Philip Selway - Weatherhouse - Album Review

At the end of July, Radiohead’s exceptionally creative rhythm-maker Philip Selway released a new song from his up-coming second solo LP release; the anthemic Coming Up For Air. As our anticipation for this record grew, all of a sudden another of Radiohead’s Republic surprised us, releasing their own second solo LP this September, ahead of Selway’s, but in spite of this timing, these diverse projects will not steal attention from one another, for they both serve as special and unique offerings to the Autumn of 2014.

Selway’s debut in 2010, Familial, was a modest acoustic-guitar driven record, with melodies and juxtaposing chordal changes that set the listener’s ears on a path to fill-in the possibilities for what fuller arrangements might sound like. Four years later, and our composer’s ambition for the orchestration and sonic landscape encompassing each of his new recordings is much greater.

Weatherhouse is an apt title for this album, suggestive, amongst other things, of the more luscious textures and seasonal atmospheres dressing these new tracks. Along with realising each composition through its melody and arrangement, a track-to-track focus on the space and room each occupies gives a further level of distinction to the experience this time around. The song Let It Go marries its theme of tormented sleep with a constant and distant rattling bell. Other parts rise in a mist around the vocal melody like the waves of thought keeping our subject awake. In Don’t Go Now, the acoustic guitar sits dry and solid at the front of the mix, whilst vocals and strings are rapped in thicker air. As lyrics are disclaimed, the textual disparity metaphors the distance between the lover in the distance and the loved in the foreground.

This further solo release also clarifies the ideas that Selway brings to and enforces in Radiohead’s communal songwriting. The descending vocal melody line along with the lyrics in Ghosts strongly reignites memories of Exit Music For A Film. The cyclic eternity of the drum pattern in Around Again speaks to the energy and paranoia of his band’s Hail To The Thief era, employed here for his more existential study.

From his long-time involvement performing music, and the accolades he has received for his contributions, the effects Selway employs on the production of his vocals in these recordings would appear a stylistic choice rather than one used to cover a lack of confidence in his abilities. In Coming Up For Air a smooth fuzz veils his natural voice, and often, on the songs that follow, reverb heavily soaks his serenades. The vocals are just another part of the orchestra in these arrangements, and the use of these effects to frame them more intrinsically in the complete sound helps remove any possible perceptions of a vocalist leading the march. The song is always the thing, not the performer. 

Weatherhouse is a collection of some beautiful melodies, supported tastefully with intricate arrangements. With a history of being involved with creating music that has re-evaluated the landscape to which it was born, audience expectations for what Selway releases are unfairly extreme. Embracing Weatherhouse with the hope of unheard timbres, or unusual postmodern concepts, would be to misdirect the focus from what is to be enjoyed from this characterful album. These songs are united by their gentle centres and their arms outstretched to the listener. His voice, though wide-ranging in pitch, is often delivered calmly and softly, welcoming the listener rather than waving for their attention. Thematically the songs are held together through their exploration of the harder sides of the relationship between a You and an I.

Being a part of an incredible ensemble does not necessarily dictate that, operating separately, you can offer a rounded voice and work of value. In Philip Selway’s case, however, a class shines from his solo music that simultaneously convinces the listener of his intrinsic relevance to what Radiohead make, and also to his bravery as a musician, who, in spite of his achievements and commitment with that collective, takes time to stand apart from them, to explore his creativity elsewhere.

[2014.09.24] for NE:MM Online Magazine.

NARC Magazine Demo Reviews - October

Slow Moving Targets / Chased By Badguys / Neolithic / SkyRush / Ilser

Our singer at Slow Moving Targets uses a combination of nonchalance and primal assertion to relay his kitchen-sink observations in Dirty Knees, a bluesy seduction letter. Earthy sexuality is order of the day; from the song title and accompanying EP cover-image to the primitive use of pentatonic riffs and raucous singing. A tight, slim production is preferred and works particularly well with a percussive breakdown section involving hand-claps later in the track. The lead vocals go from a droll patter relaying description to wild cries of desperate profession, ditching diction when touched by the full-moon. 

A sweetly naive keyboard part introduces Ghost by Chased By Badguys before an acoustic guitar overtakes the progression with the chords plucked to keep a pendulating beat. The forced vibrato of the lead singer’s vocals whines sharp against the gentle backing instrumentation, and although the attempt at conveying unrest and passion in his voice is noticeable, the effect is grating. A tape-recording sample is presented at a critical point in the song as a poignant document, but anything other than hiss is unplaceable to the listener, leaving the reason for it inclusion unclear. The instrumentation is tastefully arranged from the start, right through to when the narrator’s resultant loneliness is conveyed with the track concluding with nothing but synthesised strings repeating a refrain. 

Life’s purpose seems somewhat tarnished to the folks from Neolithic with their twenty-four minute dissertation, Born To Suffer. At volume, this recording serves meditation on the weight of life, offering a sound consistent to the usual dimensions of the Drone genre. The instrumental parts, shifting tectonic plates with their might, have been well captured. When the vocal screaming erupts from the noise, it is well articulated above the booming. Lacking any major idiosyncrasies, the adjective Neolithic in the band-name perfectly describes the compositional level of development in Born To Suffer, where the rudimental possibilities of each instrument’s sound is sufficient to achieve their muscular purpose. This track chants anonymously alongside the congregation of its church. 

