The Founder Volume 5 Issue 4

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14 The Founder | Thursday 4 November 2010 E X T R A Music EXTRA Music News Oh Kanye, will a day come when you cease to be newsworthy? This week, the awards-crashing egomaniac has been as busy as ever, not only releasing another track for his G.O.O.D Friday series with Keri Hilson and Pusha T (Clipse) but also finding time to lend a werewolf-themed verse to a remix of La Roux’s ‘In For the Kill’, appearing in the video for Kid Cudi’s newest single ‘Erase Me’, announcing a collaboration album with Jay-Z, making a surprise appearance along with GZA (Wu-Tang Clan) at the Fools Gold expo at Offline Festival and, last but not least, premiering his 35 minute short film, ‘Runaway’, which sees him fall in love with a phoenix, attend conceptual banquets and wear very expensive suits whilst playing tracks from his upcoming album, ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’. Sometime Kanye-collaborator Rhymefest has announced his candidacy for alderman in Chicago’s 20th ward in a move potentially less ill-considered than Wyclef Jean’s attempt at running for Haitian President in the wake of this year’s earthquake. Major Lazer (Diplo, Switch) have announced that their follow-up to last year’s floor-filling ‘Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do’ will feature collaborations from Vampire Weekend, Santigold, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Lykke Li, who has also made tracks from her upcoming album available for download on her website. The Beastie Boys have released the track listing for their upcoming record ‘Hot Sauce Committee David Bowman Music Editor pt.2’, which was originally intended to be the follow-up to the now unreleased ‘Hot Sauce Committee pt.1’, which was cancelled after band member Adam Yaunch was hospitalised, following emergency surgery for a cancerous tumour. As reported last week, Daft Punk will be making a cameo in Disney’s Tron Legacy and the new trailer for the film sees them (imaginatively) playing futuristic robot DJ’s. The trailer also includes the longest clip yet from Daft Punk’s Tron soundtrack, which contains all the jittery electro sounds you could expect from a Daft Punk release. Sufjan Stevens, having recently released both an EP and LP has (like the Shins and Big Boi before him) had a ballet made, which is choreographed around his second album, ‘Enjoy Your Rabbit’. Mark E Smith (The Fall) has admitted to both verbally and physically assaulting the purveyors of questionable folk, Mumford and Sons, in the following quote from an interview with Brag magazine: “We were playing a festival in Dublin the other week. There was this other group, like, warming up in the next sort of chalet, and they were terrible. I said, ‘Shut them cunts up!’ And they were still warming up, so I threw a bottle at them. The bands said, ‘That’s the Sons of Mumford’ or something. ‘They’re number five in charts!’ I just thought they were a load of retarded Irish folk singers.” Beautiful. T.I helped talk a man down from the roof of Hip-Hop radio station V-103 after the man allegedly threatened to kill himself. This was just days before his court date for his parole violation for having been caught with ecstasy inside his car. The strongest singles this week were from James Blake and Crystal Castles. Rising minimal electronic DJ, James Blake, has recorded a breathtaking cover of Feist’s ‘The Limit to Your Love’ that sees him exploit dubstep and negative space to create a track that in many ways surpasses the original. Crystal Castles collaborated with Robert Smith (The Cure) on a remix of their epic synth-laden ‘Crystal Castles II’ track ‘Not In Love’ for what may well be Crystal Castles’ most accessible track to date.
The Founder | Thursday 4 November 2010 E X T R A 15 Music Oh!gunquit and Barringtone at Tommy’s bar David Bowman You could be forgiven for rolling your eyes at the skinny-jeaned hipsters who filed their way into Tommy’s bar on the evening of October 14th. Some were in tweed, others in scarves, despite knowing full well that the cramped venue would soon be transformed into that sweaty furnace where self-respect goes to die amongst some of the most extreme forms of (ironically?) terrible dance moves (many executed by yours truly) that Holloway has to offer. But far from desiring to see the bescarved DJ caught in the needle of his decks and dragged in an ever-shrinking spiral towards his aggressively retro vinyl, he actually managed to play an excellent set of 60’s tunes that had the audience well and truly warmed up for when Oh!gunquit took to the stage. Despite the crowd’s earlier enthusiasm, Oh!gunquit had to milk every morsel of zeal out of the now cross-armed mass. However, if anyone was up to the task, it was lead singer Wanda Smacksome, who went to every length to eventually earn an encore. She pushed bored-looking crowd members, she hula-hooped, she walked around on her knees; hell, she even climbed onto the PA and was good enough to flash us a boob. There was even audience participation when Smacksome offered up her hula-hoop and a particularly keen gig-goer leapt forth, proceeding gyrate with a conviction that can only really be understood by those privileged enough to be in attendance that night. Theatrics aside, Oh!gunquit do make some extremely good and presence and a male/female vocal dynamic somewhat reminiscent of the B-52’s with a surf-rock twist. Their set may have seemed a little on the short side but