This was a suggestion from Mrs. M. and it is a good one, that's why I married her, she has lots of good ideas. Every year the Mercury Music Prize shortlist of 12 albums British or Irish albums is announced. Usually they are a bit off the beaten track and the eclectic nature of the selection is usually quite interesting. It's quite a hard to pick a winner too, which can't be bad. As I know the judges will be devouring my opinions I will be doing them in alphabetical order by artist name to avoid any bias.
APHEX TWIN - SYRO
First of all, the track names are unfathomable. My usual M.O. is to write as a listen, which, if the album is particularly uninspiring, means it ends up as a list of comments about each track. For these I'm making notes as I listen and then writing up afterward. My opening impression is that Aphex Twin are the musical equivalent of Strasbourg, located on the border between French Daft Punk and German Kraftwerk. In trying to find out a bit more about them I visited the official site and found an interesting stream-of-consciousness biography here. When I bother to listen to this kind of music I usually quite like it, but I don't get into it. It's something to listen at rather than to. They also challenge my rather literal minded requirements from an album by presenting the work as a kind of non-themed musical progression. Some of it is a bit frenetic in a muted sort of way, kind of like Drum n Bass Lite. I will specifically mention 'fz pseudotimestretch+e+3 [138.85]' (now you see what I mean) because it has an engaging strummed guitar sound and is only about a minute long. The last track, 'asiatsana [102]' is a pleasant, doleful piano piece. Would I listen to it again? Probably not.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE - AT LEAST FOR NOW
Here's the danger with looking at the Mercury Prize nominees, if I don't like it first time round, I'm unlikely to give it a second chance. Life's too short. And I didn't much like this the first time, but luckily for Benjamin, I was preoccupied with something else and so didn't write anything at the time. I've now listened to it three times and it definitely rewards repeat listening. One of the things that put me off at first is that he is essentially a kind of beat poet who accompanies his poems on piano. The initial impression is that the vocal and music are completely divorced, but it actually all fits together quite nicely. Clementine has a beautiful, characterful voice. I'm pretty certain I've heard 'Adios' before. He creates a piano riff reminiscent of Nina Simone's 'Sinnerman'. He DOES mumble something for 30 seconds in the middle and then goes a bit operatic before getting back to the song at hand. All quite interesting. I'd recommend listening to this one, but it ain't 'mainstream'.
GAZ COOMBES - MATADOR
Who calls themselves 'Gaz'? The only other one I can think of is ex-Alarm roadie and latter-day poor-child's Johnny Ball, Gareth 'Gaz Top' Jones. And even he saw the error of his ways, got his hair cut and reverted to his full name by the time he was resurrecting 'How' with Fred Dineage. Supergrass were quite good, 'Alright' and 'Pumping On Your Stereo' were top hits. Now Gaz looks like he might have Bowie pretensions, even down to the artwork which clearly references Heroes and Hunky Dory, and the title of the fourth track, 'The Girl Who Fell To Earth'. It's all actually a bit retro, in the sense that it refers back to his former band's heydey and Britpop, which in itself was just a recycling of sixties and seventies styles. It's not bad, but I'd hardly call it groundbreaking, or even interesting. I suppose if you compare to the larky tone that he took with Supergrass, it IS a much more serious album, but is that really a recommendation?
C. DUNCAN - ARCHITECT
I like this, but then I like Fleet Foxes and as Mr. Amazon is constantly telling us, if you like that you might like this. It's airy and breathy, whereas the Foxes tend a little more toward the earthy and rustic. Their production always sounds like they recorded it in a wooden box. C. Duncan might have had a few windows open. There's some good whistling of 'For' and he has a good, light voice. It's a tiny bit trippy, but in a way that all us middle aged relics can cope with. The last track reminded me a little of the closing song on Andy Pandy - "Andy and Teddy say Goodbye, Goodbye". Duncan is Scottish I learn and the C is for, disappointingly, Chris. This is my favourite so far, but only because it is more listenable than Clementine, who is much more interesting.
ESKA - ESKA
Argh. PANIC! I look up ESKA on Spotify but get some Euro instrumentalist. Eventually I find her. There are two ESKA's in the music world. Our girl spells her name in capitals and this is her debut. She's a bit jazzy and there are echoes of Joni, Tori and Kate here as well, see 'Boundaries'. Elsewhere you can hear a Minnie Ripperton influence on say, 'Shades Of Blue'. There's a smooth reggae sound on 'Heroes and Villains'. The final track, 'So Long Eddy' even trespasses all over Carpenter's country. As a result I'd say it's all a tiny bit derivative, but it is good to listen to and she knows what she is doing. At least it's diverse after all.
FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE - HOW BIG, HOW BLUE, HOW BEAUTIFUL
I really like Florence Welch and her musical machine. She can be strident or ethereal and I imagine she's a blast live. She's kind of like a Patti Smith but with a pop sensibility and good tunes. However, if this album is worthy of a Mercury Award nomination then I'm damned if I can work out why her previous work was not. This is not significantly different from what has gone before. The shortlist always includes one or two established artists, Bloody Bowie was on it last year for God's sake, but that just makes it feel like it's a nod to someone who deserves recognition but isn't really in the running. I'll be amazed if she wins it. The opening hit single (by which I mean I heard it a lot on the radio) 'Ship To Wreck' always has me half expecting it's contemporary 'Easy Money' by Johnny Marr. The opening riff is almost identical. When I first heard it I also wondered if she was singing a tribute to Volkswagen's multipurpose vehicle the Touareg. Anyway, this is great, but as I say, it won't win.
GHOSTPOET - SHEDDING SKIN
I had it on in the background, so I found it to be a pleasant bit of musical wallpaper. As you might expect the instrumentation is quite minimal. It's all in the lyrics you see. Ghostpoet has been around a while and this is his second Mercury nomination. He is bang-slap in the middle of that group of artists who are guaranteed an appearance on every series of Later With Jools. Some good titles on this too. 'That Ring Down The Drain Kind Of Feeling' made me think of Portishead, that kind of distant female vocal doing the sung refrain between Ghostpoet's langorously rapped verses and lazy guitar chords. The title 'The Pleasure in Pleather' is intriguing, but just a warning, do your Google search for pleather before Theresa May brings in the snooper's charter. The song/poem itself amounts to a piece of low-key alt-rock. This all washed over me quite nicely, but I wasn't really interested in the lyrics, which I guess counts as a failure of his USP.
ROISIN MURPHY - HAIRLESS TOYS
As I listened I thought, this reminds me of that 'Bring It Back' song. Now who did that? Oh yes Moloko. Since my brain synapses aren't quite shot to pieces yet, I managed to retrieve a memory from the back of my mind that the lead singer of Moloko was, in fact, Roisin Murphy. I don't believe in coincidences, so I'm betting this is the same woman. This is nice. Minimalist instrumentation, lots of blippy-bloppy electronica. Murphy has that whispery quality that puts her on a par with Dusty Springfield. She appeared on the latest series of Jools Holland wearing a crazy outfit but seeming quite grounded. She could be singing into a pillow on the title track. I don't think this is the winner, she's not near enough to the cutting edge, but it's a beautiful album.
SLAVES - ARE YOU SATISFIED
I wanted to hate this when it started and I was planning my literary dismissal straightaway. Punk is soooo 1977 and it doesn't get much punkier than this. However, on the subject of 1977, I kind of finally got the point when listening to this. You have to understand that I am coming to the end of the Yes back catalogue, and so my brain is saturated with twiddly prog rock and 20 minute opuses, and just like it must have been when the Damned, Pistols and Clash burst forth, it was a blessed relief to listen to some short shouty songs that careered along at about 100 mph. All punk influences are here, their attitude on 'Sockets' is that if the riff of The Damned's 'New Rose' was good enough then, why not use it again now? I detected the Dickies and even some more modern American punkishness like Offspring. I'm not convinced it's different or ground breaking enough to deserve the award, and another clear influence, The Arctic Monkeys won it not so long ago (although nearly 10 years would you believe?), so I think the judges will veer away from it for that reason, but it deserves it's nomination.
SOAK - BEFORE WE FORGOT HOW TO DREAM
I've listened to this a lot but it hasn't really grabbed me. A couple of the songs are fine. 'B a noBody' (sic) and 'Reckless Behaviour' are good and catchy but I'd forgotten them as soon as they'd finished. So what's the problem? SOAK is a solo artist, Bridie Monds-Watson from Northern Ireland and says that SOAK is a contraction of Soul and Folk, which is fair enough, it probably describes the music as well as anything. Her voice is distracting for me as it has a kind of childish quality, but not in a good way. it sounds like she's putting it on. She probably isn't and it is a faithful manifestation of her accent, but it has something in common with Ellie Goulding (who I tend to like) and another band that Mrs M likes, but I can't think of their name, where it almost sounds like they are doing a 'baby voice'. The album's fine, but I'll be surprised and disappointed if it wins.