Why Me? is a simultaneously excitable and anxious indie-pop song by SkyRush lyrically orbiting a protagonist’s vulnerability and resilience. The bass riffs cut through the electric-guitar and drum noise lushly, providing a central personality to an otherwise messy sound. Garry Benns sings his words with a brave conviction though a natural fragility accompanies each phrase. At the choruses, a sweet harmony tenderises the lyrical sentiment. An alternative ending to the arrangement would serve this song well, as the current rallentando-drum-fill-pow feels rather cheesy outside (and one might also argue inside) of a live situation. 

Rachael Whittle’s wonderfully bending voice slowly twists through Ilser’s moody grunge-rock ode. Out of the creeping, Last Chance explodes in the choruses, thrusted by the bass-drum and power chords hitting nearly every down-beat. As the format dictates, a guitar solo breaks after the second chorus and mixes moments of brilliance with awkward stumbling. The words seemingly outlay a prayer to a saviour but serve a more threatening gesture as the song develops. Unfortunately, at climatic points, Whittle holds some sustained notes out-of-tune and the clear production does not protect the singer’s fallibility here. 

Though I am not the bee for this flower, Slow Moving Targets and Dirty Knees deserve the top spot in September’s Demo of the Month for their clarity of songwriting and its execution. They uphold the spirit revived by Sheffield’s favourite simians with rock ’n’ roll at their centre and a song mixing dry wit and documentation of a localised existence.

[2014.09.11] for NARC Magazine.

Jenny Hval & Susanna ‎– Meshes Of Voice - Album Review

Meshes Of Voice is a fascinating collaboration between Jenny Hval and Susanna Wallumrød. This album represents their first recorded album together, but the way in which these premier Norwegian talents merge leaves terms like ‘debut’ or ‘first collaborative album’ redundant in spite of that language being technically accurate. This offering is whole; with its imagination relevant to a past tradition, a present mystery and a future vision, honouring the quality of its muse, the enigmatic 1943 film, Meshes Of An Afternoon by Maya Deren.

Both Hval’s and Wallumrød’s vocal talents are uniquely exquisite but, by the strength of their complimentary aesthetics, form a melodic hydra that characterises the heart of these compositions. Each instrument added to the orchestration feels like an embellishment to these rich voices, which duet as if they have been trained as twins from birth. Wallumrød’s fuller tone often leads in the mix, but the expression is a united force, with Hyal’s edgier voice fleshing the thought; sometimes in unison, sometimes with simultaneous alternative patterns and repeating phrases. 

The traditional instruments used are mixed within a narrow texture, highlighting their timbre and influence in the sound. For example, As O Sun O Medusa wilts into A Mirror In My Mouth the transition, although seamless for other sounds, is recognisable for an acoustic guitar quietly assuming the waves of the new section’s (new track’s) arpeggios. Towards the end of Thirst That Resembles Me, a zither strikes unexpectedly out of a hypnotic repeated refrain. It’s crystalline quality is made particularly delicious to the ear as the arrangement presents it with such import. The music never travels too long before the listener is treated to a new idea, whether it is a new sound element, technique or phrase. 

Equally as important to the overall expression as the melodic and instrumental choices is the use of reverberation, noise and distortion. These effects are treated as instruments in their own right, building intersections and links within the construction of the tracks. Whether prominently crashing into the sound hard, with unruly guitar feedback (as in Black Lake,) or isolating the vocals in a numbing thick air, (as inThirst That Resembles Me,) the application of these qualities is less to colour an existing part, but to register with the listener as a part in its own right.  

Hval and Wallumrød explain that mythical creatures, particularly those that spoke to womanhood, were a large inspiration for this record. Though this could naturally lead to a conceptual piece, the result goes even further into the theatrical paradigm for its structure, characterisation, and symbolic lyricism. Droplet, with its calm meditative loop brings us into the album’s world, the house lights are faded to Black Lake, and the story begins.
The track, I Have Walked This Body, builds in its sonic texture whilst the lyrics chart a journey ever deepening. This sense of layering is similar to the film which, too, shows characters (or versions of a character) repeatedly approaching and entering a house several times. The acrobatics that unfold from the duetting voices in this particular track quickly destroy any expectations and limits that the listener may have presumed early into the programme; we are in the presence of magicians and their itinerary is vast. 

Repetitious motifs are drawn upon throughout the lyrics of Meshes Of Voice, much like the visual devices in the film; the knife, the flower and the disconnected telephone. Honey Dew, Milk and Bones are symbols that reoccur organically within Hval’s and Wallumrød’s lyrics and get re-evaluated in each new appearance. The contrast of sunlight and darkness are constantly exposing the nature of the oral testimonies. The penultimate track welcomes a dawn; an unveiling light. Having been set loose from a ‘Heart like a Black Lake,’ the album finally returns to that image as it closes, this time, sung with an ignited enthusiasm by Hval, delivering the lyrics in a wild incantation. The songwriters cite Athena, Medusa and Harpy as characters of particular interest in this study. Their examination is made painfully intimate by lyrics including first person confessions, characters working out their nature against the elements and their experience of the world. Any innocence is certainly fermented by the time this record finishes.

There is little relief within this emotional experience, and at fifty-plus minutes of sound, these intense expressions would rip apart the weary. However, the fluctuation in the tone and mood of each portion of this cycle formulates a playlist with all the necessary angles and curves to recharge energy in the listener to brave the more tumultuous chapters. This record is the result of a deep curiosity, explored by brilliant minds, and interpreted into a wild creation by uncompromising composers and performers. Meshes Of Voice is a triumph; simultaneously a mystery and a key. 

[2014.09.07] for NE:MM Online Magazine.