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Mudhoney’s ninth studio album is pretty much the same “return to form” they’ve been offering for a while now, well, certainly it’s as good as 2008’s The Lucky Ones. By sticking at it, carving out a path – and, presumably a living – Mudhoney still sounds like a grunge antecedent, like a slicker, happier Melvins, but also they’ve got their chops razor-sharp, so it’s not just all Stooges-aping fuzz and gunge. You think about the bands that have extended the garage-rock template to allow psychedelia and songwriting (The Black Angels) or killer rock’n’roll playing (The Greenhornes) and Mudhoney is right up there with them – plus they were here before Nirvana.

So it’s a good effort.

And though there are a few slight songs on Vanishing Point there are no clangers. It’s a super-strong opening with Slipping Away and I Like It Small and when it closes with Douchebags on Parade you realise (yet again) this band has always done pisstakes well, fucking with its audience while giving it exactly what it wants/needs/deserves.

The drumming of Dan Peters – the thing that gets this record off to its bucking start – is superb. Ditto Steve Turner’s guitar, punk-ish and snotty but with a soul to it; with character.

That’s exactly what Mudhoney does so well – provides character. The songs, the sound, it’s full, it’s packed with energy and cheeky humour and tight playing. Some of the songs are forgettable but that sound stays with you. They own it.

So, 25 years on this band sounds good as ever and they are back flying the flag on Sub Pop, back where they should be of course; back where they’ve been for the last decade.

With Vanishing Point you somehow know exactly what to expect/what you’re going to get – and there’s no disappointment at all. That’s what you want; that’s what you’re happy to have. And just 35 minutes – no need for the album to be any longer. They get it done.

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June 11, 2013 by Simon Sweetman

How To Destroy Angels: Welcome Oblivion

How To Destroy Angels

Welcome Oblivion

Columbia

Its been hard to keep up with Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor – and/or hard to care. That said, I’ve done my best to keep one eye (and at least one ear) on a decent dose of his outpourings. There have been some beautiful moments, the free-download/giveaway NIN instrumental pieces hinting towards the Reznor soundtrack work. But the problem with the model Reznor has created – such a powerful brand to those that care – means he’s even more in need of a damn good edit and less likely to receive exactly that.

He’s calling the shots so he’ll overcook each broth if he wants. And – usually – he wants. And sadly, that means the audience is never left with that exact desire. And that should be the case.

So, How To Destroy Angels is the little side-project that could, except of course it’s about to be lapped by the NIN pace-car, the rebrand/re-launch is imminent and that will knock this band out of the race entirely I should think. A shame because the two EPs were promising and there’s a lot to like on this full-length album. I enjoy Reznor in the back-seat role – granted he’s still calling the shots. I do tire of his voice across a whole album and so here to have someone else singing is the first blessing. And to have Reznor thinking about melodic weave rather than rhythmic crunch is a good thing too.

His wife, Mariqueen Maandig, is the band’s lead singer. She’s been a polarising figure/voice, many of Reznor’s fans just want to hear him it seems – but I like what she brings to the table. And there’s a moodiness to these tracks, including a very overt Kraftwerk/early electronica influence that would have been lost with Trent’s tortured vocals. He has had a tendency to bury his best work by singing over it – part of the reason NIN’s instrumental tracks and the move to soundtrack work has been such a hit with me.

That editing curse still plagues though – Welcome Oblivion is too long. The best of it is a welcome addition to the Reznor cannon, showing too that the crucial figure actually is Atticus Ross; if not the brains of the operation then certainly the taste.

Maandig’s vocals are generally set to soar and this works, providing glacial and gossamer, dropping down to hide inside the digital beats and blips and beeps, pouring herself across the music. The synth and keys and programmed sounds build slowly to create hypnotic trance-like grooves. It’s a wash of music. And it’s easy to get lost in while it lasts – with just a couple of time-checks toward the end sadly.

You have to wonder if anyone – beyond the hardcore nutty fans – will even give a shit for this when the new NIN album drops.

