Keeping It Real - Hopefully

Starring

Abstract Crimewave, Alison Goldfrapp, The Clientele,The Divine Comedy, Fused, The Moonlandingz, Peel Dream Machine

Taurus : Peel Dream Magazine

Best for : Lovers of instant, classic indie pop

Here’s a question for you. What connects Peel Dream Machine’s new album with a cafe serving only excellent lemon meringue pie, creme brulee and Eton mess? Everything hits the sweet spot and nothing is left to waste.

One more question. Why is this album so short, when it also seems so effortless and natural? It features one demo, six perfectly formed and structured songs and one oddity. The brief oddity is ‘Down From The Trees’ which comes across as if they felt that what the world needed now was both love, sweet love and a short lecture on animal behaviour. The demo - ‘Take It’ - works surprisingly well. It’s a lovely mix of heartfelt, sweet and reflective.

Short it may be, but this is no serving of leftovers from previous albums. ‘Venus In Nadir’ bounces in to open the album. It’s an instant classic, the kind of song that, in the 80s, would have become a sleeper hit as it spread from radio speakers across sun drenched parks. ‘The Band From Northampton’ is a musical muscle stretch and warm up, a song to boost you for the day. If Stereolab produced The Boy Least Likely To it could sound like this. ‘Seek and Destroy’ builds momentum through its perfect understanding of pop melody and how to build a song. The glockenspiel (or maybe it’s a xylophone) on ‘Venus In Nadir’, ‘Believer’ and elsewhere adds a playful, childlike feel, coming straight from the nursery of memory.

This is an album where the pleasure comes as a rush. It’s a gentle, lovable affair that’s over far too soon. Like all good desserts it leaves you wanting more.

Taster Track : Venus In Nadir

The Longest Night : Abstract Crimewave

Best for : Reminding you that pop can be fun without meaning anything.

The hardest records to review are those which are short, light and inoffensive. They’re effortlessly likeable, hang around for a few weeks and are then gently nudged to one side for the next Taylor Swift opus or new short, light and inoffensive album that captures the public’s attention. It seems unfair and it is, but it’s the fate that awaits Abstract Crimewave.

They’ve learned that lesson the hard way. They used to be called Smile and that summed up their sound perfectly. Then Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood decided that the name was what they wanted for their new crunchy and jagged Radiohead side project, so they took it.

The newly named Abstract Crimewave are no minnows. They’ve enticed Lykke Li and Chrissie Hynde to collaborate on ‘The Gambler’ and ‘The Longest Night’ which is surprising. It feels like a step down for both of them but it could simply be that Abstract Crimewave proved to be such warm and friendly guys that they wanted to help. I hope so.

The instrumental synthpop of ‘Heading Out’ sets the tone. It buoys you up nicely with its optimistic energy. It would be as much at home in the charts as it could be backing a TV lifestyle documentary. Three Swedish tunes round off the album. ‘Flyga Fram’ has the feel good folksy charm of a professional school choir. ‘Damba Trask’ has a sunny and bleepier feel. ‘Dodmandgreppe’  is also a stand out tune, a fitting climax to an album that deserves more than drifting pleasantly by before it’s gone.

Google draws a blank trying to translate ‘Damba Trask’ and ‘Dodsmangrepp’ into English. Perhaps the words mean nothing outside of a small circle of friends. Neither does the album but that’s OK. It doesn't need to because it doesn’t matter. Enjoy it simply for what it is.

Taster Track : Dodmansgrepp

Flux : Alison Goldfrapp

Best for : Anyone who likes a taste of good, shiny future pop

It’s not often that the colour of your clothing defines an album, but the yellow jacket that Alison Goldfrapp wears on the cover of ‘Flux’ provides the best indication of what to expect inside. It’s a sunny, warm, bright (but not artificially or harshly bright) collection of songs. It has surface appeal for those who see music as one of life's accessories, but also promises the substance and quality sought by someone requiring something durable.

There’s a sense that the rebranding of Alison Goldfrapp as a solo artist, following the tentative steps of 2023’s solo debut ‘The Love Invention’, is more firmly established. Now it's delivering songs that do her full justice. She’s heading for the neighbourhood occupied by Madonna and Kylie Minogue at her most sophisticated, but ‘Flux’ is an electropop album that allows feelings and personality to seep through as well.

