Is anybody else listening to the Benoit Pioulard record? Recently out on Kranky and readily available over here, Precis doesn't seem to be attracting a huge amount of chatter which is a bit strange considering its damn-near utter fabness. That Monsieur Pioulard is actually a young American guy named Thomas who picked the pseudonym just for the way it sounded could be deemed dubious frippery until you hear the album when it becomes clear that the boy has an ear to be trusted. Simply put, Precis is a contender...

...and a beguiling, beautiful thing. Pioulard is (another) bedroom recording obsessive and assembled his music/sounds using the most basic of means. The tunes are built with rigour; acoustic guitar predominates but piano, tambos and glock add liberal amounts of tinkling while field recordings of a vaguely industrial nature slip in and around. And please don't let the fact that everything occasionally coaslesces into ambient white noise interludes in any way scare you off; if nothing else they'll serve to only heighten your pleasure when the (ten) shimmering, robustly melodic songs come into focus.
Its fairly invidious to select highlights - really, if you like any one of these you'll like them all, a great standard is maintained thoughout. There's the early churning loveliness of Together & down; the matt pond PA-like crispness ('nuf said!) of Triggering back; Hirondelle's oscillating multitracked vocal amidst tinkling, pattering prettiness; the stout-but-breezy strummin' of Sous la plage. The last-named particularly exemplifies the 60s/70s folk/singer-songwriter flavour which underscores much of the sound. Pioulard's vocal is a fairly typical light, wispy lo-fi thing but, even though the words aren't always instantly discernable, as a whole his music connects and excites this blog way more than something like, say, Jose Gonzalez' Veneer. Ambient acoustic? Folk-pop? Folktronica? Lord knows. Just plain gorgeous, that'll do...
[benoit pioulard][on myspace 12][buy hear]

Unless he's found himself a band of brothers, reallyrather is guessing Pioulard's live show must be akin to that of David Thomas Broughton [go], building songs with looping tracks. He's only got one (hometown, Michigan) show pending, sharing a bill with Califone which is odd since only last week this blog caught Denison Witmer's fleeting visit to London at The Social where he played with.. Califone. Denison apologised for the slumberous quality of his music, particularly that on last year's beautiful Are you a dreamer?, but this blog has come to regard such defiant cosiness and blatant sincerity as an act of some daring. Underpinned as ever by sturdy, just-so picking Witmer sounded just fine despite the incongruous setting of a trendy West End bunker...

...and his terrific six-year-old debut Safe away has just been reissued by US label The Militia Group. Chockful of mellow and meaningful singer-songwritery goodness, it definitely qualifies for inclusion on any list of The 25 Most Overlooked Albums of the Past Decade. Sadly, it didn't make Playback's selection but this blog totally concurs with their #1, Dismemberment Plan's Emergency & I, the thrilling spaz-rock virtues of which this blog has declaimed here before. And not a million miles away from their sound, another contender would surely have to be the sadly-no-more Clor's mighty debut from last year...
[buy dismemberment plan][buy buy clor]

Back to Benoit. You can often judge an album by its cover. The Pioulard sounds just as it looks. The quilting chosen to front Hello love, the latest from blog stalwarts The Be Good Tanyas, is also a pretty fair representation., a handmade artefact in varying shades of blue. And John King once again serves M. Ward well on Post-war, a warmly faded work rendered on textured paper a strong clue as to the quality within...
It's always been a slight puzzle that while both Ward and the Tanyas' sounds are unmistakably rooted in old-timey North American genres, their music has always instantly resonated hereabouts whilst that of the original 'legends' of the country/folk/blues/bluegrass traditions - whom both Matt and the Tanyas acknowledge and revere - generally leaves this blog cold. In their unshowy way they share an contemporizing alchemy and aesthetic which convinces like very, very few others. Have they met, I wonder? A Ward/Tanyas co-production, hmmmm ... hey, a guy can dream, can't he?!
Post-war is just great all the way through, characterized by a hazy, gauzey full-band chug. The rattling folk-pop of the three opening cuts is tambo-tastic but its with the next-up title track that the set really drops anchor. And what a beautifully soft, velvet-covered anchor it is courtesy of trusty rhythm section Adam Selzer and Rachel Blumberg who, as Norfolk & Western, are now touring their own new release The unsung colony [go]. Requiem's up next, almost the archetypal M. Ward song since Transfiguration of Vincent, a frazzled, vampy blues pop number about some nice guy.. who's dead. Chinese translation's brisk shuffle and circular allegory is just a brilliant centrepiece; the rollicking Magic trick has one neat conceit.. then disappears. By the time the softly swinging Rollercoaster comes along reallyrather is scrabbling around for the white flag: Stop, Matt, you're killing me...
Though its definitely less consistent, there are several points of surrender on the Be Good Tanyas record. Rare group composition Ootischenia perfectly encapsulates their joyous quicker paces while at the opposite end of every spectrum the sublime harmonizing on the traditional What are they doing in heaven today is, well, emotional. Other originals like opener Human thing and the title track pull off that then-but-now trick - maybe its something to do with the hint of attitude in Frazey Ford's fantastic drowsy vocals? Elsewhere, covers like A thousand tiny pieces and Scattered leaves fit like the proverbial - full-length, vintage, opera-style - glove. Just right for the Royal Albert Hall, in fact...

