Oxford isn’t known for its galleries, but if you look hard enough it’s filled with small, unexpected (and usually free) exhibition spaces which are perfect for procrastination and an escape from college life.
Working from the traditional downwards, several Oxford museums are showing interesting anthropological collections this autumn. The Ashmolean has a collection of Chinese graphics, while the Pitt Rivers Museum is hosting a never-before-seen series of 1950s Cape Town photography by Bryan Heseltine and, of course, Angela Palmer’s Ghost Forest (those giant tree stumps outside the museum).
The Museum of the History of Science is running a mysterious exhibition called Eccentricity until October 16th, where they will display a selection of eclectic objects along side ‘irregular behaviour’ from museum staff.
Delving into its enormous collection of Old Masters, Christ Church Picture Gallery is curating Clouet to Claude, a selection of French Master drawings, and entry is free to University members.
Featuring a great cafe and shop, with some art thrown in, Modern Art Oxford (across the road from Camera) is running two exhibitions until the 20th of November: a collection of installation, sculpture and sound by Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas, and a film installation called Dead Star Light by Kerry Tribe.
The O3 Gallery in Oxford Castle is another option for fans of contemporary art, and opening on 15th October is a collection of haunting pinhole photography taken at the castle by Mary Foulkes. Replacing it in mid-November are etchings and drawings inspired by fairy tales, created by Flora McLachlan.
For the intrepid (or the lucky few that live in Jericho), Art Jericho, open Wednesdays to Saturdays, is hosting the Society of Woodcutters annual exhibition, endearingly titled Against the Grain, until October 23rd. The space will then be displaying Querty, text-based art by four international artists.
And finally, The Jam Factory arts centre (also home to a restaurant and marmalade shop) on Park End Street is showing a collection of drawings by John Buckley, and is ending its Marmalade and Manners exhibition today (October 5th) with an art auction for charity, so run along there right now and you can start your very own gallery in your tiny student room.
The lo-fi modesty of Streethawk, the real standout of Destroyer’s early catalogue, masks pitch-perfect songwriting, and, of course, Dan Bejar’s trademark lyrical complexity.
Destroyer – Trouble in Dreams (2004)
An almost exaggerated culmination of Destroyer’s pre-Kaputt work, Trouble in Dreams is a melodramatic MIDI-infused masterpiece, like the score to a one-man futuristic-chivalric musical.
The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema (2005)
The discography of Destroyer betrays a certain pop sensibility at times, and Bejar finds his true outlet in Canadian indie supergroup The New Pornographers, of which he is a part. Incontestably their best, Twin Cinema is a power pop triumph.
Swan Lake – Enemy Mine (2009)
Enemy Mine is the product of a three-way collaboration between Bejar and fellow Canadian songwriters Carey Mercer (of Frog Eyes) and Spencer Krug (of Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown), who release under the moniker of Swan Lake. Bejar’s contributions include the wonderfully downtrodden lamentations of ‘Heartswarm’.
Destroyer – Kaputt (2011)
Surely one of the best releases this year, Kaputt is a triumph of Bejar’s honed musicianship. Atypical in its relative lyrical and structural straightforwardness, its distinct melodies and hazy soundscapes invite repeated listening.
Destroyer – Streethawk: A Seduction (2001)
The lo-fi modesty of Streethawk – the real standout of Destroyer’s early catalogue – masks pitch-perfect songwriting, and, of course, Dan Bejar’s trademark lyrical complexity.
Destroyer – Trouble in Dreams (2004)
An almost exaggerated culmination of Destroyer’s pre-Kaputt work, Trouble in Dreams is a melodramatic MIDI-infused masterpiece, like the score to a one-man futuristic-chivalric musical.
The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema (2005)
The discography of Destroyer betrays a certain pop sensibility at times, and Bejar finds his true outlet in Canadian indie supergroup The New Pornographers, of which he is a part. Incontestably their best, Twin Cinema is a power pop triumph.
Swan Lake – Enemy Mine (2009)
Enemy Mine is the product of a three-way collaboration between Bejar and fellow Canadian songwriters Carey Mercer (of Frog Eyes) and Spencer Krug (of Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown), who release under the moniker of Swan Lake. Bejar’s contributions include the wonderfully downtrodden lamentations of ‘Heartswarm’.
Destroyer – Kaputt (2011)
Surely one of the best releases this year, Kaputt is a triumph of Bejar’s honed musicianship. Atypical in its relative lyrical and structural straightforwardness, its distinct melodies and hazy soundscapes invite repeated listening.
