Slack, slacker, slackest...

'Gorgeous pop...This is the perfect soundtrack for slacker melancholy, the sweet recognition of everything that's passing and the absolute inability to get up and do anything about it.' Splendid! That's from a review of the new record from Mazarin entitled We're already there. And Mr. Mazarin, Quentin 'Yes, it's my real name' Stoltzfus, gives his local paper the hows and whys...

The first time this blog listened to Sufjan Stevens' Michigan was when driving across country en route to my grandmother's funeral. Maybe it's this association which has freighted that album with more than average personal significance, I don't know. Anyway, repeat-plays duly confirmed it's mightiness as this blog was, ahem, among the earliest to report [see rr July03]. Two years later comes Illinois which for anyone who bought the former contains no real surprises aside from the fact that while it's even longer (74mins+) the quality once again never slips. What with all the 10/10 'record of the year'-type reviews flying around it's the better record, right? Actually, it ain't necessarily so...
As you'd kind of expect technically it's superior in some of the playing and in the recording quality. But those slightly amateurish horns and the 'recorded in a church hall on a rubbishy upright piano' of Michigan were among it's many charms. However, the latter's real trump card is it's more direct poigniancy, a more personal melancholy. Illinois feels a bit more like head music, an exercise in empathy and imagination albeit a fantastically well executed one.
It's the sort of record that theses could be written about; reallyrather can't honestly be that bothered. Suffice to say it's positively stuffed with rewarding musicality and intelligent, literate compostition. The echoes of Michigan are heard most directly on mini-opus Come on feel the Illinoise! which, with it's slightly off-kilter time sig and layers of busy, busy horns, vocals and piano figures takes us straight back to Detroit.
Pulling favourites or highlights is actually pretty invidious since all the substantive tracks score on one level or another. But a multi-facetted marvel like The predatory wasp of the Palisades is out to get us! contains more rewards than many other artists' whole albums (whole careers, even). Presently, it's the relatively simpler folk-rock pleasures of things like Decatur (accordian, electric guitar and great Matt Morgan harmonizin') and Casimir Pulaski Day (heavenly banjo 'n' horns combination) that are getting turned right up. As are those with that understated, sinuous '70s rock feel Stevens favours, They are night zombies!! They are neighbors!! and Jacksonville.
LIke Michigan and the subsequent Seven Swans, it's all pretty trustworthy. Stevens' most prodigious talent might be in his arrangements which are deft, dense with detail and actually make most other folks' records seem pretty damned lazy. A fly-on-the-wall film of how he put the whole thing together would've been fascinating. Here's hoping he's able to tour here with a group which can do some of this stuff justice (maybe The Polyphonic Spree could be put to some use here!). And where will he play? The Union Chapel would've been perfect on a variety of levels but as it's now defunct (as a venue, at least) Bush Hall or one of the South Bank halls would seem inevitable. But reallyrather suggests the 900-seat Cadogan Hall off Sloane Square would be just ideal. Another former church excellently restored as a 'serious' music venue, this blog enjoyed one of it's first concerts last Monday (BBC Proms lunchtime chamber music feat. John Adams, Ravel). A perfect match, I reckon, and being all-seated there'd be the added bonus of people shutting TFU!

...and did reallyrather spot that M. Ward returns to the Bush Hall in November or was that just a mirage?

Sufjan Stevens is one of several friends who pitch in on Denison Witmer's new record Are you a dreamer? which is just out. 'A phenomenally crafted album.. his finest to date,' reckons this review. Here's hoping...

As if the blue-and-white tape cordoning off the whole of Tottenham Court Rd last Thursday evening wasn't reminder enough of the capital's turbulent times, the nearby venue to which this blog was headed, the Metro, was only hosting it's weekly club night called, er, Blow Up. Having half caught them at The Windmill in May, rr was back for a proper art-rocking helping of Clor. Actually, on the evidence of this no-nonsense performance, better make that 'the mighty Clor'. Jerky, dance-y electro-rock with to-the-point outbursts of hard-nosed, demon prog guitar all topped off with pleasingly perverse graphics, this 5-piece have really got their schtick locked down and bolted. And despite the fact that most of the drum tracks on their homemade debut album are apparently machine-generated (as opposed to dead-eye funk backbone that the former Roots Manuva rhythm section brings to their live sound), reallyrather is unusually impatient for it's arrival (chop, chop CDWow). Tho' they're being knocked in some quarters - for a) being nearer 30 than 20, b) having crap hair, c) sometimes smiling, amongst other irrelevancies - this blog is finding their case pretty darned compelling...

...and reallyrather was not alone...

Clor's album appeared a week after the nominations for the Nationwide Mercury Music Prize 2005 and so runs the risk of being completely forgotten by the time next year's award comes around. (Actually, thinking of the downward spiral of many former winners' subsequent career arcs, that may be no bad thing.) And this year's victor will be...? Well, let's strike out Seth Lakeman (trad.folk), Polar Bear (experimental jazz), KT Tunstall (as advertised on tv like Damien Blunt) for a start. And, while we're at it, all those in-your-face boys with guitars - Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party, Maximo Park and Hard-Fi - catchy and amusing tho' a few of their tunes undoubtedly are. They're all too obviously post-Franz Ferdinand, surely? Knock out Coldplay (too big and, frankly, dull) and you're left with:
--The Go! Team (odds 16/1)...too many nicked samples and originally just a studio confection not a 'real' band (which has been put together subsequently but which still can't get near to replicating the exuberance of the disc without the aid of copious backing tracks) [Ninja and Chi talked to Stylus last week]
--Antony & the Johnsons (16/1)...much feted tremulous affair, like Boy George singing Rufus Wainwright in the bath. A chance, but a little does go a long way.
--MIA (12/1)...after Ms Dynamite and Dizzee Rascal this would be an all-to- crushingly obvious PC selection. Relentlessly (wearyingly) energetic and awash with ethnic dancefloor attitude, it ticks a lot of boxes. But is the constituency for this sort of stuff (actually a minority in the country) really that crucial that it has to recognized yet again? All of which leaves us with...
--The Magic Numbers (8/1)...Could they? Should they? Is it possible for those smiles to get any broader?! The album's hardly a groundbreaker, has fairly feeble production and a distinctly flabby tail end. In their favour are a hatful of supremely appealing pop songs and a winningly un-modish, er, 'image'. Think of all the records on the list and then think of the type of person who buys music because it's won a prize (is 'led by the nose' too harsh?). Which record is really going to delight and reward the adventurous leap of faith of Mr&Mrs Supermarket Checkout music buyer (ie. the majority)? Probably, it's this one...
[Latest odds]

Those rockabillytastic teens Kitty, Daisy & Lewis - last seen at Bush Hall back in March - have put out their first disc, Honolulu Rock-a Roll-a, as heard on.. BBC Radio3! (Roll over Beethoven, etc). And of course, in true anachronistic spirit, it's a vinyl 7"...
Oof Records