Flowers of Hell - O (Optical Sounds)

Arranged from improvisations and recorded in one take, The Flowers of Hell’s newest release O feels like staring deeply into a milky gemstone of shape and colour. Among the swells of string and lonely trumpet, a single drifting tone evolves and reforms in the light. Respecting the law of the circle, there is no beginning or end to the piece and the meditative atmosphere is both soothing and unsettling, like something by Ligeti, only less dissonant.

For all of this however, O is stagnant and kind of tedious when compared to the epic travels of their first album Come Hell or High Water (2009). Artistic musings aside, it is essentially forty five minutes of slow moving, rhythmless ambience – mildly intriguing in construction it’s just… nothing… really… happens. The group director, Greg Jarvis, wasn’t wrong when he called it “Business Suicide”. Is forty five minutes of droning art music worth shelling out on?

Aside from the recording itself, the CD contains videos of the group performing O and four other tracks at gigs in Toronto and Prague. This is its raison d'être, otherwise the recording is geared up to be just another victim of stream and run. Watching Flowers from Hell perform is a sumptuous experience, most acoustic gigs are. It reveals much of the bands wonder: their eclectic and textured use of instruments and a strong group connection that borderlines on the paranormal. The record was born out a very simple, almost Zen-like plan imbibing the aim of German absolute music: “music that is not explicitly about anything, music that simply is”.

Despite ongoing snobbery and its stodgy stigma, the vast range of Classical Music will forever provide material for the right minds. The Flowers of Hell’s kind of Space Rock/Post Rock/Neo-Classical (classification overload) suggests a relation to the divine Godspeed You! Black Emperor who combine the grand compositional techniques of the Modern Avant-garde with the nihilism and riff basis of Rock. There have been many contenders but until discovering Flowers of Hell I’ve not heard a band that carries on this visionary style with such courage. There are a lot of phonies and tourists in the art music world, hung up on THE IMAGE or THE IDEA of making intellectual or groundbreaking music. By sharing the stage and their projects with other musicians, Flowers of Hell appear to be free of this self delusion (Come Hell or High Water featured musicians from Bat For Lashes, Broken Social Scene, Spiritualised and Spacemen 3 to name but a few).

The idea behind O is compelling enough to warrant a listen. It completes its task of being anyway (heh heh). But in the end, it only serves as a blank canvass for future possibilities. Being their first solo record, it makes me curious as to what their next project will be and who it will be with. All I ask is that they hold on to their edgy quality against a demanding environment for “relaxing” Classical music. So no pressure guys.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Teebs - Ardour (Brainfeeder)

Blooming with abstract colours and melodic detail, Ardour is a record cultivated out of art. A skateboarder turned painter turned musician, Mtendere Mandowa (aka Teebs) composes his music in the way he approaches his paintings. Many seemingly isolated fragments melt together in energy and expression. Ardour is a translation of his artwork to music.

The record was a project put together during two years of unemployment. While the rest of us would be groaning about job opportunities, Teebs just got busy and the freedom of electronic music seemed to suit his tastes. The production techniques like time shift and chopped sampling (possibly relayed to him under the watchful eye of Brainfeeder) are ubiquitous of folktronica and the likes of Gold Panda or Four Tet. His ethnic rhythms are off balanced and threaten to blow away if not for the weight of some hip-hop influenced beats. Acoustic samples of twinkling bells and various wind-chimes unite with cosy synths swelling in waves and pulses. It all simulates natural movement like wind gently tugging at clothes on a line.

When these fragments resolve into a more recognisable form – heard during the excellent groove of ‘Gordon’ – its drifting feel satisfyingly takes shape like a scrapbook of grainy photographs. ‘Double Fifths’ the albums first stand out track empolys a magical pitch-bending harp over wooden percussion and later on ‘Moments’ employs a cascading piano and ‘Wind Loop’ a sweetly rising chime melody.

Ultimately, Ardour’s impressionistic quality works itself into the background and into obscurity. As you begin to fall into the mood of a track it dematerialises and lurches to another. I imagine every one these 18 incidental tracks, the bubbly ‘Double Fifths’ for one swelling to a grand strings section or some kind of further elaboration. Instead they jaunt off like a shy bumble bee. Even the album’s end is flighty and inconclusive. This will either instil a sense of longing in the listener or struggle to make a mark.

