New single's: Grum's Sound Reaction, Gliss' Morning Light and Gold Panda

GRUM - SOUND REACTION
With support from Pete Tong and the ever obnoxious ego of Zane Lowe, a debut album and a gig at Fabric on the way, Grum appears to be on the verge of breaking into the club elite: "[...] only a route that artists such as Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy are familiar with". Coming across as desperate for popularity, I've not read a more naff and needlessly hyped promotion than the one accompanying Sound Reaction.

The record gives the public what they want: An 'infectious' funk bass riff, pulsing volume and evolving beats. Like a coiled spring, the tension before the drop is expertly handled, even though the repeated vocal sample is totally meaningless. Included are two bonus remixes which show it's versatility and transport the track into different atmospheres.

The earnesty behind the promotion is unnecessary and clouds the main concern: Is it good to dance to? Sound Reaction, released in time for summer, has all the right euro disco ingredients to delight all you happy ravers. For me, however, it's just another disposable commodity - played once and then thrown out.



GLISS - MORNING LIGHT
My first listen of Morning Light was complimented by the tap tap of warm rain, resulting in a sort of druggy afternoon poetry. This paradox gained them an early advantage.

Yet another shoegaze band, Gliss take the genre back to its early post punk days: the beautiful noise of Jesus and the Mary Chain. Remember that simple, echoing beat at the beginning of Just like Honey? Well, it starts off Morning Light too. Original? Perhaps not, but what is these days?

If the dream pop of Asobi Seksu or the Raveonettes makes you wet, then Gliss is a necessity. There are few records that convey burning sadness as well as this one - it's almost heartbreaking. The fuzz of their stormy distortion mirrors a purifying explosion of water. At just three minutes and a half, it's over too soon.



GOLD PANDA - GOLD PANDA
The Electronic music culture has ever been made up of the hobbyist and the obsessive hoarder. As a collector turned creator, Gold Panda's triple track release is a product of the extreme archiving provided by the Internet. For some artists, the overwhelming variety is a heavy blow to their narcassism (boo hoo). For Gold Panda, it's an inspiration and a way into composition.

'Quitter's Raga', a triumphant opening of Hindi hip hop, makes full, if excessive use of the time stretch edit tool, one of Four Tet's trademarks. It's a glitchy, stuttering effect as well as beautifully imperfect. 'Fifth Ave' uses sparse sampling over a dirty viynl drone and is the serene call before the storm. Arguably, 'Police' could be a comment on the recent G20 violence. It's scuzzy, siren synths and sandpaper beats reveal a love for IDM acid and simulate a chaotic, seething riot.

More than anything else, Gold Panda's release has more in common with folktronica - The Books or Dosh - but all three tracks consistently avoid easy categorisation. The genre eugenics heard here might be strong evidence towards an era of Internet enlightenment, though I sense struggle at work. At the record's end, we are left alone, down the Internet rabbit hole, paranoid and displaced from human reality. There's trouble in paradise.

(© Copyright 2009 Brendan Morgan)

Stanley - (Truly) Nothing To Say

The Stanley Experience is a little like watching a romantic comedy. Everything aims to please and falls where you expect. Self released through Porcupine Records, their EP couldn't be more aptly named. How anyone missed the irony beggars belief.

Everything about this record groans with boredom. From the white walled, minimal decor of the room on the cover, to the empty subject matter, pace and tuneful placidity of all five songs. This is music by musicians who've given up taking risks and have settled into what they know and what feels safe - a creative suicide.

With melodic country/folk guitars, casual drumming and a light dusting of brass, Stanley's five-piece group have been ambitiously compared to Belle and Sebastian. Hazel's vocals are smooth and relaxed but are of an all too familiar style: Norah Jones, Macey Grey, Eva Cassidy, Katie Melua - the list can go on.

After the dull first two tracks, it picks up a little. Three Words has a smiling, wistful rolling rhythm, but this is about engaging as it gets and the last track, California Boy, concludes on cliche Americana.