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June 10, 2013 by Simon Sweetman

Bibio: Silver Wilkinson

Bibio

Silver Wilkinson

Warp Records

Stephen Wilkinson (aka Bibio) has created a sound-world that almost forces together bits and pieces of hip-hop, folk, electronica, dance music, indie-pop and broken-beat soul – but to use the word force gives the wrong impression. For it’s all about the waft and drift, as if Kings of Convenience decided to pick apart and then re-stitch the work of Nightmares on Wax, as if Royksopp took a (further) chill pill and were sent in down the order to bat it out with Kid Loco.

So for his seventh album it’s a reapplication for a job his fans already know he does. It’s more of the same and that’ll either just suit you fine or continue to bore you/pass you by.

Somehow – and it’s Bibio’s greatest strength, I feel – he manages to make little sonic short-films that have a greater impact when strung together; each album is just a little all over the place, rather subtle though within that, certainly relaxed – never trying too hard to impress in its jump-from-moment-to-moment way. Probably because it’s more a case of sliding down the banister than actually jumping.

There’s a hands in pockets nonchalance to this – as with other Bibio records – that is both endearing and kind of wonderful. It’s also a bit grating, you want to slap this record around the gills a bit.

In fishing for new tunes, there are some really lovely melodies and at its best the Bibio sonic/tonic is one that allows you to forget the world. That has to be a great skill, right?

Problem is it never (quite) takes you anywhere. It certainly lifts you up from where you were, removes you from one dull place. But without ever quite taking you to another it leaves you hovering. And seven albums in it’s starting to feel like a magic carpet ride without the actual magic. We hang along with these slightly quirky, often lovely tunes. But we don’t even know why we’re hanging with them. We just are. Because they just are.

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June 10, 2013 by Simon Sweetman

Black Sabbath: 13

Black Sabbath

Universal Republic

Oh, sure, you’re a Black Sabbath fan so you want to like – or you never were so you’ve come for a scoff. But here’s the truth of it – this record didn’t need to happen, it’s not wrong that it has, but it’s also nothing you need to hear. Rick Rubin has tried to be clever and recreate the early (black) magic. So this album closes by going full-circle to the doom you hear on that first Sabbath record. And it opens with an obvious nod to that slow-grind too. And sometimes 13 is so desperate to sound like Black Sabbath and Paranoid it’s guilty of tantamount to rewriting (Viz: Zeitgeist which you know already under its usual name of Planet Caravan).

Hey but big fucking deal right, riff-based rock and metal bands rip themselves off all the time. Also Zeitgeist is my favourite track here – if only because you sense in it some actual signs of actual life.

But this is a cynical move. This record – the first with Ozzy back in/with Sabbath in 35 years – wants to make out that there’s a lot of weight to it, that it lives up to the long wait. But have people really been waiting for and wanting a new Black Sabbath record? Really? Really? Oh, fuck off – you have not! Everything the band ever needed to do is in those first four records (actually almost all of it is in the first two – but wa-hey!)

Nearly 20 minutes pass before we get to the third track, this album plods along suggesting the main form of metal is the Zimmer frame used to lurch between the chords; damn Tony Iommi sounds busted, broken blue and so, so slow. Too slow bro. Too slow. He and Geezer take very long walks along the fretboards, you can almost hear them windbagging about back in my day as they cling to things to assist them on that walk.

Yes, a whole bunch of people listening to this will be on the Sweatleaf just as they always have been with Sabbath but if that’s the case then just keep playing (and getting) Paranoid why doncha?

Nothing flat out stinks on this album – beyond the record’s duplicitous, calculated, deceptive intentions. The music is not shit. But it is turgid. It sounds like Soundgarden had a stroke.

