A review of the album Let The Truth Be Told by Laura Izibor Review Snapshot:  Pretty face on the cover? Check.  Impressive voice? Check.  Middle of the road, vaguely ...

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The summer of 2006 must have been an exciting time to be young and French. Springtime student protests had caused the Chirac/de Villepin government to retreat on controversial employment reforms. Les bleus were heading for the World Cup Final and Amélie Mauresmo was winning Wimbledon. Former Dublin au pair Ségolène Royal was shaking up the presidential election race. And a guitar band from Versailles looked dead certs to become global rock megastars.

As it turned out, those protests gained little in the long term. The French football team lost the final so controversially that Mauresmo’s victory the previous day has been virtually forgotten. Royal lost the 2007 election to conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and (like Sarkozy, in his own way) is now more a celebrity than a politician. And that Versailles band, Phoenix (right), are still only big fish in a small indie pond.

But their 2006 album ‘It’s Never Been Like That’ was a cracker and it at least gained them a larger cult following in North America. They are still the only French rock band with a worldwide audience and credibility anywhere near electro acts like Air, Daft Punk and Justice. And their style of music has become a reference point: if any band mixes too-cool-for-school indieness with lovelorn melodic retro-pop, then they sound like Phoenix.
 
So, in this uncharted territory for a French band, Phoenix have just released their new album. Three years on, will it see them finally close the deal and break through to mainstream success?

It will not. ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’ has at least two excellent singles and rarely puts a foot wrong, but on the whole it leaves you with a sense of disappointment. How come?

Well, a great deal of the problem with the new Phoenix album is that it sounds so much like Phoenix. Most of the tracks on this record wouldn’t sound out of place on their previous album. Thomas Mars’ idiosyncratic vocal style, singing melodies so undulating and jerky that they’re almost out of sync with the rest of the song, sounds familiar by now. Was that all we saw in them?

And now other bands are picking up their sound – we recently mentioned French rivals Pony Pony Run Run, whose single ‘Hey You’ does the Phoenix thing better than Phoenix.

Those two fine songs we mentioned above, ‘Lisztomania’ and ‘1901’, are the opening tracks here and give the album a deceptively strong start. A failing of Phoenix, one reason why they aren’t filling Enormodomes or headlining summer festivals outside France, is that they’ve never written a killer radio-friendly chorus – but ‘Lisztomania’ has a memorable hook (though not as catchy as PPRR’s ‘Hey You’). By sheer force of concentrated Phoenix-ness is ‘1901’ so good. Third track ‘Fences’ is a pleasant bit of disco-indie, but The Virgins sewed up this genre last year with their brilliant single ‘Rich Girls’.

And that’s it for highlights. To mention this album’s fleeting nod to relative innovation, we note that ‘Twenty One One Zero’, the bit of loop-heavy stadium electronica that the band put on the web last year, briefly reappears here during an instrumental called ‘Love Like A Sunset Part I’. It gives way to ‘Love Like A Sunset Part II’, a very brief track which features three heavy acoustic guitar strums repeated. Then next song ‘Lasso’ resumes the classic Phoenix style.

It’d be disingenuous to present this as Phoenix maintaining their standards or refining their distinctive sound – quite simply, this album feels like a risk-free consolidation and the songs aren’t dazzling enough to blind you to this.

Of course, there’s the possibility that several million people who’ve never come across Phoenix before will hear this album and fall for it, or perhaps some well-chosen advertising placement will pierce the mainstream subconsciousness. But neither of these scenarios would make ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’ any better an album. This is still a fine band, oozing charm and talent, but they need to do something new with their music.
 

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Key Notes realises he's been a little quiet of late.  There are lots of exciting goings on at Key Note Towers, more of which you'll read about in the coming weeks.  However, to make up for the recent radio silence this blog has a double pass to give away to Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs this Thursday, May 28.