More happens in Waiting For Godot. Nothing To Say leaves you feeling neither happy nor sad, nor any particular mood at all, just... nothing. It lulls the listener into a state of comatose, into apathy. Stanley are a painfully accessible, celebration of mediocrity and as the EP draws to a close you sense a desperate need to check your pulse. Maybe their next release will be Something To Say?

(© Copyright 2009 Brendan Morgan)

The Thing - Bag It!

For about a decade, Norway has been producing some seriously innovative instrumental Jazz and if this is news to you, then sweet Jesus where have you been? A Cave?

A few bands, like Jagga Jazzist, have relied on the wizards at Ninja Tune to assist them in their Scandinavian blend of Jazz electronics. The label has also culled The Cinematic Orchestra and Bonobo from Britain. All joyfully kick sand at the rules of traditional Jazz, throwing everything and anything into the mix.

I expected The Thing to follow suit seeing as they're from Norway. I was wrong. Approaching downright preposterous, they are on a different drug altogether and live up to what their name suggests - an indescribable creature if there ever was one.

Signed to Crazy Wisdom and produced by Steve Albini, their album, Bag It!, is an assertive fusion of Jazzpunk. It combines a hardcore, alternative ethic (the blurry photos on the sleeve recall the iconic grunge shots of Mudhoney) with a rhythmless, harmonic freedom. While covering other artists - Duke Ellington and 54 Nude Honeys for example - they also drop in two tracks of their own.

All of the searing instrumental work is attributed to the band themselves. Albini's industrial/distortion expertise gives a boost where it's needed but mainly serves as a frame for their art. The drummer, Paal Nilssen-Love, breaches the abstract with psychotic vigour. Mats Gustafsson, the saxophonist, imitates a punk singer by expelling a range of flesh ripping tones, expressions, whines and squeals.

The Thing are true free Jazz, so free that they've ran from structure and order, into the jungle and gone guerrilla. For some, they will be alienating and unbearable; for others, nihilistic improvisation at its most playful. Bag It! will divide opinion and no amount of blabber from the press will describe them accurately to you. Ingenious or daft, The Thing demand your own reaction.

(© Copyright 2009 Brendan Morgan)

Magic Wands - Magic, Love and Dreams

Apart from a few exceptions, I'm not an enthusiastic fan of club indie. So what is it about Magic Wands that is so alluring? Well, I'll tell you, because this is a review and I have to.

On my first listen, Magic Wands were teeth gratingly bad. Hell, even before that I took a look at the album title and recoiled and twitched. Magic, Love and Dreams sounds like a Californian self help programme or a cult on Valium. The corny Phil Collins disco drum pads and the hormone induced subject matter; everything about them seemed cheap, shallow and manufactured. But sometimes my guard against marketed music can be overzealous. It's only fair to give every band a chance and, lo' and behold, my opinion changed weeks later.

Described as 'slick and sexy' and 'dreamy pop', behind the glam and glitz are just two kids, Chris and Dexy, and their relationship founded on poetry, art and music - and (cough) myspace. This artistic/romantic bond is what gives their record its vitality and energy. They often sing in unison (used to effect on the track Starships), their image is handmade, moody and mysterious. Watch their music videos and you'll see what I mean.

The duo are at their best on tracks like Black Magic and Warrior. These catchy, swirling, upbeat electro-shakers are their two defining releases. In Kiss Me Dead, a guitar hook ignites a beautiful tragedy, but misses poignancy by inches, which is frustrating. Teenage Love is their worst. Stay away from it. This one attempts to be naughty and sensual - "Meet me down by the soda machine / show me now what our love means" - but fails miserably, like receiving a come on from a barely legal hooker. Thanks, but NO THANKS.

I think I like Magic Wands because, like most of my generation, I haven't really grown up. Their audience is one that refuses to charge forward into adulthood. I still like eating sweets, drinking coke and watching John Hughes films but what I've learned, in response to my insecure teenage years, is to glorify honest expression and to champion the freaky and weird. Spooky and minutely dangerous, Magic Wands set scenes of stone circles, candle light and kinky clubs. All your wiccan-geek friends may love it, but you might also be caught in its spell.

(© Copyright 2009 Brendan Morgan)