What does it sound like?:

By the time of their fourth album, Dire Straits had experienced that now rare luxury of having time to grow and develop. A fiery live act, centred around Mark Knopfler’s astonishingly fluid guitar playing (and an uncannily tight and sympathetic collective ability as a group – check out their Old Grey Whistle Test appearances), they sometimes had the tendency on their first three albums to tip over into blandness. (For me, those early albums all tend to blend into one AOR gloop). But there were signs of greatness to come, not least in Knopfler’s burgeoning songwriting ability (Romeo and Juliet from Making Movies being his first unqualified success, a light, dancing creation tempered by a combination of street suss and cynical playfulness worthy of Paul Simon).

Love Over Gold, then, was a change in sound (they ditched the producer and allowed Knopfler to produce on his own) and a leap forward in maturity. While there is an unshakeable whiff of eighties about the whole project (the dread digital gated reverb is in full effect, as well as a track listing in the style of a computer monitor), Love Over Gold’s roots actually lie in » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The cover’s just awful, for a start. I’m talking about the original UK release, with all the naked ladies. (I’ve used the alternative cover here, to spare your blushes). Hendrix himself famously hated it, publicly expressing his anger at the record company for going behind his back.

I wish I could find the full quote where he explains why he hates it, because it’s unwittingly hilarious, and it undermines any notion you might have that he was somehow a progressive feminist seeking to restore the dignity of these women. Turns out he LIKED the nudity… it was just that the lighting and wide angle made them all look distorted and ugly. (Shades of Spinal Tap: ‘What’s wrong with being sexy?’…. ‘No…. SexIST’…)

This kind of tragi-comic anecdote is indicative of the sloppiness that’s made Hendrix’s recorded output and subsequent legacy such a shambles. Never mind the endless bootlegs – even the official releases are a mess of half-baked packages and ill-timed reboots. In his lifetime, Jimi was a loose cannon with no real guiding hand, spewing out content with nary a game plan. So the chaos is understandable.

(Shame he never had a » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Yes, I thought I would review one of the best known LPs of all time. And why not? You never know, someone here might never have heard it. Or someone who professes to dislike The Beatles might be persuaded by my review to give it another go.

The way Abbey Road fits into the Beatles mythology is like this. Inspired by Pet Sounds, they hit a psychedelic high with Revolver (1966) and Sgt Pepper (1967), and turned pop music into art. Floundering for direction they spent much of 1968 messing about in the studio, and the resultant splurge of half-baked recordings became The White Album (a classic, but a flawed classic). In January 1969 they tried to record a live album, jamming and recording every minute, until they finished at the end of the month, cold and exhausted, with one last impromptu show for posterity on their office rooftop on Baker Street. By that point the game was up, they were all fed up being Beatles, and they had nothing left to say.

In that context, Abbey Road seems nothing short of miraculous. In the astonishingly compressed timescale of Beatles world, it was effectively » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

In one of the more unlikely comebacks of recent times, July this year saw our favourite antipodean sample-based groove merchants The Avalanches return with a new album, the first since their debut in 2000 (Since I Left You).

The most astonishing thing is just how much it sounds like business as usual. They’ve lost none of their magic touch, and haven’t tried to update their sound – this could easily have come out in 2001.

The idea of ‘sample based music’ might need a bit of context for the uninitiated. As you listen to Wildflower you might well hear bits and bobs from songs you recognise – there’s a bit of Admiral Halsey…. Isn’t that Fairport Convention?…. A children’s choir singing Come Together… How can they get away with this? Aren’t they just copying others peoples’ records? Well, yes. Yes they are. But think of it as collage and don’t worry about it. They’re re-contextualising, folks – recasting old sounds in a new sonic landscape. It all flows seamlessly though – you won’t spot the joins, and it’s almost impossible to tell the samples from the original sounds.

The cover is a cheeky rip » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

When La Roux emerged to mainstream success in 2009 they were an unlikely prospect. Sure, they tapped into an ’80s-centric zeitgest, but singer Elly Jackson had a kind of arch, nasal tone, whining from the top end of an unnatural register, and Ben Langmaid’s synth-heavy productions favoured genuinely tinny, crunchy sounds that were at odds with modern bass-heavy pop.

I loved them, however, and for me the formula worked beautifully. Until I heard that debut album I’d never have thought the world needed a Yazoo for the 21st century. What elevated them was solid pop nous, nothing more – the kind of fluffy, infectious tunes we remember from early Depeche Mode and OMD.

I didn’t have high hopes for this second album. Five long years in the making, in which time we had such disasters as Ben falling out with Elly and leaving for good (yes, La Roux is now a solo act) and Elly losing her voice (she got it back, but she now sings in a lower key – the distinctive whine, sadly, is gone).

But Trouble In Paradise is, against all odds, wonderful. Oozing confidence from the start with Uptight Downtown » Continue Reading.