When Bonnie Greer cheerfully tells me that she is staging a new opera about the television programme Question Time, I become a little lost for words. I am speaking to Greer only a few days after the London Philharmonic Orchestra has suspended four of its musicians who signed a letter, published in The Independent, calling on the BBC to cancel a concert by the Israel Philharmonic. Wherever you stand on musical boycotts, the London Philharmonic’s bizarre claim that ‘for the LPO, music and politics do not mix’ only feeds the overwhelming public perception of classical music as a gilded cage, incapable of anything beyond a slavish devotion to the past. An opera about Question Time suddenly feels like a breath of fresh air.
 Greer of course appeared as a panellist on the BBC programme two years ago, alongside the BNP leader Nick Griffin. The experience was to be life-changing for her. ‘When I was asked to do Question Time, I was a little aware of its significance but since I wasn’t brought up in the United Kingdom I really didn’t know how important this broadcast was to so many people’, Greer tells me, ‘and suddenly this universe opened up to me that I hadn’t actually known was there. I was stopped on the street by people I didn’t know who gave me their opinion about what they wanted to have in the broadcast and how they felt about being British. I was totally unprepared for that kind of emotional outpouring because for me it had always been just another programme.’ Opening newspapers to find herself being discussed and rated was clearly an overwhelming experience for Greer, who did not have the luxury of a politician’s entourage to fall back on. ‘For me, looking back at the broadcast is always about something other than what happened on that day. I just remember all the things I went through in the run-up to it’.
 Watching the audience members expressing themselves was the most moving experience for Greer as she sat through the actual broadcast. ‘It didn’t matter what the politicians were saying. It was as if the audience had to say something about how they saw the United Kingdom, what they thought it was, what problems they thought it had and how they thought these should be solved. As I sat there I had so much time literally on my hands because I didn’t really speak that much. And I guess my playwright’s mind sat there and I thought this is really a piece of art.’
 It was immediately apparent in Greer’s mind that she had an opera on her hands and in January last year she approached Deborah Bull, the Creative Director of the Royal Opera House. ‘I said, look, I would like to do Question Time as an opera — something for the Royal Opera’s experimental wing, the Linbury. I wanted to create a piece of experimental opera that wouldn’t last more than an hour. People who weren’t used to the opera form could come and see it.’ Contrary to various reports in the media, Greer is adamant that she never had any intention of writing something that had Nick Griffin singing in it. ‘I just didn’t want to be a part of anything like that and I didn’t think anybody wanted to hear anything like that.’
 What Greer wanted to capture in an operatic sense was the psychic turmoil that she witnessed in the run-up to the Question Time broadcast. ‘If you know the Hitchcock film Rear Window, then it’s as if I’m looking at these windows and they’re all different people from all kinds of ethnicity and ages, talking about the Britain that they know and how no-one is listening to them and no-one cares about their point of view — it’s really the nation up until that broadcast. The opera’s title, Yes, is about all of us being in a nation on the brink of so much change. We can say yes to being citizens of it instead of fleeing.’ Greer sees herself working in reaction to the passive experience often associated with much of the classical tradition. ‘People can walk out after the opera asking questions as opposed to the kind of experience where you sit back, absorb and enjoy it and clap. This opera should be the beginning of something for people’.
 With Greer’s libretto and music written by the British composer Errollyn Wallen, Yes is the first time that Covent Garden has seen two black women collaborate on a new piece. ‘I’m very aware of the fact that we’re two black women and I don’t think any major house has done this before’, Greer acknowledges, ‘but the door can be opened. We have not been dictated to. This is our point of view, our way of seeing the world. I hope people can see that opera isn’t some fusty, dusty, old piece of work that doesn’t have anything to do with anybody. Once you get involved in opera, it’s the most perfect way of doing art because it just combines everything. It’s a play and yet it’s also music at its most complex. Opera is the work of people coming together at one of the highest levels that you can come together as a creative process’.
 The process by which her playwright’s mind adapts to the operatic tradition fascinates Greer. ‘In the theatre the playwright constructs a play and everything must be built around that. There the composer is still an addition. In opera that is reversed and the music is now first. It’s been a learning curve for me. I have to build within the places that the composer allows you to be in. It’s a great discipline and also teaches you how much music means to humans’, she enthuses. ‘When you work in opera you realize that music is literally another language. It’s become quite addictive for me now to get involved with opera because music is really bigger than words’.
 Given Greer’s obvious enthusiasm for the medium, I’m interested to see whether she agrees that the classical music community has nevertheless slipped into social complacency. ‘I think it has become bourgeois over the years’, she concedes, ‘since a lot of really political opera has been shut down and opera composers have had to prettify what they’re trying to say. These trends get promoted because it is a very expensive art form and it has become a plaything of the wealthy’. But Greer is passionate in her defence of opera in itself. ‘Working class people in Italy go to the opera at night and they take their friends and their kids to sit and listen to Puccini and Verdi. Verdi himself was writing during the Risorgimento and all of his operas were a call for the Italian people to rise up. The people were able to absorb the metaphor of the opera even though the opera itself may seem frivolous.
