Dag för Dag
Boo •••
Cargo
Dag för Dag are an American brother and sister duo formed in 2007 (the musical act that is, the brother/sister thing was formed at birth). Upon exploring the world on a journey that took them from San Francisco to Spain, Greece, London and Honolulu, Sarah Parthemore Snavely and Jacob Donald Snavely eventually made Sweden their adopted home, a place to finally write music. Well, it worked for ABBA, The Cardigans and The Hives, to name but a few. Dag för Dag (which means ’day by day’ and is pronounced ‘dog for dog’) were joined by Swedish drummer “Chuck Bukowski” early on and then toured extensively, supporting everyone from The Kills to Wolf Parade and The Handsome Furs. The band first recorded an album in 2008, which ultimately got split into two, a dissection from which sprang last year’s From The Shadows EP. Boo, their first album proper, was recorded in two separate sessions – one in Sweden and one in the States. Five of the tracks were produced by Secretly Canadian artist Richard Swift, with the remaining seven songs produced by Dag för Dag with help from Johannes Berglund.
Filed under: album, review | Tags: serrina sims, stephanie heney, sweethead
Sweethead
Sweethead ••½
Strange Addiction
The Queens Of The Stone Age camp are as well known for their side projects as they are for their own work. With a family tree of Jon Spencer or Nick Cave proportions, each member has a finger in several musical pies, as does every musical second cousin. (It would seem that the fewer degrees of separation from Josh Homme and Mark Lanegan one can demonstrate, the cooler a musician you are.) Named after a David Bowie B-side, Sweethead is the latest export gliding in on the QOTSA conveyor belt, this time from the band’s current guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen. Only one link away from both Homme and Lanegan, Van Leeuwen can also be further connected to the family tree via Eagles Of Death Metal and the Gutter Twins. Sweethead’s drummer Norm Block (of Mark Lanegan Band and Plexi) and bassist Eddie Nappie (Mark Lanegan Band and Handsome) make up the rest of the backing band, but what makes Sweethead relevant to Wears The Trousers is frontwoman and relative newcomer (to this scene, anyways) Serrina Sims.
OOIOO
Armonico Hewa ••½
Thrill Jockey
Formed by Boredoms drummer Yoshimi P-We as an amateurish side project in the late ’90s, all-girl four-piece OOIOO frequently get described as ‘experimental’, a category that seems to be music journalism’s all-encompassing dumping ground for everything that’s, well, uncategorisable. They’ve been steadily trickling out albums every two to three years since, always labouring under unwieldy comparisons with their frontwoman’s primary outlet (an ensemble also described as experimental) but doggedly teasing out their sound with each successive release, building on its improvisational origins to form a style that’s very much their own. Their 2006 release, Taiga, was the band’s most direct and expansive album to date, so Armonico Hewa arrives with some expectation weighing on its shoulders. And with a title that’s derived from Swahili and Spanish to mean ‘air in a harmonious state’ — an idea that’s beautifully expressed by the album cover’s serene depiction of wind turbines surrounding a sunset-headed girl — could Yoshimi, Kayan, Aya and Ali be going a little soft on us?
Filed under: album, mp3, review, video | Tags: 2009, charlotte hatherley, music, stephanie heney
Charlotte Hatherley
New Worlds •••½
Little Sister
Charlotte Hatherley’s musical career to date has been well documented: rocking in the grunge influenced outfit Nightnurse by 15, she was plucked from obscurity to become the fourth member of Ash at 17, discarding her A-Levels and a normal life to do so. When she left Ash in 2006 to pursue a solo career, it seemed a bold move on the part of someone who had some serious guts to go from being in a successful and established ‘day job’ to going it alone. However, what isn’t so well documented, and which has only just recently been revealed, is that it was actually Ash who asked Hatherley to leave, wanting to return to their trio status. So this somewhat changes the perception we have of Hatherley; she went it alone full time because she had no choice, not because she was gutsy. Although her first solo album Grey Will Fade was released while still in the band, subsequent works are now more than a side project created while on a winter break. Now the solo work is the day job.
Filed under: album, mp3, review | Tags: 2009, carla bozulich, evangelista, music, stephanie heney
Evangelista
Prince Of Truth ••½
Constellation
Carla Bozulich is a veteran of rock and industrial music and has been singing, composing and playing since the age of 15 in various incarnations. Previous lives have included the post-punk outfit Neon Vein, industrial band Ethyl Meatplow, Scarnella (a duo with Nels Cline of Wilco), spook alt-country outfit The Geraldine Fibbers and traditional ‘rock’ band Night Porter. Bozulich’s first solo release in 2003 was a peculiar interpretation of Willie Nelson’s classic album, Red Headed Stranger. Featuring an amazing ensemble of Cline, Brooklyn Jazz scene stalwart Jenny Scheinman, Devin Hoff (of the Nels Cline Singers), Carla Kihlstedt (who has recorded with Tom Waits), Marka Hughes, and Nelson himself, it rightly won overwhelming critical acclaim. Evangelista is yet another Bozulich project; the self-titled debut album was her first for Constellation in 2006, followed by 2008’s Hello, Voyager. Both of these albums became a catalyst for the core line-up, featuring most notably Tara Barnes, who, among other things, plays bass and writes lyrics, and whose musical bond with Bozulich has been an influential force in third album Prince Of Truth.
