It’s a slightly quieter this week in London for gigs, possibly not an entirely bad thing given the event-packed preceding and forthcoming weeks.
It does however see the annual series of Teenage Cancer Trust shows return to the Royal Albert Hall. The most keenly-anticipated will arguably be the show by Pulp on Saturday. Last year’s reunion shows saw the band warmly re-embraced after their hiatus and tonight should be another celebration of their sparkling career. Other TCT shows at the RAH include appearances by Paul Weller & Roger Daltrey on Wednesday, Paul McCartney on Thursday, Example on Friday and Jessie J on Sunday.
Elsewhere Craig Finn takes time off from singing with The Hold Steady to play a solo show at Hoxton Bar Kitchen on Thursday ahead of latest album Clear Heart Full Eyes while Hoxton is also the setting for two gigs by American singer-songwriter Willy Mason who promotes new album Restless Fugitive on Monday and Tuesday. Meanwhile, electronic Brooklyn duo Tanlines promote new album Mixed Emotions in a show at Cargo on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Lexington hosts gigs by Porcelain Raft on Monday and Those Darlins on Wednesday.
Field Music play a free show at Rough Trade East on Thursday, no doubt playing much of recently released fourth album Plumb while Demdike Stare play their slightly sinister, dubbed-out drones at their biggest show to date at Union Chapel on Saturday. Senegalese multi-instrumentalist Diabel Cissokho plays a pair of shows at St Ethelburga’s Church on Friday and Saturday
Café Oto celebrate the launch of their new inhouse record label OTOROKU with a show on Wednesday featuring German saxophone legend Peter Brotzmann playing with bassist John Edwards & drummer Steve Noble while Friday has a performance by two international improvising duos - Maja Ratkje & Ikue Mori’s collaboration being followed by a set by Evan Parker & John Wiese. More details can be found here.
Just announced
Hard Rock Calling announced details this week of another show due to take place in Hyde Park on 15th July that will see Paul Simon perform seminal album Gracelands in full. Alison Krauss & Union Station, Jimmy Cliff and Ladysmith Black Mambazo also appear on the bill.
Other shows just announced include:
The Cornshed Sisters – Union Chapel – 4th April
Lauren Hill – IndigO2 – 14th April
Jimmy Edgar – Fabric – 21st April
Tinariwen with Jose Gonzalez – Shepherd’s Bush Empire – 3rd May
Neon Indian – Village Underground – 6th June
Jack White – Hammersmith Apollo – 22nd June
Van Dyke Parks – Barbican – 23rd June
Nicki Minaj – Hammersmith Apollo – 24th & 25th June
Last night we headed to London's County Hall, former headquarters of the Greater London Council, to hear Jack White's new album Blunderbuss for the first time.
Blue was the order of the day - from blue curaçao cocktails at the reception to blue lighting in the venerable debating chamber - in keeping with Blunderbuss' packshot. And blues tinged rock'n'roll was the order of the music.
The Mayor of Lambeth, in full mayoral regalia, interviewed/flirted with White after the album playback and took some questions from the assembled hacks. We learned that he still looks a bit like Michael Jackson, that he is a trained upholsterer and was once in a band called The Upholsterers.
But the playback began with White appearing on screen, moving a stylus over a vinyl copy of Blunderbuss and the record spinning.
Tim Lee offers some only-heard-it-once initial/not-finalised thoughts on the tracks that make up Blunderbuss...
Missing Pieces
So, it begins with a rather insistent Hammond organ. Not a guitar. Something that will (as things progress) become more telling. It's expectedly bluesy, slightly unexpectedly Motown and nicely casual. It ends, with a fairly atypical (although thrilling) Jack White guitar wig-out, a touch more organ, and then an abrupt stop. A good start.
Sixteen Saltines
A bluesy guitar howl gives way to an actual, sat-on-myself howl. For anyone who thinks that Screwdriver remains almost untouchably spectacular, whatever else Jack White goes near, that's a great thing. Sixteen Saltines (Or 'Salteens', if you believe some of the paraphernalia) is one of two of White's solo tracks that have already been floating about on Internet, so you'll probably already know of its sludgey Led Zeppelin-like ways. It thuds and it pounds and is probably the track from Blunderbuss that has the blood of The White Stripes as parentage most purely running through the veins.
Freedom At 21
Although this runs it close. More drums that pound like the closing of tombs. More wiry, swampy guitars. But here White's vocal is tossed lower. It's more solemn, more down-and-out. Quieter. But the song is actually a little bit funky. A little bit glam. You know T-Rex? You know Superfly? So does Freedom At 21. The riff thrusts and poises, and positions itself as a proper 21st Century Boy, and then erupts into another all out, up'n'down the fret Jack White workout. Oh, and as of yet, there's still very little sign of bass.
