Swans performing at Concorde 2, Brighton 02/06/2014.
Photos used with kind permission of Andy Sturmey (Brightlights-Darkroom Photography).
Click individual images to enlarge.
(c) 2014 Andy Sturmey / Brightlights-Darkroom Photography
At Documentary Evidence, we like to think of ourselves as pretty knowledgeable about all things Mute, but Jorge Punaro is the ultimate expert, and his collection includes some of the most sought-after items in the back catalogue of the label.
By way of proof, Jorge has obsessively compiled this extensive Mute playlist on Spotify, consisting of 133 tracks available on the platform presented largely in alphabetical order. Jorge even points out that the full playlist – containing tracks from every artist that recorded for Mute and many of its sub-labels – contains a whopping 153 tracks, but that twenty artists aren’t available on Spotify.
This painstakingly-prepared playlist runs for a staggering 12 hours and can be found here.
Thanks to Jorge.
(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence
canongate | book | 1998
Nick Cave supplied an illuminating introduction to this small book, which formed part of a series of £1 editions of Biblical chapters. Other works in the series saw Will Self scribing an introduction to Revelation, and Fay Weldon introducing Corinthians.
I consider this illuminating, principally because it seems to offer up something of an explanation for the transition that Nick Cave’s music underwent as The Bad Seeds extrapolated the visionary fire and brimstone works that fell easily out of The Birthday Party‘s howling reverie, stretched that until it snapped, leaving a more mellow, almost meditative sound. ‘Up Jumped The Devil’, so the song goes, but despite running amok through Murder Ballads, it was pretty clear he was running away from Nick Cave.
Cave’s initial disdain for everything New Testament stems, according to his introduction, from his time in the Wangarafta Cathedral Choir in his pre-teens, and he uncharitably describes the book as ‘wishy-washy’ at best and ‘the decaf of worship’ at worst. The interest in the vengeful God of the Old Testament, meting out punishment and retribution to the nascent residents of his planet came from Cave’s interest in violent literature in his early twenties, fully explaining the nihilism which dominated both The Birthday Party and Nick’s own self-abuse.
So, what prompted the shift in focus from the Old to the New, the angry to the reflective? ‘You grow up,’ Cave explains. ‘You do. You mellow out. You no longer find comfort watching a whacked-out God tormenting a wretched humanity as you learn to forgive yourself and the world.’
Cave attributes his turn toward the New Testament to a vicar who suggested he start with this very gospel, ostensibly because it was the shortest. He enthuses over Mark’s grasp of enthralling narrative gestures and mysterious simplicity, his portrait of Christ as a solitary figure and one focussed on the fate that he knew was ahead of him. Cave also cites Mark as continuing to influence his spirituality and religiousness: ‘The essential humanness of Mark‘s Christ provides us with a blueprint for our own lives, so that we have something that we can aspire to, rather than revere, that can lift us free of the mundanity of our existences, rather than affirming the notion that we are lowly and unworthy.’
It’s a long, long way from ‘Nick The Stripper’ but delivered with such a compelling grasp of theology that it may well have prompted a religious conversion among a few fans with its enthusiastic words, much like Mark did for Cave himself.
(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence
So, following up my post last week about the Blue Savannah cocktail from the Snow Globe boxset booklet of recipes, I decided that the next one on the list would be the A Little Raspberry-spect. Clearly, this is somewhat clumsily named after what I recently described as Vince Clarke and Andy Bell‘s signature song, ‘A Little Respect’, and just like that single, this one has hit written all over it.
This is a mix of gin, lemon juice and muddled raspberries, the tartness of which is offset by sugar syrup (I used agave syrup, which has a lower GI, whatever that means, and where the taste is a bit less in your face). The recipe in the Snow Globe book specifically calls for Beefeater gin, but I wasn’t going to go and buy some just for this, and instead used the dregs of some Tanqueray that have been skulking in the back of the drinks cabinet since Christmas. (The second time around we used vodka and that worked just as well.)
This drink is refreshing, sweet / sour, brilliantly seasonal and provides a neat use for raspberries that have gone a bit squidgy and which would otherwise be destined for a smoothie if you can be bothered, or the bin if you can’t. It also looks pretty darned chic as well, and might well replace the relative heaviness of Pimm’s round our way when summer really gets going.
(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence
mute artists | lp+cd/cd/i stumm346 | 20/08/2012
If 2010’s Odd Blood was Yeasayer‘s attempt to have what the band’s Chris Keating described at the time as a ‘dialogue with pop’, third album Fragrant World is more or less a reaction against the dominance of that album’s deliberately anthemic sound. On Odd Blood that approach yielded huge tracks like ‘Ambling Alp’ and ‘O.N.E’ but it also left Keating and the others – Anand Wilder and Ira Wolf Tuton – feeling a little dismayed that the audience at their shows really only knew and cared for those songs.
Taking its seemingly pastoral title from a vision Keating had of a dystopian, Ballardian world devoid of smell, Fragrant World was recorded in the band’s Brooklyn home at the studio of Daniel Lopatin, also known as experimental musician Oneohtrix Point Never. Whilst it may sound much more electronic than its predecessor, with little unprocessed guitar to be heard, during an interview with Keating that I did for Clash, he insisted that the record was created using plenty of guitar and bass sounds, but that those were used to trigger samplers and various sound sources alongside pure electronics. When I suggested that actually it isn’t a very electronic record at all, he challenged me to rethink my concept of what makes an electronic record, it not being necessary to think of such a record as being dominated by traditional keyboards and synths.