Flirting with music for the first time in 1991 as a founder member of all girl garage band Thee Headcoatees, Holly Golightly's career really took off with the release of her debut record The Good Things in 1995.  Blending blues and folk rock, Golightly has released 13 solo albums over a wide variety of formats and labels, one of the most successful of which was Truly She Is None Other, which was written in partnership with Billy Childish.  Described as 'a scruffed up British version of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, the albums lead track Tell Me Now So I Know was chosen to soundtrack the Jim Jarmusch movie Broken Flowers.

In 2006, following 11 years of tourning and recording with the support of a full band, Holly Golightly teamed up with one man drums/guitar/double bass ensemble Lawyer Dave to form Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs.  Their second album as a duo, Dirt Don't Hurt, was released in October 2008 to critical acclaim.

On Thursday night, May 28, Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs bring their blend of folksy blues to Andrew's Lane Theatre.  Tickets are available for €15 from the WAV ticket office, Road Records, City Discs, Sound Cellar or the usual outlets.  However, thanks to Forever Presents, Key Notes has a double pass to give away.  To win, just email keynotes[@]cluas[.]com with 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' in the subject line before noon on Wednesday.  A winner will be chosen at random and, as usual, Key Notes' decision is final.

Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs:  Jesus Don't Love Me

 

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A review of the album Nightcycles by Subplots Review Snapshot: At times melodic, at times fractured, Nightcycles is at all times a beautiful and ambitious debut long player and, for that, Subplots...

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DM Stith and The Acorn (live in La Maroquinerie, Paris)

Review Snapshot: A cracking double bill of cinematic, romantic North American folk-rock to warm this cold Paris cellar. DM Stith is the quiet small-town Everyman with an otherworldly voice; The Acorn are your ideal college roommates. In their own ways, the two acts win over the crowd with their invention, sincerity and vision – though most punters will go home talking about Stith.

The Cluas Verdict? 9 out of 10

Full Review:
The average rock fan, on heading out on a Friday night, probably worries about catching things other than pneumonia or the common cold. But here we are in La Maroquinerie, a popular Paris venue, on a May evening and it actually feels chilly down here when normally these cellar walls are running with punter perspiration.

You see, the place isn’t even half full – and whenever the door opens, a draught sweeps round the room. It’s odd that more people haven’t come out to see such an attractive double bill of two buzz names on the transatlantic indie music wires.

But those here tonight are the curious and genuinely interested: fortunately for both acts, most people stand right up at the stage instead of leaving a crescent of indifferent floorspace to greet the performers. There are no ‘SHH!’-ers here nor need of them. And tonight’s committed crowd is rewarded by two engaging and enjoyable shows. These two acts go well together.

Both DM Stith and The Acorn (support and headline acts respectively) play a blend of indie- and folk-rock flavoured by more exotic influences, though the American evokes the bookish teenager and the Canadian band are more like your joint-smoking college roommates. (Keyboardist Mike Dubue actually enquires mid-set whether it’s easy to procure marijuana in Paris. For the record, the wisdom of tonight’s crowd holds that it isn’t.)

Where Stith’s recordings are swathed in swirling wisps of ether, on stage with his band those songs are concrete and robust – the man himself (above right) goes about his business in a workmanlike way, chiselling out chords like an apprentice carpenter and grinning boyishly between songs. (He looks like a teenage Donald Sutherland.) To strum the rhythm of ‘Pigs’ he mutes his guitar by folding a piece of cloth through the strings – but then still takes the trouble of making the chord shapes. And as he launches into the next song he forgets to take the cloth out of the strings. His air of affability makes him quite likeable. (After the show he chats amiably with fans at the merchandise table.)

But that voice, piercing and melancholic like a train whistle across a prairie, still conjures up romance and escape and a sort of bruised yearning. This is captured in his music by exotic scales and chord progressions such as in songs like ‘Fire Of Birds’ and ‘Pity Dance’. Adding to the pleasing sense of oddness, the violinist and cellist produce a Theremin-type sound by swinging red plastic outflow pipes over their heads.

Dare we say that Stith steals the show? Well, we can’t remember ever seeing a support act coming back out for an encore, as Stith does tonight after heartfelt calls from the crowd.