 ‘There’s a scene in Yes where a man is painting something that he doesn’t understand. Suddenly he stands back and realizes what he’s painting. He’s painting his nation and he’s painting his inner self in relation to that nation. He says now he understands its relevance, that this nation is baking in its own shit and he’s not part of it.’ It is clear that Greer revels in taking aim at the elitist posturing, high camp and other loaded stereotypes unhappily associated with opera today. But it is a very personal compulsion that has been the main driving force behind Greer’s opera. ‘I think that the liberal left has become too comfortable. We have too many professional leftists and people who espouse a certain point of view but actually don’t have a clue about it. Why are there black guys in the English Defence League? It says something to me about how smug the liberal left has become. To write this opera is my march. There’s still room in society for one person to say something.’
It is refreshing to hear someone enthuse about opera as something subversive, defiantly political and still necessary. ‘It’s not a universal statement, it’s a tiny statement’, Greer adds, ‘It’s my snapshot of a moment in time from my camera. You accept or don’t accept the snapshot. But it’s an hour long and you’ll have some good tunes to hum’.Â
You might have noticed that some people have been talking recently about an album that came out a couple of decades ago. Nirvana’s Nevermind undeniably changed the face of popular music. Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994 at the rather cliché age of 27 only served to heighten the legend: Nirvana were a one-off, the unique, authentic voice of Generation X. They were prodigies in flannel shirts and ripped jeans, erupting out of nowhere, inventing modern alternative rock en route, and then burning out instead of fading away – as Cobain’s suicide note put it.
Indeed, Nirvana were rampant self-mythologisers. The very title Nevermind casts Cobain as a Peter Pan figure, taking the listener on a journey not to a physical place but instead into an alien, and alienated, state of consciousness. And, like most myths, the Nirvana legend is based on the truth. It’s difficult to refute that in 1991 Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl dragged underground rock kicking and (literally) screaming into the mainstream, or that the establishment of grunge as what The New York Times called in 1992 ‘a musical genre, a fashion statement, a pop phenomenon’ – still frequently revived – was a direct consequence of Nevermind’s immediate popularity.
That’s not to say they did it alone, of course. In many ways the history of Nevermind is the history of grunge – where that rough, nihilistic sound came from, and where it went to later. The bands that influenced Nirvana, and those that were influenced by them, form a chain of influence and collaboration that ran through US alternative rock in the 1980s and early 1990s. Nirvana are best seen as the central link in that chain.
Nirvana – Dive
So, you own Nevermind. You like Nevermind. Well, this is better than most of it. The b-side of ‘Sliver’ (1990) is a churning mid-tempo masterpiece, which has Nirvana demonstrating their gift for combining heavy instrumentation with curiously beautiful melodies.
Meat Puppets – Plateau
‘Plateau’ was covered on Nirvana’s famous MTV Unplugged appearance, with guest instrumentation from Meat Puppets’ Cris and Curt Kirkwood. The original version from Meat Puppets II (1984) starts out similarly, but then, forty seconds from the end, erupts into a coruscating, spiralling guitar solo which elevates it far beyond Nirvana’s tribute.
Hüsker Dü – Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely
One of Kurt Cobain’s favourite bands and the original alternative power trio, Hüsker Dü seemed to anticipate everything Nirvana did about a decade beforehand. This track, off 1986’s Candy Apple Grey, takes the power-pop formulas of Cheap Trick and turns them upside down with blistering, noisy panache.
Mudhoney – Sweet Young Thing (Ain’t Sweet No More)
Mudhoney’s Mark Arm (apparently) popularised the term ‘grunge’, and his band were central to the formation of the Seattle scene in the late 1980s. Their most famous track is the scorching ‘Touch Me, I’m Sick’, but this slow-grinder is perhaps even better, and also provides an early example of a core lyrical preoccupation in the Seattle grunge scene: irresponsible parenting and corrupted, traumatic childhood.
Dinosaur Jr. – The Wagon
Listening to this track is one thing, but to get the full effect you need to watch the video, which captures in stop-motion clay the wide-eyed stoner ingenuity that characterises most of Dinosaur Jr.’s work. Their best tracks provide a light and playful East Coast alternative to the sludgier products of the Seattle scene.