Love Interruption
Ah, a quieter one. The second of the two tracks with some degree of familiarity, Love Interruption really reminds you of Son Of A Preacher Man. There's just something in that break prior to the verse that makes you think Billy Ray was a preacher's son, and when his daddy would visit he'd come along. Just on a oboe. But the best thing about Love Interruption is its two-facedness. The lyrics are spiteful and malicious, but delivered with an cheery smile and a jaunty wave. It's a prickly thorn, sweetly worn.
Blunderbuss
Blunderbuss has a child-like, wide-eyed simplicity which is instantly appealing. Particularly when half way through it gives way to a rich, string-laden continuation. But throughout it the simple piano runs remains, tinkling away in a delightfully straightforward fashion. When White does this it often turns out kind of lovely. Think I Can Tell We're Going To Be Friends, or I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your Mother's Heart. He's always been an empathetic storyteller and always played the innocent with consummate skill, and it's no different here.
Hypocritical Kiss
More piano. More piano. More piano. Hypocritical Kiss has enough piano to make you mistake it for the cinematic accompaniment for a 1920s film. No doubt, White gives it everything, treating the piano how he treats the guitar - athletically traversing its length, prone to impressive flourishes – but, upon first listen Hypocritical Kiss seems a little slight. However given afterwards the Mayor Of Lambeth declares it her favourite and White himself declares he's most proud of it makes us wonder if we've missed something.
Weep Themselves To Sleep
People plug in, Jack counts in and Weep Themselves To Sleep rolls in. A chopping riff and then, yet more piano. But, unlike the ol'Joanna we've seen so far, this piano is far more interested in ramping up the drama. It's more frantic, more impassioned and more on the edge of (in)sanity. It pounds and then pulls up to these almost comically dramatic pauses. The stilted dynamic can't help but hark back to the jarring, duh-duh-duh-duh, hit of Blue Orchid. Weep Themselves To Sleep is great, and a fine way to end side 1.
I'm Shakin'
Brings to mind Shakin' All Over. Not just because of the words. There's something in the twangy guitar, something in the 1960s handclaps, something in the way Jack's voice sounds like he's recorded it down a transistor radio. But it's cool. It's hip. It mentions Bo Diddley.
Trash Talking Tongue
You know, if we say the word piano again, maybe you'll get the idea. Of course, White is a multi-faceted musician, but it's still a little surprising how little of Blunderbuss relies on the guitar. However, by this point the piano in question is now honky-tonking all over the shop. It's a bar-room boogie-woo, with drums that resonate with such portent thumps that you'd almost believe they were by Meg. Almost. Sniff.
Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy
Well, this is odd. It's a fairground ride. Spinning. Pirouetting around and around with jangly merriment. Or a music box. You know, one of those ones with a spinning ballerina. A clockwork melody clicking on and on and on and on. It has got some lovely lyrical moments on it, White's oft overlooked skill at writing a line which trips off the ear is displayed throughout, but it does feel a little bit lacking in presence.
I Guess I Should Go To Sleep
There's murmurs and hints of it throughout, but it isn't till I Guess I Should Go To Sleep that the country and western influence really comes to the fore. Given what White has been doing in his production duties and given that Blunderbuss was made in Nashville, it's almost more of a surprise it takes this long. I Guess I Should Go To Sleep is a little bit Dolly, playful and sad and doe-eyed. But it doesn't make the greatest first impression.
On and On and On
A dreamy, wistful introduction, a twanging double bass (you see, like buses, you wait for ages for bass and then a double comes along) and in Jack breezes in, in a pondering and pensive mood. It's almost a bit Byrdsian. Particularly in the multi-tracked chorus, which seems especially psychedelic next to the stark verses. It's an interesting thing. It's also the track from Blunderbuss which seems least easy to compare against any of Jack's 'other' bands. Which for a man with that many 'other' bands, is no mean feat.
Take Me With You When You Go
Least easy comparison, apart from this one. Take Me With You is, weirdly, more than a little jazzy. But only for a bit because then there's a fiddle, and then the whole thing becomes a lot more like a Irish square-dance. Then, out of nowhere, a riff appears and the song takes off. Squealing, zapping through space. Then it becomes an armour-plated funk-soul brother, rampaging towards the horizon. Which is ace. It's a big old finish, in full-on all voices all instruments, smash it all up and go home encore.