This isn’t to suggest that The Acorn are any less enjoyable; they rock. Their songs fall into two camps: lumberjack-shirt folk-rock (‘Crooked Legs’, ‘Fallen Leaves’) and Vampire Weekend-style college world-pop (‘Low Gravity’, ‘Flood Pt 1’). They do both well. The apparent extravagance of having two drummers is justified by the band’s dependence on strong, inventive rhythms: while DM Stith requires attentive listening, The Acorn are for dancing and most of the crowd bop along to their set. That said, in their own way The Acorn are just as poetic and escapist as Stith – those world rhythms, of course, but also singer Rolf Klausener’s rich, warm voice and songs about his mother's youth in Honduras.

The only downer of the night is that this band’s best song, the joyous tribal hymn ‘Flood Pt 1’, is drowned in a murky sound mix that has too much bass: the track’s glorious guitar line is almost completely lost. Many people here tonight have come to see The Acorn on the basis of loving that song, so it’s a pity to hear it slightly botched.

There’s something in the North American experience that constantly inspires books and music and art which are cinematic and sincere and aspirational compared to the self-conscious cynicism and irony of many European artists. Whether it comes from the vast widescreen landscape or immigrant heritage or maybe some last trace of the frontier spirit, both The Acorn and DM Stith exemplify this. They deserve to be playing packed furnaces of venues from now on, and we suspect that Stith’s support-slot days will soon be behind him.

Aidan Curran

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Okay, so we might not have fancied their most recent album. But in the spirit of ‘G’wan Oirland’ and all that, we’re pleased to report that Bell X1 are playing a high-profile Paris show tonight (14 May), one that’s bound to win them great exposure and interest among French music fans.

For the last concert on their current continental tour, the Kildare band are headlining the latest edition of Les Inrocks Indie Club, the regular band night hosted by Les Inrockuptibles, France’s best selling and most respected music and culture magazine.  The show takes place at La Maroquinerie, one of the best-known rock venues in Paris, and the line-up is completed by The Phantom Band, The Soft Pack (that fine Californian band formerly known as The Muslims) and local hopefuls Toy Fight.

You being fairly sharp, you’ll have noticed that the nationalities of the acts are given on the poster (right). G’wan Oirland!

One of the added benefits of headlining a show organized by a top-selling music magazine is that said top-selling music magazine invariably gives you plenty of glowing publicity and blurb and what have you. Thus Les Inrockuptibles have called ‘Blue Lights On The Runway’ “glacial et lancinant” – icy and piercing. (‘Lancinant’ is also the word in French to describe a sudden, shooting pain such as your correspondent’s recent running injuries.) We don’t see what they mean (unless they mean ‘painful’), but that’s the sort of language you find in French music reviews.

The band supported Nada Surf in France last year, but it seems their second-fiddle days are behind them now. With tonight’s high-profile Paris show and a Benicassim appearance to come, Bell X1 are really making a go of things here on the continent and perhaps they might return to Eire all inspired and creatively reinvigorated. Good luck to them.

Honestly, we really like ‘Neither Am I’ – especially ‘Man On Mir’ and this one, 'Pinball Machine':

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Making a music video is generally an expensive undertaking and, even if bands go for the cheap and cheerful option, having the skill and imagination to make it look professional can prove just as difficult getting finance. 

Over the past 6 years, however, acts such as The Frames, Duke Special, Fight Like Apes, C O D E S, The Mighty Stef and Future Kings of Spain have all had the opportunity to work with student filmmakers thanks to a special collaboration between the Tisch School of Arts at NYU and Hot Press.

This year saw the program celebrate its 100th video and, as you can see from the above photograph, Key Notes attended a special screening to mark the event on Wednesday May 6.  On the night the Tisch filmmakers premiered videos (in various states of completion) from The Laundry Shop, The Dirty 9's, One Day International and Moth Complex.  [Declaration of interest: Steve O'Rourke, author of Key Notes, is friends with Aoife O'Leary of Moth Complex and earlier this year was involved in helping and promoting the band.]