Speaking of those influenced by Sabbath, does Brad Wilk of Rage Against The Machine/Audioslave have carpal tunnel syndrome? I hope so. I mean, I don’t wish it on him, but it would excuse his playing here. Your average Black Sabbath fan might have a better chance of spelling the word dynamic than Wilk would of spotting it in a line-up, let alone trying to utilise the concept. The RATM drummer is ponderous and dull here – but then that’s not actually his fault really. To be perfectly blunt, which is how a lot of this music is served, 13 is actually ponderous and dull for the most part. It tries hard to have a reverence but it doesn’t. It’s old man metal.

Ozzy, Geezer and Tony sound older than they are.

They didn’t need to do this. And though you’ll never have to justify your curiosity beyond being exactly that – we all kinda want to know if it stacks up or not – the truth is this record is an hour-long lurch.

It just keeps stumbling. The lyrics are shit – downright stupid or just completely uninteresting. And the music just spirals around itself; doom-metal’s bath-water being emptied.

The plug should have been pulled on this project. Play the hits boys, fair enough, but this record came out sounding stale. Not good since you were teasing it for a decade and (some) fans have been wanting to believe in it for at least twice that long. You bake the bread too long and it’s too tough, you can’t swallow it.

On and on these songs and players creak. And the longer the record plays on the sadder it seems.

Buy the last ZZ Top album instead. Those boys can (still) play. They still got something to say. This is heavy metal’s sleeping pill.

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June 10, 2013 by Simon Sweetman

Elvis Costello: In Motion Pictures

Elvis Costello

In Motion Pictures

UMe

People love putting the boot into Elvis these days, too much genre flitting/flirting, an unsteady hand, too pleased with himself as renaissance man. I still think of him as one of the great pop songwriting talents. When he’s on he’s on – the catalogue is an embarrassment of riches – and not just the first decade. Granted, after 1986 you have to be a bit more selective, but some of the songs and cover-versions are sublime, plenty of brilliant moments.

That said I’m not so much a fan of the amount of reissues and anthologies that have been served up. Still, I wanted to give this one a try, redundant though it might be – because I kinda like the concept. There was a similar one featuring Van Morrison songs relatively recently.

Elvis Costello has compiled this 15-tracker, showcasing some of his songs that made it into the movies. I had no idea that Accidents Will Happen was used in the film ET or The Miracle Man was in The Godfather III. I did, on the other hand, know that his cover of Charles Aznavour’s She was for Notting Hill and that the Ray Davies gem Days was recreated by Costello for Until The End of the World.

I also loved God Give Me Strength in Grace of my Heart, a sweet song from a sweet film.

I like hearing these sorts of alternative hits collections – I guess you could call this that. (I just have at any rate). My Mood Swings (from The Big Lebowski) has always been one of my favourite Costello songs and one of my favourites from that film’s soundtrack but it’s nice to hear it here alongside Crawling To The U.S.A, Oh Well and I Want You.

Any Costello disc showcasing his songwriting skill/s needs to have I Want You on it.

So I have no idea if this album is really needed or not. Probably not, I’m thinking. And maybe it’s on the cheeky and slightly lazy side. But I liked it; just seeing the songs lined up with the films they “starred” in makes me listen to them in a different way; I imagine them in the film setting – and there are a few films listed next to songs that I now want to see/see again.

But if you’re a fan with plenty of Costello music already you really don’t need this. At all.

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June 10, 2013 by Simon Sweetman

West of Memphis: DVD

West of Memphis

Director: Amy Berg

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

For West of Memphis we hear – again – the story of The West Memphis Three and though, still, the case hasn’t been full resolved, this film arrives to tell the latest part of the story, to show that some justice has been restored, to shine a light on the appalling legal/justice system in Arkansas and the desperation of a small community in the wake of a horrific crime. And to finger a new suspect.

But when the case was covered in the earlier Paradise Lost trilogy some actual filmmaking was on show. Here it’s about big-name producers, famous talking heads and a bit of back-patting from Peter Jackson.

Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh put a lot of time and effort and money into the cause to free Damien Echols and Jackson fronts up here on the other side of the camera than is his norm and discusses his moral outrage. And good on him (and her) for the work they did. But this artless documentary they’ve produced relies on the fact that it’s an extraordinary case – that’s what will keep viewers hooked.

