The Scottish Enlightenment - Pascal EP

It’s only been a few months and already The Scottish Enlightenment have released another record. Each one is followed close behind by an assortment of nodding respect – the kind of respect reserved for established local legends, murmurs shared between people in the know. Once again, their new EP Pascal displays a further growth of their studious and noble soft Rock.

Since their amalgamation three years ago, the band has been repeatedly likened to Pavement and this connection has followed them around the blogsphere like a phantom limb, though not without an element of truth. Their simple mix and slacker guitar style are sometimes identical to the original American losers. However, David Moyes’ slurring baritone marks them out. His leadership and what the rest of the band can do with so little is impressive. In an interview he talks of their progression over the last three years: “the kind of enforced maturing that comes from coming home from a gig with your ears humming and finding your wife up with a screaming baby.” His song writing is just as real and down-to-earth – none of your contrived Rock n’ Roll lifestyles here. The focus is on their surroundings and on celebrating normal life which, as we all know, is complex stuff.

Pascal’s sombre tone doesn’t exactly fire poetry from my fingertips but no matter. The EP is best explained by its confessional and dreamy flow. The opening title track, with its warm guitars and intimate reverb, is the musical equivalent of a comforting hug. Next, ‘If You Would Just Try a Bit Harder’ drifts gently like a boat through sleepy seas and after the rippling piano of ‘Riverbed’ comes ‘All Homemade Things’, a touching number that showcases their tuneful guitar arrangements. Unfortunately, even with a rising guitar solo and an appearance of harp, ‘To The Dogs’ is a long, drawn out ending and I found myself cutting it short.

Scotland seems like one of the only places left that still puts faith in the good ol’ four-piece; a structure that will never die, so long as some hard work is gone into stretching its capabilities. Besides a maturity and authenticity, you can hear a wise resignation in The Scottish Enlightenment’s music. It feels good to know that even in our fast moving world, there’s a band out there that have settled down with a family and don’t care if they don’t keep up.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Mixtapes and Cellmates - Rox

Breaking free from the mellow Postal Service style of their 2007 debut, Rox is the Swedish band’s attempt to redefine themselves after a two year hiatus. It might seem at first that an increase of speed and volume is all they have to show for it but let’s not jump to conclusions. The record contains some of their best material to date.

Just as you’d find in the dream pop of The Daysleepers and Phoenix, there is an underlying teen thrill and sugar high to the sweet noise guitars, punchy drums and cymbal washes. Heavy tracks like ‘Soon’ and ‘Lies’ also reveal a smidgen of Alternative angst extracted from bands like Dinosaur JR and Ash.

Robert Svensson’s lead voice has the same choked up fragility as Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst) or Death Cab for Cutie (Ben Gibbard), through it wears thin after too long. Thankfully Mixtapes and Cellmates is a shared project between two vocal talents: Svensson and Matilda Berggren. Their contrasting tones add dimension and compliment each other, like Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth.

Occasionally, Rox’s raw expression can be misconstrued as horrible Emo. Once the bright and engaging opening of ‘Never’ is left behind and the album enters its bumpy second phase after ‘Sunday’, Rox is not without its sickly sentimentality. Only a serious wimp would open a song with the line “I’m still shaking from when you touched me” but this sensitive group of dreamers and die hard Romantics, wringing out their tiny little hearts over their songs should be allowed a few soul-bearing embarrassments. Hell, we let The Cure get away with it after all.

Shoegaze and the recent ‘nu-gaze’ revival contains within it the age old search for the sublime; that brief few seconds of melancholy we all get from being overwhelmed by existence. Among the genre there are perhaps more deserving torch bearers than Mixtapes and Cellmates but Rox is still an honest, Romantic album; of weakness in love, tortured partings and of repressed emotion finally breaking free. For the band, it is in one swift movement a severing of their past and a strong proclamation giving new life to their sound. The downside to Rox is its samey over-polished production, gasping pace and pop-piano embellishments – a hair’s width from Keane. So long as you know what to expect.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Shadows of the Colossus: A landmark in Art Gaming

It begins in an ageless, mythical time with our protagonist on horseback, carrying with him the body of his dead love. Presumably after a long journey, he arrives to an ancient land and proceeds across a mile-long bridge to a Babel-like temple lifting towards the heavens. He is here to restore her to life but to do this he must defeat sixteen huge and terrifying giants hidden across the land. Only then will she awaken.