Unfortunately, none of this years crop of videos are available yet but this blog's favourite on the night was One Day International's video for Little Death which had an Eighties kids TV program feel to it, very camp but it worked very well.  Of the other videos, The Laundry Shop's The Daily Special and Learned my Lesson by Moth Complex were still very much works in progress.  The video for Lucy Opus (The Dirty 9's) was perhaps the most 'classical' video of the evening, following, as it did, the sure fire format of movie scene, band scene, movie scene, band scene, movie scene, fade; cracking song though.

Key Notes' favourite video of the Tisch/Hot Press venture remains Syndicate by the Future Kings of Spain and this blog doesn't need much of an excuse to play it again:

Key Notes will, of course, post another blog when this year's batch of Tisch/Hot Press videos go live.

Photo Credit: Hot Press

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Did we, by any chance, happen to give the impression that the Solidays festival is happening in early July this year? It seems that we did: sorry. The annual Paris summer event is actually on a week earlier than last year – the weekend of 26-28 June. We know this because it says so on the CLUAS Foreign Correspondent (Paris) weekend pass. Yahoo!!

We’re yahooing because the line-up has some cracking names on it. Sunday night headliner: Manu Chao! Saturday night: Amadou and Mariam! Imagine how cool they’ll sound on a summer evening – and even if it pours rain those two alone are worth the trip.

And if that wasn’t enough, the rest of the bill is studded with little gems. Friday night features Yuksek, Digitalism, Hockey, The Dø and Tony Allen. (That evening’s headliners are local rappers NTM, of little interest to us.) Warming up Saturday night for A&M are The Virgins, Alela Diane, Friendly Fires, Girl Talk, The Ting Tings (a hit at last year's festival too), Late Of The Pier and a host of other domestic acts. (Again, local headliners Keziah Jones and Benabar doesn’t excite us.)

Then, along with the boy Chao on Sunday you’ve got a trio of French Letter favourites: Cocoon, John & Jehn and Syd Matters. Plus, there’s Metronomy and the good-time Balkan folk of Emir Kusturica and the No Smoking Orchestra.

There are still weekend tickets available at the ridiculously decent price of €48. The festival takes place at the Longchamps racecourse, conveniently located at the end of two metro lines and (more importantly) within an hour’s summer stroll of Chateau French Letter.

As we explained before, Solidays began as an AIDS awareness event (‘solidarity’ + ‘holidays’) before growing into a large and respected summer music festival. It still honours its origins: proceeds will go to AIDS charities and on the weekend the site will host information and advice tents. Full details are available on the Solidays website.

Manu Chao! From the 2005 compilation of his old band Mano Negra, here’s the fairly deadly uptempo version of ‘Out Of Time Man’: 

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Aphex Twin, Luke Vibert - WARP 20 (live in Cité de la Musique, Paris)

Review Snapshot: To honour one of electronic music's best-loved labels, a birthday bash featuring two cult figures from different points on the spectrum of that genre. Vibert's DJ set is cool and seductive; Aphex Twin sets your head and entrails to spin-cycle. Two different live experiences but each great in their own way.

The Cluas Verdict? 8 out of 10

Full Review:
Gouging the mind’s ear for two decades now, Warp Records are currently celebrating their twentieth birthday by putting on shows in major cities around the world. The Paris leg at the Cité de la Musique comprises two nights: last night Pivot, !!! and Jarvis Cocker were among those getting the party started (Nightmares On Wax apparently pulled out at the last minute) and tonight Aphex Twin (right), Luke Vibert, Hudson Mohawke, Leila and Plaid are blowing out the candles.

Luke Vibert is here doing a DJ set in what’s normally an installation space at this venue, a combination of museum, exhibition centre and concert hall for all genres of music. Apparently there’s some international turntable code decreeing that artists can’t play their own music during DJ sets, so we don’t hear Vibert’s gorgeous ‘Sharp AZ’.

But no matter: his DJ set is fantastic. He starts out soulfully with the eclecticism, sensitivity and funkiness of Mo’Wax and the boy Shadow in particular. At just the right moments he knows when to up the beats and build excitement before pulling it down into cooler, more cerebral sounds again. Thus he plays with the crowd all during his set, and it’s impossible not to get swept up in it.