We trace around the earlier films, using tiny snippets to contextualise (apparently without asking) and ultimately this aims to tell Echols’ story. Well, in fact Echols is one of the film’s co-producers.

Director Amy Berg does get to tell (almost) the full story – so her single film will become theone that people watch, it tells enough of the tale, gives enough of an overview and so for that it is worthwhile. But there’s no comparison between it and the Paradise Lost series; that was poignant, provocative documentary film making. This is a very long version of the Crime Channel documentaries you part-record with MySky and get back to at some rainy-day stage.

There’s also the film’s soundtrack which features music from some of the film’s interviewees – Eddie Vedder, Natalie Mains of the Dixie Chicks (now solo artist) and Henry Rollins. Well, they believe in the cause and good for them. They’ve worked hard. I guess.

West of Memphis is a decent recap of a case that is now some 20 years old. And the concern at this point is that there could well be a fifth movie. I doubt I could stick it out to sit through that.

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June 9, 2013 by Simon Sweetman

The Great Gatsby: Film

The Great Gatsby

Director: Baz Luhrmann

Village Roadshow Pictures

Baz Luhrmann’s version of The Great Gatsby is likely the stupidest film I’ll ever see. And how fitting for it to be in 3D – the same issues with that gimmick apply to Luhrmann’s creative angle: you’re put right in the film and for that to happen there needs to be a hole; the movie’s heart then is removed just so we can all see inside. No matter that it’s a hollow, empty experience,because we got to see inside it man!

In that regard Luhrmann is a bit like Peter Jackson, using whatever tricks possible to cover up for the absence of storytelling. Where once they were capable of telling a simple, human story now it’s mostly about the razzle and almost entirely about the dazzle.

The Great Gatsby, a slim novel, has plenty going for it – angles, themes, subtext, all of this is ignored by Luhrmann because he wants to throw a party. With everything louder than everything else we are tossed into the Jazz Age party scenes – except there are snippets of hip-hop and fireworks and dizzying camera plunges and pull-backs – all signifying everything and offering/revealing nothing. Troweled on excess is garish, cartoonish and leaves the actors to mug it for the camera and hope for the best. In that regard Leonardo DiCaprio does the best work – he isn’t great, but he is Gatsby. And he appears, almost, to be having a good time. Carey Mulligan is ghastly-dull, portrait of barely restrained vacuity – but then, so is Daisy, so no real damage done. But Tobey Maguire doesn’t really nail the crucial character of Nick Caraway (our narrator). Probably because Luhrmann has him in a sanatorium being treated for alcoholism and swiftly turns him into a bit-part while still hoping he’ll be the narrator, deciding instead that the main thing to take from Gatsby is nothing of idealism nor a comment on capitalism or the strange lure of wealth and the ugliness of greed dressed up to look pretty, because, instead, cinema goers what I have here for you is a doomed love story! Feel sad for the lovely people that don’t get to bone.

The Great Gatsby (novel) is full of flawed/unlikeable characters and Luhrmann decides the best way to play that is to fill the screen with beautiful people in scenes with far too much colour and far too many colours, hoping then we’ll care about them. We can’t sympathise, empathise or even try to care. Our heads are spinning from the absurdity of too much whoosh.

Much has been made of the film’s hip-hop music but it’s really a non-issue. I mean, sure, I don’t agree with its use – but then I’m watching a Jazz Age film in 3D so it’s a leave-the-brain-at-the-door scenario ultimately. And so the rumours of Jay-Z popping a cap in this film’s ass have been greatly exaggerated, for the most part we hear Craig Armstrong’s lovely-but-predictable score. The hip-hop elements are occasionally almost tasteful even if always incongruous. But in terms of ruining this film, it’ll be a long-wait in the coat-check with ticket in hand. Jay-Z and Beyonce at the very back of the queue. Luhrmann wants to kill what he (allegedly) loves with his own kindness.

