In a Sunday lunchtime stupor – in no way brought on by the previous evening’s cocktail of gin, beer and red and white wine, you understand – I was catching up on Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone radio show.
My guard was down, and “Mother” – in the most balletic, subtle way imaginable – glided in and knocked me for six. A song delicate of beauty, sparse but poetic of language, it speaks of Vashti Bunyan as a young girl, standing at an ajar door, catching the beautiful unaware lady who had brought her into the world in a rare off-duty moment: on one occasion, her mother is dancing, spinning, “briefly unbound”; on another, she is playing piano and singing “songs long learned, so long untuned”. “My applause should have been rapturous”, Bunyan whispers, but, instead – heartbreakingly – she closed the door and “turned, turned away”.
In the subsequent conversation with Maconie, Bunyan said that she wanted to acknowledge the sacrifices that her mother’s generation made – that the opportunities she enjoyed when pursuing her musical dreams weren't available to them. Her new album Heartleap, self-produced at her home in Edinburgh and only her second release since 1970’s evergreen Just Another Diamond Day, contains many more treasured memories and secret treasures.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Cellophane (2014)
Come for the name (just wrap your tongue around those delicious syllables), stay for the tunes. The marvellously-monikered King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have been incredibly prolific since forming in Melbourne in 2011, making a name (again, what a name!) for themselves in Australia’s vibrant psychedelic scene with several idiosyncratic LPs. They've recently been snapped up by Thee Oh Sees’ Castle Face label (a perfect fit) in the US and Heavenly Records in the UK, who’s nu-psych stable already includes Temples, TOY, The Voyeurs, and The Wytches. One listen through of “Cellophane”, and viewing of its accompanying 3D video, is enough to mark them out as a looser, loonier proposition than any of those bands.
Previous single “Hot Wax” suggested that King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard had befriended the “Drunk Girls” at LCD Soundsystem’s house party and led them out into the street for a spontaneous rendition of the “Monster Mash”. Their new album I'm In Your Mind Fuzz is to be let loose on Halloween on blood red and green splattered vinyl. Of course it is!
Viet Cong – Continental Shelf (2014)
Viet Cong - a four piece, featuring two former members of Calgary post-punkers Women - are another act likely to receive more attention now that they've signed to a prominent Indie (in their case the wonderful Jagjaguwar label). And rightly so - their Cassette EP, originally only available at their live shows and then pressed up as a 12", is one of the most promising things I've heard all year - a 7-track demonstration of how to do something fresh with your influences (garage pop, drone, post-punk), be adventurous, and fall with style.
“Check your anxiety, no need to suffer silently” dooms Matt Flegel, and Viet Cong certainly don’t suffer in silence here. "Continental Shelf”, set to feature on their self-titled LP out in January, is their most brooding, oppressively impressive creation yet, recalling Bauhaus (who's "Dark Entries" they covered on the Cassette EP) and The Scream-era Siouxsie & The Banshees. Their most angry too: the verses find Flegel tearing at his hair and not wanting to “face the world…it’s suffocating”; the chorus a resigned howl against the greedy and the selfish with their “fingertips in the fountain”, fondling “liquid gold” as the world falls apart around them.
Júníus Meyvant - Color Decay (2014)
There's something undoubtedly studied about Icelandic newcomer Júníus Meyrant's recreation of 60s baroque pop and 70s folk-soul. However, like Michael Kiwanuka's "Tell Me A Tale" or Ray Lamontagne's best work, "Color Decay" is so beautifully played and produced, its strings and horns so deftly orchestrated, that I can forgive him that. Plus, as I was listening to its autumnal sweep for the first time, Bob Lind's "Elusive Butterfly" came fluttering into my head. Which can only ever be a good thing.
Kevin Morby - Parade (2014)
"Slow Train", Kevin Morby's elegant collaboration with Cate Le Bon, was a real stand-out 2013 track for me, and the ex-Woods bassist clearly works faster than he plays guitar because he's back with another slice of unhurried, classic-sounding rock. On "Parade", the first track from his second solo album, his echoey vocal and diction and the universality of his melancholy lyrics (about coming to terms with the inevitability of death) are the right side of Dark Side Dave Gilmour; the "ba-ba-bahs", brass and "all my friends were there waiting on me" section straight out of a prime-Beatles McCartney piano number. Lovely stuff.
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