The story is somewhat cryptic and the game, structured by a series of boss battles, is much harder to solve. There’s a lot to figure out as you play and even when you put the controller down for the last time some there are things left unexplained. It was designed and released in 2005 by Fumito Ueda and Kenji Kaido and despite being now five years old, the look of the game is one of the initial appealing aspects: the hazy colours, motion blurring as well as the frightening enormity of colossi themselves. Here, the PS2’s graphical power is used to perfection. The map is vast with plenty of space to explore and gladly loose yourself in. Some parts are bleached in bright sun, others drenched in fog and everywhere remnants of a lost civilisation dot the countryside. It’s a game that allows your imagination to wander as much as the hero and, as such, can be played again and again.

Ueda and Kaido’s first game Ico, released in 2001, set the tone for Shadow of the Collosus. The white robed girl you to take by the hand and lead through the game is very much like the bond that the nameless wanderer of Shadow has with his horse Agro. He is brought to life by superb animation and a sweet personality which entices you into treating him respectfully. The feel of riding him is very unique. He’s not just any mode of transport after all. Occasionally, he’ll nip off for a drink or wander about but whenever you whistle for him he’ll come galloping at full pace ready to help.

Aside from loneliness, a melancholy sense of helplessness and inevitability shrouds the game. After each colossus is grounded, falling sadly and slowly to earth, neon black-green tendrils leap out of its body slicing whip-crack through the air to strike our hero down. The first time this happens it’s a real shock. I mean, what game kills you off after completing an important task? And even versed in the knowledge of your reoccurring fate, knowing full well you cannot escape it; you still try, running with all your might and desperately shouting for Agro to come to your aid. So here we have a moral: Death is and always will be, no matter what. But our will to survive is inherent. Our hero’s lot of repeated self-sacrifice for love is what every epic quest is made of. Rarely does anything so hauntingly affecting and poignant appear in a videogame.

The trick is to make the player actually care what happens. It sounds simple but so many games lull you into a mindless pattern in their attempt to keep you focused on the cool graphics and on playing it for as long as possible. Generally, their characters are nothing more than pixel rendered representations of movie stereotypes and you’re not expected to feel any sympathy or association with them. In Shadow, the hero is human, a bit crap like all of us, an everyman. He has no ass kicking super powers, no sharp wit or masculine soaked style. All he has is a battered sword and bow, a faithful companion in his horse and tremendous courage for love’s sake. His tasks seem utterly impossible, so daunting you earnestly want him to succeed.

Another trick is to cut out needless chit chat and dialogue which serves no purpose other than to keep you abreast of the plot. Shadow ignores this giving you the credit of working out what’s going on for yourself. The sounds of nature are the dominant sounds: the lonely cries of the eagles flying over head, the worried panic of the horse when the dark figure of a colossus looms above, the sad song of the wind on the open plains. In fact the game is very pro nature, much like many Miyazaki films. It verges on pantheistic and suggests a link to Celtic mythology, particularly in the hero’s relationship with his horse. The godlike voice that introduces the tasks for our hero speaks in riddle translated from a strange concocted language. The musical score, which only appears in cut scenes and during battles, is beautifully well composed. After a little while, I found solace in putting it on mute and adopting my own soundtrack. Bands that already contain a visual landscape like Sigur Rós, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Explosions in the Sky accompany the game play perfectly. For me, Shadow was always a good way of getting into unusual music. All-nighters were made for this kind of thing.