Only once does Vibert drop the ball, by working in the vocals from ‘The Power of Love’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. The effect is to make the crowd self-consciously aware that they’re dancing to some ‘80s naffness, like when a film actor gives a corny line straight to camera with a wink. But that’s just a minor blip. Luke Vibert is probably the best DJ we’ve ever danced to, though in fairness we only have as a comparison DJ Wreck-The-Buzz at our local hop.

Dashing into the main concert hall so as to grab a space for Aphex Twin, we caught the end of Plaid’s set. Earlier we had seen some of Leila’s turn. Both seemed impressive enough from the brief glimpse we got of each, so we must check them out in detail sometime. (We didn’t get to see Hudson Mohawke. Sorry.)

As for tonight’s marquee name, Aphex Twin live is an impressive experience. Richard D. James (born in Limerick!) looks less diabolic in person than the distorted face from his videos: in fact, he exudes a kind of Jamie Oliver mate-iness. His alter-ego, though, is gleefully malevolent – those squelchy, distorted sounds trouble your mind and shudder your entrails.

On which point, his visuals feature a gruesomely clinical mortuary sequence that’s not for the squeamish; some punters briefly stepped outside to recall their lunch. In a shout out to the home crowd, we also got a slide show of the sicker images from controversial ‘60s French satirical magazine Hara Kiri.

As for the music, there are times when James coasts along by letting the bare beats drag on for a minute or two, as if he’s filling time while rooting in his bag for another trick. Anyone who came just to hear ‘Windowlicker’ or ‘Come To Daddy’ will have been disappointed; the pretty piano melody of 'Flim' is the only one of Aphex Twin’s more familiar, accessible or ambient tracks to get a (brief) run-out tonight.

But overall it’s a great show. For pop kids like your reviewer, not a regular at live electronica or techno, the sensory blitzkrieg of Aphex Twin was an overwhelming thrill. This is one new customer who’ll be shopping here again, then.

Aidan Curran

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A review of the album 'Posthumous Success' by Tom Brosseau

Review Snapshot: The sound of a singer-songer in creative transition and perhaps finding his true voice. This album’s folk foundations are weak when exposed to attentive listening, but Brosseau’s other aspect is an alt-rock swagger that infuses this record with wit and personality.

The Cluas Verdict? 6.5 out of 10

Full Review:
The self-deprecating title of Tom Brosseau’s third album suggests that this North Dakota native may be of that rare species: a male acoustic singer-songer with a sense of humour.

And for the most part this is true. ‘Posthumous Success’ is a likeable sort of record that brings a refreshingly alternative range of influences to bear on the familiar old folk-pop format. ‘Big Time’, with its wry declaration of wannabe ambition, shudders with a treated electric riff that would sound at home on stage at the Enormodome. There’s a triumphant lo-fi sneer to ‘You Don’t Know My Friends’ which is picked up again in a veritable Lou Reed tribute called ‘Drumroll’. That VU sound suits Brosseau and he wears it like he owns it.

Strangely enough, though, he’s less convincing whenever he chooses to emphasise the folk style that probably inspired these songs at the writing stage. Brosseau’s thin, vibrato-drenched voice just isn’t robust enough to carry the weight of sincere balladry. On something self-consciously rootsy like ‘Wishbone Medallion’ he sounds like a college boy pretending to be a gnarled old-time bluesman by putting on a fake moustache and his granddad’s hat. ‘Favourite Colour Blue’ (in two versions that top and tail this album) and ‘Been True’ sound whiny. And ‘Axe & Stump’ is the sort of Ritter-esque laboured lovelorn sincerity best left in the bedsit.

So, to recap: sometimes Brosseau plays and sings with the indie swagger and dry cynicism of a young man, which is where this record fairly buzzes with attitude and personality. Other times he tugs the forelock to traditional folk and blues, and then it all sounds flat and faintly contrived.

Given these two aspects of this album, it’s no surprise to learn that half the songs were recorded in upstate New York and the other half in Portland, Oregon. Whichever of those two locations got Brosseau into his Velvets frame of mind, there he should stay for 100% of his next record.

Aidan Curran

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