WOLF ALICE - MY LOVE IS COOL
Is it a play on words: Wolf Alice/Wool Phallus? Even if it is I'm not sure what the significance of a knitted fertility symbol would be. I wasn't hopeful about this, despite them being hot favourites for taking the prize. They were on Jools a few weeks back and came across as fairly standard grunge-mongers. In addition one performance was followed by an interview with Duran's Le Bon and John Taylor, the latter of whom rather lasciviously talked about "girls with guitars". At 23, lead singer Ellie Rowsell really is young enough to be his daughter and not even as an afterthought, so that was all a bit icky. Anyway, my doubts were unfounded, they actually come across as an amalgamation of The Cranberries, Elastica and The Cocteau Twins and are consistently original and interesting throughout this album. However, I cannot decide if the complete stops in 'Your Loves Whore' are great or simply annoying. And on 'Silk' she even sounds like Sophie Ellis Bextor. Some welly is given on 'Giant Peach' and one of the blerks has a go on the contemplative 'Swallowtail' although it ends in a complete thrash-fest. 'Soapy Water' is Cocteau-ish in title and sound and the final 'Fluffy' which was one they did on Later... is fairly straight-on grunge. There's a hidden track following 'The Wonderwhy', although it's not well hidden on Spotify, being listed as 'Hidden Track' in brackets. Until now I was backing Benjamin Clementine, but it's the bookies business to know these things and I can see no reason why this shouldn't take the award. As a debut it is astonishingly accomplished. However, I still have Jamie xx to go whose style, according to Wikipedia is Electronica, Future Garage (?), post-dubstep, house, UK garage and trip hop. Don't hold your breath folks.
JAMIE XX - IN COLOUR
Note correct spelling of colour American friends. He's up one point already. Not my thing at all, but I have to admit to liking this quite a lot. It's clearly a case of middle-class white boy getting dahn wiv ver kids and the opening 'Gosh' might even be a parody of a parody by taking the piss out of Ali G. "Oh my gosh! Easy Easy". Later on the 'British Massive' (or is it Massif?) is invoked. There's a lot of variety on the album, some of it trancey and Moby-ish. 'Obvs' employs that most underused of pop instruments, the steel drum. Its possible he's doing what Mike Oldfield would have if he had grown up in the nineties and spent his holidays in Ibiza. 'I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times)' is a decent piece of soul/hip-hip mash-up (see, I know the terminology) featuring Young Thug and Popcaan - not their given names I think. So this is good, but I don't see how it stands out from stuff produced by David Guetta or Guru Josh or Fedde Le Grande or any of the other nitwit DJs who seem to pick up a following from nowhere. I do have a tin ear for this stuff though. A note on the name, no-one can blame him for dropping his original 'Smith', but how do we pronounce his nom-de-deejay? Jamie Ecksecks? Jamie Eckses? Jameex? Jamie Double-X, Jamie Kisskiss? I need to know.
First of all, the track names are unfathomable. My usual M.O. is to write as a listen, which, if the album is particularly uninspiring, means it ends up as a list of comments about each track. For these I'm making notes as I listen and then writing up afterward. My opening impression is that Aphex Twin are the musical equivalent of Strasbourg, located on the border between French Daft Punk and German Kraftwerk. In trying to find out a bit more about them I visited the official site and found an interesting stream-of-consciousness biography here. When I bother to listen to this kind of music I usually quite like it, but I don't get into it. It's something to listen at rather than to. They also challenge my rather literal minded requirements from an album by presenting the work as a kind of non-themed musical progression. Some of it is a bit frenetic in a muted sort of way, kind of like Drum n Bass Lite. I will specifically mention 'fz pseudotimestretch+e+3 [138.85]' (now you see what I mean) because it has an engaging strummed guitar sound and is only about a minute long. The last track, 'asiatsana [102]' is a pleasant, doleful piano piece. Would I listen to it again? Probably not.
Here's the danger with looking at the Mercury Prize nominees, if I don't like it first time round, I'm unlikely to give it a second chance. Life's too short. And I didn't much like this the first time, but luckily for Benjamin, I was preoccupied with something else and so didn't write anything at the time. I've now listened to it three times and it definitely rewards repeat listening. One of the things that put me off at first is that he is essentially a kind of beat poet who accompanies his poems on piano. The initial impression is that the vocal and music are completely divorced, but it actually all fits together quite nicely. Clementine has a beautiful, characterful voice. I'm pretty certain I've heard 'Adios' before. He creates a piano riff reminiscent of Nina Simone's 'Sinnerman'. He DOES mumble something for 30 seconds in the middle and then goes a bit operatic before getting back to the song at hand. All quite interesting. I'd recommend listening to this one, but it ain't 'mainstream'.
