Giant Drag
Swan Song EP •••½
Megaforce
Having switched out their male half a couple of times, Californian duo Giant Drag are back in their original and righteous state after a three-year break from releasing. The long promised Swan Song opens with its title track, a moody fuzzball of repetitive sliding guitar sounds that instantly recall Sonic Youth, providing the perfect base for singer and lead songwriter Annie Hardy to slur her cutesy melodies all over. The cutthroat comedy heard on 2006’s debut album Hearts & Unicorns and in their hilarious live monologues is still prominent, however, and with Hardy’s slightly bitter twang and Micah Calabrese’s thick bass synths, not all four songs are as delicate.
Filed under: album, EP, review | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, circles, krystle warren, p. viktor, rachael dadd, sugaree, taproot and sill, the american dream, this is the kit, tiffany daniels, whalebone polly
In this month’s roundup, we’ll be looking at a bunch of stragglers from last year that we ran out of time to publish before Christmas, plus a few early 2010 releases in brief.
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Sugaree
The American Dream •••
Leon Russell Records
Few may have heard of singer Sugaree but they are very likely to have heard of her father, legendary singer-songwriter Leon Russell, on whose label Sugaree’s debut has been released. Though that fact smacks of nepotistic opportunism, saying so outright would only be permissible if the album was a dud. The fact is The American Dream is something of a pop gem, a contemporary album that is a million miles from the country-blues music of her father. A short album, at just over thirty minutes, it mixes different genres – rock, pop and R&B – with an electro-dance vibe that pulls all its disparate references into a coherent, if sometimes samey, sound.
Filed under: album, EP, review | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, devil's halo, lissie, meshell ndegeocello, nneka, no longer at ease, val phoenix, why you runnin'
In this month’s roundup, we’ll be looking at a bunch of stragglers from last year that we ran out of time to publish before Christmas, plus a few early 2010 releases in brief.
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Lissie
Why You Runnin’ EP •••
Fat Possum
This debut EP by big-lunged Illinois-born Lissie Maurus offers an intriguing but slightly samey mix of blue-eyed soul and gospel. Majestically produced by Bill Reynolds, the five songs offer a strong platform for the singer to showcase her vocal gymnastics, as well as some more subtle, plaintive tones. It’s hard to know whether to take the home-spun hysteria of ‘Wedding Bells’ seriously, as the narrator bemoans the loss of her man to another (the hussy!) on what should have been her wedding day. The world of Lissie seems to be an irony-free zone, more at home on the banks of the Mississippi than in the cynical big city. But, still, worth a visit.
Kría Brekkan
Uterus Water •••
Paw Tracks
As she told Wears The Trousers in an interview last year, Kría Brekkan’s only goals as far as her ‘solo’ career is concerned are simple: “Just to practise more things and educate myself.” Three releases in, totalling just fifteen tracks and barely an hour of music, her self-education is certainly proving to be an intriguing one. Her latest 7″, limited to only 100 copies in Europe, finds the Icelander as wildly experimental, clashing and sometimes frustrating as ever. Standing outside of Brekkan’s own little bubble, it can be difficult to appreciate her work given its extreme insularity. But mere self-indulgence can be transcended into art if it can be mastered, and Uterus Water proves, as the hairs prickle up on the back of your neck, that Brekkan is approaching a kind of auteurship.
Filed under: EP, review | Tags: jae, jessica sligter, sacred harp, tomas slaninka
Sacred Harp
Sacred Harp EP •••½
The Perfect Hoax
Sacred Harp is a closed universe somewhere behind ours, an isolated bulb of grey light that throws its sparks only within itself, a small underworld shrouded in a densely clad forest in the middle of nowhere. It’s a forgotten instrument that nobody can play, a voice of sorrow that whispers incomprehensible groans to this empty hidden nothingness. Sacred Harp is also a fairytale world combined with a nightmare, a gloomy fantasy whose sad, unsatisfied heroes can be heard to moan about their destiny. It’s a cry of fragile abandon imprisoned in darkness. More tangibly, Sacred Harp is a trio hailing from Northern Europe formed of Dutch singer Jessica Sligter (whom we already know through her solo project, Jæ) and Norwegian and Finnish musicians.