Filed under: album, review | Tags: 2009, music, stephanie heney, times new viking
Times New Viking
Born Again Revisited ••••
Matador
When Times New Viking formed five years ago at art school in Columbus, Ohio, only one-third of them actually had any musical ability at the time. A mere technicality, however, when punk DIY ethos is the order of the day, and Beth Murphy, Jared Phillips and Adam Elliott (who had the aforementioned ability, on drums) promptly became a band anyway. Their 2005 debut Dig Yourself was followed by 2007′s entertaining Times New Viking Present The Paisley Reich and enough sought-after EPs and 7″ singles to award them an upgrade from Philadelphian indie Siltbreeze to the mighty Matador roster with last year’s voraciously acclaimed Rip It Off. Their sound has often been described as lo-fi indie, but, really, indie is too tame a descriptive to illustrate their style, which is very much characterised by the use of distortion and feedback. And lo-fi certainly doesn’t equal minimalist for this volatile trio.
Filed under: album, review, video | Tags: 2009, lisa o piu, music, stephanie heney
Lisa O Piu
When This Was The Future •••
Subliminal Sounds
Lisa Isaksson is the frontwoman for Sweden’s Lisa O Piu (very roughly translated as ‘Lisa, and then some’), and she has tread a wholesome musical path since growing up in a small town on the outskirts of Stockholm. From finding an old guitar in her attic to her early experiments with a four-track recorder on solo effort Cantering (available in an extremely limited edition of 30 copies) to performing to friends, it seems only natural that she has ended up where she is, recording a debut album in a remote cottage with a band made up from school friends. It’s no wonder then, that said album When This Was The Future is as close to nature as you could imagine, evoking pristine rural simplicity and woodland mysticism. Piu are no innocents though – the album is produced by the highly respected Matthias Gustavsson (of Dungen) and Isaksson herself has performed with the British folk idol Roger Wootton of ’70s acid-folk legends Comus.
Filed under: album, mp3, review, video | Tags: 2009, music, nika danilova, stephanie heney, zola jesus
Zola Jesus
The Spoils ••••
Sacred Bones
Zola Jesus is the alter ego of Nika Rosa Danilova, a 19 year old hailing from Madison, Wisconsin. The Spoils is her first ‘proper’ album for Sacred Bones (previous to that there’s a live album and a couple of hard to get issues from the Die Stasi and Troubleman labels), and it’s a remarkably mature piece of work, especially given Danilova’s young age. It’s certainly very difficult to be gothic without being ridiculous, yet she manages it effortlessly. The Spoils is dark, intense and frightening, always imparting dread yet at the same time ethereal and reserved. Despite training as an opera singer and having a voice that needs no veiling, Danilova’s vocals are brutally treated with effects and distortion and the production is a raw Albini-esque mesh of feedback.
Filed under: album, review | Tags: 2008, eliza carthy, music, stephanie heney
Eliza Carthy
Dreams Of Breathing Underwater ••••
Topic
Arguably one of the most respected and prolific artists on the folk scene, Eliza Carthy has achieved a significant discography in her 31 years. The daughter of Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson, both venerated folk musicians, she is an accomplished fiddle player and vocalist, and now songwriter. Her career highlights include two Mercury Music Prize nominations, eight albums and collaborations with the likes of Nancy Kerr, Hal Willner, Richard Thompson, Billy Bragg and Wilco. And she was the first traditional English musician to be considered for a BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music. Not bad.
Seven years in the making, Dreams Of Breathing Underwater is, in a way, the successor to 2000′s Angels & Cigarettes, largely because it is only the second (mostly) self-penned album Carthy has released. However, it is unlike anything she has done before. Instead of recording traditional songs, Carthy experiments with their melodies and rhythms, twisting the arrangements to suit her own songs. Without any pressure to remain faithful to a time-honoured original, her innovative side runs free and weaves in influences from a wide spectrum of styles. She cites Nick Cave as being one of the great songwriters and has worked with Paul Weller – not the usual folk heroes. Ben Ivitsky, her co-writer and producer, is in turn influenced by Adrian Sherwood and Youth, and so the range of styles is again widened.
Filed under: EP, review, video | Tags: 2008, amy winehouse, music, stephanie heney, the specials
Amy Winehouse
The Ska EP ••
2Soul
In the true tradition of rock ‘n’ roll, very often an artist’s shambolic and news-making (if not altogether news-worthy) personal life can so overwhelm the music they produce that it’s easy to forget that they actually have a day job. Such is the way with Amy Winehouse, whose espousal of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle has meant more appearances in the gossip columns than in the music press of late. It’s quite an achievement (or tragedy) when ‘five Grammies’ becomes a mere footnote to the actual story. However, it seems that Amy Winehouse does still have the time and the wherewithal to be creative and her latest limited edition vinyl-only offering The Ska EP seems to be generating high bids on eBay. But is it really something to get excited about?