Who calls themselves 'Gaz'? The only other one I can think of is ex-Alarm roadie and latter-day poor-child's Johnny Ball, Gareth 'Gaz Top' Jones. And even he saw the error of his ways, got his hair cut and reverted to his full name by the time he was resurrecting 'How' with Fred Dineage. Supergrass were quite good, 'Alright' and 'Pumping On Your Stereo' were top hits. Now Gaz looks like he might have Bowie pretensions, even down to the artwork which clearly references Heroes and Hunky Dory, and the title of the fourth track, 'The Girl Who Fell To Earth'. It's all actually a bit retro, in the sense that it refers back to his former band's heydey and Britpop, which in itself was just a recycling of sixties and seventies styles. It's not bad, but I'd hardly call it groundbreaking, or even interesting. I suppose if you compare to the larky tone that he took with Supergrass, it IS a much more serious album, but is that really a recommendation?
I like this, but then I like Fleet Foxes and as Mr. Amazon is constantly telling us, if you like that you might like this. It's airy and breathy, whereas the Foxes tend a little more toward the earthy and rustic. Their production always sounds like they recorded it in a wooden box. C. Duncan might have had a few windows open. There's some good whistling of 'For' and he has a good, light voice. It's a tiny bit trippy, but in a way that all us middle aged relics can cope with. The last track reminded me a little of the closing song on Andy Pandy - "Andy and Teddy say Goodbye, Goodbye". Duncan is Scottish I learn and the C is for, disappointingly, Chris. This is my favourite so far, but only because it is more listenable than Clementine, who is much more interesting.
Argh. PANIC! I look up ESKA on Spotify but get some Euro instrumentalist. Eventually I find her. There are two ESKA's in the music world. Our girl spells her name in capitals and this is her debut. She's a bit jazzy and there are echoes of Joni, Tori and Kate here as well, see 'Boundaries'. Elsewhere you can hear a Minnie Ripperton influence on say, 'Shades Of Blue'. There's a smooth reggae sound on 'Heroes and Villains'. The final track, 'So Long Eddy' even trespasses all over Carpenter's country. As a result I'd say it's all a tiny bit derivative, but it is good to listen to and she knows what she is doing. At least it's diverse after all.
I really like Florence Welch and her musical machine. She can be strident or ethereal and I imagine she's a blast live. She's kind of like a Patti Smith but with a pop sensibility and good tunes. However, if this album is worthy of a Mercury Award nomination then I'm damned if I can work out why her previous work was not. This is not significantly different from what has gone before. The shortlist always includes one or two established artists, Bloody Bowie was on it last year for God's sake, but that just makes it feel like it's a nod to someone who deserves recognition but isn't really in the running. I'll be amazed if she wins it. The opening hit single (by which I mean I heard it a lot on the radio) 'Ship To Wreck' always has me half expecting it's contemporary 'Easy Money' by Johnny Marr. The opening riff is almost identical. When I first heard it I also wondered if she was singing a tribute to Volkswagen's multipurpose vehicle the Touareg. Anyway, this is great, but as I say, it won't win.
I had it on in the background, so I found it to be a pleasant bit of musical wallpaper. As you might expect the instrumentation is quite minimal. It's all in the lyrics you see. Ghostpoet has been around a while and this is his second Mercury nomination. He is bang-slap in the middle of that group of artists who are guaranteed an appearance on every series of Later With Jools. Some good titles on this too. 'That Ring Down The Drain Kind Of Feeling' made me think of Portishead, that kind of distant female vocal doing the sung refrain between Ghostpoet's langorously rapped verses and lazy guitar chords. The title 'The Pleasure in Pleather' is intriguing, but just a warning, do your Google search for pleather before Theresa May brings in the snooper's charter. The song/poem itself amounts to a piece of low-key alt-rock. This all washed over me quite nicely, but I wasn't really interested in the lyrics, which I guess counts as a failure of his USP.
As I listened I thought, this reminds me of that 'Bring It Back' song. Now who did that? Oh yes Moloko. Since my brain synapses aren't quite shot to pieces yet, I managed to retrieve a memory from the back of my mind that the lead singer of Moloko was, in fact, Roisin Murphy. I don't believe in coincidences, so I'm betting this is the same woman. This is nice. Minimalist instrumentation, lots of blippy-bloppy electronica. Murphy has that whispery quality that puts her on a par with Dusty Springfield. She appeared on the latest series of Jools Holland wearing a crazy outfit but seeming quite grounded. She could be singing into a pillow on the title track. I don't think this is the winner, she's not near enough to the cutting edge, but it's a beautiful album.
