unpopular

Unpopular Advent 2013 Day 24 - Prophet Hens, Trick Mammoth, Astro Children, Mavis Gary and Males

Left It Out To Shine - The Prophet Hens (from 'Popular People Do Popular People' LP)
Delphine (With A Purpose) - Trick Mammoth (from Digital Double A-Side)
Gaze - Astro Children (from 'Proteus' LP)
Pin Me Up - Mavis Gary (from 'Pin Me Up' LP)
So High - Males (from 'Run Run Run / MalesMalesMales' LP)

All hail the new sound of Young Dunedin. I swear to god there is something magical in the air down there. Certainly something was fuelling this impressive production line of insanely addictive, quirky off-kilter Pop in 2013. Of course, being on the other side of the world it is entirely possible that every year has seen some kind of wonderful development in New Zealand Pop that I just have not been aware of, but nevertheless one does suspect that 2013 will be seen as one of remarkably fine vintage.

So this final advent entry kind of breaks all the rules* by throwing a full fist of songs firmly in your face, and no apologies for that. Indeed such was the breadth and depth of sounds coming out of New Zealand this year that the difficulty was keeping it to just five. Of those five, the (almost) common thread is the wonderful Fishrider Records imprint who released the terrific Prophet Hens, Males and Trick Mammoth records. Indeed you may recall Fishrider from last years’ advent series with The Puddle and Opposite Sex records, and the good news is that they will once again hook up with Exeter’s finest Occultation label to issue the debut Trick Mammoth full length ‘Floristry’ in the UK. In fact, Trick Mammoth are another connecting thread between four of these cuts, for this fabulously talented trio weave their tentacles into into Males (Sam Valentine), Astro Children (Millie Lovelock) and Mavis Gary (which actually is the solo trading title of Adrian Ng). These kids really were on fire this year. Ditto Prophet Hens, whose ‘Popular People Do Popular People’ was half an hour of the finest contemporary concoction of that legendary (mythical?) ‘Dunedin Sound’.

Can’t wait for 2014.

     
*No Rules, man!

Unpopular Advent 2013 Day 23 - The Chills

Molten Gold - The Chills (digital single)

I had to double-check the date on the sleeve of the 2004 ‘Stand By’ EP to believe that this really was the first new recording by Martin Phillips and The Chills in almost a decade*. And really what more reason do you need to celebrate? For has there ever been a less then great record by The Chills? Even the sprawling sketchbook collection of 2000’s ’The Secret Box’ was packed to the brim with rough gems sparkling in the grime of the Pop landscape.

And then as if this joyous single was not enough of a treat Fire Records also unleashed the aptly titled ‘Somewhere Beautiful’ live collection towards the tail end of the year. 

Perfection.

 

* I think we can safely say that 'How times flies’ is now officially the subtitle to this year’s Unpopular Advent series... 

Unpopular Advent 2013 Day 22 - Lloyd Cole

Kids Today - Lloyd Cole (from 'Standards' LP)

If you had told me even back in October that one of my favourite records of 2013 would be by Lloyd Cole I would have laughed in your face, asked you what you’d been drinking and could I have a wee nip of it too please? Not that I had anything against Lloyd as such. I mean, yes, back in 1984 the ‘Rattlensakes’ album was certainly one of my most played discs, and even into 1985 I was spinning ‘Lost Weekend’ and the ‘Easy Pieces’ set on a regular basis but gosh, yes, I suppose also I fell into believing the music press backlash when they started laughing about Cole’s golfing or whatever it was… Besides which there were a million and one other fresher, more exciting sounds to explore so no regrets and all that.

I am not certain why I suddenly decided to listen to ‘Standards’ so late in the year. I had let it pass me by on its release, vaguely aware but deeming it unnecessary to investigate. We all of us miss so many little treasures along the routes of our lives like this of course, and it is no judgement. Those lives can often feel too full already and anyway the thought of digging something just because it is the fashion du jour feels somewhat hilariously pointless at my age. Not that I imagine Lloyd Cole’s record was promoted as being fashionable. Was it? I see by flicking through YouTube that he appeared on that dreadful ‘Later'* show with Jools Holland. Oh my.

Regardless, ‘Standards’ has ended up one of my most played records of 2013. From the terrific opening salvo of a muscular** reading of John Hartford’s wonderful ‘California Earthquake’ and the fine ‘Women’s Studies’ with it’s arch, wry lines about Josef K, Fast Product, Prague and Edinburgh and the surreptitious nod to Johnny Thunders all the way through to the splendid ‘Blood On The Tracks’ Dylan feel of the beautiful and bruised ‘Diminished Ex’ it never failed to disappoint; never faltered in its pursuit of excellence.