Good lord 3D is stupid. In this film it’s unnecessary, at best it’s like those tacky hologram postcards in the bogan shops white witches run, selling crystals and those posters with horses and footsteps sunk in sand next to bathroom-wall poetry.

But it’s worse than that here because halfway through the film it seems to forget it was ever in 3D and concentrates instead on the (new) business at hand: being a bad Arthur Miller play.

The car-trip to New York, a race/chase, is one of several moments where Luhrmann appears, oddly, to be doffing his feather-boa blinged cap to Stanley Kubrick.

When we arrive at the hotel for an argument (just the ten-minute argument was it?) we’re supposed to just believe that the film’s moral centre has arrived.

But it’s hard to believe this because until the pointless 3D lifts stopped – so many shots of Leo or Tobey or Carey hovering in the middle of fucking-nowhere while all around them a blur – I couldn’t be entirely sure that I wasn’t watching a dramatic live-action recreation of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Funnily enough the film is actually kind of faithful to the book – I mean there are a few howlers and it’s all played up for LOL-as-opposed-to-actual-laugh moments in some strange world between the last film makeover of Chicago and a Kanye West video, a world where Luhrmann lives, getting sleep every other year or so – but it does on a very crude, stylised and overblown way, tell the actual story as printed (mostly) in the book. It’s even believable that Baz Luhrmann might have read the book. It’s just impossible to think that he understood it.

I don’t dislike the novel but I do think it’s been ludicrously overrated, it’s not only not one of the classics of the 20^th Century, it’s not even the best book that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote (that would be Tender Is The Night). And Luhrmann only manages to find the void, probably because he’s been trained to smell his own; he never tells us why we should be appalled at this, or if we should. He just wants us to be sad that some hot people never got to fuck – and you can tell he’s sad about that too because imagine the party he’d vomit onto the screen if that got going!

By the time this version of Nick Caraway gets to moralising the film’s sugar-rush has entirely crashed. It’s post-party nap-time. A bit of babbling in the cot and then out!

So I killed the two-plus hours actually enjoying the absurdities, black characters appearing like pancake-packet and raisin-box caricatures, blunted hip-hop beats drowning out the comic-book stylisation of a jazz horn being played on a balcony. At one moment, during a night-scene, you can almost see Luhrmann flicking back through the rushes, panicking as he thumbs back through his script remembering he was supposed to make references to the time and age whenever possible for those confused by Jay-Z’s Executive Producer credit and now wondering if Outkast’s Idlewild film had just been remade with way more white people and so – hovering in 3D’s wasteland, of course – we have construction workers hammering out a bridge. In the pitch black of night.

A whole lot of people will praise the set-pieces, the costumes, the daringness of it all. They loved the lights. So pretty. They in fact love lamp!

And then they’ll return to their meal-through-a-straw.

Of course the very simple clue that this film was likely to be a turkey was there right in front of us almost immediately – and no, I don’t (just) mean the (3D) credit listing Baz Luhrmann. I’m referring of course to the fact that the film features Isla Fisher. She is incapable of being good in a film, or even – perhaps by mistake – in a good film.

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June 9, 2013 by Simon Sweetman

The Winter: 10 Years On

Ten years ago – almost to the day – I joined a band called The Winter. Or, really, what actually happened…I met up with two guys for a jam, they were both experienced improvisers. I was not. Around this time I’d taken an interest in a few sorts of free and experimental music – free-jazz scared the shit out of me at first. Sometimes – if it’s doing its job right – it still does. Some improvised music does my head in, some I find profoundly moving.

I wanted to have a go at playing some free/improv.

We met for a jam. I knew Dave, knew some of his solo work, had seen him perform. He invited me to a jam. I wanted to give it a go.

We recorded for an hour or so that afternoon, the winter solstice, 2003. In a flat in Newtown. There was a giant mural of Where The Wild Things Are on the wall. I didn’t know Mike. But I knew straight away that he was a great player. And a great guy.