Pearl Jam – Alive
Lighters out, please. In 1991, five hairy Seattle dudes did what Dave Grohl would later try and replicate with Foo Fighters: mixing grunge with the cockiest of cock-rock in order to fill as many stadia as possible. Nonetheless, despite some unfortunate by-products (for example, Nickelback), Pearl Jam’s Ten does make for a thrilling listen, as ‘Alive’, the band’s first single, ably demonstrates.
Pixies – Planet of Sound
Without the Pixies, there wouldn’t really be a Nirvana to speak of. Kurt Cobain told Rolling Stone that when he wrote ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, ‘I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies… I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band—or at least in a Pixies cover band.’ For their part, Pixies’ 1991 album Trompe le Monde displays a reciprocal influence to the Seattle grunge scene. ‘Planet of Sound’ in particular is a snarling track that emphasises the band’s harder side.
Throwing Muses – Red Shoes
Cryptically lyrical and starkly gorgeous, ‘Red Shoes’ is the alternative rock hit that never was. Throwing Muses shifted with 1991’s The Real Ramona into a sound with more commercial appeal, but which remained just beyond the reach of the mainstream, emphatically feminine and decidedly independent.
The Smashing Pumpkins – Bury Me
This is the hardest-rocking track on the Pumpkins’ debut album, Gish (1991), and shows off the ensemble playing that typifies their earlier work, before lead singer Billy Corgan began to dominate the band with a more experimental approach. James Iha’s guitar lines swing between metallic riffing and a lighter, more shoegazing sound, Jimmy Chamberlin’s jazz-influenced drums wreak disciplined chaos, and D’arcy Wretzky’s bass holds the whole thing together with impeccable cool. Masterful.
Babes In Toyland – Bruise Violet
Had Babes In Toyland formed in Seattle, they would have been the centre of the riot grrrl movement. As it was the all-female trio started making ferocious punk in Minneapolis in 1987, briefly including Courtney Love on bass, and made sure to stay well away from any scenes – which is just as well, otherwise lyrics like ‘you fucking bitch, I hope your insides rot’ might have led to some pretty unshakeable stereotyping.
Sonic Youth – 100%
Sonic Youth were already alternative rock icons by 1992, when their album Dirty saw them take a brief foray into the sounds of grunge. Bassist Kim Gordon, who wrote the lyrics to ‘100%’ (and borrowed a guitar from Keanu Reeves for the video) is another iconic female musician in a movement where women in bands, both as fierce singers and consummate instrumentalists, were the norm rather than the exception. In fact it’s quite surprising that, despite the abundant female presence in the early grunge movement, its modern cultural representation often reeks of unwashed beards and testosterone.
Beat Happening – Teenage Caveman
Beat Happening’s Jamboree (1988) was among Kurt Cobain’s favourite albums, even though he was later to call lead singer Calvin Johnson an ‘elitist little fuck’ for his animosity towards the mainstream as the head of Seattle’s K Records. ‘Teenage Caveman’, released in 1992, sees Beat Happening structuring their characteristically shambolic sound into a plaintive, fiercely naïve indie pop anthem.
The Jesus Lizard – Puss
Released as a split single with Nirvana’s ‘Oh, The Guilt’ in 1993, ‘Puss’ is heavy but surprisingly funky, forcing the distorted guitars and vocals of bands like Big Black into a densely-structured mess of a song which outshines Nirvana’s effort on the other side.
Bikini Kill – New Radio
The riot grrrl band. Hailing from Seattle, and combining the shrieking experimentalism of Lydia Lunch with a strong and irony-laden political consciousness, Bikini Kill redefined punk for the 1990s. Frontwoman Kathleen Hanna (later of Le Tigre) has influenced two generations of icons from Alanis Morrissette to Hayley Williams, but also inadvertently inspired Nirvana in 1991 by spray-painting the phrase ‘Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on Cobain’s wall. ‘New Radio’ (1993), produced by Joan Jett, is a minute and a half of raucous brilliance.
The Breeders – Cannonball
The Breeders released Last Splash in 1993, by which time the music press had made grunge an international musical phenomenon – the album went platinum. ‘Cannonball’, Last Splash’s lead single, is a fascinating track, undeniably commercial, but constructed in the same esoteric way as songs by vocalist Kim Deal’s previous band Pixies.
Veruca Salt – Seether
The first single by Veruca Salt, who formed in 1993 in Chicago and supported Hole the next year, ‘Seether’ is another interesting collision of the alternative – in this case, riot grrrl – with the mainstream. A hit on MTV, ‘Seether’ was the harbinger of a wave of female-led grunge-lite bands breaking into the mainstream which would last for the rest of the decade.
