business.

Byrne is clear upfront that this book is not his autobiography. He spends a significant proportion of the novel discussing his musical life and career, though mainly with reference to how it affects the way he thinks about music (or vice versa) and never to detail anything personal that doesn't relate to that central theme. We hear about Talking Heads and CBGB's (a lot), working with Eno and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, X-press 2 and more. The autobiographical elements are interesting, but probably the least essential of the three.

The historical and theoretical elements deal with where music came from and what makes it sound like it does - there is biology and astronomy and a lot between the two. Crucially Byrne emphasises the importance of context to the sound of music (why does music made for churches drone, whilst African drumming is percussive?) and you could boil this down to Marshall McLuhan's observation - the medium is the message, though Byrne makes no specific mention of this connection to McLuhan's theory.

The final area, the business, is perhaps the most revelatory and is largely free of my earlier, mild criticism. Byrne describes the way business and technology have changed music and he is, refreshingly, positive about technology, be it MP3s or the impact on changing business models. Charts are detailed that explain the outgoings for one of his albums and our author is surprisingly candid about his business experiences within music. Crucially Byrne details six models (these are sort-of non-definitive templates) for the business of music. Frankly if you have ever thought about working in music this is totally essential reading - I discovered more here about the music business than I have in years of listening, blogging and (through an admittedly short stink in a record store) working in music.

How Music Works is almost always revelatory and Byrne is clearly intellectually sharp and a strong writer. In short, this is the best book about the subject of music I've ever read and I would recommend anyone seriously interested in music read it.

How Music Works is out now, publishers through Canongate. It is available in hardback or for the Kindle from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links].