FRANCOIS VIROT "Yes or No" (Frenetic Records, 2008)
Is it possible to sound like an Animal Collective record just by the use of acoustic guitar strumming layers, an acoustic rain of hands on wood as percussion plus hand clapping supporting a pulsating voice? François Virot did it, and he pretty enjoyed playing it! Debut's "Yes or No" is a joyous / melancholic breeze blowing the genuine feelings of a genuine talent. Read carefully instructions, it can give side effects of addiction.
I felt in love with Our Brother the Native in 2005, when I had the luck to listen to their homemade EP “Cheer up my Dear, the Sun Will Shine Again”. A lysergic experience in a Native American's banquet with hallucinatory mushrooms and roots, located in a suburban psych-dream and disturbed by a tuning radio jamming cerebral transmissions. I think songs like “He Stood and Took Root” and “Old Oak Tree” are a masterpiece of the underground scene.
It was not a surprise to me they captured the attention of Fat Cat Records (label of such bands like Animal Collective and Sigur Ròs) that stumbled upon them thanks to Myspace and released their debut LP “Tooth and Claw” in the summer 2006. It absolutely confirmed my expectations about their pure talent. What impressed me most was the incredible music awareness for such young guys, ('86 John-Michael Foss, '88 Chaz Knapp, '89 Joshua Bertram) and their fresh gusto for experimentation, like searching out samples of interesting sounds they could find in the house, as well as AM radio signals/static or circuit-bent toys and running the noise through effects.
Their follow up LP "Make Amends for We are Merely Vessels" released in February 2008, marked a changing, from the rural freak-folk landscapes on the likes of Cocorosie to dense weave of layered sounds and slow building dynamics recalling the likes of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
A five-track digital EP, "Parting Marrows", was released in October 2008 and is more immediate than previous records - dyed by shorter, summer-tinged compositions that are timeless, earnest and full of hope.
New LP, "Sacred Psalms", released in May 2009, is their most mature record that sees the band's combined influences simultaneously increase tenfold and be transcended by their ingenuity and intent.
The approach to Our Brother the Native may not be so immediate as much as it happened to me, but a tour in their universe is surely worth it.
"Tooth & Claw" (2006) - "Make Amends for We are Merely Vessels" (2008)
Karin Dreijer Andersson, known as one half of the acclaimed Swedish bro & sis duo The Knife, is the mysterious and enchanting figure concealed behind the moniker of Fever Ray. Although she is always been pretty much averse to show up in public unless dressing a mask (she says "I think the music should be able to stand for itself without interfering, like what the artist looks like") , in her solo project she yields to her subconscious feelings revealing such an intense, anxious, gloomy, claustrophobic yet so luminous, magic, evocative and dreamy landscape. Wrote after her second motherhood, and produced by the trusty hands of Christoffer Berg, this work is a colorless rainbow of freezing synths and distorted voice, that flutters in the air and blurs reality into imagination, giving you the privilege to color it according with your feelings. “Half of what the songs are about is the subconscious”, she says, “ideas of things happening. A lot of it is like daydreaming, dreaming when you’re awake, but tired; a lot of stories come from that world. I try to write when I‘m in that state - I’m very bad at remembering later, so I have to do it right away”. This record has been without any doubt a must of my 2009. Buy it. One more word deserves to be spent about her video clips: "Masterpieces".
Atlas Sound is the solo project of Bradford Cox, talented and prolific leader of Atlanta Nu-gaze four-piece Deerhunter, such a weakly body as much as shrewd to give a shape to his oblique sensibility for melody. "Logos", with a long and crooked gestation, is a more mature and conscious work than previous "Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel". Featuring such artists as Panda Bear (Amimal Collective) and Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab), what does emerge in this record is the personality of Cox to give an heterogeneous sound to beauty, and his skill to dissolve the pop structure of the songs into the glitter of a primordial dream, hanging in a timeless and perpetual changing dimension.
ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL by Sacha Gervasi (Abramorama, 2008)
Anvil! The Story of Anvil is a 2008 "Rockumentary" film about a Canadian Heavy-Metal band that enjoyed a brief heyday in the '80s and never made it big after that, focused on their attempt to make one last lunge for glory and recognition, undertaking a European Tour under the wing of an ardently well-intentioned as spectacularly incompetent manager and then trying to drum up record-industry interest in their 13th album. The relationship, as complicated and beautiful as a long rough marriage, between the two "die-hard" former members Robb Reiner (drummer) and Steve "Lips" Kudlow,(guitarist and singer), together with the devotion for their art and the will to do not give up on their dream, makes this movie so hilarious and comical but not mockery as a "This is Spinal Tap" sequel, as well as unexpectedly touching and inspiring. The director is the screenwriter Sacha Gervasi, England #1 Anvil fan and roadie for the band on the '82, '84 and '85 tours, who has the merit to pick up both the humanity and the passion of these underrated artists that may not quite merit full-metal glory, but don't deserve oblivion either, giving them a piece of that lost-fame they have been fighting for in the last 20 years. Heartbreaking! The movie features also tributes from rockers like Slash of Guns n' Roses, Lars Ulrich of Metallica and Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead and, after a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, it won the Audience Award at the 2008 Sidney Film Festival and Galway International Film Festival as well as receiving praise and high acclaim in many reviews. Michael Moore said that the movie is "the best documentary I've seen in years" and The Times called it "possibly the greatest film yet made about rock and roll". Highly recommended.