That, rather smart, finish, is Blunderbuss. An album which is unmistakably Jack White, but still manages to offer more than a few surprises.
Jack White's Blunderbuss is out through XL on 23 April 2012.
This week sees the return of The Shins to the live arena, who play two shows ahead of the release of new album Port Of Morrow. You can catch James Mercer and co. at the Kentish Town Forum on Thursday and Friday with support from Clinic.
Another high profile gig taking place in London this week sees Feist play the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday. Last year’s Metals won her even more admirers and this show will see her play selections from it with the assistance of M. Ward (who incidentally plays his own solo show at the Leicester Square Theatre on Tuesday ahead of forthcoming new album A Wasteland Companion)
Elsewhere, Spiritualized promote seventh album Sweet Heart, Sweet Light at the Hackney Empire on Monday, Los Campesinos! play the Electric Ballroom on Wednesday, while hyped Mancunian outfit Wu Lyf play two shows at Heaven on Thursday and Friday. Finally, Irish indie survivors The Frank & Walters play the Borderline on Saturday.
The rest of the week is packed full of taste-expanding, horizon-broadening live music shows.
Café OTO welcomes Thurston Moore for a special show on Tuesday that involving various collaborators that focuses on his twin loves of improvised noise and poetry. This is followed by an appearance by American percussionist Jon Mueller on Wednesday with support from Pimmon (Australian laptop musician Paul Gough). Read more here.
Not to be outdone, The Vortex hosts the Exotic Pylon festival from Wednesday to Saturday featuring performances from the likes of Andy Stott, Dalglish, Black To Comm and Alexander Tucker. Get full details here.
The Barbican is the setting for a special show on Thursday involving the music of Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood and Polish classical composer Krzysztof Penderecki, whilst earlier in the week on Tuesday Bang On A Can All Stars play specially commissioned music by the likes of Tyondai Braxton and Mira Calix. Tickets are still available for both shows. Finally, even the Borderline gets in on the experimental act as it hosts a showcase by Norwegian label Rune Grammofon on Monday featuring appearances from Jenny Hval and Phaedra.
Also taking place this week:
The Civil Wars – Shepherd’s Bush Empire – 19th March
Being There – Macbeth – 20th March
Pulled Apart By Horses – Borderline – 20th March
Talib Kweli – Forum – 20th March
The History Of Apple Pie – Madame JoJo’s – 20th March
Kindness – XOYO – 21st March
Summer Camp – Scala – 21st March
Sun Glitters – Rhythm Factory – 22nd March
Pop Will Eat Itself – Electric Ballroom – 23rd March
Just announced:
Sam Amidon – Westminster Reference Library – 13th April
This particular week of live music in London opens with a handful of shows by a several new acts that are sure to rise in stature as the year goes on. Lianne La Havas plays a headline show at the Scala on Tuesday, NZCA/LINES promote self-titled debut album at the Barfly on Monday while on the same night Michael Kiwanuka plays a free show at Rough Trade East.
Shows by Mark Lanegan at Shepherd’s Bush Empire and The Felice Brothers at The Macbeth on Tuesday provide live music of a more grizzled, lived-in nature on Tuesday. Fellow American songwriter Damien Jurado also returns to London this week to play a full band show at Cargo on Monday, after the earlier solo gig he played at the Enterprise in January.
Later in the week sees a pair of gigs centred more around the worlds of orchestral and chamber music take place. The North Sea Radio Orchestra have built up a modest reputation over recent years for combining both the ancient and the modern on their three albums released to date, and they play a small show at Westminster Kingsway College on Thursday. Friday sees two highly-regarded figures of crossover contemporary classical, Nico Muhly and Owen Pallett, give the world premieres of their respective Cello and Violin concertos at the Barbican with the backing of the Britten Sinfonia (just one of several excellent contemporary events being hosted by the Barbican this year).
Friday also sees a number of gigs at the Southbank Centre in celebration of the 10th birthday of BBC 6music. Public Image Ltd, Gruff Rhys, Laura Marling, Anna Calvi and Beth Jeans Houghton are all scheduled to appear. The Royal Festival Hall also hosts two concerts by Joan Baez on Friday and Saturday – read what we thought about her show in Cambridge here. Finally, the QEH has two stand-out jazz concerts this week - the Neil Cowley Trio promoting latest album The Face Of Mount Molehill on Thursday and ECM-signed pianist Tord Gustavsen appearing on Sunday.
