SONG OF THE WEEK #171: Julian Casablancas - "Out Of The Blue"

While I'm still trying to figure out what it is that Casablancas is doing on his new record, here's the brilliant opener from his hugely entertaining debut album Phrazes For The Young (2009). Fantastic lyrics and a vocal hook to kill for. 

And speaking of Oscar Wilde's greatest phrases for the young, here's my favourite: "Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither".

Album review: JULIAN CASABLANCAS + THE VOIDZ - Tyranny

Highlights: Take Me In Your Army, Crunch Punch, Human Sadness, Dare I Care

12+67*0,5-32*2√(56-44)+11/10

What a hilariously absurd album. Hats off to Julian Casablancas.

No, really. I have no idea what is happening half the time. Some goddamn radio jingles a la The Who Sell Out? Classical strings? A fucking bleep coming out of the blue in “Business Dog”? A song called “Xerox”? What is this? Not even Kevin Barnes at his most ridiculous could hope to reach such demented heights.

Tyranny is an album to lose yourself in. Don’t try to understand it – this will either result in cognitive dissonance or complete nervous breakdown. I do of course realise that losing yourself in this madness is not advisable to normal people but since when normal people have any say in the world of art.

And is this art? You fucking bet it is. Adventurous, inventive, inexplicable, bizarre – and, to counter Scott Walker’s latest exploits in the world of musical impenetrability, actually accessible. You realise this is a guy from The Strokes who has previously collaborated with Daft Punk and recorded a witty electropop album as a solo artist. And Casablancas is an artist, in every sense of the word. Tyranny is this expansive, expressionist work of a restless but hugely talented individual who doesn’t sit on his ass but is ready to do something.

Let’s be as relevant as this album and say that Julian Casablancas has a very strange fascination with the letter ‘z’. First, Phrazes For The Young. Now he is playing with a band called The Voidz. Some consistency. Genre-wise this is marked as neo-psychedelia, experimental and noise rock. Seems apt. Now imagine Julian’s sagging vocals that constantly switch to angelic falsetto to husky screams. Imagine the sort of melodies that can never decide whether they want to be catchy or subversive. And the sound: stuffy, pounding, clanking, never for a second striving for clarity. And hereby the dysfunctional world of Tyranny is created. Preposterous and filled with a million little hooks and tricks you will keep discovering for many days and weeks to come. 62 minutes. “Human Sadness” alone going for ten-plus. From the ridiculous to the sublime.

This is my new favourite album of all time.

Shoplifters of the world unite. 

I didn’t really mean one of those.

Film review: 20,000 DAYS ON EARTH

Directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard

9/10

I remember now. It all came back. Despite the brief conversation with Blixa Bargeld, “Higgs Boson Blues” could have a million verses for all I care. And then Brighton, of course. Seven Sisters. I guess there will always be a part of me that will think Brighton is my favourite British city. The time spent there, in the warm chill of early January, expecting rain and then not expecting it, with Nick Cave’s latest songs playing in my head. “Brighton sky”, says Cave, “is unlike anything I’ve ever seen”. This is something you would have to take for granted.

However, the nostalgic feeling should not fool you. One of the greatest things about this Nick Cave documentary is that it doesn’t try to be nostalgic. Even if Cave does speak at the very beginning of 20,000 Days On Earth about how much he cares for the past. Past is a way to go forward and sometimes a memory means more than a person who caused it.

We start with Cave waking up in the morning and end with him standing on the beach, night gathering around him and then swallowing the lanky silhouette into the sparse sounds of Cave’s last album. And in between there is a day in the life of an artist. His 20,000^th day on Earth. We go through his creative process, his archives (the only time when Mick Harvey is mentioned) and even some of his anxieties. At just a little over 90 minutes, this is like the best sexual experience: unforgettable and seductively brief.