Filed under: EP, review | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, eliza doolittle
Eliza Doolittle
Eliza Doolittle EP ••••
Parlophone
With such a quintessentially English name, it’s hard to imagine anything but a fresh-faced (if somewhat impish) London-bred girl behind this brightly coloured EP, and, as it turns out, that’s a fairly accurate image for this dark-haired, cheerful pop starlet. And like her namesake, the Cockney heroine of Pygmalion, Doolittle has had an auspicious, nurturing start. Her parents were both musical, with her father a piano player and her mother a singer, so it’s hardly surprising that this precocious talent was penning her first numbers aged 12. With a musical career firmly in mind, her teen years involved travels back and forth between London and New York, “writing with various collaborators, finding her musical feet”. Now signed to major label Parlophone, it seems obvious that she’s planted her roots and means to carry on blooming.
Filed under: EP, review | Tags: christmas thanks for nothing, richard steele, slow club
Slow Club
Christmas, Thanks For Nothing EP •••
Moshi Moshi
A Slow Club Christmas is starting to become something of a tradition. Last year, Charles and Rebecca treated us to a rather lovely festive single in the shape of ‘Christmas TV’ and a knees-up at London’s Union Chapel. This year they’re repeating the event at the same venue, but with a Santa’s sack of five additional Christmas delights in their repertoire. Or should that be lumps of coal? As implied by the title, Christmas, Thanks For Nothing sees the band continuing to temper their characteristic humour with heavy doses of heartbreak that some might find a little hard to swallow.
Filed under: album, EP, review | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, katy knight, kid sister, lady lazarus, richard steele, the kabeedies
Part three of our November roundup looks at debuts from Norwich indie-pop upstarts The Kabeedies, US sensation Kid Sister and the homemade charms of Lady Lazarus.
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The Kabeedies
Rumpus ••••
NRone
Norwich’s keenest The Kabeedies bounced onto our radar with a triumphant performance at Glastonbury 2008, and they’ve been picking up momentum ever since. Following on from an enjoyable pair of EPs comes the irrepressible band’s debut full-length, appropriately named Rumpus. A jauntily pop, heels-in-the-air, loop-the-flipping-loop of an album, it successfully marryies compulsively danceable rhythms with vocal melodies so infectious the government will no doubt soon be putting up posters in bathrooms telling you how to wash your ears.
Filed under: album, EP, review | Tags: alan pedder, catriona irving, charlotte richardson andrews, katy knight, the good natured, the happy hollows
In the second part of our November roundup, we pour some love on the new EP from The Good Natured, get smitten by The Happy Hollows and swoon a little to Catriona Irving.
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The Good Natured
Your Body Is A Machine EP ••••
Self-released
If the title of this EP is to be believed, I think mine’s the kind that sells Twixes and Skittles for 65p. Still, the gadgets on this four-track set from Sarah McIntosh (aka The Good Natured) are certainly used as familiarly as bodies on this well paced and highly impressive second release, her electronic bleeps and winding synths forming the strong and steady heartbeat of the record around which the melancholy vocals entwine with purpose.
Filed under: album, EP, review | Tags: a fine frenzy, alan pedder, an experiment on a bird in the air pump, anja mccloskey, charlotte richardson andrews, pepi ginsberg
In this first part of our November roundup, we take a look at A Fine Frenzy’s festive offering, the unstoppable power of An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump, and a revamped Pepi Ginsberg.
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A Fine Frenzy
Oh Blue Christmas EP •••½
Virgin
When Alison Sudol released her second album Bomb In A Birdcage earlier this year, huge commercial success seemed assured. Word of mouth regarding her 2007 debut One Cell In The Sea had secured her over a million ‘followers’ on Twitter, but pulling the pin to catalyse a chart-busting follow-up proved more difficult and Bomb In A Birdcage spent just one week inside the Billboard Top 100 albums. Sudol must surely be a little disappointed, but the title of this EP can’t be taken as any indication of that. Recorded months before the release of Bomb In A Birdcage, during a sticky LA summer, it’s an enjoyable set of three Christmas classics and three original songs.