I wanted to hate this when it started and I was planning my literary dismissal straightaway. Punk is soooo 1977 and it doesn't get much punkier than this. However, on the subject of 1977, I kind of finally got the point when listening to this. You have to understand that I am coming to the end of the Yes back catalogue, and so my brain is saturated with twiddly prog rock and 20 minute opuses, and just like it must have been when the Damned, Pistols and Clash burst forth, it was a blessed relief to listen to some short shouty songs that careered along at about 100 mph. All punk influences are here, their attitude on 'Sockets' is that if the riff of The Damned's 'New Rose' was good enough then, why not use it again now? I detected the Dickies and even some more modern American punkishness like Offspring. I'm not convinced it's different or ground breaking enough to deserve the award, and another clear influence, The Arctic Monkeys won it not so long ago (although nearly 10 years would you believe?), so I think the judges will veer away from it for that reason, but it deserves it's nomination.
I've listened to this a lot but it hasn't really grabbed me. A couple of the songs are fine. 'B a noBody' (sic) and 'Reckless Behaviour' are good and catchy but I'd forgotten them as soon as they'd finished. So what's the problem? SOAK is a solo artist, Bridie Monds-Watson from Northern Ireland and says that SOAK is a contraction of Soul and Folk, which is fair enough, it probably describes the music as well as anything. Her voice is distracting for me as it has a kind of childish quality, but not in a good way. it sounds like she's putting it on. She probably isn't and it is a faithful manifestation of her accent, but it has something in common with Ellie Goulding (who I tend to like) and another band that Mrs M likes, but I can't think of their name, where it almost sounds like they are doing a 'baby voice'. The album's fine, but I'll be surprised and disappointed if it wins.
Is it a play on words: Wolf Alice/Wool Phallus? Even if it is I'm not sure what the significance of a knitted fertility symbol would be. I wasn't hopeful about this, despite them being hot favourites for taking the prize. They were on Jools a few weeks back and came across as fairly standard grunge-mongers. In addition one performance was followed by an interview with Duran's Le Bon and John Taylor, the latter of whom rather lasciviously talked about "girls with guitars". At 23, lead singer Ellie Rowsell really is young enough to be his daughter and not even as an afterthought, so that was all a bit icky. Anyway, my doubts were unfounded, they actually come across as an amalgamation of The Cranberries, Elastica and The Cocteau Twins and are consistently original and interesting throughout this album. However, I cannot decide if the complete stops in 'Your Loves Whore' are great or simply annoying. And on 'Silk' she even sounds like Sophie Ellis Bextor. Some welly is given on 'Giant Peach' and one of the blerks has a go on the contemplative 'Swallowtail' although it ends in a complete thrash-fest. 'Soapy Water' is Cocteau-ish in title and sound and the final 'Fluffy' which was one they did on Later... is fairly straight-on grunge. There's a hidden track following 'The Wonderwhy', although it's not well hidden on Spotify, being listed as 'Hidden Track' in brackets. Until now I was backing Benjamin Clementine, but it's the bookies business to know these things and I can see no reason why this shouldn't take the award. As a debut it is astonishingly accomplished. However, I still have Jamie xx to go whose style, according to Wikipedia is Electronica, Future Garage (?), post-dubstep, house, UK garage and trip hop. Don't hold your breath folks.
Note correct spelling of colour American friends. He's up one point already. Not my thing at all, but I have to admit to liking this quite a lot. It's clearly a case of middle-class white boy getting dahn wiv ver kids and the opening 'Gosh' might even be a parody of a parody by taking the piss out of Ali G. "Oh my gosh! Easy Easy". Later on the 'British Massive' (or is it Massif?) is invoked. There's a lot of variety on the album, some of it trancey and Moby-ish. 'Obvs' employs that most underused of pop instruments, the steel drum. Its possible he's doing what Mike Oldfield would have if he had grown up in the nineties and spent his holidays in Ibiza. 'I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times)' is a decent piece of soul/hip-hip mash-up (see, I know the terminology) featuring Young Thug and Popcaan - not their given names I think. So this is good, but I don't see how it stands out from stuff produced by David Guetta or Guru Josh or Fedde Le Grande or any of the other nitwit DJs who seem to pick up a following from nowhere. I do have a tin ear for this stuff though. A note on the name, no-one can blame him for dropping his original 'Smith', but how do we pronounce his nom-de-deejay? Jamie Ecksecks? Jamie Eckses? Jameex? Jamie Double-X, Jamie Kisskiss? I need to know.
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