Elsewhere on Friday, Timber Timbre play a show at Islington Assembly Hall whilst Xiu Xiu promote 9th album Always in a show at Rich Mix in Bethnal Green.
Also taking place this week:
Diagrams – Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen – 13th March
Megaphonic Thrift & Daniel Land – Buffalo Bar – 14th March
Veronica Falls & Male Bonding – Scala – 14th March
Inspiral Carpets – KOKO – 16th March
Caro Emerald – Roundhouse – 16th March
An evening with Jah Wobble – Vortex – 16th March
Blanck Mass – The Nest – 16th March
Debukas - KOKO - 17th March
Tall Firs – Upstairs at the Garage – 17th March
Icarus Line – Windmill – 17th March
Just announced:
Santigold – Heaven – 26th April
Ben Kweller – Water Rats – 9th May
Ian McCulloch – Union Chapel – 12th May
Beach House – Village Underground – 24th May
Kathryn Williams – Union Chapel – 29th May
Brian Jonestown Massacre – Shepherd’s Bush Empire – 7th July
Yesterday we repaired to London's Abbey Road Studios to waggle our ears just the once at Madonna's new album MDNA. The Queen Of Pop's first album for new label Interscope (Polydor in the UK), it sees her join forces with Italian housemeister Benny Benassi and France's Martin Solveig, and team up again with Ray Of Light and Music cohort William Orbit.
Ahead of a standard-format review nearer to MDNA's release date (26th March), Laurence Green runs through the album track by track...
Girl Gone Wild
Kicks off with a spoken word intro – already placing it in classic Madonna territory. It’s that ego-centricness of Confessions On A Dancefloor all over again, but with even louder beats. There’s the slick veneer of the commercial dance number here too, echoing recent Greatest Hits teaser single Celebration. The vocals aren’t Madonna’s best – a defining feature across the album – but when the clubland backing is so explosively loud, that’s hardly a detracting feature. There’s even a persistent energy of sorts to the vocals that, twinned with the buzz-saw synths, firmly establishes Girl Gone Wild as the sound of ‘now’. With its aping of the ‘girls just wanna have some fun’ refrain, there’s a real '80s sentiment beating at the heart of the track too.
Gang Bang
"If I see that bitch in hell I’m gonna shoot them in the head again" – Madonna’s brawling for some action here, via a filthy, almost Erotica-esque onslaught of breathy vocals. It teases and plays, proper between the covers stuff; which you’d kind of expect from a song with a title as blatantly lewd as Gang Bang. At moments it all sounds like something off Daft Punk's Tron soundtrack; hard techno, brutal, uncompromising and industrial. Gang Bang feels vital and on point in a way Madonna hasn’t sounded in years. There’s police sirens and an obliging dubstep middle-eight (there was always going to be one on the album, wasn’t there?) – Everything about Gang Bang is menacing and comes on at full-throttle, right down to Madonna’s flippant remark of "I’m going straight to hell".
I’m Addicted
The burbly techno synths continue here, again it’s all very Tron-esque. If Confessions was dancey, I’m Addicted is dancey with a capital D. The bass positively explodes outwards and it’s refreshing to see Madonna putting out something with real punch. For an artist of her age and experience, she could easily rest on her laurels, and I’m Addicted is about as far away from that as it’s possible to get. Some rave synths get whacked into the mix too, like it’s 1991 all over again – this leads into a hyper-fast outro of the "MDNA!" hook, putting the track forward as a real centrepiece model for the rest of the album.
Turn Up The Radio
This is where the real Madonna melodies of old surface, mining the kind of exuberant stuff that characterised her '80s greats – that playful spirit is well and truly back. As obvious as its airwaves-courting title might be, this is *the* big radio hit on the album, the kind stations up and down the country will lap up in the summer. There’s an incredible abundance of optimism here, a carefree abandon in thrilling degrees of magnitude. Here Madonna is the American queen triumphant, proclaiming "I wanna go fast and I’m gonna go far" in an up-and-at-em call of readiness for life and anything it chooses to throw at her.
Give Me All Your Luvin
In hindsight, and with the hype and drama of the Superbowl performance behind her, the truth is that Madonna doesn’t really need Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. on the album. In the wider scope of MDNA as a whole, they pale into the background – though to be fair to them, they’re a much better fit than Timbaland and Justin Timberlake were on Hard Candy. Clearly, the aspect of sisterhood combined has something going for it though, and it’s nice to hear Madonna so rejuvenated and youthful here, having some fun and laughs with her ‘hip’ pals.