On some days the planets are perfect
Predestined to render
A perfect fit*

So, this blog fetches up at the venue about five minutes before the band take the stage. It's The Gramaphone, yet another shiny modish eat-and-drink option in Spitalfields; more precisely the nice little music room downstairs. The eye-shaped performance area - floor-level blond wood 'stage' and curving concrete back wall - is a nicely defined, 'focussing' space, not over-big but comfortably holding the quartet before us methodically setting up their bewildering array of pedals. Putting the mic stand into the front rank of the audience was the final adjustment - tonight it would be redundant, there would be no singing. For this was the return to London, after four years, of Johnathon Ford. Of Unwed Sailor. Of ecstatic, pulverising post-rock glory. About 50 people were there to witness it - wherever else they were, whatever else they were doing, the other 8 million or so Londoners were quite simply in the WRONG PLACE. Come what may, reallyrather's show of the year...

This blog's enjoyment of Unwed's debut full-length The faithful anchor has not dimmed over the five years since its release; alone, tonight's show-ending double whammy from that record, Last goodbyes and Riddle of the stars, was worth twice the admission. With the amps cranked up to eleven and the knobs ripped off it's further kudos to the venue that the sound was so balanced. This is instrumental rock devoid of flatuent bombast and other commonly attendant bollocks. Power, texture and above all melody is what Unwed Sailor deal in. It's gloriously controlled incandescence; the focus, structure, momentum are never lost. Flanked in this configuration by intricate, chiming dual electric guitars (Aaron Hamby, Bryce Chambers) and backed by John Momberg's fantastically spare, bone-hard drumming, Johnathon Ford is in all senses Unwed's central figure. Constantly dipping and whirling, the group feeds off his uber-musical bass thrumming as he drives them on to ecstatic heights. Utterly thrilling, unlike...

...most of The white ox, Unwed Sailor's newest studio release from which, sad to say, pretty much all of the qualities listed above are entirely absent. A strangely bloodless affair, this blog can't honestly suggest that you check it out. But reallyrather frankly insists that you own The faithful anchor [buy] .. and watch this space for, hopefully, more UK action next Spring...
[Unwed Sailor][on MySpace]

So, follow that Yndi Halda. To be fair these Kentish instrumental upstarts are generally going for the slow-burn emotional swell rather than US's muscular propulsion and this blog anticipates their EP launch show at Water Rats Nov 17 with some relish...
[Yndi Halda][on Myspace#

Roughly twelve minutes before arriving at The Gramaphone reallyrather had been applauding My Sad Captains [go] over at the Dublin Castle in Camden. Scooterpower! Sadly wrenched away after just two songs (Never miss a trick and All hat..), they sounded as great as ever and not in the least cowed by the reception given to preceding act Loney, dear. Ticking most of the right indie/folk/pop boxes - Swedish, Arcade Fire, tuneful yelling, etc - its not hard to see why Subpop have taken the plunge. Stripped right down, as they occasionally were, to mainman Emil Svanängen and his acoustic, Loney,dear is pretty nondescript but their collective head of steam fair grabs the attention. As does, let's be honest here, keyboard/vocalist Malin Stahlberg [grrr!], beautifully indulgent and polite to some English guy jabbering on about..other Swedish bands...

...past and present, bands like *Laurel Music. Alas now immersed in their separate projects, songwriter Tobias Isaksson [Irene] and singer Malin Dahlberg [We are soldiers we have guns] were behind one of the great unknown country-pop records of recent times. Gorgeous, mild-mannered, pretty perspicacity is strewn all over This night and the next (2004), as is Gunnar Frick's lapsteel; more excellently still, most songs clock in at an average two minutes. Trust me, you need some unassuming, heartfelt Swedish folk-twang in your life [info/buy] .. come back Laurel Music, that night in Brixton seems too long ago...

And UK indie Stereo Test Kit Records will also be your source for Boy Omega's new mini-album The grey rainbow. 'It's my best work so far,' reckons Martin Gustafsson (the Boy) and this blog isn't about to argue. Having seemed to get a few things out of his system across the diffuse soundscape of The black tango here its all song and its all good. Of course, you'll want TBT for greatness like Fetch, boy, fetch and Explode but The grey rainbow hits a new level of consistency.
This is emotional folky pop recorded at home and employing programmed percussion and frequently manipulated vocals. It's mostly all Martin and his I'm-gonna-kill-myself-you-see-if-I-don't vocal but variously the gang is still all here. Notably, of course, violinist Karin Wiberg particularly when From us to eternity and The isle starburst into life and on Control's stirring string refrain amidst tinkling bells. For the most part it's achingly melodic, gorgeously pained heartbreak stuff typified by Divebomb and A heart is a heart

It's time to let go
Time to fuck things up

I'm gonna smoke my little throat out if I have to

but as with tightly-sprung opener Burn this flag it all manages to twinkle as it sears. And certainly around these parts that's a winning combination [go]...

And if you like The grey rainbow you'll likely find What everyone keeps telling me [hear], still the only clue we've got as to what the next from Wheat promises, as subtly affecting as reallyrather does...