Just like Modern Art, it goes for impact and for concise and polished expression. In this way Ardour is at odds with its enveloping atmosphere, though I doubt it was intentional as Teebs has allowed the record to take on its own home-made form. Ardour is definitely an experimental album; an exposés of his creativity set loose in a different medium. But it is the sights and sounds of his travels and experiences, as well as a blurring of art and music that make this a busy, beautiful record.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

The Black Angels - Phosphene Dream

God bless the Acid Rock scene. Coming back in small waves since its 60’s heyday, it gave punk wings, fuelled the club era and gave countless bands inspiration and scope along the way. Its problem, like any bygone scene, is that it has a way of digging itself into a hole. Following the success of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, a flavour of bands have been touting the same neo-psychedelic trip for years now.

But there is something different about The Black Angels music: its wild spirit, sinister atmosphere, now driven by a will to seek new horizons. Their new album released tomorrow is an altogether more flowery affair, with bright rhythm and riff changes vaguely reminiscent of early Floyd, though their hallmark droning blues is clearly here to stay.

‘Bad Vibrations’ kicks it off with pounding drums and pulsing organ, throbbing like a memory murdering hangover. Already their familiar droning, evil-eye guitar riffs and foot stomping Rock settles in like a heavy mist. Then suddenly, three minutes into the track, a scream blows it away and we find ourselves running for our lives. Even the catchy ‘Yellow Elevator’ ending with a slow jam and a mystical effect on Alex Maas’ voice doesn’t allow the mood to settle for long. ‘True Believers’ begins like a Jefferson Aeroplane jam, falls into stoned reverie and takes off again with the punchy Kinks-come-The Doors ‘Telephone’.

Behind these tinted fragments of a revered counter-culture, danger also lurks in the echoing lyrics: “He takes his pill so he can kill, praise the Bible” This mixture of religion and violence represents a nasty side of contemporary America. It's almost as if The Black Angels are carefully decoding American mythology. In Passover it was the popular myths: The Road Trip, The Vietnam War; this time it’s the oldest and most powerful hypocracy in God’s Country.

With better song crafting and a superb production from Blue Horizon Records The Black Angels are working hard and pushing on. Phosphene Dream displays increasing energy and a widening direction for them. Drawing material from nearly every psychedelic band of the 60’s The Black Angels were never hugely original or even ‘far out’ in its truest sense of the phrase. But these days there are few that will come close to this kind of Californian freak Rock and hypnotic cool. A word to the wise.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Fang Island - Fang Island (Sargent House)

Fang Island’s fast paced debut, layered with big boisterous guitar, fits like a glove in the current American scene. Describing their music as “everyone high fiving everyone”, they are so much happier than you or I. It’s the prog-metal equivalent of Bastian from The NeverEnding Story raising his fist and triumphantly yelling “YEEAAH!”

I like music that takes on simple, child inspired philosophies and what drew me to Fang Island was a recorded video on their myspace page where they perform to a kindergarten class. The jubilation and wide eyed expressions on the kid’s faces as they hop about to the hardcore jams was wonderful stuff. It was funny to think of a parallel between these classroom antics and that of any adult Rock club filled with immature goofballs (the sad difference is that children express themselves truthfully, don’t have horrendous egos and don’t smear crap in their hair to be cool. They do it because… well… they just do it.)

Stop-and-start rhythm changes between the band are expertly controlled and the four guitarists display impressive skill and sweet solos that Boston would be proud of. It warrants the use of great phrases such as ‘head banging’ and ‘kick ass’, especially in tracks such as ‘Careful Crossers’ with its tricky rhythms and battling riffs. Unfortunately the collective vocal chanting found in their single ‘Daisy’ and later in ‘Davey Crockett’ ruins it. These sing-a-long brayings of ‘ooooh’s’ and ‘woah woah woah’s’ get old very quickly; ultimately becoming banal sighs in the place of, you know, actual words. Their goal to draw grand, truthful emotion from us seems all too familiar.

Graduating from Rhode Island School of Design (the origin of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lightning Bolt and Talking Heads) they throw out any evidence of art school subtlety. It doesn’t take long to figure Fang Island as feel-good teenage thrash pop propelling a single, continuously chipper mood. Sometimes, just sometimes it brings to mind those god-awful mobile phone advertisements where hoards of douche bags sing with each other in false unity. Hey everyone! Come on! Let’s get together! Groan.