A couple of months later – and only one other rehearsal/jam – we booked our fist gig at Photospace Gallery. We recorded that as well. A bit later on we played at The Cross. And took a recording of that gig too. From there we built our debut album, Parataxes.

CDRs were labelled up and put in covers and in a very small print-run we had a CD.

It was exciting. And strange. And I couldn’t tell whether the music was any good or not – but I had loved being involved in it. So much so that it didn’t matter what I thought of it.

And then I listened back to it – and I liked it. I barely recognised my own playing. It had been so freeing. And that was the point. That was why I had been interested in accepting the challenge of what went on to become this sporadic project.

We made another album the following year and then there was a big break. Across the last couple of years we’ve met up once or twice a year, always happy to record our efforts for a later playback; every time the instrumentation is just a little different. Every time the sound is completely identifiable as us – to us. I now recognise my own playing in this format. And I always have fun thrashing out some ideas with these guys.

Dave sent me this page last night - it has a link to stream or download the album Parataxes. I thought I’d share it with you – if you’re interested.

I always get asked where my music is – so here is some of it. To you it may not be good – it may not even be music but I listened back to this last night, for the first time in a long time. The Winter, ten years on. It brought back a lot of happy memories. It both seems a lot longer ago than just ten years – and like only yesterday.

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June 9, 2013 by Simon Sweetman

Gig Review: MANTIS – The Music of Drew Menzies (June 8; Wgtn)

MANTIS: The Music of Drew Menzies

The Opera House, Wellington Jazz Festival 2013

Saturday, June 8

Reuben Bradley’s CD project celebrating the music of jazz/classical bassist/composer Drew Menzies was brought to the stage for an inspiring marriage of jazz and classical; jazz with strings attached – as it were. The New Zealand String Quartet brought their trademark focus to the event, one of the members even appeared to be thoroughly enjoying herself in the moments when the quartet rested (that gives an instant clue as to which member I’m referring to). But while the game-face was hard to penetrate perhaps it was certainly clear that every musician wanted to be there. This was an important show; an important piece – and beyond the reverence simply a lovely set of tunes both dutifully and beautifully performed.

For this live version Bradley’s jazz quartet featured bassist Brett Hirst, saxophonist Julien Wilson and pianist James Illingworth. As on the album Illingworth was given a few moments to shine, including a lengthy intro to one tune which had him touching on the intense solo performances of Keith Jarrett before falling effortlessly into the bounce of Bud Powell.

Bradley was elated – this much was clear; he relished his captain’s knock because, team player that he so very clearly is, this was about honouring the memory – and music – of his late friend.

And if the self-effacing between-song comments from Bradley only proved some truth in the old adage of never giving a drummer a microphone he was honest and earnest and spoke from the heart when talking about Menzies’ playing, writing and influence.

There was a lot to showcase too, the softer, romantic side (Ladies Man) and tunes that surprised with their twists and turns (I’ve Got Nothing Good To Say, clearly a misnomer if ever there was one and Laura’s Laksa). The strings – many of the arrangements by John Psathas – were often beautifully understated, but provided as much of the engine-room muscle in their own way as Bradley’s drumming and Hirst’s bass playing. So integrated, so well realised is this erm, arranged marriage.

A perfectly timed set, that built beautifully – the intensity set to soar for the finale; almost dizzying, a stunning, wonderful swirl of music that swept up the audience. Many stood to applaud, the room bursting with energy, sincerity and what a wonderful tribute to a talented musical soul; what a superb set of performances to honour Drew Menzies. A clear labour of love.

If you don’t already have the CD I’d recommend you check it out.

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June 9, 2013 by Simon Sweetman

Sylvie Simmons: I’m Your Man – The Life Of Leonard Cohen

I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen

Sylvie Simmons

Vintage Books

We only know so much about Leonard Cohen from his poems and songs – he is both diarist and then in the truest sense of autobiography he is the unreliable narrator. With Cohen, mostly, you can tell he’s doing that on purpose, as the voice has deepened over the years there’s even a bit of extra tongue for the cheek, the sardonic lines all but drip from the page – or, if reinterpreted for song, the stage. And everything he says is totally believable in that voice. Which must of course mean there are a fair few lies in there.