Best of all for me was ‘Kids Today’, a cut I found hilarious, touching, and of course filled with innumerable spot on references charting the flow of Yoof Culture all the way from the 1940s through to the present day. It combined wry amusement at the way Teenagers of all eras have been painted in the same hues by the generations grown older and, well, that very sense of ‘teenagers today…’ of a generation itself suddenly finding itself grown older too. Only he managed to capture it less clumsily. Oh, and that closing line about the Vivienne Westwood shirt was just killer.

Delving back through some of Cole’s previous records was an equally enjoyable journey and reveals a veritable glut of delights for me revel in, much of it showing the influence of Americana, though in hindsight that should come as no surprise for if anything The Commotions records displayed a distinct penchant for the culture of the USA too. But if Cole’s work is coloured by American Folk and Country traditions then it does so in much the same vein as Richard Buckner’s (who Cole now reminds me of a great deal and vice versa): with a hugely knowledgable, appreciative nod but with a singular vision for moulding something distinctive and individual from the base materials. 

A marvellous (re) discovery.

 

*I think I have only once knowingly watched ‘Later’, when Denim appeared many, many years ago. I am sure lots of great musical performances have been recorded on the show, but really. Jools Holland….
**’muscular’ is not something I often use as a compliment, and it is certainly not used here in the Sam Fussell manner. No, I mean rather the lean, toasted whippet musculature of the racing cyclist. And no offence Lloyd, but obviously I’m only talking about the sound here...

Unpopular Advent 2013 Day 21 - Chris T-T & The Hoodrats

Jesus Christ - Chris T-T & The Hoodrats (from 'The Bear' LP)

In the first Unpopular advent back in 2008 I reflected on Chris’ ‘Capital’ album and pondered how his "blend of powerfully focused anger and deeply humanist empathy [might] grow as a rallying point of reference; a jumping off point for considering new ways forward that learn from our histories’ mistakes”. Well, ever the optimist, eh? 

Looking back from 2013 (where DID those five years slip away to?) and of course it’s the glass half empty view that seems to have held sway: "everyone will continue as they were, throwing resources into propping up a terminally broken ideology and buying their heroes from X-Factor.” In truth of course the gaps in society have simply widened. Rich and poor. Have’s and have-not’s. Mainstream and Unpopular. Certainly Chris is still out there dreaming, fighting and making magnificent records.

‘The Bear’ was a wonderfully strange beast indeed, at times feeling like a gang of mystical outcasts roaming a post-apocalyptic landscape and preaching from notebooks filled with scraps penned and highlighted under a psilocybin fuelled harvest moon. And none the worse for that, obviously. Through it all there was unconcealed anger and vitriol coupled with remarkable gentility and empathy with the dispossessed; at its heart a deep sense of humanity and a love that refuses to turn a blind eye. Nowhere was it better captured than on ‘Jesus Christ’, a song with a gloriously religious soul taking potshots at the Religious zealots; preaching love and fun in the face of the hate and fear peddled apparently wherever one cared or dared to look in 2013.

“It’s a fucked up world out there” indeed. 

 

 

Unpopular Advent 2013 Day 20 - Dick Diver

Water Damage - Dick Diver (from 'Calendar Days' LP)

Now really, how on earth could one possibly resist the tendrils of Lucksmiths, Go-Betweens, Triffids and gosh, any number of the most magical antipodean musical heritage you might care to bring to the party that weaver their way through a record so charmingly smooching the spring rain? Not to mention the ‘Tender Is The Night’ reference. ‘Calendar Days’ was eleven songs long and thirty five minutes short. Once upon a time all albums were as eloquently succinct. Few have been finer.

 

Unpopular Advent 2013 Day 19 - Ginnels

Dont Mean It - Ginnels (from 'Plumes' LP)

Ginnels would probably have completely passed me by were it not for the generosity of former Becalmed label boss Jorge and his new Tenorio Cotobade imprint, on which the fabulous and beautifully sleeved ‘Plumes’ collection appeared. Essentially a compilation of tracks from their three previous self-released titles (get those on their Bandcamp), the fourteen cuts on ‘Plumes’ displayed Dublin’s Ginnels credentials as leaders of the great Feelies’ fan club to sensational effect. Nowhere did it sound finer than on the opener ‘Don’t Mean It’: two minutes and five seconds of glorious uptight Pop shivering in the phosphorescent glow of midnight street lamps. Tinny, trebly and knee-tremblingly tremendous.