In the end, once every giant is slain, the dark powers ever present throughout the game envelop him and turn him into a ghostly black monster which the player can control, smashing all around him. A tragic twist? Not exactly because he is altered again, into a horned baby (oh yes) and carried by his awakened love to the top of the gigantic temple, to an idyllic secret garden. It is then that you realise that this baby will grow to be the protagonist of Ico, and that Shadow of the Colossus is actually a prequel.

Frankly, it laughs in the face of anyone who doesn’t think videogames have any artistic value or merit. Compared to the latest contrived Hollywood blockbuster, tacky reality TV show, even smug and pretentious ‘art’ films and literary adaptations; in achievement and imagination, Shadows of the Colossus is a God damn masterpiece. I’m convinced that if game designers were to take its unusual experimentations further we could see a rise of far-out gaming. It proves that the medium has the ability and scope to tackle Big Themes, to become a serious art form with sublime and lasting experiences.

There has been speculation of an eventual film based on the game and it will be interesting to see where this could take its two creators. It will bring Shadow to a wider audience for sure but it has no hope in replicating the immersive feel of the game. The player’s involvement in the dramatic events, the memorable and wonderful escapism that Shadow of the Colossus grants – basically everything I’ve been talking about, is something that only videogames can give you. Please, please, please… I want all videogames to be this daring and this good.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Don't Tread on Spiders - Russian Doll

Indulgent and sarcastically bland in the way that made The Fall or The Ramones great, this is Don’t Tread on Spiders from Cardiff. Led by the strange, ambitious and ever cheerful Sonny Day, the band released Russian Doll, their second EP at the beginning of the year.

Undoubtedly, Bearded’s readers will be falling over themselves to learn that DTOS are NME’s “#1 Breaking Band”. In their zeal for DIY, the record is badly produced: a shapeless and hollow mix that places too much confidence in the wonders of Cubase. These days of course, skill rarely matters and DTOS are exactly the kind of band you’d write off as a disposable novelty act aimed at teenagers, only to whip round to bite you on the ass later on.

It’s the title track, the EP’s opening that steals the show: a simple riff driven piece of hypnotic weirdness and spooky Post Punk glam. The tacky feel – the same enjoyable gothic tackiness of Beetlejuice – is topped only by its hilarious home made music video. Maybe ‘Get Up and Go’ with its dragging rock n’ roll repetition and unnecessary flanger effects never quite got up and went because it was quickly swept aside by the tender grunge of ‘Wasted You’ and the bitter love ballad ‘Like a Cloud’.

So after gathering support and an award, what’s next? Well, few bands manage to keep a good balance between the music and the show but if DTOS manage to soften their love of statement and theatrics then the music will have space to grow, as was proven in the recent surprise success of The Horrors last year. Russian Doll contains themes and material that will work in their favour. Given time, the fore mentioned Tim Burton tack could become David Cronenberg blood and guts. And even if this is not their desired direction, an ability to laugh at themselves will protect them from an unforgiving Music Industry and the fad obsessed Guardians of Cool over at NME.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Scuba - Triangulation

Behind Scuba and Hot Flush Recordings is a man on a mission: Paul Rose. By chumming up with Mount Kimbie, Distance, Vex’d and other immanent electronic artists, his label is beginning to represent an off shoot of Dub Step, growing that little bit closer to the sun on every new release.

Drawing from his bedrock Dub Step origins, Rose unites warbling synths with a lush atmosphere as dense and as thick as acres of untouched rainforest. Triangulation is an extension of LTJ Bukem’s slowed down drum n’ bass spiked with the gut wrenching weirdness of iTAL tEK or Modeselektor; a kind of produced lounge Dub Step comparable to certain artists signed to Planet Mu and Ninja Tune.