Anyone hoping for the eerie atmospheres of Godfrapp’s ‘Felt Mountain’ will look in vain. The only atmosphere is the suggestion of the future contained in ‘Reverberotic’. Elsewhere, you’ll find sunny sounds bringing a taste of lifted spirits. This is less an immersive record and more one that, on songs such as ‘Ordinary Day’, weaves and wraps itself around you. This is a record laid out before you with all the tempting promise of the Yellow Brick Road.

‘Hey, Hi, Hello’ is a great opening track, superior glossy pop to appeal across generations, ‘UltraSky’ is an example of a rebrand that’s an improvement on the original, rather than simply dressing up the same old, same old in new clothes. ‘Magma’ is the kind of song that you hope will announce the credits on a film you want to see again.

Alison Godfrapp has settled into her stride and the results are a delight.

Taster Track : Hey, Hi, Hello

Rainy Sunday Afternoon : The Divine Comedy

Best for: Lovers of melancholy chamber pop, lush arrangement and excellent song writing.

I’ll be honest, The Divine Comedy were in the last chance saloon for me,falling into the category of artist that I thought had nothing more to offer. 

‘Rainy Sunday Afternoon’ changes things. He’s concentrating on the one style of song that he can perform consistently well. That’s drawing room chamber pop, where sweet melodies and lush arrangements can still be found ‘Rainy Sunday Afternoon’ is unremittingly unfashionable but genuinely gorgeous.

If you’re turning to this for another ‘National Express’, ‘Everyone Knows But You’ or ‘Something For the Weekend’ you’ll need to look elsewhere. He’s opted to be more of an acquired taste than a pop star and it suits him. Where he would once have been manic and obsessed, he’s now reflective. It’s as if he’s accepted that he’s a man out of time who’s been unable to change the world, so he’s making the most of improving the musical world as it is.

Ideally you’d listen to this with smog in the air and the sound of unseen rumbling double deckers in the background. ‘All The Bright Lights’ is a lovely piece of time travel back to the 60s and a childhood where London could be a source of magical wonder.

This transformation hasn’t happened overnight and some of the old DNA can still be heard. The arch tone of years gone by is still there in songs such as ‘Achilles’ but the songs are less reliant on it.‘The Man Who Turned Into A Chair’ shows his whimsical strengths, drawn from a line that goes back to Danny Kaye’s ‘The Ugly Duckling’. Listen carefully and you’ll still hear echoes of Scott Walker, Randy Newman - with sentiment replacing satire - and even Flanders and Swann.

He’s well served by the swooning string arrangements and the cabaret backing singers. They are consistently lovely, reminiscent of drawing room operetta. The tone is one of quiet melancholy. This is an album to luxuriate in from start to finish. Highlights, including ‘Achilles’, ‘All The Pretty Lights’, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter’ and ‘Invisible Thread’ come thick and fast.

The Divine Comedy is now, officially, back in the game.

Taster Track : Achilles

I Am Not There Anymore : The Clientele

Best for : Those who want to be bewitched by their music

If you want to know what this album is about, I can’t help you. I have no idea what’s going on. It’s a brave, no concessions offered move to open with an eight and a half minute epic - ‘Fables of the Silverlink’ -with a strangely psychedelic and progressive feel. If there’s a video accompanying it I wouldn't be surprised if it features knights in a medieval setting (directed by Ingmar Bergman, not Monty Python). 

It may be a concept album. There are definite links between songs. The village is on fire in the song with that title and in ‘My Childhood’. Maria features in both ‘Dying In May’ and ‘I Dreamed Of You Maria’. Dead children feature in ‘Conjuring Summer In’. All the spoken word pieces feel haunted by dreams. Magic is afoot, and it may not be the white magic kind. This is music that is trying to bewitch you.

Take heart. As they sing on ‘Lady Grey’ “All beautiful things are opaque” and this album is full of beautiful songs. This is more than chamber pop, it’s a kind of pastoral baroque music with short nu classical interludes before the next venture into dreamland.

The Clientele have never been a band that knock out songs in an afternoon. They lavish care on every aspect of their music. Their pastoral pop has become something much more ambitious and vivid but, thankfully, not at the expense of at least one heartstopping moment that leaves you tingling and holding your breath. It comes with ‘Hey Siobhan’ and it’s worth the price of your monthly streaming subscription alone. ‘Stems of Anise’, ‘Blue Over Blue’ and, especially, ‘Through The Roses’ are also more immediate songs with gorgeous melodies.