One of Yeasayer’s more characteristic facets, namely tracks which seem capable of being depressing and uplifting at the same time, is never very far away. Opening track, ‘Fingers Never Bleed’ is a case in point. Built on a jerky rhythm, Anand Wilder delivers a strained vocal complete with resigned observations on people who want to take the easy option of playing air guitar and committing corporate fraud (an interesting slant that suggests both are equal sins) so that their ‘fingers never bleed’. Sonically busy, the song sets the tone for Fragrant World with lots of loops, skittering percussion, relaxed guitar and piano, the elements coalescing into a vaguely uplifting chorus blended with whining electronics that leaves you characteristically unsure how you should be feeling. ‘Demon Road’ is another track with an Odd Blood feel, albeit one that is dubby, steady, regretful and anguished. ‘All hell is gonna break loose,‘ sings Keating, the track having that same, complex, anguished anthemic quality that defined Fragrant World‘s predecessor. The conclusion sees vocodered vocals blended with straight harmonies, something about the stridency of the combination feeling like an electro-country missive.
Keating told me about his enthusiasm for late Eighties Chicago house when I spoke with him. Like many of the echoes of other musics that get filtered through Yeasayer’s sonic lens, it’s not something that overtly features on Fragrant World. Nevertheless, tracks like ‘No Bones’ hint at that interest. After some stop-start robotic beats, there’s a point in Keating’s ‘chorus’ where the beats become a sticky 4/4 mesh, much like a breakdown in a DJ’s set, sending the not-quite fontman into rapturous, housey euphoria. Stand-out track ‘Reagan’s Skeleton’ has a droning bassline, and even features the classic ‘ah yeah‘ sample, once the staple of early dance music records. Over thudding beats, Keating delivers a vocal about the evil red-eyed skeleton of Reagan coming at you, horror-film stylee, in the moonlight. It’s urgent and slick, blending evocative Eighties sounds with classic dance music synths and altogether more modern sensibilities.
If Keating’s songs aim for some sort of transcendancy, Wilder’s songs are altogether more introspective. ‘Blue Paper’ opens with processed sounds that could have been lifted from an Indian cinema soundtrack. Wilder here delivers a cynical tale of a rich girl who suddenly decides to reconnect with nature, moving away from her spoiled life, something Wilder can’t ‘buy for a second‘. Musically, it’s subtle, gentle pulses and shimmering sounds until the middle eight of the song, where things get a bit wonky, the track concluding with a retro electro rhythm and some nice vocal harmonies about writing something on blue paper. Live highlight ‘Devil And The Deed’ has fractured electro beats, electronic slide guitar and occasional synth interjections; the track maintains a minimal footprint until the chunky, desperate chorus, which seems to be about sexual pressure, declining moral standards, and difficult, agonised decisions. There are also two beautiful instrumental sections which have an electronic musicbox melody, evoking warm memories of Depeche Mode‘s ‘Shouldn’t Have Done That’ from This Broken Frame.
Two of the most unusual songs close out the album. ‘Folk Hero Schtick’, is, on the surface at least, a joyous, upbeat jangly electro pop with a vocal that sounds suspiciously like Wilder doing an impression of Level 42’s Mark King. It seems to be a tired plea for a famous folk hero (Dylan?) to call it quits. Lots of big electronic sounds and a fair amount of processing make for a sprawling, but engaging skewed pop highlight of Fragrant World. Album finale ‘Glass Of The Microscope’ starts as classically low-key end to the album, with wistful vocals reminiscing about nice days and sweet memories. After some beautiful, serene ambience, sympathetically processed vocals take a turn toward the unexpected with the misanthropic line ‘in truth we’re doomed‘. It’s wryly humourous with its Dad’s Army-style sense of panic, but as an ending point it’s pretty depressing, even if the track’s final moments are among the most stirring on the whole album.
In the US, the album was released as a special edition LP with a free 7″ of the non-album track ‘Fragrant World’ backed with an exclusive remix of ‘No Bones’ as well as a t-shirt. Here in Blighty, Mute didn’t opt for such shenanigans, and the bonus track was only made available as a iTunes pre-order exclusive. Later in the year, at the Rough Trade East Mute showcase with high-end personal audio equipment manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins in December, the indie music chain ran a promotion to get a free copy of the 7″ if you bought any Yeasayer release. (Apparently there are two versions of the 7″ – a black one and a glow-in-the-dark one). Quite why the band decided to leave ‘Fragrant World’ off the album is something of a mystery, particularly as it was part of their live set, as it’s a really good track – lots of deep electronic sounds, organic percussion, really evocative, weary vocals from Chris Keating and even some quirky guitar and electronic sax tones. The Helado Negro mix of ‘No Bones’ is a bit of a mess, a jumble of snatched sections from the original assembled into a weird collage.
Videos for all eleven songs from the album were put on various websites for around 48 hours at the start of August 2012 under the banner PSCYVOTV (PREEMPTIVE SELF-COMMISSIONED YEASAYER VORSTELLUNG or TRACK VISUALIZER), allowing those with plenty of time to kill a wild goose chase around the farthest corners of the web to see director Yoshi Sodeoka’s vignettes and hear the album before its official release.
Track listing:
lp/cd/i:
A1. / 1. Fingers Never Bleed
A2. / 2. Longevity
A3. / 3. Blue Paper
B1. / 4. Henrietta
B2. / 5. Devil And The Dead
C1. / 6. No Bones
C2. / 7. Reagan’s Skeleton
C3. / 8. Demon Road
D1. / 9. Damaged Goods
D2. / 10. Folk Hero Shtick
D3. / 11. Glass Of The Microscope
12. Fragrant World (iTunes bonus track)
7″:
A. Fragrant World
B. No Bones (Helado Negro Remix)
First published 2012; edited 2014.
(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence
Documentary Evidence 