20,000 Days On Earth is a robust, inventive documentary with never a dull moment. We hear Cave say smart, vaguely philosophical things (which, crucially, always make sense); we see him chat with Warren Ellis (fantastic chemistry); we even see him during an unlikely psychiatric session (the story about Cave’s father reading to him Lolita at the age of 19 is particularly priceless). Then there are brief forays into his archives full of rare pictures, locks of female hair bought at some Berlin flea market and more amazing stories about Tracy Pew and some lonely guy Chris who lived in Germany and was mad on erotica. And there is even time for a full take on “Higgs Boson Blues” which sounds raw yet somehow fully realised. Like the documentary itself.

Great presence, great charisma, and a rare chance to look behind the stage flamboyance (Kylie Minogue describes him as a big tree in the storm – which sounds apt and even manages to soften Nick Cave’s perpetual frown). He is concerned about not being able to reach out to that one guy in the last row (come on, Nick). And he is defiant but very much aware of his age. What if the memory goes? What if it all goes?.. And like a 12-year old fanboy he is bedazzled by some Nina Simone performance he once saw. It’s the transformative power of the artist who should always be able to impress and to intimidate. Does he still have it? He feels confident yet the idea is heavily on his mind. 

And then there are parts where Cave just talks about his wife Susie (who barely appears), God and the sacred process of writing songs. Nick Cave is a man with a vision, and in the end it’s this vision that ties the documentary together and makes it not just a film about inspiration but a deeply inspirational experience in its own right. The memories of Brighton are my own powerful testimony to that.

SONG OF THE WEEK #170: Black Box Recorder - "Goodnight Kiss"

Sincere, cynical (look at the cover) - who cares when you have Sarah Nixey singing a melody so gorgeous the word 'gorgeous' seems vulgar and inappropriate. I swear those backing vocals at the end will move you to tears.  

The night's nearly over 
Get a taxi at five 
I'll cradle your head in my hands

Check that you're still alive

Album review: KING DUDE - Fear

Highlights: Maria, Never Run, Miss September, Watching Over You

8/10

I remember this school essay I had to write when I was fourteen. Or rather – I don’t remember the essay itself, I remember what happened afterwards. A young teacher, all enthusiasm and no sense of humour, asked me to stay after class for a talk. Needless to say, I was scared. What the hell did I write in that essay?.. It was an empty 3 o’clock classroom, and the daylight looked especially sad. She told me to sit opposite her and I did. She gave me a really black look that made me expect anything, including expulsion. Then she opened my essay and asked: “How, how could you?” I shrunk to a dangerous point. “This is one of the best essays I’ve ever read. But how could you misspell that word over there?..” I stared at her, I couldn’t believe it.

Now I’m ready to play that young teacher and ask Thomas Jefferson Cowgill: “How, how could you?.. How could you record that repulsive abomination called “Fear Is All You Know” and make it the first song on your brilliant new album?” Because Fear really is brilliant. Everything that is good about dark folk and Gothic rock – it’s all in here, in these 11 songs of tragic beauty and beautiful despair. But then he had to do this tasteless Rammstein send-up that raises hackles and just beggars belief.

And still. From “Maria” onwards – Fear is perfect, every song a winner. He does acoustic, he does electric, and everything he sings has the sort of melodic menace that was only budding on King Dude’s two previous albums. Truly, the stuff here is catchy as hell where ‘hell’ is more than just a metaphor. “Bloody Mirror” (that timeless hook line I’m sure I know from elsewhere) is like a nursery rhyme for devilish babies. The dark ’n’ bouncy “Lay Down In Bedlam” is as instantly memorable as it gets. When King Dude rocks (“Demon Caller Number 9”) – he does it convincingly, with guts and with great spirit. When he does apocalyptic balladry (“Never Run”) – he can almost break your heart.

Elsewhere, “Miss September” has the best use of ‘remember’/’December’ rhyme since Pavement’s “Gold Soundz”. The 6-minute “Empty House” epic is certainly atmospheric – if slightly watered down. And the closing “Watching Over You” is an old-fashioned singalong where you are watched by the Demon rather than your lover. But don’t you fret. The disarming melody and the soaring violin will make it all worth it. So that you will almost forget how it all began and join in for King Dude’s final chant (I hope you have it in you): 

“Come on you Demons and Devils, say it with me…”