Some Girls
The first of the five William Orbit tracks on the album, and it kicks off with yet more of the palpably massive levels of bass that mark out the record’s opening tracks. The industrial techno theme is continued too with a massive wedge of robotic treated vocals snaking out across the song. There’s a harking back to the more electronic moments of Music and American Life, everything pumping with the air of Madonna as superior, as the pinnacle of her contemporaries. As with Orbit’s Ray Of Light era productions, the track thrives on a sense of experimentalism that still remains effortlessly commercial at the same time.
Superstar
Ironically, Superstar isn’t one of the William Orbit tracks, but it sure sounds like one. It’s the album’s ‘rock’ track and stands as another prime single candidate. The melody is sublime, the kind of thing long-time Madonna fans have been waiting years for, and released here, it’s like a cleansing burst of pure radiance. Even the slightly shoe-horned in dubstep section can’t detract from the song, it’s that good.
I Don’t Give A
Here, the industrial influences meet hip-hop beats amongst a grinding cacophony of sound and borderline raps from Madonna (though thankfully it never reaches the silly, pretentious levels of the ill-fated American Life single). "I’m gonna live fast, and I’m gonna live life," she claims, with a sort of wry simplicity, as if that’s all there is to it. It’s probably one of the album’s weaker tracks, stemming chiefly from the fact that – as Hard Candy proved – Madonna just can’t do ‘urban’ (Bedtime Stories excepted). Nicki Minaj pops up again and then the track descends into a weird cod-orchestral outro. It’s regality defined, and Nicki eagerly clamours to hold up Madonna as such: "There’s only one queen, and that’s Madonna, bitch."
I’m A Sinner
That trademark psychedelic William Orbit sound is out in force here, with crunchy guitar riffs once again suggesting the Ray of Light era. There’s some lovely tinkling, celestially imbued synth bits and tribal sounds going on too. At times, it all feels a bit like Madonna’s about to don her Earth Mother makeover, and by any measure, this is definitely the album’s most religious track as she reels off names of saints.
Love Spent
The opening moments sound akin to the country n’ beats combo of Music’s Don’t Tell Me and while Love Spent takes some time to get going, it’s worth the wait. In the final choruses, everything all comes in at once, backed up by thunderclap beats – as far as firmly defined ‘album tracks’ go, this is a pretty good effort, even if it feels a little by-the-numbers at times.
Masterpiece
Yes, it might be a Madonna ballad of a certain esteemed ‘class’, and yes, it might be on the W.E. soundtrack, but that’s probably where it should have stayed. After the hi-energy pace of the rest of the album, Masterpiece feels out of place.
Falling Free
Compared to Masterpiece, Falling Free makes a far better stab at positioning itself as a ballad that fits into the wider context of MDNA. Echoey piano lines and string sections set up a lovely trippy vibe that shares more than a little in common with the likes of Drowned World/Substitute for Love. Falling Free sounds properly sumptuous; there’s a richness to its production that serves to close the album down as a real assertion of Madonna ‘the artist’. Her vocals here are excellent, both moving and tender in a way that genuinely touches at the heart. Like scented rose petals and jasmine cast loose on water, Falling Free has a rippling beauty to it that is utterly enchanting.
Beautiful Killer
The first of the bonus tracks, and of all the Martin Solveig-produced songs on MDNA, this sounds most stereotypically of his ‘style’. As is often the wont with bonus tracks, Beautiful Killer is pretty disposable, a bog standard clubland floorfiller – but the middle-eight is rather good.
I Fucked Up
A slow grind of swirly synths and guitar that feels restrained from ever becoming properly great because of that really quite cringeworthy title. It’s just one step too far on the crudeness barometer. But as with Beautiful Killer, the pace ups in the closing moments and the song improves with impressive agility. There’s also a neat reference to Sorry as Madonna recycles her "Je suis désolée" line.
B-Day Song
Featuring M.I.A., B-Day Song feels like the obvious counterpoint to Give Me All Your Luvin, with M.I.A. feeling far more at home here than she does on the album-proper. It’s bratty with a Material Girl punkiness to it but the chorus hook is predominantly more annoying than catchy, with only the choppy guitar riffs helping salvage affairs.
Best Friend
Another wary dip into a more urban soundbase, there’s some cute blippy GameBoy-style synths to play with here, but for the most part Best Friend sounds like an unfinished demo or drum machine exercise. There’s a bare boned minimalism to the track that, as with Beautiful Killer, sets it very much out as ‘just’ a bonus track.
In summary, whereas Hard Candy felt like it was grasping at fading trends, MDNA is far more Madonna just being Madonna. And that usually turns out best for everyone involved.