Trying to find comparators for The Clientele is tricky. Like Mark Hollis / Talk Talk and The Blue Nile, there's no one quite like them. They do operate in the same slow, emotional, grave space. And you can trace a line back to some of Paul McCartney’s songs for The Beatles - songs like ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and ‘She’s Leaving Home’, but low sugar, less catchy versions.

The Clientele make songs that are absorbing and other worldly, as beautiful and unknowable as Ingrid Bergman.

Taster Track : Hey Siobhan

The Silicon Queens : Fused

Best For : People who love 80s music and don’t care where it’s come from.

I suppose it was always going to come to this. Deep down I knew that, one day, I’d be listening to something new that wasn’t shaping up to change my world but was a good enough way to start my day. Then the thought would strike me: Is this real, or is it AI?

I’m not going to tie myself down in future reviews trying to identify what has been written and composed over many months by a real band, and what has been programmed by a computer. In the moments of listening, it’s irrelevant anyway. If you like what you hear, lucky you. AI isn't the future of music. It’s part of the present.

As I settled into the opening track ‘Queens of the Electro Show’ I noted that Fused have fused their influences into something energetic and fun, drilling it home with a knowing smile. They hide their influences in plain sight. ‘I Won’t Be Your Rock and Roll’ lays them before you - the Silicon Teens, The Normal, Human League and more. Something like ‘Thought Crime’., is a little robotic but that’s just a matter of personal taste. All together it feels like music that could soundtrack the Dan Dare comic strip disco.

The thing is though, it’s too pristine. Too perfect. After a few songs it strikes as passionless, like the 16th Austrian village you’ve visited by coach nestling next to an Alpine lake surrounded by classic mountains tipped with snow under a cobalt blue sky. Perfect, but where do you put your rubbish if there’s not a waste bin to spoil the view? 

This isn’t just electropop that’s an experiment in sound. It’s an experiment in marketing too. Don’t expect to see The Silicon Queens at a venue near you soon. Don’t look for interviews with the band. Aside from the glossy picture on the album cover, there are no other images on Google. Amazon has no physical version of this music for sale. Bandcamp, bless ‘em, are offering the album for free. If there’s a cultural rip off perpetrated here, it’s not compounded by a financial one, although I haven’t checked download sites.

Nothing’s proven yet, but for now we can say that ‘The Silicon Queens’ is adequate. No more, no less.

Taster Track : Queens of the Electro Show

No Rocket Required : The Moonlandingz

Best for: People who like their dance rock to hit loud and with a euphoric rush

The Moonlandingz are difficult to ignore. They’re like a band that has been out partying wildly for a fortnight, crashing into the centre of a landfill site before re-emerging a little messier but completely unbowed. There are more than a few moments here that are as satisfying as a primal scream. They’re unstoppable, and leave you giddily overwhelmed by excitement and the sheer power of their songs

‘Some People’s Music’ serves as an overture to what comes later. Delivered by the band and Ewen Bremner (Spud in ‘Trainspotting’) it has the same passion, as the iconic ‘Choose Life’ monologue recited by Ewan McGregor in that film. It’s funny, sincere, joyful and full of celebratory swearing that descends into something you’ll never hear on national radio.

This is an album that starts at the messiest and sleaziest end of Pulp before shooting off to join the Sleaford Mods. It’s louche dance rock, full of bleeps, squelches and buzzes that also manages to sound cinematic. They’re in a hurry and have neither overworked nor tidied up their songs. They’ve aimed for power, not refinement with their heavy beats and repetitive melodies. This is music that seeks a physical response. You may choose to join in the dance or to run away. It reaches its climax with ‘The Krack Drought Suite (Pts 1-3). It closes the album with an all out, overwhelming assault on the senses like a symphony of pneumatic drills.

The band exercise tight control over the mayhem, but are happy to licence something like ‘ The Insects Have Been Shat On’ to wander off and explore a few byways away from the core song. It’s a mark of this album that when they feel the need to calm things down on ‘Where I’m From’, the man they turn to is Iggy Pop. That’s the most unexpected allocation of duties since Keith Richard intervened to rein in Charlie Watts’ drug habit!

Very few albums demand the warning “brace yourself” .This is one of them. Do so wholeheartedly and feel euphoria in your hearts.

Taster Track : Some People’s Music

As ever this week's Taster Track playlists can be accessed at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/42qDXrw3nLMlCSg45kCnRy?si=4499207642034207 or via the Spotify link on the Home Page.

The link to the Youtube playlist is https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwV-OogHy7EjHZr5_M3m0Zn5LEu_F3fMm&si=OhQF-ZPaBjUn4VMT