Sylvie Simmons is not the first Cohen biographer – but she is the best. This is the best book that will ever be written about Leonard Cohen. Simmons of course had the benefit of seeing some of the mistakes in print from those that tried before her, so that helped her in knowing to avoid/correct them. But she brings to this book so much of herself, not least her own formidable wit and writing skills, her own mischievousness – a match for Leonard’s no doubt – her own love of language and then the stripes she earned covering so much music across almost every popular genre for the last 30+ years. You get Simmons’ personality in this book – but right from the prologue, a perfect one-page opener, we have Cohen’s personality; we know Simmons has got it sussed. So we believe her. She is the reliable narrator.

Her book is a triumph – the finest Cohen bio, one of the best music books you could ever read and a marvel in studious non-fiction. She spoke with over 100 interviewees – managing, crucially, to get people on record who had previously avoided this lofty subject. Some, presumably, were never asked prior. But there are many coups – such as actress Rebecca De Mornay, former fiancée, a crucial muse, collaborator and – in the book – a strong, clear voice.

From further back in Cohen’s past Simmons tracks down producer Bob Johnston, childhood pal Mort Rosengarten and the rabbi who encouraged him towards Bar Mitzvah. There were visits to Mt Baldy, drop-ins on the two Suzannes from Cohen’s life, the Marianne of So Long Marianne, a stop-in at the Chelsea Hotel. And you feel all of this research on every page. You read this book and know that as much as Cohen locked himself away and did the work – over so many years – Simmons has, in her own way, replicated that. She has done the work.

It reads like a dream – a page-turner, across all 500-some pages. We have Simmons’ voice but in that great journalistic skill she presents – and even inhabits – the voices of other people. We are so sure we’re hearing from the right people at the right time; a quote to clarify, an amusing anecdote, pieces of trivia, fascinating insights.

The book balances assessment of the poems, novels and music where so many other tomes focus only on Cohen’s academic/literary endeavours, or his slightly off-centre placement within pop-music’s canon. Very few of the past biographers have adequately addressed both; no one has shown the integration of the works/worlds so seamlessly.

Simmons’ masterstroke is in getting to all of the women; they are the muses for Cohen through life and work. Within that there’s the revelation to treat this all holistically, to not separate life and work but see them as symbiotic, swapping places as one becomes catharsis for/from the other. In Cohen’s life (and therefore work) the women, the depression, the writing – all were interlinked, three vestiges that grew from/with one another.

There are rock’n’roll stories – such as the infamous madness of the Phil Spector sessions, a gun held to Cohen’s head at one point. Iggy Pop shares a wonderful story that just couldn’t be made up – and if you read it with any doubts Simmons provides the Polaroid, a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction ace card.

From the early years – picked over so studiously and lovingly – through to his comeback world tours and new album, Simmons shows so much love for Cohen, but never bumbles towards hagiography. She had his blessing for the book but then Cohen stood back. Respectfully, cleverly, Simmons never tries too hard to unravel/reveal Cohen’s mystique. Granted, it’s never an easy task to do so, but knowing one shouldn’t try is some of the best wisdom Sylvie
showcases with I’m Your Man.

A book to return to – not just for the life-story but for the telling of the tale, I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen is simply one of the best books I’ve ever read. Devotion pours from each page. The timing of the book was of course perfect. The writing of it is exquisite.

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June 9, 2013 by Simon Sweetman

Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires Of The City

Vampire Weekend

Modern Vampires Of The City

XL Recordings

I should have possibly always liked Vampire Weekend – given the very overt Paul Simon influence. But I’ve often found that anything that sounds just a bit like Paul Simon, or like it wants to sound like Paul Simon, annoys the shit out of me, fails to hook me in and – in short – fails. So that was pretty much how I wrote off the band’s first album, bunch of privileged white boys who discovered Graceland while staying at a Hamptons holiday home drinking Two-Buck Chuck and huffing home-made party-pill substances.