Hole – Rock Star (Olympia)
Courtney Love is best known nowadays for her messy lifestyle, including last year being elected the Oxford University Conservative Association’s Officer for Rock ‘n’ Roll after turning up at the society’s ‘Port and Policy’ evening. But if you want to know why she’s worth your attention, listen to Live Through This (1994). ‘Olympia’ is a scathing attack on the ‘hipsters’ in the Washington scene, in which Love laments the decay of their original ideals: ‘Everyone’s the same – what do you do with a revolution?’ Live Through This, released four days after the discovery of Kurt Cobain’s body, marks the end of the grunge explosion begun by Nevermind: the Seattle scene had moved onwards and outwards into the wider world.
Mixer: Beyond Nevermind is also available on Spotify – click here to load the playlist.
The 9th October 2011 will mark 15 years since Kevin Keegan’s Entertainers lost 4-3 to Liverpool in a game that played a significant role in derailing Newcastle United’s title aspirations. Whilst the class of 2011 may be a far cry from the days of Beardsley, Ginola and co, The Magpies fine start to the new season may have triggered off signs of a return to the golden days on Tyneside – albeit under very different circumstances.
English football has changed considerably since the 1995-1996 season and with it, it appears, have Newcastle United. Acknowledging that it can no longer compete with the financial muscle of the Manchester United’s, Manchester City’s and Chelsea’s of this world, a decisive change in mentality at board level has taken place on Tyneside in the last year – one which has signalled a decisive break with the past. Gone are the days of the big-name signings and the large wage packets under previous Chairmen Sir John Hall and Freddy Shepherd, instead current controversial owner Mike Ashley has opted to take the risky strategy of building a young team of cheaper, relative unknowns who have little or no experience of English football and are on modest wage packets. For now, at least, Ashley’s master plan is paying off.
A similar effect has taken place on the field under the management team consisting of assistant manager John Carver, coaches Steve Stone and Peter Beardsley – significantly all locally born and bred – and, chief amongst them, Alan Pardew. Since his surprise appointment eleven months ago following the equally surprising dismissal of the now Birmingham City boss Chris Hughton, the former Reading, West Ham United and Southampton manager has played an integral role in the restructuring of the club’s facilities. This summer witnessed United’s training ground at Benton Park transformed, with a large amount of capital invested in new playing surfaces and the Youth Academy. The hope is that the club, having most recently produced the likes of Sammy Ameobi and Haris VuÄkić, will continue to produce technically accomplished, mentally strong and talented youngsters in the future.
Resources have also been turned towards Newcastle United’s scouting network with Pardew keen for some of the club’s scouts to be deployed to visit Barcelona’s new world famous Masia-Centre de Formació Oriol Tort. However since Pardew’s appointment, a large part of the recruitment drive has been due, in no small part, to the fundamental role played by chief scout Graham Carr, father of Chatty Man Alan Carr. The former Tottenham Hostpur, Manchester City and Notts County scout has been pivotal in unearthing rough diamonds from across the European leagues. Take for example last season’s undoubted Bargain of the Season – that of the Ivorian midfielder Cheik Tioté for a mere £3,500,000 from Dutch Eredivisie club FC Twente. Indeed, Carr’s canny recruitment drive continued apace this summer.
Far from Gerodie Shore, the club’s transfer activity was akin to that of the third instalment of The French Connection, with a large influx of players arriving from French football’s Ligue 1. Whilst some on Tyneside were half-expecting Gene Hackman to sign on the dotted line, what the supporters were presented with was creative midfielder Yohan Cabaye from last season’s Ligue 1 Champions LOSC Lille Métropole, winger Sylvain Marveaux from Stade Rennais and defensive midfielder Medhi Abeid from Racing Club de Lens. Juxtaposed alongside, was the controversial fire sale of the club’s high-earning players, namely Kevin Nolan, José Enrique and Joey Barton. Whilst the policy was seen to be, by outsiders and fans alike, a disastrous piece of business, what both sets of groups were yet to realize was the potential from the summer recruits.
The new look Newcastle United set-up, whilst noticeably smaller, is well organized, hungry for success and, above all, united. The summer recruits have arrived with a point to prove, replacing those high-profile players who demanded longer contracts, higher wages or felt that their future lay away from St James’ Park. The cosmopolitan squad now has a distinct air of calmness and steadiness about it, encapsulated by Pardew on the sidelines and Argentine captain Fabricio Collocini on the pitch, who alongside defender Steven Taylor, has been key to a Newcastle United defence which has experienced defeat just eight times in 31 league and cup games. All these newly polished components were present in The Toon’s latest victory on Saturday against Mick McCarthy’s Wolverhampton Wanderers – their first over the West Midlands club in the top-flight since 1958.