With an impeccable sense of space and immersive calm, it retains the mix structure of Rose’s radio appearances: a slow, blended transition from one landscape to another simulating the out of body feeling of being in an isolation tank. The control is expertly handled, the use of sampled vocals simple but unusual. Thrown about by dub echo, they ricochet off tall buildings, past vast highways and dimly lit rain soaked streets. Eventually, once these images work into the background, the 90’s house influence I was so dubious about finding comes to light.

‘Before’ puts the fore mentioned vocal sampling to stunning effect and is easily the most memorable track on the record. Additionally, it’s worth checking out ‘Three Sided Shape’ and ‘So You Think You’re Special’, though I think you’ll want to listen and drop out to Triangulation in its entirety.

It all ends on ‘Lights Out’, an exhaled release of beautiful spirited vocals floating among the clouds would grace any early morning bong session. Scuba’s style might seem familiar to fans of IDM and modern techno but Triangulation’s tuneful facets advance his career and set him aside from the rest. The only criticism I can muster is about the creepy copyright tactics: a demonic overdubbed voice (probably Rose himself) reminds you on each track that this particular copy is a ‘promo copy’, and don’t you forget it. It’s a little unnecessary if not insulting. I mean, what else are we going to spend our dole on?

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Shabby Rogue - By Hook and By Crook

Being accommodating and hard working musicians, Shabby Rogue try and be all bands for everyone by lending their hand to a host of styles. Their second outing By Hook And By Crook spreads on a thicker layer of Romantic Folk cliché and ticks off every box on the rustic charm checklist: weathered wilds, Bohemian living, the wandering outsider and of course, hard liquor; which sounds good…

As track after track turns into tick after tock, Shabby Rogue become grey and inconsequential and the record, an impassionate assortment of oddity. The songs all reflect a hobo chic with foot stomping rhythms and classic 60’s guitar. During ‘Old Man’ the lead singer (they all share vocal spots) despairingly lurches into the bland heartache of American Rock and ‘Tales From the City’ is dangerously close to a ditched Kasabian number.

The record is not without a few left field moments: The unexpected shift in gear towards the end of ‘Jack in a Box’, the complex song-in-song structure of ‘Reason’ serve as tantalising fragments of possibility. These happenings are few and far between.

Even the distorted Folk-Punk fusion – or hillbilly punk, I haven’t quite decided – of ‘My Life As A Secret Agent’, a feverish injection of The Troggs style Rock n’ Roll is forcibly jabbed into the middle of a comparatively demure and conventional album (Chosen as their debut single, ‘My Life…’ received some airtime on national radio, ushered in by an ever present demand for authentic retro.)

Alas, the dusty roads that Shabby Rogue walk along have been flattened by the feet of many before. A no-bollocks-approach to recording may have evolved in the studio but (they vaguely admit this themselves) constricting funds, time restrictions and “substance abuse” hindered their final product. The low fi violence and raw live realism they were aiming for is definitely missing and while some bands benefit from slap dash studio work, Shabby Rogue need a better starting point to capture their respected live set on tape.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Viv Albertine - Flesh EP

According to Natasha Walter’s book published last month, we are witnessing a devious and modernised return of sexism and misogyny. Slight doom heralding it may be but perhaps with Viv Albertine from the iconic Punk band The Slits going solo, we can at least be reminded of a time when it was cool to deem yourself a feminist without the extreme Valarie Solanis implications.

Flat and band mate to Sid Vicious, film maker, ceramic sculptor, “only interested in love and sex as subjects”, her style may seem a little dated. Calling her debut Flesh for example and including a carefully positioned nude picture of herself on the CD, her groin in place of the middle hole so you have to slide your finger in when picking it up – these are laughable Punk’isms that I doubt will shock any member of my own fucked up generation. We take Punk humour as intended and are well over girls in Rock bands (at least I hope so… Christ).

Throughout the four track EP, there are remnants of what Viv originally brought to The Slits back in 1977 (an influence still felt today in all-girl bands such as Vivian Girls) and it’s especially apparent in the chorus line of ‘Never Come’. Her oh-so-British accent, sarcastic in its cute politeness, hasn’t changed much after 25 years. Neither have her themes of nihilistic romance and sexual freedom. The tone of her song writing is different; more nostalgic and with a faint hint of sorrow.