Compared with their predecessors, Fang Island have moved in an altogether different direction. Their achievements are their glorification of the present moment, the way they capture the manic excitement you used to feel before a trip to a theme park. Their compact album is in touch with a youthful exuberance and contains some masterful musicianship and hum-worthy melodies. Too bad then that its upbeat tone, great at first, reveals no further dimension beyond ludicrously happy. And please, no more Arcade Fire vocal choruses. They’re loosing their allure.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Tobacco - Maniac Meat (Anticon)

Every so often a record comes along that is so filthy, so depraved, it’s impossible to avert your attention. Tobacco’s newest venture, Maniac Meat is one of these. All sixteen tracks, arranged in a mosaic of derogation, drug nightmares and 80’s video nasties; told of course with a pinch of wit, could quite easily soundtrack Naked Lunch: The Videogame.

Ronaldo Fauntroy straddles his role as the front man for Black Moth Super Rainbow with the Tobacco solo project, sharing material between them both – his habit for vocoder vocals being one. The chubby grainy synths and tacky drum pads had always lent itself to a club atmosphere. But what club? Where would you hear something with such a dubious sexual subtext? It’s not S&M or bestiality being suggested; no, the halarious horror and revulsion one feels can only be compared to accidentally bursting in on someone performing cunning lingus on a sweaty bulbous monster.

*Cough* … or watching a zombie film. Don’t let my crass interpretation put you off. In all seriousness Maniac Meat is a great record elaborating on Tobacco’s taste for retro electronica and his love of the grotesque, as related two years ago in an interview with Kotori “There’s something seriously fucked about workout tapes from the mid 80s, and just about everything obscure on beta tape. They make me feel awful, but really good and curious at the same time. […] I’m trying to translate that feeling.”

Besides which, the release contains many, more family friendly moments. Two tracks featuring the familiar ramblings of Beck (‘Fresh Hex’ and ‘Grape Aerosmith’) are certainly two of the albums finest additions, even if they are too short. Elsewhere, the depraved imagery and slow groove in ‘Heavy Makeup’ twists and turns and slithers under your skin. There are times, mainly towards the end, when its unsettling tone is somewhat forced, verging on exhausting – a disjointed album structure doesn't help – but on such excellent tracks as ‘Sweatmother’ (an evil and infectious blaze of distortion bass and squealing pitch bends) and ‘New Juices From The Hot Tub Freaks’ (a prime example of his hip hop tendencies) it is flawlessly executed.

Compared with his other work, solo or otherwise, Maniac Meat’s nuances come at no surprise but they do seem to have taken on a higher class. No other artist can replicate Ronaldo’s particular analog fetishism and skuzzy beats as it crawls through your mind grinning its shit eating grin. In the words of an old friend of mine “How could it be wrong if it feels so right?”

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Washed Out - Life Of Leisure EP (Mexican Summer)

Every year, there are a variety of musicians and bands eager to provide us music geeks and dull romantics with a summer soundtrack. And with all that goes on: the festivals, the travelling, the beer; it’s the optimum environment in which to release a memorable and lasting record.

Just a month away from the season of hedonism, Washed Out’s Life of Leisure takes this to the next degree. Using his own equipment, Earnest Greene recorded his debut while staying at his parents place in Georgia. The result is an example of the effect that time, isolation and nature has on creativity. Life of Leisure is a complete experience: a package of well devised mood music wrapped in a DIY charm. Written during the summer for the summer, its sense of escapism could not have been realised during the pressure of his current tour.

Each track blends effortlessly together as one. Under four minutes long, their simplistic structure may be a downside but, overall, with the impression that ‘Get Up’ and ‘Feel it All Around’ leave behind, nothing feels more natural than to play it again and again. Rehashing the techniques laid out in the three tracks before it, ‘Lately’ takes this simplicity into the mundane and is the only duff track on the EP. It’s promptly forgotten when ‘You’ll See It’, with its ethereal groove and resonating euphoria concludes the record.

The 80’s keyboard pop and shoegaze fuzz are easy to detect but bizarrely nobody (except Greene himself) mentioned the obvious disco vibe. From the pulsing electro thuds in the bass, to the sibilance in the vocal harmonies (identical to the silky harmonies of 10cc’s ‘I’m Not in Love’), right up to the album cover; it all simulates a swirling heady high like no other. Comforting yet awakening, like cool water on hot skin; we know how the girl on the cover feels.

Without loosing itself too much in nostalgia, Washed Out harps back to a familiar and colourful rave innocence while capturing a piece of the zeitgeist. Look no further, your summer soundtrack is here. Original and sonically stunning, it’s a rare sparkle of a record – one that that could illuminate Greene’s career or, in its bright intensity, blind him from doing anything this good again.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

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)