 

Unpopular Advent 2013 Day 18 - The Secret History

Eleanor (The City & Sea) - The Secret History (from 'Americans Singing In The Dark' LP)

‘Killed in the suburbs by My Favorite’ and ‘This Melodica kills fascists’ are two of the things it says on Michael Grace Jr’s Twitter page. In my wilder moments I might suggest this is all you need to know; might darkly mutter that if those words mean nothing to you then you don’t deserve to hear 'Americans Singing In The Dark’ and that you can all just piss off back to your whatever the heck it is you listen to anyway. But it’s the season to be jolly, so I’ll push that character back into his dreary box and tell you that, by golly, The Secret History made a second album that glistened with the magic of Dr Marten boot boys sprinkled in glitter cavorting with Modernist besuited bedroom balladeers. 

There is a great article available here in which Michael outlines twenty five albums that were in some way influential in the writing and making of ‘Americans Singing In The Dark’. It’s as much a wonderfully telling portrait of Grace as it is of the album, and that’s as these things should be after all. On Dylan he says “Bob Dylan is IMHO the greatest songwriter that ever was. Boring, I know. But if you wanted to be Jack Kerouac as well as Sid Vicious when you first sniffed glue behind a 7-11, then maybe you understand. Heck I wanted to be Herman Melville more than I wanted to be Tony Hawk which explains a lot of the scrapes and bruises I had in the early 90s.” Which I think is just magic, and in honesty I often imagine Grace as some kind of Ringolevio character, or as a member of Bruce Davidson’s legendary Brooklyn Gang, and I suspect he’d quite dig those kinds of references too.

Here’s another one I think he would appreciate: ‘Americans Singing In The Dark’ was, in my mind at least, a kind of 2013 American equivalent of ‘Back In Denim’ - a literate and intensely personal Protest Record: very much of it’s time yet like the best protest songs full of timelessly acute observations and reflections. Certainly it is one of this year’s essential records.

 

Unpopular Advent 2013 Day 17 - The Pastels

Summer Rain - The Pastels (from 'Slow Summits' LP)

Go on, take a time machine and nip back to 1986. Take a look at the ‘Indie’ charts in the NME or Melody Maker. Place your bets on which of the bands will still be making records in 2013. Place a further bet on which ones will still sound both comfortably familiar and yet simultaneously fresh and contemporary. Now hands up all the liars who bet on The Pastels.

Don’t get me wrong, I dug The Pastels back in 1986. I just wouldn’t in a million years have thought that I’d be listening to new records by them some twenty seven years in the future. Mind you, I dare say the concept of twenty seven years in the future would have been the furthest thing from my mind back then, so maybe it’s a moot point.

Regardless, ‘Slow Summits’ was another magical chapter in the tale of The Pastels and told the story of middle-age gentility merging with the fierceness of individual identity. In hindsight perhaps that strength of belief in knowing the self (whilst simultaneously being anxious to continue to develop and never stagnate) is what has always been The Pastels’ key quality. In their younger years perhaps some interpreted that as arrogance and that is fair enough (if there is a time for arrogance it is in youth, after all) but these days when I think of The Pastels I think of generosity of spirit and warmth of heart. But in a Punk, not a Hippie way, of course.

 

Unpopular Advent 2013 Day 16 - The Wolfhounds

Cheer Up - The Wolfhounds (from 'Cheer Up' 7")

You will have heard me say this before but really it bears repeating that The Wolfhounds are one of my very favourite groups from that fertile period in the mid to late 1980s when I was so voraciously consuming music. Indeed, they remain one of my very favourites from any era, period. I have written about them in the past of course. Tangentially as part of this piece about the sleeve art of Andy Royston, and then again as part of an article about the C86 tape for Royston’s own Wolfhounds website (which sadly seems to have evaporated). As such the release of their first vinyl 7" release since a triumphant live return at the 'Still Doing It For Fun' events at the ICA back in 2006 was always going to excite me, and whilst I admit to some nervousness before dropping the needle on the record I needn’t, of course, have worried. For in ‘Cheer Up’ The Wolfhounds not only effortlessly picked up where they had left off with 1990’s criminally under-rated ‘Attitude’ set, they also presented one of the most dynamic, vitriolic blasts of Pop Noise genius of the year. Their second single of the year, the mighty ‘Divide And Fall’ was similarly barbed and brutally beautiful, whilst it's mesmerising flip 'The Ten Commandments of Public Life' showed their hypnotic, rhythmic side and certainly put me in mind of earlier triumphs like 'Restless Spell' or 'Another Hazy Day On The Lazy A'. The New Year promises another new offering on the marvellous Oddbox imprint. Don’t you dare miss out. 

 

Unpopular Advent 2013 Day 15 - Colour Me Wednesday

Shut - Colour Me Wednesday (from 'I Thought It Was Morning' LP)

Take equal parts Siddeleys, Long Blondes, Standard Fare and Darling Buds. Mix in a tall glass. Pour. Enjoy.