Overall, her EP is modestly arranged, soft but gutsy with varied attention to harmony and instrumentation (use of violin, rock organ and glockenspiel). ‘If Love’ beams with pleasure, like a kid with a balloon and ‘The False Heart’, despite it's clunky piano riff, sees Viv’s voice on great form, diminishing into a lovely silver whisper. But the best has to be the sneering ‘I Don't Believe/In Love’ featuring scraping guitar and general nihilism among the lyrics.

Of course there will be a group of people who’ll buy it out of blind dedication, novelty or nostalgia and I suppose it is the sort of music you’d hear at a Derek Jarman art exhibition surrounded by 40 year olds wearing black and complaining about the "apathetic youth of today". But unlike many other aging Punks, Viv Albertine is more in tune with the grace and wisdom that comes with age. This is not the solo career of some has-been shouting “I’ve still got it” while trying to reconnect with the kids. Flesh shows her fans something personal and reflective; delicate, fragile and human.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

So So Modern - Crude Futures

Just days away from the UK, So So Modern prove they’ve not come all the way from New Zealand on an expansive world tour for nothing. Their debut Crude Futures is a powerful and frenzied ride and to think I didn’t even see it coming.

Let me explain: Here I was, a couple weeks ago, putting in work for an elaborate piece on ‘anti-music’, not realising that during all this time of preparation via myspace I’d been in fact following a band called Crude Futures from Brooklyn, spluttering over their insane tape experimentations and eye raping graphics; so foul, so abhorrent, the page is like a level of hell reserved for people in advertising.

Anyway it was all quickly forgotten at the first listen of So So Modern’s Crude Futures. Instantly satisfying, their espousal of recent familiarities, such as the school yard yelling of Animal Collective, the trendy guitar minimalism of Foals and the particalised electronics of Battles, suggest a well oiled machine instead of a band. Abrupt use of syncopation and odd time signatures would turn any dancer into a retard tripping up on his own shoelaces. They also cite mathematical theology and atomic vocabulary as influences – I doubt categorising them as Math-rock will come as much of a shock.

The review would feel incomplete without a mention of their live show, especially since it’s integral to the bands focus. I can only visualise the tension and electric energy of a So So Modern gig; no amount of youtube watching will suffice. Their performance of ‘Loose Threads and Theremins’ (unfortunately not included on the debut) is psychotic and disorientating, a hardcore vibe difficult to describe in words. Not even the band get it right: “we are a four-person collective interested in creating a more fun and meaningful future through performance and music”. More business statement than a rousing ideology, it doesn’t even come close.

Most of Crude Futures stays on an intense delirium which gives the release a somewhat lopsided feel. ‘Dusk and Children’ is their failed attempt at coming down – slow and ponderous at the beginning, even this track can’t keep its head hung down for long. Truly, their best moments are their most exhausting. ‘The Worst is Yet to Come’ contains more E numbers than a lick n' dip and ‘Dendrons’ puts it’s foot down with intricate phrase and weighty distortion. The hazy chords that open ‘Be Anywhere’, the complex yet thoughtful guitar melody of ‘Island Hopping/Channel Crossing’, the interstellar jamming of ‘Berlin’ are some of the record’s highlights.

On the war path from start to finish, So So Modern beg for not a second of your patience. Their cultivation of a shared experience between band and audience give them an edge over similar trends, and while Crude Futures may not be a profoundly unique debut, a doubling of exquisite musicianship and sheer gal will get them righteous attention.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Nedry - Condors

It’s not surprising that it’s taken this long for Dub Step to be adopted by the arty crowd. The scene is an obstinate one, made up of dedicated zealots and purists; people who would rather put a bullet through their own head than see it corrupted by the fools at Radio 1. The popular London trio Nedry is so far the finest example of this Art Dub hybrid seemingly hailing from an alternative universe where Brighton based Natasha Khan was swept up the local Dub Step scene.