Whilst Pardew’s team rode their luck in parts of the game at Molineux and were also indebted to the excellence of their highly-rated Dutch goalkeeper Tim Krul who pulled off a number of world-class saves, The Magpies controlled large chunks of the match – something which has turned them into a far more efficient outfit. Amongst the many positives to come out of the game was the speed and sharpness of the team’s passing and movement. Yohan Cabaye was again economical with the ball, rarely misplacing a pass, whilst his central midfield enforcer Cheik Tioté was a commanding presence throughout. Strikers Demba Ba and Leon Best continued their promising partnership upfront, with Best looking particularly impressive in running the channels and Jonás Gutiérrez capped off an excellent display on the wing with a fine solo goal.
The real test of the team’s resolve will come in November, after the final set of matches in the Qualification Stages for next year’s European Championships in Poland and Ukraine. The Toon begin with a testing away trip against Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium at the end of October and following that are home games against David Moyes’ Everton and André Villas-Boas’ Chelsea. Sandwiched in between those two fixtures comes the small matter of consecutive away trips to Manchester, first to the Etihad Stadium and Roberto Mancini’s Manchester City and then to Old Trafford for Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United. Whilst the squad only looks a couple of injuries away from being stretched, fans will be pleased to hear of the imminent return of midfielder Hatem Ben Arfa and defender Davide Santon from injury.
Doubts continue to persist on Tyneside over the lack of firepower upfront, with the club failing to sign another striker during the Transfer Window. The club are however continually monitoring the progress of Sochaux striker Modibo Maiga and will look to tie up a deal when the Transfer Window reopens in January. In the meantime, the Geordie faithful can sit back and look gleefully on at the unrest at North East rivals Sunderland and the fact that for once, The Magpies are making the headlines for all the right reasons.
Girls have always been fittingly named. Album, their lively debut, made them its primary subject matter (‘Laura’, ‘Lauren Marie’, ‘Darling’), and this September’s follow-up, Father, Son, Holy Ghost,is no different. More overtly even than Album, the LP is almost exclusively made up of love songs of the most uncomplicated kind. Frontman Christopher Owen’s style is rooted in a time when songwriters like Buddy Holly churned out hundreds of tunes documenting, with only very minor variation, the consuming object of so much of our fascination: love.
Unlike, say, Stephen Merritt, Owen isn’t interested in taking any new angles on the ‘love song’; he’s perfectly content to revisit the experiences we all share, sentiments so universal that documenting them could never really be clichéd. The climax of ‘Vomit’, the insistently repeated “Come into my heart”, might be trite were it not for Owen’s genuine earnestness, in ‘Vomit’ and throughout the record. The lyrical content of Father, Son, Holy Ghost thus operates within well-tempered phrases, but never ones that sound tired on Owen’s lips.
The songs are all backed by an equally well-worn rock sound, far more stylistically cohesive than the scattershot approach of Album, and expertly produced by Doug Boehm and Girls’ own JR White. The instrumentation is as classic and well-tested as the 1966 Ford Mustang so adoringly filmed in the ‘Vomit’ music video.
Girls know the game they’re playing, of course. ‘Jamie Marie’, perhaps the most heartfelt track of the bunch, sees Owen pining for a lost lover. At first, he wallows in familiar clichés: “I miss the way life was when you were my girl”; as the song progresses, however, Owen comes to realize the emptiness of borrowed words: “I know they say it’s better to have love and to lose it than to never ever know it, easy come and easy go, whatever…” And so he stops singing, and ‘Jamie Marie’ continues with the melancholic riffs of the conversing guitar and organ, perhaps better vehicles for emotion than even the best clichés.
When descriptions of a songwriter resort to Jonathan Richman and Scott Walker comparisons, you know you’ve found something good. And Sweden’s Jens Lekman, though always humble, really is that good. Possessing a witty and utterly confessional style of songwriting, he is also blessed with an intuitive sense of sample-lifted melody-making. You could never mistake a Jens song for someone else’s.
The syrupy and indulgent production that falls just shy of schmaltz would give the impression of triviality were it not for Lekman’s nonchalant honesty and storytelling ability (hence the nods to Richman). And this honesty is such that even the quotidian can be compellingly reframed: “I’m leaving you because I don’t love you”, a phrase familiar to everyone – in its more euphemistic permutations – was affectingly heartfelt on Lekman’s Night Falls Over Kortelada (2007).
No material saw release since then until this September’s EP, in which we find an older Jens, since transplanted to Melbourne (although one track fittingly finds him back in Gothenburg). Befitting this move to the southern hemisphere,the production on An Argument With Myself is distinctly tropical, especially on the eponymous opening track. In terms of raw pop, ‘New Directions’ is the real standout, mixing an old-school sax solo and outstanding bass groove to bugle salutes and a female-sung hook with undeniably catchy results.