Vampire Weekend is a band that has been a bit like The Arcade Fire for me – in that I can recognise some talent, applaud the use of textures as an attempt to do something more/something other with/in indie pop – but I just don’t buy the hype; don’ t get the pop-your-cork accolades.

All that said I’m really digging the band’s new album; considered the closing chapter of a trilogy by the rabid fans no less.

To me this record is standalone – because the world music gimmick (and that’s all I ever heard it as, a gimmick – even if it was well-played, on a technical level) has been removed. This is about big, glorious pop hooks, happy, shiny choruses and – ultimately – clever, catchy, memorably (sometimes witty) pop songs.

In that sense I’m reminded of Dirty Projectors too, not at all in the sound but in the commitment to songwriting, to show something of substance behind the hype, behind the hipster-fans, behind the trace-the-press-release-sheet-journalese. Just as Dirty Projectors really stepped up with their last album and stripped it back to just the songs, no gimmick, same goes with Vampire Weekend here. In accordance with the Paul Simon influence there’s a hint of R’n’B/doo-wop vocal groups this time around, cleverly (perfectly) subverted.

Perhaps the cleverest trick to this album is that it won’t alienate the fans that have worshiped the band across its other two albums – and it has the power to turn on new fans, that slight shift in direction that suggests a maturing even though that’s such a death-knell-dirty-word. Here is a band newly energised, thoughtful and stepping out beyond the hype. Just as much as there were huge expectations around this album the band has sidestepped that by actually changing gears, by taking a new direction, by focussing on the content rather than the style.

There’s so much cleverness in this record – and usually that’s annoying. Usually it ends up unpicking itself to leave emptiness; a hole. But I can’t fault this record. I like it so much more than I thought I would.

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June 8, 2013 by Simon Sweetman

R.E.M: Green – 25th Anniversary Edition

R.E.M.

Green: 25^th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

Warners

I’ll say straight off that my bias is this was my introduction to R.E.M. I went back to everything before it – but Green was perfectly suited for me; at that time very much green myself. And it was the best introduction I could have to the band – it meant that Out Of Time was no great shock, I really liked it (different story trying to make it through that album now though) and I could see how, with four albums between them, this was the same band that came from Murmur.

There are a lot of great standouts on Green – You Are The Everything, I Remember California, Turn You Inside-Out and if Stand sounds, now, like the whole career They Might Be Giants and Barenaked Ladies still wish they could have, it was no great betrayal of the early R.E.M. sound – simply an extension. Same with Orange Crush. They might have been the “sell-out” moments on the album as far as the fans who had followed them from day one were concerned, after all we hate it when our bands become successful – but I still hear them as great pop songs. Orange Crush particularly. Stand is somewhat of an oddity on this album actually; almost the sore thumb. The one song that seemed rather desperate to be liked. But let’s not hold that against the band – it still shines, right time/right place.

But in You Are The Everything and I Remember California we hear – for the first time – the R.E.M. that we would go on to hear across moments of brilliance on Automatic For The People, Monster and New Adventures in Hi-Fi (that second decade of the band’s career not so much dwarfed by the great early 1980s run as it is hushed by fans desperate to protect their own interests/insecurities).

I didn’t really need this 25^th Anniversary Edition of Green – though I liked hearing the live footage from the time. Snappy tempos, a band increasingly sure of itself in the live arena – with a great set of hits to play now; interesting document of the time.

Truth is I still have my LP; I’m still happy listening to that but I always welcome such anniversary editions for the chance to listen again, to write something down and to
(potentially) see and hear new fans gushing or some of the anoraks so sure that the band stopped with Document grumble-mumble-acknowledging that Green was pretty brilliant.
Because it was. And is. I’ve always been sure of that. Never hurts to be forced to reconsider though; to think (out loud) again about it…