The argument as to whether or not the genre has suffered from increasing exposure is an argument I’m steering clear of, mainly out of fear. I know some long-time orthodox followers who would have my balls for listening to this kind of ‘betrayal’. So let’s keep it quiet shall we?

Anyway from where I’m standing, it’s a win-some-loose-some situation. Softening the mood and adopting more recognisable structure and instrumentation may stifle the unpredictability and danger of Dub Step – taking it out of the club is like ripping the heart from a wild animal. On the other hand, what we gain is emotional depth and, just as evolution has been proven key to survival, a longer life span. This takes us back to Nedry. A little like Bjork’s silky whispers in Vespertine (2001), Ayu Okakita’s voice cries out over the grimy and alien synths provided by knob gnomes Matt Parker and Chris Amblin. It’s these contrasts of sparkle and grime, man and machine that is Nedry’s most formidable weapon.

Proving much in the first two tracks (‘A42’ and ‘Apples & Pears’), Condors' perfect flow screams at me for a detailed analysis: in the awesomely named ‘Squid Cat Battle’ they borrow from the 90’s electro of Garbage, then ‘Scattered’ kicks it away with a violent riff over a sprinting break beat. ‘Condors’ brings in some Math-rock guitar duels while ‘Swan Ocean’ drifts along like water in a Hokusai painting. The gloaming texture of ‘Where The Dead Birds Go’ signals an end instilling in the album’s briefness a yearning for more. Their pipeline tour of Japan (a country already at one with the future) sheds a light on their ambitions.

Nedry may be more accessible than pure cut Dub Step but the characteristic skin crawling nastiness has lost none of its potency. Just don’t expect to skank to it, that’s all. For me, Condors is a sort of futuristic prophecy depicting the slow choke of dehumanisation, coming down as soft and as cold as snowfall – as well as, on a more universal note, substantial evidence of Dub Step’s versatility.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Erland And The Carnival – Erland And The Carnival:

I think it’s safe to say this record is exactly what comes from a bunch of middle class guys “making a folk album”, unable to keep their wrists from jangling out an Arctic Monkeys’esque riff every minute or so. Ultimately, Erland and The Carnival are no more folk than Bob Dylan is. But who cares? Not me. A single play revealed only a small portion of its charms. Later on, it changed into something very different: an anatomical splicing of NY Jazz’ swinging body to 13th Floor Elevator’s head full of acid.

If any of you get off on literary references, my advice is not to listen to this record in public to avoid embarrassment. The band salute an assortment of frightfully British Britons, such as William Blake and Vaughan Williams, and use their artistic licence to adapt the high brow material. Tricks like this generally appeal to the kind of dicks who congratulate and fondle themselves while reading poetry at a Costa and want to be seen doing it. There’s none of that here. Erland and The Carnival’s loving inclusion of the old world is seamless, effective and very unpretentious.

Without the support of Simon Tong (the busybody ex-guitarist from The Verve, now following closely in Damon Albarn’s shadow) and the superior drumming talents of David Nock, this lounge indie concoction might be easily shelved and forgotten. This is not to say that Mr. Erland Cooper, a baritone songwriter with his own tale, would be unable stand up on his own. I mean that without them, the record would be missing a huge chunk of its allure. ‘My Name Is Carnival’, with its stumbling rhythms, trippy guitar slides topped with Cooper’s lazy jazz crooning, is a personal favourite – as is the impossibly catchy ‘One Morning Fair’.

The rest of the album is on more of an even plateau and slips into the background. The atmosphere that’s left behind, of familiar Romanticism crossed with modern London, is none-the-less enticing. Erland and The Carnival is Britain’s answer to the hipster Folk of Fleet Foxes; only smarter, more daring, rougher, denser, better. Its breezy and cool headed effortlessness could only be the work of true professionals.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)