Lyrically, Lekman’s talent for writing about several things at once is demonstrated on ‘Waiting for Kirsten’, ostensibly about Dunst and her escapades in Gothenburg during the filming of Melancholia, but also managing to explore Lekman’s nostalgia for the place (and people) he left behind, as well the entrenchment of privilege in what was once a working-class city. But the cleverest of the (short) collection is the reggae-tinged ‘So This Guy At My Office’, which starts out humorously enough: “He showed me this video, and it was not even funny”, until the final verse, sung to a character not even mentioned in the song, “My day starts when you get here, and ends when you leave.” Sappy yes, but Jens means it.
Listening to the first few lines of Danny Brown’s XXX is enough to put off even open-minded hip hop fans. Brown’s voice is strained and high-pitched, his flow tense and frenetic, delivered over a chopped beat, gritty and unforgiving. Brown himself, currently seen on stage with Versace skinnies, a swoop haircut and half his head shaved, doesn’t fit the rapper aesthetic. But, as the Detroit MC’s rhymes fly by, consternation soon melts into attentiveness, and ultimately, to amazement. Brown is uncannily on-beat, and chameleon-like in his delivery, be it on the drug-addled hyperactivity of brag tracks early in the mix (‘Pac Blood’, ‘Monopoly’) or the hungover street-wise flow of later confessionals like ‘DNA’ and ‘Scrap or Die’.
XXX reads like an amphetamine trip: scarily focused on the red-and-wide-eyed first half, sobering up to into muted but heartfelt solemnity in the second. This shift – vocal, stylistic, emotional – gives Brown the appearance of multiple personality, mirrored by the dual interpretation of the release’s title: either the fast-lane lifestyle of ‘Triple X’, or the coming-of-age introspection of ‘Thirty’ (Danny’s birthday was in March).
The early tracks are utterly mesmerizing, owing in part to the dark and skeletal production – courtesy of Detroit up-and-comers like Skywlkr and Brandun Deshay – but primarily due to Brown’s hugely impressive (and admittedly adderall-fuelled) flow: in his words, “So many lines you can barcode it.” ‘Die Like a Rockstar’ is an anthem of overdose brinksmanship that name-drops everyone from Keith Moon to River Phoenix (“Experiment so much it’s a miracle I’m living”), ‘Pac Blood’ claims Brown’s rhymes are so authentic they could only have been penned in Shakur’s blood.
But the energy dip of the latter half is counterbalanced by Brown’s sober realism and his gritty portrait of Detroit life. ‘Scrap or Die’ and ‘Fields’ describe the helplessness of living in a city in steady disintegration, reified in the empty houses and tattered couches lining its streets. Intoxication by whatever means available is temporary respite, and Brown name checks everything from Newports to Hennessy to crack, but he admits addiction. ‘Party All the Time’ is ostensibly about a female acquaintance, but one gets the sense Brown is also describing himself: “Lost in the fog, head in the smoke, laughing at the world ‘cause her life is a joke.”
So, this is it. Either you’re trudging back to the academic coalface, or you’re about to embark on the degree of your choice – but not before getting very drunk and covered in foam, UV paint, vomit, or all three. Let Cherwell Music lighten things up a little with the last of our summer monthly playlists, plucking the best new tracks from the tree of September 2011 and bringing them to you in a hand-woven audiobasket (or something like that). We’ve got something for you whether you’re into Girls or you prefer The Men, as well as new sounds from Damon Albarn and Wild Beasts.
Plug it in, turn it up, enjoy – and when you’re done stick around, because throughout Michaelmas we’ll be bringing you a weekly Mixer, featuring the very best new music as well as mining the last fifty years or so.
Jens Lekman – An Argument with Myself
Effortlessly talented Swedish popsmith Jens Lekman returns after a four-year disappearance with this month’s delightful EP, An Argument with Myself, prelude to a full-length due later in the year. This self-titled opener is a flawlessly crafted Afro-Caribbean tune, littered with Lekman’s witty exchanges (with himself) and sociological observations of his adopted hometown of Melbourne.
The Men – Bataille
Leave Home, a breathtakingly produced album recorded straight to tape, is Brooklyn punk quartet The Men’s noise-drenched ode to the bygone era when abrasive indie rock (the fanzine and basement show kind) still pushed the boundaries. Of all the musical eras to revisit, the heyday of Sonic Youth and Hüsker Dü is surely ripe for borrowing.
Wild Beasts– Thankless Thing
Smother, the third LP from Kendal’s flamboyant quartet Wild Beasts, was rather unfairly overlooked this year. Perhaps they should have included ‘Thankless Thing’, the excellent B-side from to-be single ‘Reach a Bit Further’, featuring their famously pitch-perfect instrumentation and the falsetto croon of co-vocalist Hayden Thorpe.