what they lacked in quantity they most certainly made up for in quality, with an unusually tight performance for such a dynamic show. The recurring problem with Love To Make Noise shows is that after the first set, everyone tends to go outside to smoke and enthuse about the band that’s been on, which meant that when Barringtone came to the stage, Tommy’s bar was by no means at capacity. What also didn’t help was the lack of gig etiquette displayed by many of those in attendance, who were happy to talk the entire way through a set that was already going to be very much an uphill battle, following on from Oh!gunquits’s impeccable performance. Despite this, they battled on with an up-tempo and, dare I say, vibrant set that was only lacking in as far as a response from the crowd was concerned, possibly due to their awkward time signatures that made it a mission to dance to, or perhaps simply because the impractically warm clothing choices had forced so many people out into the Photo: Max Cambridge cool of the smoking area. Either way, you couldn’t help but be impressed by the precision of their performance and feel a little sorry for them as they informed us that they were “truly very grateful” for the lacklustre applause they were offered as they left the stage. The next LTMN event at Tommy’s bar is scheduled for late November/ early December. Review: Sufjan Stevens All Delighted People Sufjan Stevens released ‘All Delighted People’ without announcement. With a few months worth of progress reports the norm from artists now, this was a distinctly Sufjan move. One day in August his fans were blasting ‘Illinois’, wishing for a proper follow up, and the next, they had a Simon & Garfunkel-sampling, nearly hour long, eight track EP that was packed with everything you might expect from a Sufjan recording. The music was dense and complex, the lyrics haunting and honest, hitting emotional chords it feels Sufjan is only capable of. ‘All Delighted People’ made for a lot of delighted fans. Still, the context of the release would make little sense if it weren’t Matt Grifferty for the subsequent release of the full length ‘The Age of Adz’. With that LP now understood as a departure for Stevens, the release of ‘All Delighted People’ is understandable. It is the Sufjan his fans have come to know and love, before his sonic escape. On ‘From the Mouth of Gabriel’ he may be asking an ex-lover to “forget about the past”, but he could just as well be asking his fans. The album serves less as homage to ‘The Sounds of Silence’, as his website suggested it would, than it does to Sufjan’s past work. Despite the bombastic nature of his music, you would never call Stevens indulgent. Everything always seems to work perfectly. The eponymous track, its “classic rock version” and ‘Djohariah’ all suffer from being overlong. The tracks are not without their merits, certainly ‘All Delighted People’ is on the whole brilliant, but their length impedes revisiting. The standouts here are ‘Enchanted Ghost’, ‘Heirloom’ and ‘From the Mouth of Gabriel’. Deserving attention is ‘Arnika’, which simmers brilliantly, swells in moments, but suffers from its placement on the track list. “And if it pleases you to leave me, just go,” he repeats through ‘Enchanted Ghost’, a track where he seems to be reminiscing over the final moments before a break-up. Between acoustic strumming, a soft electric guitar and piano that emerges and echoes loneliness, he is wounded and pleading, but ultimately defeated. ‘Heirloom’ may be the shortest and least complex of the EP, but these turn out to be strengths as they allow the lyrics to take centre stage. While most seem deliberately vague, they build until he asks, “So do you think I came to fight? And do I always think I’m right?” In what appears to all intents and purposes a break-up record, Sufjan never falls to Kanye West standards. The complexity of his situation is never sacrificed for theatre. On ‘Heirloom’, this is admirably realised. Sufjan Stevens’ religious belief appears on occasion in his music, but ‘From the Mouth of Gabriel’ invokes biblical imagery for reasons only Sufjan may understand. “You probably should, but I won’t let you run away,” he says just too weakly for you to believe him capable of such possessive behaviour. The song seems designed for misdirection, with faces changing, attempted suicides and scenes from the planet Mars. The choral backing operates perfectly, surrounding and complimenting Sufjan’s vocal performance. It is their performance here (along with Sufjan’s direction), and on the rest of album, that lend beauty and weight to an otherwise sad and quiet affair. “I’m tired of life,” Sufjan sings believably in ‘Anrika’. He may be tired of waiting for someone, but he still seems to be courting their understanding. While the song swells musically at its centre, it is the conclusion that echoes. Here, he darkly leaves the door open for more conflict, saying, “No I’m not afraid of death or strife or injury, accidents, they are my friends.” While other tracks may not have been mentioned, each certainly deserves attention. ‘Djorariah’ finishes with five beautiful minutes written to his suffering sister and ‘All Delighted People’ might be the best track on the album if it was cut by three minutes. On the whole, ‘All Delighted People’ is a flawed but welcome addition to Stevens’ catalogue. It deserves attention and one can only hope it is not forgotten in the shadow of ‘The Age of Adz’.
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