Jonquil – Mexico
Released just over a month ago, Jonquil’s latest single ‘Mexico’ has made the already agonising wait for the band’s upcoming album nigh on unbearable. Combining the soaring melodic sensibility of Animal Collective’s ‘My Girls’ with the sunny guitar jangle of Vampire Weekend, ‘Mexico’ is a joy to listen to from start to finish and sets a new high-water mark for a band that seems to grow in stature with every release.
Summer Camp – Better Off Without You
Although it came a little late in the season, this is a serious contender for the year’s best summer single. It’s got it all: the sound, the hook, the John Hughes-esque teenage drama. Elizabeth Warmley’s voice is oh-so-satisfyingly derisory as she tells an imaginary jilted ex-lover that ‘if you said you’re never calling back, I’d be so happy’. Don’t miss the London duo at the Jericho on November 15th.
Ford & Lopatin – Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)
Hype bands du jour love to dabble in 80s synth, but remain aloof, for aesthetic and nostalgic (or indeed ironic) effect, from its cheesy potential. Brooklyn duo Ford & Lopatin (formerly known as Games), to their credit, dive right in. ‘No more lo-fi’, sung on standout single ‘Too Much MIDI’, sounds like a battle cry.
Daily Bread – Volume
Michigan-native producer Apollo Brown is in high demand these days, providing the backings to the stars (Black Milk, Danny Brown) of an increasingly dominant underground Detroit scene, but he still finds the time for his own projects. Daily Bread finds him collaboration with New York’s Hassaan Mackey, with throwback party track ‘Volume’ an obvious standout.
Love Inks – Rock On
Love Inks breathe new life into this minimalistic cover of the 1973 glam hit by David Essex (last seen playing Eddie Moon on Eastenders) with some drifting vocals and barely-there guitar, all tied together with lopsided funk bass.
DRC Music feat. Tout Puissant Mukalo and Nelly Liyemge – Hallo
Damon Albarn does pretty much anything he wants to these days. Fresh off the global success of Plastic Beach, Albarn spent a week Kinshasa, Congo, to record an album with the newly established DRC Music collective. Featuring such high-profile collaborators as Dan the Automator, Kwes, and Oxford’s very own Totally Extinct Enormous Dinosaurs, the album’s teasers, including ‘Hallo’, are raising quite a few eyebrows.
St. Vincent – Cruel
One of the more straightforward cuts off her latest album Strange Mercy, ‘Cruel’ proves that Annie Clark (a.k.a. St. Vincent) can pen as striking a pop melody as the next indie fan-boy’s heart throb.
Little Roy – Lithium
Did you ever think, ‘I love Nirvana, but I wish they were just more reggae’? Us neither, but luckily Kingston roots legend Little Roy, celebrating the twentieth birthday of that record with the baby on it, did – and this is what happened. It’s pretty good, actually.
The Doppelgangaz – Doppel Gospel
Not much is known about emergent New York outer-borough duo Doppelgangaz, except that they’re preternatural producers, and they favour capes. ‘Doppel Gospel’ is at once soul-inflected and brooding, bringing a welcome dark edge to classic boom-bap construction without ever straying into exaggerated horrorcore.
Blouse – Into Black
Oregon duo Blouse, recently signed to Brooklyn’s Captured Tracks, sound a lot like pretty much everyone else out there: borrowed nostalgia, breathy vocals, moody synths, feigned aloofness, and dollops of reverb. The difference is they do it better than almost anyone else.
Veronica Falls – The Fountain
Veronica Falls might be dismissed as mere C86 revalists, were it not for the excellent songwriting and the immediacy of their post-punk-tinged and vocal-layered tracks. ‘The Fountain’ is a case in point, its spooky lyrics offsetting those delightfully jangly guitars.
Girls – Honey Bunny
Written by Christopher Owens of Girls whilst singing into his mobile phone on his birthday, ‘Honey Bunny’ certainly doesn’t sound like a track that has been obsessively composed. Spontaneity is the name of the game here but, as Owens sings “they don’t like my boney body, they don’t like my dirty hair” over twanging 60s guitars, what the song lacks in depth it more than compensates for with Orange Juice-style charm.
Trophy Wife – Wolf
On October 17th, Oxford-based trio Trophy Wife release their debut EP BRUXISM. Produced by Yannis Philippakis of Foals, this brooding track finds the band exploring new territory away from the bright sheen of their indie-disco beginnings and serves as a brilliantly haunting end to the record.
Mixer: September 2011 is also available on Spotify – click here to load the playlist.
